# THE FIRST SPEAKER OF DEVIKULAM

### *Rosamma Punnoose, the Freedom Movement, and a Century of Courage*

—

**”Law is not a title for privilege; it is a shield for those who have no power.”**
— *Rosamma Punnoose*

—

**From the aristocracy of Travancore to the stone cells of Poojappura Prison and the misty tea gardens of Idukki—the astonishing story of a woman who shaped the democratic soul of modern India.**

At a time when women were expected to remain within quiet domestic spheres, **Rosamma Punnoose** shattered every barrier in her path. A university-trained lawyer from Madras Law College, she stepped directly into the line of police fire during the 1938 Travancore State Congress uprising against princely autocracy. Organizing the brave female *Desasevika Corps* alongside her legendary sister, Accamma Cherian, she faced severe state crackdown, enduring three long years of rigorous imprisonment inside Central Prison, Poojappura.

When foreign rule ended, Rosamma chose the hardest battlefront of all: the rugged High Ranges of **Devikulam**, where she organized thousands of exploited tea plantation workers into a formidable trade union force. In 1957, her journey culminated in a series of historic moments for Indian democracy—becoming the **first person sworn in as a Member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly**, the assembly’s **first pro-tem Speaker**, and the victor of **India’s first-ever state assembly by-election** in 1958.

Spanning a centenarian lifetime of unbroken public duty, Rosamma Punnoose stands as an immortal icon of Indian democracy—a freedom fighter who gave her youth to the nation and six post-independence decades to its working people.

—

### What Readers Will Discover Inside:

* **The Sisterhood of Resistance:** Experience the dramatic account of the 1938 Travancore Uprising, from mass rallies against the autocratic Dewan to the founding of the female *Desasevika Corps*.
* **The Poojappura Prison Crucible:** Discover how three years behind stone walls transformed a young law graduate into a fierce champion of working-class rights.
* **The Secret Wedding:** Read the gripping account of her clandestine 1946 marriage to underground communist leader P.T. Punnoose, defying social, religious, and political conventions under the cover of darkness.
* **The High Ranges Battleground:** Follow her pioneering work organizing Tamil and Malayali plantation laborers in Devikulam, securing statutory minimum wages, housing, and dignity for exploited workers.
* **A Lifetime of Democratic Firsts:** Relive the historic 1957 Kerala Assembly opening, the high-stakes 1958 Devikulam by-election referendum, and her executive leadership of the Kerala Women’s Commission well into her eighties.