K R Gouri Amma, one of the founder leaders of the Communist movement in Kerala, passed away in Thiruvananthapuram this morning. She was 101.
She was admitted to a private hospital in Thiruvananthapuram a couple of weeks ago after she developed a fever and breathing difficulties. Her condition worsened following an infection. She breathed her last by around 7 am on Tuesday morning.
After keeping off from mainstream politics over the past several years, she had been staying at her house at Alappuzha. Recently, she expressed a wish to stay with her niece in Thiruvananthapuram and shifted.
She was the only member of the first elected Communist ministry in Kerala who was still alive. She was a six-time minister in Kerala and MLA for nearly five decades. She was even once tipped to be Kerala Chief Minister.
Born to K A Raman and Parvati Amma on July 14, 1919, in Alappuzha district, she hailed from a rich family background as her father was a landlord. Her husband T V Thomas was also a member of the first Communist ministry. He died in 1977. The couple had no children.
Gouri Amma graduated with a degree in law and became a practising lawyer in the early 1940s. She was also considered to be the first woman lawyer from the Hindu Ezhava community, that too at a time when a college education was a distant dream for women from the community.
By the mid-1940s she entered politics after being attracted by many rebellion movements of central Kerala, like the Punnapra Vayalar movement. She was also jailed on many occasions for political struggles.
As revenue minister in the first Communist government led by E M S Namboodiripad, Gouri Amma introduced the Land Reforms Bill that imposed a ceiling on land that can be held by landlords and giving claim for tillers on the surplus land, a move that faced huge protest from landlords.
A split in the Communist party in 1964 even led to a split in Gouri Amma's family. While her husband T V Thomas chose to be with the Communist Party of India, Gouri Amma joined the CPI(M). This also led to a break-up in their family life. The couple had no children.
Gouri Amma was expelled from the CPI(M) in 1994 following serious differences with the leadership. She later formed Janadhipathya Samrakshana Samithi (JSS) and stayed with the Congress-led United Democratic Front.
She was a legislature and minister in Kerala till her age of 87. She quit the UDF in 2014. Though many CPI(M) leaders invited her back to the party, she had not conceded. She had made sharp political statements in the recent past.