C K Janu

Tribal leader

C. K. Janu is the Chairperson of Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha and President Adivasi Rashtriya Maha Sabha.She is illiterate. She does not have the backing of any political party. She does not belong to a powerful vote-bank. She has no leader. Not even an ideology for guidance. Yet she has become a notable figure in Kerala's trouble-ridden socio-political scenario.

She is C K Janu, who spearheads the agitation of Kerala's 3.50 lakh adivasis (tribals) who constitute hardly 1 per cent of the state's total population.

Kerala is no different from the rest of India, where the majority of women come into the forefront of public life either by virtue of their close relations with a male leader or due to the support of a powerful political party. Janu is an exception to this. Perhaps, after K R Gouriamma, the firebrand communist leader belonging to the backward Ezhava community and present minister in the UDF cabinet, only C K Janu has come to dominate public life in Kerala by sheer determination and willpower.

Janu was born in the tribal hamlet of Vellamunda in Wayanad district. Her parents belonged to the lowest segment of tribals. Sheer poverty and bondage forced Janu to know the bitterness of life as a domestic servant at a local schoolteacher's house by age seven. At 12, she switched to daily-wage labour for Rs 2. Then she took on tailoring. But loans and lack of business forced her to close down the tailoring shop.

By that time Janu had identified the multifarious problems of the adivasis over generations. She started speaking out from personal experience. The adivasis were quick to identify Janu's voice as their voice. Soon, established political leaders came in search of her. Thus she came to be associated with the CPI-M for a few years. When she realised that the CPI-M leaders were interested more in the success of their party than the lot of tribals, she quit the party in 1982. She began instead to visit each tribal hamlet to understand their problems, to learn fresh lessons from them and to mobilise them for the struggle. "I have no leader or philosophy. Experience is my guide," Janu says.