Mythily was involved in a number of labour rights issues. She visited the tribal villages and interviewed many of the rape survivors. It was through her writings that the Vachathi mass rapes in Dharmapuri district were documented in detail, drawing national attention to the incident. Mythily had written widely on the massacre of dalit agricultural labourers in Kilvenmani in Thanjavur district. After working for nearly two years as a research assistant in the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations, she returned to India in 1968. Mythily had held various positions in the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Mythily was the co-founder and former vice-president of the All India Democratic Women Association. Their toil, their sweat, their labour’s fruit.CHENNAI: CPM leader and women's rights activist Mythily Sivaraman, who was instrumental in drawing national attention to the 1992 Vachathi mass rapes, died of Covid-19 on Sunday. Not enough to feed the landless and hungry.

Listen to Sudhanva Deshpande recite the poemįour is not enough, not enough they said, We publish this poem on that tragedy in a week that has seen the demise of Mythili Sivaraman of Covid-19, at age 81. But Mythili Sivaraman, one of the great chroniclers of this incredible atrocity, continued to write powerful and extensive analyses that not only brought the massacre to light but also its underlying issues of class and caste oppression.

In 1975, the Madras High Court acquitted all the 25 accused in the murder case. All were Dalits and supporters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Fully half of those murdered – 11 girls and 11 boys – were children below the age of 16. A group of 44 workers who had rushed into a hut were locked inside – before their attackers set it on fire. On the night of December 25, the landlords surrounded and attacked the hamlet, cutting off all routes of escape. The rich and powerful landowners, riled by a new political awakening among the Scheduled Castes, decided to not only hire other workers from neighbouring villages, but also planned a massive retaliation. The landlords’ response? They burnt alive 44 Dalit labourers in the hamlet. Dalit landless labourers of this village in Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam district were on strike, demanding higher wages, control over agricultural lands, and an end to feudal oppression. In the last week of December 1968 the long simmering struggle of organised labour against oppressive landlords in Keezhvenmani hamlet of Venmani village, boiled over. Painting by Labani Jangi/People’s Archive of Rural India

Haunted by Fire by Mythily Sivaraman