Unstoppable crusader

She is a social activist with a clean conscience.  M A Siraj meets Jothi Mani who fought for the cause of the Dalits in her village, and despite the odds, won.

This lanky girl with her large expressive eyes carries a quaint charm about herself. Her manner of speaking with determination and resoluteness is further enamouring.

At 37, this woman political activist from Periya Thirumangalam village of Karur district, Tamil Nadu, is wedded to the cause of changing the way politics is practiced and bureaucracy operates in the country.

A public grievances meeting with the district administration in her village changed the course of her life, hurling her into public life. She cried all night, after listening to a Dalit woman describing her painful experience of fetching water from the public well at the edge of the village’s uppercaste habitation. Another Dalit woman had died due to snakebite as she was allowed to draw water only after dusk fell.

“I will not rest content until I wipe the tears off their eyes”, she had resolved. Since then she has not looked back. After nearly 17 years of activism, Jothi Mani has mellowed down, but refuses to sit quiet.

Politics for her is the “pursuit of truth”. Jothi says, “Politics cannot be taught in Political Science departments of colleges but should be gained through working among people. Money of course, plays a big role. But if you are righteous, people help you to realise both public good and personal ambition.”

Having finished her degree from GVG College in Udumalpet in Coimbatore, Jothi Mani plunged straight into social activism. Tamil Nadu was witnessing its first panchayath elections in 1995. Jothi says, “I announced my candidature. I belonged to a feudal uppercaste family in the village, but those Dalit women’s grievances were my foremost concern.”

She only had Rs. 2,000 with her. Her mother had decided not to spare any money for her venture, although she was supportive otherwise. Ideologically, legendary Congress leader Kamaraj’s philosophy, his frugal lifestyle and his concern for the poor were her ideals. “But overall, politics for me was to serve the people,” she adds.

Jothi was elected with a thumping margin for the panchayath which had 15 villages under it. Seven of them were Dalit dominated and were without water supply, power lines and all-weather roads.

The panchayath headman and non-Dalit members kept postponing the decision to lay pipelines to the Dalit quarters although water would overflow in other quarters of the village. “This went on for four years. I was being tormented by guilt as people were raising fingers against me for failing to deliver on my promise”, observes Jothi.

But she and other supportive members took advantage of the absence of the headman at a particular meeting, pushed the tender for pipes and pumps and were helped by district collector Murganandan in laying the pipeline, fixing pumps and constructing a pump house.  That night when the Dalits received tap water in their section of the village, they celebrated the event the whole night.

“Tears welled up in my eyes, as I saw them dancing till dawn. I had crossed the first milestone, though a full four years after my election”, Jothi says.

Jothi’s next moment of trial came when she took up the case against the village mafia engaged in illegal mining of sand from the bed of the Amravathi river passing through the village. “They had threatened me of dire consequences and even the Dalit women were refusing to support me as they were getting Rs. 100 a day for sand mining from the mafia lords against Rs. 30 as farm hands,” says Jothi. She was helped by a village elder, Sadasivan, a true Gandhian and a Congressman, who she says stood by her through thick and thin and was absolutely incorruptible.

Jothi won two consecutive terms for the panchayath but lost the third time when all forces aligned against her. “When I lost, my supporters came to my doorsteps, cried and vowed to make me successful next time’, she observes. But she continued her struggle against the mafia and got a stay from the court.

A fact-finding team from the Perarignar Anna University of Technology in Chennai in its report held the mining responsible for environmental damage. This helped her bring a permanent ban on sand mining, from the court. “Our lawyer was being wooed by the other side by huge sums of money, yet he remained steadfast to help our cause. I came to know how politics was being played and how bureaucracy stonewalled people’s voices”, Jothi says.

By this time Jothi had ascended to the top echelons within the Youth Congress and had been vice president of the body in Tamil Nadu. She says, Anand Patwardhan’s films on public causes left a deep imprint on her mind. Amid all this activism, Jothi went on to complete her MA and then secure an M.Phil.

She has also published a novel, a short story collection, an auto-biographical sketch titled My Experiences and a poetry collection. She was adjudged the winner of the Elakkiya Chananai award for the best short story in 1999.