How many of us actually know the contribution of a dalit woman living through the chilling ostracization of untouchability and finally making it to the Constituent Assembly of India. While most of us remember Babasaheb Ambedkar for an inclusive and enlightened Constitution of independent India, few know about this martyr woman Dakshayani Velayudhan. On 26 November 1949 the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of India which came into force two months later on the 26 January 1950. We remember and celebrate the Republic Day but miss out on the Constitution Day as much as we miss out on the struggles of those many less acknowledged women members of the Constituent Assembly who scripted history of the Republic of India despite their miniscule number. The credit for remembering and honouring the Constitution day goes to the Prime Minister but close to the Parliament another celebration meeting of committed ‘Kabir Ke Log’ was going on in a jam-packed Constitution Club led by Prof Sanjay Paswan,an ace Parliamentarian and a thought provoking academician. The purpose was to trigger and set rolling a discourse on various dalit contributors to the mightiest and the most inclusive Constitution of India. As one reached the closing of the discourse, this purpose was achieved far more than the presumed objectives as it brought to surface the struggles of Dakshayani through which shines the Constitution of India.
Constitution Day is an opportune time to recollect the struggles of Dalits which scripted the chapter on Fundamental Rights.The Constitution can largely be called the voice of men. Women representatives were merely an insignificant 15 in number out of a total 389 members in the Constituent Assembly yet their curriculum vitae were far superior to most men members of the Assembly. In the midst of this much privileged and western educated lot of women one Dakshayani stood strongly to fight social injustices beyond gender and class. This dalit woman from Kerala was born in 1912 on 4th July ,propitiously America’s Independence Day in a community of ‘Pulayas’ which was ostracized by birth, excluded from basic human rights of dignity and prevented access to even the fundamental resources of food, clothes, transportation, roads, education or even cutting of hair. Many Pulayas had to live covered with grasses or roam half naked. The Ernakulum kings did not allow them to walk on roads over which the upper caste walked or even use some land for a temporary purpose of festival, marriage or a gathering. Therefore when the historic movement against this evil practice of untouchability started the Pulayas were denied any land to converge upon. So, they converged on the backwaters by joining several boats together to stand upon and over which was born the historic Kayala Sammelan of the Cochin Pulaya Mahajana Sabha led by the legendary K.P.Karuppan and family members of Dakshayani family ie;Kunjan (father), Krishnethi and K.P.Vallon.Most of the historic episodes of this struggle are found in the writings of K.P.Kuruppan and recently in the collection of Dakshayani’s daughter Meera Velayudhan, Cherayi Ramdas’s book Ayyankalikku Aadarathode (In homage to Ayyankalikku)
Dakshayani was out of the box personality right from when she was born and described by her daughter Meera as ‘not matching the dalit stereotypes as she broke the iron ceiling of caste’. Her sanskritized name was in itself a break from the norm of Pulaya community in which girls could only keep names such as Pullamma,Pomalla, Kunju or Chakki. She mentions how the Ezhavas and Latin Christian community which was higher than the Pulayas mocked her. Failing to withstand such insidious marginalization and overt ostracization despite the changing times, her mother converted to Christianity with elder siblings and Dakshayani’s uncle Krisnethi but she did not convert Dakshayani and her younger brother K.K.Madhavan. Even though Untouchability was getting diluted by the 1940s, deep prejudices continued to scar the social fabric. Conversion helped the mother of Dakshayani to be able to support her daughter through her struggles in procuring basic life requirements otherwise denied to her even when she became a teacher in a government school in Peringottukara in Thrissur and Thripunithura. It is impossible for the present generation to even think that this brilliant member of the Constituent Assembly was once not even allowed to draw water from public wells, walk on public roads and visit public markets yet became the first to protest and disobey unjustified impositions. This sentiment digs deep into Dakshayani’s sensibilities when she desired that her biography be titled as ‘The Sea has no Caste’(‘but a well does’as she added).Most memoirs about Dakshayani are found in the writings of her daughter Meera Velayudhan in the Centre for Development Studies at Kerala.
Dakshayani married a dalit leader R. Velayudhan in 1940 who was the uncle of K.R.Narayanan, the first dalit President of India.It also paved the way for Dakshayani to think of stronger platforms to voice the concerns of depressed communities.She was adored by Gandhi as she followed him and also Ambedkar despite her independent positions on many subjects differed from both of them. She was nominated to the reserved Scheduled Caste seat to the Cochin Legislative Council in 1945. From here begins her unstoppable journey towards giving India an inclusive Constitution which would have no place for caste based discrimination or dehumanizing practices such as untouchability. On this Constitution day we can remember her for those four great philosophical pillars of the Indian Constitution towards which Dakshayani’s contributions are immense especially through debates in the Constituent Assembly when she formally became its member on July 22, 1946;
- She vouched for proportionate reservation of Dalits in Panchayats and Municipal Bodies. Even though ‘proportionate reservation’ could not be structured in the constituent assembly debates nonetheless, Art 14 of the Constitution, read with Art 16 of Indian constitution guarantees not only equality before law but also an equal protection of law to Indian citizens who have been historically oppressed and the State will be allowed to make special provisions for them under article 16. We find Dakshayani’s campaign close to her dreams in 1992 when the 73rd/74th Amendments were carried out for Panchayats and Municipal Bodies respectively.
- She strongly spoke about the criminality which goes with the practice of untouchability. Her debates and insightful arguments in favour of Article 11 of the Draft Constitution which abolished untouchability goes on record. This became Art.17 of the Constitution which inscribed, ‘Abolition of untouchability, The enforcement of any disability arising out of Untouchability shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law’.
- Her arguments and speeches against the gubernatorial powers of Governors and its subsequent impact upon the character of federalism were prophetic. She was fairly clear that the centre – state relations may definitely take a nosedive with such an arrangement of institutional powers.
- Decentralization was a dominant and most impactful campaign that one can find in her debates. She believed that the Constitution ought to be kept free of any form of centralization of authority. Her undying faith in inclusive governance is expressed in her campaigning for the spirit of freedom, equality and protection of rights as enshrined in the Constitution.
The struggles of Dakshayani Velayudhan should remind us of wisdom, experience and untiring struggles of a dalit woman scripting history of a new India. Researchers should go to the fields of Kerala and explore areas once walked upon by this indefatigable soldier woman.
