IDINTHAKARAI: Most women of Idinthakarai village, where the agitation against the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) is on for 134 days, have something to cheer about the protest as their men are saying ‘cheers’ less than usual, besides showing a marked change of attitude towards domestic work. “Our men now go to the wine shop very rarely and have stopped insisting that we cook and serve meals thrice a day without fail,” says Mildred, sitting on fast at the protest venue before the local church on the eve of Christmas.“Earlier, our husbands will beat us up if we are not at home to serve them food, but now they have started entering the kitchen as we come for the protest. There is a change in the mindset of most men, who do not even mind doing domestic chores,” says another woman Chellamal.Though the nearest wine shop for the coastal hamlet is in Koodankulam, which is about seven kilometres away, for most men it was a regular rendezvous as drinking was the most favoured recreation for them.Now, the ongoing protest has prompted the fishermen to hang around the agitation venue if they have no work.Apart from that, their income has come down for two reasons: One, they are on strike many days and two, they have to contribute one-tenth of their income to the protest fund, says an activist. The fall in income has also made them less demanding on the menu.“No more our men complain about the food and make no fuss over the nonavailabity of their favourite dishes on the table, which used to be a routine cause for domestic quarrels in many homes”, says Chellamal.That the fishermen, known for their short temper, have mellowed down with a lesser inclination for violence even in their social interaction outside home was vouched by S P Udhayakumar, the convenor of People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), who has been spending most of the time with the villagers since the protests began.After they started participating in the protests and listening to the speeches emphasising the need for a peaceful agitation, they are less prone to lose their temper, he says.Recounting an incident some time back when the PMANE organised a rally to Koodankulam, he says: “Seeing the bar open, I went and told the manager to close it down as I feared that the men in the rally might enter and start drinking.As I was stepping it out I saw two well-built youth who had accompanied me almost pulling up the manager by his collar. He has said something nasty about me but the youth did not harm him. Instead they asked me how I had managed to change them and made them non-violent.” “Our prime concern is to stop the commissioning of the nucelar reactor. We will sacrifice anything for that,” says Peter Milton, a local leader and activist in the forefront of the agitation.He said that their village was a classic example for religious amity. In the hamlet of 3,700 fishermen families, only about 50 families profess Hinduism.”But all of us observe all religious festivals without any differences.Even in this protest we are united”, he says, adding that is ironic to note that some families broke from the Christian fold, way back in 1968,as a mark of rebellion against Church leaders, protesting a decree that when a fisherman catches a shark, the fins will have to be donated for the common cause to the Church.Those families fought and left the village and then returned as Hindus with a Vinayaga idol, with which they built the temple, situated bang opposite to the over 100 years old church of Our Lady of Lourdes. It is the open space between the two places of worship that has turned into the protest venue, drawing people from many villages in the area since August.
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