India@75: Chunangat Kunjikkavamma, the only woman president of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee

In a land where men dominate all political parties, a woman became the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee President as early as 1938. She remains the only woman PCC President in Kerala's history. Imagine, it took about half a century more for a woman to become even the first District Congress President in Kerala. 

The heroine of this surprising chapter in history is Chunangat Kunjikkavamma. She became the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee  President in 1938 when the post's name was Dictator. No less than EMS Namdoodiripad, Kerala's first Chief Minister and the doyen of the Indian Communist movement, was elected the secretary that year. 

Also watch: India@75: How Srinivasa Ramanujan became world's greatest mathematician

It was the time when the young leftists had beaten the orthodox section inside the state Congress party in organizational elections. 

Kunjikkavamma was born in 1894 at Chunangat in Ottappalam in the Palakkad district of Kerala to a traditional Nair family. She studied up to Class VIII and was married off, as was common practice during the period. 

Her husband was M V Madhava Menon, a progressive-minded nationalist and a follower of Gandhi. Menon brought his wife a large number of books and also encouraged her to join public life. Kunjikkavamma joined the freedom movement and donated all her jewelry to Gandhiji when he visited Kerala. 

She began wearing Khadi. She was one of the organizers of the KPCC's first All Kerala Political Conference held in 1921 at her native Ottappalam. 

Also watch: India@75: Life of Hasrat Mohani, the freedom fighter who coined Inquilab Zindabad

She was among the first batch of women who joined the national movement heeding Gandhi's call and was arrested for participating in the foreign clothes boycott. She spent three years in Kannur central prison, unheard of in the traditional Nair families. 

On her release, she continued her activities without relent and was again jailed and housed in the Vellore Jail. Her prison mates included women leaders like MV Kuttimalu Amma with her two-month-old baby, Gracy Aaron, and so on. 

Kunjikkavamma withdrew from active politics after independence and concentrated on Khadi and Harijan Welfare activities. She founded the Kasturba Memorial school in her village. She donated 8 acres of land to Vinonba Bhave's Bhoodan movement. 

Also watch: India@75: Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, the Father of Indian social revolution

Though she received the Tamrapatra, Kunjikkavamma politely refused to accept the free land awarded to her services to the national movement. Kunjikkavamma passed away in 1974 at the age of 80.