The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition walked out of the Assembly on Tuesday, accusing the Child Welfare Council (CWC) of putting up a baby forcibly removed from its mother for adoption illegally.
RMP legislator K.K. Rema, who moved an adjournment motion on the issue, said the CPI(M) and the CWC had abetted the crime.
Powerful triad
The party, law enforcement, and the Government had acted as an extra-legal moral police force. Seemingly moved by a tribal misogyny more suited for medieval times, the powerful triad aided the woman’s father, a CPI(M) leader, “banish” his grandchild, born out of wedlock to his daughter, to “protect the family’s twisted sense of honour.”
Ms. Rema said the police refused to take cognisance of the mother’s complaint for six months under CPI(M) pressure and pushed her from pillar to post, searching for her “missing child.”
Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat had called the “honour crime” as wrong of “immense moral and human rights proportion.” Her intervention at the Chief Minister’s level to reunite the mother and child had failed due to CPI(M) interference.
Yet, Ms. Rema said, the Women and Child Welfare Minister Veena George justified the CWC brazenly.
Cries of “shame” erupted from the Opposition benches. They protested in front of the Speaker’s dais, seeking more speech time for Ms. Rema.
Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan said the Government had committed a capital crime against society.
The CWC falsified the infant’s gender to erase its identity before putting up the child for adoption.,
Mr. Satheesan said: “The Left is anything but progressive. The CPI(M) leadership’s thinly veiled conservatism, patriarchal ethos and pronounced anti-woman bias puts far-right conservative parties to shame.”
‘With the mother’
Ms. George said the case had no parallel. The Government has stayed the adoption process in court, and it was with the mother.
The police have registered a case against the woman’s family accused of surrendering the child to the CWC without the mother’s consent. The Government has instituted an inquiry, she said.
Speaker M. B. Rajesh rejected the adjournment motion.
