Social scientist K. Saradamoni dead

Social scientist K. Saradamoni, one of many pioneers in Dalit and gender research, handed away right here on Wednesday. She was 93.

Known for one of many earliest historic analyses of caste slavery in Kerala, she had labored as an economist on the Indian Statistical Institute in Delhi from 1961 to 1988.

Right from her scholar days on the Government College for Women and University College in Thiruvananthapuram within the post-Independence interval, Ms. Saradamoni displayed her adeptness at discipline research and surveys.

Later, throughout her stint in Paris, engaged on her PhD with French anthropologist Louis Dumont, she got here throughout an previous file within the archives on abolition of slavery in Kerala, which kindled in her the thought for her pioneering work Emergence of a slave caste: Pulayas of Kerala in 1980.

“It was the first of its kind study on caste slavery, which is still a reference material. It is most important for the wealth of source material, including rare colonial documents. That pathbreaking work gave a sense of history and agency for the Dalit community, placing it as part of our renaissance history. It remained somewhat ignored by mainstream historians until Dalit studies opened up in recent decades. In gender studies too, she made a breakthrough with her research on matrilineal system and women’s land rights. Because she had an economics background, she was able to bring in a different dimension to her studies in gender and caste,” says Meera Velayudhan, coverage analyst and president, Indian Association for Women’s Studies.

In Matriliny Transformed: Family, Law and Ideology in Twentieth Century Travancore, she examined how matriliny provided id and safety to girls and the way the system modified in Travancore.

In Finding the Household: Conceptual and Methodological Issues – Women & the Household in Asia, she explored the place of girls and gender relations throughout the family, with floor research from Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and different nations.

Agrarian research was additionally one other robust focal point for her as evident in works corresponding to Filling the Rice Bowl: Women in Paddy Cultivation.

In Divided Poor: Study of a Kerala Village, she studied caste and land possession in a village. Ms. Saradamoni advocated for a relook into the system of administration which is compartmentalised.

“If our future policies in rural transformation as part of creation of a just and fair country has to succeed, the focus must shift to women,” she had written. She was a mentor to many students of gender and Dalit research throughout India.

One of her latest books, The Scribe Remembered – N.Gopinathan Nair, was a private one on her late husband N.Gopinathan Nair, founder-editor of Janayugam, the newspaper of the undivided Communist Party. She spent her later years in Thiruvananthapuram and was energetic in initiatives corresponding to Heritage Walk.

“She was part of Heritage Walk since its early days. Despite her age, she enthusiastically participated in our discussions almost till the very end,” says Bina Thomas Tharakan, Founder, Heritage Walk.