Report_final_sarai http://docs.google.com/View?docID=dhqjmdj4_53c5tcrkch&revision=_l... 1 of 26 2/1/2008 7:54 PM Chithra Lekha ’ s burning Auto: Caste and Gender in the Urban Space of Keralam In small towns and urban spaces in India we can often find cinema theatres, old book shops, night-skies, dirt, varieties of sounds, sights, visions and what not!!! But we cannot forget that these spaces are also inhabited by a large number of human beings who create and consume all of these urban and semi-urban phenomena. As researchers coming from the discipline of humanities, such human interactions that structure the culture of the urban space is what interests us most. This helps us get in touch with our own troubled lives in various semi-urban situations, both as children and as adults, which has pushed us like this, to think about the way this world is arranged. Thus we decided to study one of the most important patterns in the urban design, the way in which identities such as caste, gender and religion make and unmake human lives. It was easy for us to choose the Chithralekha case for this, as it is often called, which in 2006, was on the lips of every Malayalee intellectual who wanted to talk about the issue of caste in the contemporary space of Kerala. We begin this report by giving a detailed account of this case: Chithra Lekha was born into a Pulaya family, which is an ex-untouchable caste in Keralam. Chithra Lekha ’ s husband Shreeshanth is a Thiyya (an OBC caste). Both his family and the dominant left party (CPI (M)) structure were against Shreeshanth marrying Chithra Lekha as she is a Dalit. Yet the couple went ahead and got legally married. In their attempt to make a better living, they resorted to what many Dalitbahujans of moffusil towns easily choose: an autorickshaw. The autorickshaw KL 13L 8527 was bought in Chitra Lekha ’ s name under the PMRY loan scheme. The Edaatu auto rickshaw stand in which Chithra Lekha wanted to drive her auto was under CITU, the trade union that belongs to the Communist Party of India, Marxist (CPI (M)). To start functioning from this stand Chithra Lekha had to obtain a membership card from the CITU. However, this card was delayed for more than 2 months as the party was already angry with Chithra Lekha having married above her caste. Chithra also told us that they adopted such delaying techniques with many new comers from “ other ” communities. When at last she was given membership she started driving her auto rickshaw from March 2005. According to Chithra Lekha, they welcomed her with these words: O! The subalterns have progressed. A Pulaya woman has come with an auto. ” In spite of such harassment Chithra Lekha turned out to be a competent driver and became very popular with her customers, especially women. When she started her career there had been a coin operated phone at the auto stand where the customers would call for drivers. Soon, Chithra Lekha started getting the most number of calls from this phone. This she feels disturbed her fellow male drivers. After a few months she bought a mobile phone and now people started calling for her even more than before. This made the drivers feel even more threatened. All these problems took a violent turn during the Navami or Saraswathy Pooja days when Chithra Lekha placed her auto in the common Pandal for pooja. When she came to take back the auto on the next day, that is on October 11, 2005, she found that the hood of her auto was torn. Ajith, one of the CITU members who had threatened her earlier was standing there and she asked him why did he tore the hood. He retaliated saying that if you don ’ t keep your limits you will also be torn like this. She complained about the incident to Rameshan, fellow auto driver and the Secretary of the local branch of CITU, but to no avail. Since there was no response from Rameshan or CITU, she lodged a complaint with the police after two days. When she came back to the stand on October 14 th Rameshan gave her a two hour punishment of abstention, for