Annie Mascarene: A trailblazer who wanted women to get their political due

Annie (Mascarene) was amongst three elected women in an Assembly of 120 representatives, the other two were Accamma Cherian and Devaki Gopidas. Together these three trailblazers advocated for a variety of issues, including colleges for women, expansion of public libraries, improvement of food and agricultural production, and development of the coastal area of Travancore State. As freedom fighters who were jailed several times, all three of them had experienced horrid conditions in the prisons for women. It moved them to strive for better facilities for female inmates….

As a representative of the Travancore Assembly, Annie was sworn in as a member of the Constituent Assembly on 29 December 1948, two years after the proceedings of the framing of the Constitution had started. Given her legal expertise, Annie was nominated to the select committee on the Hindu Code Bill, alongside other prominent members such as Hansa Mehta, Ammu Swaminathan, Renuka Ray, Durgabai Deshmukh, and Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul. Most of Annie’s arguments as a member of the Constituent Assembly stemmed from her political experience in the Travancore State Congress and the Travancore Legislative Assembly. She channelized her learnings from her activism years, which was aided by the legal grounding received while reading and teaching law at Maharaja’s College.

While discussing the powers given to the Centre to manage the functions of the Election Commission, Annie stressed that a true democracy required giving power to the people: ‘I am a believer in the right of the people of the province to elect their representatives independent of any control, supervision and direction of any power on earth. I believe that to be democracy. If the Centre is to think that expediency demands that they should supervise and control the election, as one sitting in the Provincial Legislature I can see in the Centre as many delinquencies as they see in us.’…

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She was keenly aware of the Assembly’s role in shaping the nation, and was unwilling to sacrifice the future for convenience in the present. She was determined in ensuring that the ‘rudimentary principles of democracy’ they were working on were for the ‘days to come, for generations, for the nation.’ Annie dwelled on the subject of amendments even in her final speech before the adoption of the Constitution. She suggested amending the Constitution, if needed, after attaining the full stature of a nation. Tapping into her extensive knowledge of legalities, Annie drew parallels with various countries. She spoke about the US constitution and how long it took to frame to get it to its ‘final shape’. Even Australia’s was revised repeatedly….

Annie also talked about the need for a strong Centre, especially during the early days of founding a country: ‘If at the beginning of a state, a nation is faced with so many political, economic and social problems, there should be a strong Centre, so that power could radiate through all the parts. The Centre should not be so strong as to kill the autonomy of the local governments. But we have not got any such power concentrated in the Centre to kill the autonomy in the States.’ To the members who criticized the Constitution for giving too much power to the Centre, she said, ‘There are provisions in the Constitution to amend it and if the Centre is too strong we need not fear because when the nation has attained full stature and we can stand on our own legs, we can amend the Constitution and distribute powers equally.’

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While Annie participated in the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly with total commitment, she also multi-tasked as the minister of health and power in the new Travancore-Cochin government headed by Chief Minister T.K. Narayana Pillai. She was the first woman minister in the Travancore-Cochin Legislative Assembly after the merger of the two provinces in July 1949. Unfortunately, six months later, Annie and two other colleagues were made to resign in order to make room for new members in the Cabinet…. Following this Annie parted ways with the Congress and contested the first Lok Sabha election as an independent candidate from Thiruvananthapuram…. (People) supported her formidable stance against corruption, fighting even her own political colleagues, as evidenced by the overwhelming number of votes she received. Her closest rival was her former boss and former chief minister T.K. Narayana Pillai, a candidate of the Socialist Party. Annie bagged 1,16,617 votes, winning by a margin of 68,117 votes. The defeat forced a demoralized Pillai out of politics.

While congratulating the Speaker of the House on the first day of parliament in May 1952, Annie drew attention to the handful of women in the House, precisely saying, ‘On behalf of those few ladies here, I hope that you will give us sufficient protection and opportunities for expressing our opinion in this House.’ She believed that women had not been given their political due in independent India. Only around 5 per cent members elected to the House of 489 members were women.

In 1952, Annie advocated strongly against the Preventive Detention Act in parliament. This was a colonial law that gave power to the police to arrest anyone on the vague premise that they might commit a crime in the future. Her time in prison had shaped her views on individual freedom. When she pointed out that the discussions in the House were dominated solely by male speakers, she was met with ridicule, with some members questioning the existence of female detenus.

Bent on being heard, Annie then brought up her own extensive experience in detention. ‘If I had known anything in life, if I am familiar with anything in life it is detention, detenus, detention camps, police and lock-up. That is why, Sir, I said that this Act and deliberations on this Act should not be the monopoly of men.’ In her fiery speech, she used her considerable knowledge of the law to support her argument, ‘We have law based on equity, justice and good conscience and we want to have a law that will command obedience to the fundamental canons of justice. I wish to say… this Detention Act violates all these rules of equity, conscience, justice and obedience to law.’ … Despite her strong remarks, no reforms were made.

Excerpted with permission from The Fifteen by Angellica Aribam & Akash Satyawali, published by Hachette India