Vera Keralam

Pioneering Indian social reformer who empowered marginalized communities through education and labor rights activism

Vera Keralam (1905-1975) was a visionary social activist from Kerala, India, whose work laid the groundwork for modern social justice movements in South Asia. Born into a low-caste family, she defied societal norms by completing higher education at Travancore University, becoming one of India's first female social workers. Her 1932 publication Women's Chains and Chains of Caste (available at Internet Archive) exposed systemic oppression through a caste-gender lens, influencing later feminist theorists like Amrita Pritam.

In the 1940s, she founded the United Labour Association, organizing plantation workers across Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Her 1948 'March for Equality' mobilized 10,000 laborers in Trivandrum, leading to landmark minimum wage legislation. Keralam's 1955 establishment of the first inter-caste marriage registry in Mattancherry challenged Brahminical social structures, documented in the British Library's South Asia archives.

Her innovative approach to combining education with activism saw the creation of 120 night schools for Dalit children between 1950-1965. The Journal of South Asian Women's Studies (2018) credits her with coining the term 'gendered casteism' now used in UN reports. Though overshadowed by contemporaries like Ambedkar, her writings remain required reading at Jawaharlal Nehru University's gender studies program.