ACLiSA Speaker Series: Author Talks: Dr. J Devika, “Feminist Struggles and Fairy Tales: Writing Kunhuthee”

Date: 26th April 2025

Time: 8.30 p.m. IST/9.00 a.m. PT

Venue: Online

Registration Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdpYgoZNo0g-uBWP9BaOG4CqpOZz7Uev_tVjRXMck60ZUw4hw/viewform?usp=sharing

Talk Abstract

In 2021, a shocking case of infant-abduction shook the south-western state of Kerala, India. Baby Aiden, born to an inter-caste couple, was allegedly kidnapped by his maternal grandparents and trafficked to outside the state through the government’s child protection machinery. The parents launched an epic struggle to regain their lost child, against the kidnappers and traffickers who were part of the ruling government of the state. I was part of the small group of feminists who stood with them and so a witness to the unbelievable tenacity of Anupama Chandran and Ajith Kumar. They finally won — the government had to return the child after more than a year of separation. Though formal justice still eludes them.

As a historian, I wondered : what best way to preserve the memory of this heroic fight? I saw that even mainstream feminism in Kerala, beholden as they are to the ruling powers, will work hard to erase Anupama’s resistance from history. Luckily, I am as much or more a storyteller for children, as I am a historian for adults. So I wrote a modern-day fairy tale, for children and for the child that can be woken, potentially, in every older person.

About the Speaker

J Devika teaches and researches at the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, Kerala.  She  is a border-crosser and smuggler operating between social science disciplines, humanities and social science, research and translation, academic and non academic writing, Malayalam and English, and writing for children and non-children. She writes in Malayalam and English and is part of the feminist group Althea. She maintains a memorial website of writings of/by first-generation educated Malayali women, www.swatantryavaadini.in  . She translates literature from Malayalam to English and social science and social theory from English to Malayalam. At present, she experiments with  feminist fairytales and writing fiction focussed on climate change, but essentially blurring the boundaries between science, humanities, and discussions of ethics, for children.