Renowned Malayalam poet and social activist Sugathakumari, who was under treatment for coronavirus infection at the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital passed away at 10.52 am on Wednesday at the age of 86. According to the hospital authorities, she was initially taken to a private hospital and was shifted to Medical College Hospital on Monday after her condition deteriorated. Her condition remained critical and she had been placed on ventilator support.
A well-known activist too, Sugathakumari had been part of the protests against a private airport project at Aranmula in Pathanamthitta, Kerala and that of the people’s movement against a hydroelectric project at Silent Valley in Palakkad. She was one of the most active campaigners of the Save Silent Valley Movement when it took shape in the 1970s. Silent Valley – a tropical evergreen forest in Palakkad district – was at the time proposed by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) to host a hydroelectric dam. Besides being the founder of a home for people with mental illnesses and the destitute home called Abhaya, Sugathakumari, the founder secretary of the Prakrithi Samrakshana Samithi was also a leader of the 1973 Save Silent Valley protest.
The daughter of freedom fighter Bodheswaran and VS Karthiyani, she was awarded the Padma Shri in recognition of her poetry in 2006, and recieved the award from then Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam. Sugathakumari is also the former chairperson of the Kerala State Women’s Commission.
