People's Democracy

Comrade Ambal Ramamurti

AMBAL Ramamurti, freedom fighter and wife of late P Ramamurti, Marxist leader passed away at Chennai on July 16, 2013. She actively participated in the freedom struggle and was drawn to politics at the young age of 16 when her mother’s home in Trichy became the place for secret meetings of the Communist Party.  She travelled to Bombay along with her sister a year later to work at the Communist Party headquarters in Bombay, putting together an archive on Communism and Marxism. Ambal was the undivided Communist Party’s first librarian in Bombay in the 1940s. She was a voracious reader and a scholar in Tamil and English and translated several political documents and books.

When the Communist Party was banned by the British, she became an active member of the underground movement. Disguised as flower sellers and vegetable vendors, she and her sisters distributed hand written revolutionary pamphlets, hidden in the baskets they carried. She was imprisoned in the 40’s along with her mother and three sisters at Villupuram.  She worked in the State Electricity Department and was closely associated with the late ASR Chari in the Harbour Workers Union and with the late Anandan Nambiar and M Kalyanasundaram of the Dakshin Railways Employees Union in the 40’s and 50’s.

True to their revolutionary beliefs, P Ramamurti, a Brahmin and Ambal, a Pillai, had an inter-caste (suyamariyadai) marriage in 1952 without any rituals. Ramamurti was then leader of the opposition in the Madras Legislative Assembly. Their marriage set an example and blazed a trail challenging the shackles of caste, leading to EVR Periyar himself to preside over it.

She was 87 and is survived by her daughters Dr Ponni Ramamurti and Advocate R Vaigai, and grandsons Kunal Shankar and Mrinal Shankar.