In 1985, a person named Sundar approached poet Sugathakumari to tell her about the appalling living conditions of the inmates of the government mental hospital in Oolanpara. She later visited the hospital, and the scene there still brings shudders to her.
“Young women were stuffed inside box-like cells. Many of them were naked and others were in dirty clothes. To the corner of the cells were pits for defecation. The entire building was drowned in an insufferable stench. Seeing me, one of them started crying out for food. Soon, that cry spread to other cells and they were all crying out in unison. I left the place in tears. That was the second turning point in my life, after the Silent Valley agitation,” says Sugathakumari.
That evening 30 years ago, Abhaya, an organisation to care for the destitute, was born. With Sugathakumari in that endeavour was the Prakrithi Samrakshana Samithi and Communist leader K.V. Surendranath, better known as ‘Asan’. On the request of the Health Secretary, she visited the mental hospitals in Kozhikode and Thrissur. She, with the help of Gandhians and former naxalite Ajitha’s group, started a campaign from Kozhikode to better the conditions of mental hospitals. K. Jayakumar, the then Kozhikode District Collector, told her to file a PIL, which became a turning point.
“The Justice Narendran Commission was constituted, and his report led to the setting up of monitoring committees in all mental hospitals,” she says. Within a few years, the Abhayagramam was set up in a 10-acre stretch of land in Malayinkeezhu, with four different centres. The ‘Karma’ centre is for the treatment, rehabilitation and skill training of mental patients.
The ‘Sraddha Bhavanam’ is for chronically mentally ill women patients, offering them lifelong care. Many of them here are from north Indian States, abandoned by their family. “Some of the inmates here are highly educated. There are also four from a family here. We have a doctor to take care of them,” says K.V. Subramaniam, manager of the Abhayagramam.
‘Mitra’, the de-addiction centre, is the only paid facility here. The income from here, with government grants and private donations, sustain the Abhayagramam.
‘Abhayabala’ is the home for the deprived girl child. Among the residents here are children from low income families, rape victims, and those rescued from traffickers. A few years ago, the court gave the home the responsibility of 23 girls who were rescued from traffickers.
The poet has a hundred harrowing tales to recount about the current residents and those who have gone out of here. The most shocking of them is of how the home sheltered a gang rape victim for 16 years under a different name, due to the threat for her life from the accused biggies.
Over the years, many of those nurtured by the ‘Abhayabala’ home have gone on to become teachers and engineers. Some are happily married.
“The Abhayagramam is fulfilling a ‘Vriksha dharmam’, like a tree which gives shade and fruit and expects nothing in return,” says the poet.
