Legendary communist leader K.R. Gouri Amma died in a hospital in Thiruvananthapuram early on Tuesday. She was 102.

Having made her peace with the CPM, she made her last journey draped in the flag she swore allegiance to 73 years ago over a secure magisterial job even though she could not realise her wish to return to the fold from which she had been expelled in 1994.

In a reflection of the rapprochement over the recent years, the LDF government in Kerala accorded her full honours and even relaxed the limits on funeral attendance to allow more people to pay their last tributes when the body was kept for public viewing at Thiruvananthapuram’s Ayyankali Hall. The body was then taken to her native district Alappuzha where she was cremated at the Punapara-Vayalar memorial to the martyrs of the uprising of 1946.

While chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan bid her adieu with the red salute, in Delhi she was remembered fondly by party general secretary Sitaram Yechury who described her as an “outstanding leader of the people’s movement in Kerala’’.

Recalling her commitment to the party, Yechury said though she was married to another stalwart of the communist movement in Kerala, T.V. Thomas, Gouri Amma sided with the CPM when the split in the united party took place in 1964. Thomas remained in the CPI.

“In her departure Kerala has lost the last among the remaining members of the 1957 communist ministry headed by E.M.S. Namboodiripad. Kerala has lost one of its illustrious daughters who commanded wide respect and admiration,’’ he said.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan pays homage to the veteran Communist leader PTI

Talking to The Telegraph about his own interaction with her, Yechury said: “During the 1980s and 1990s, when she was a minister, I had a close association with her regarding export of traditional products of Kerala to socialist countries. This gave me an opportunity to work with her. She was always very affectionate.’’

About her expulsion from the party, Yechury said: “It was sad that she had to part ways with the party. She realised her folly and came back to the LDF fold. She remained a very indomitable fighter and a communist all her life.’’

Gouri Amma, as she was popularly referred to, was the minister for revenue, excise and Devasom in the first communist government elected in Kerala, headed by Nambooridipad in 1957, and is credited with being one of the architects of land reforms in Kerala.

Even before the formation of the present state of Kerala, she was elected to the Travancore-Kochi Legislative Assembly on two occasions; having joined the CPI when it was a banned organisation in 1948. She was a minister in various governments in the state including the one headed by the Congress-led United Democratic Front for some time after she was expelled from the CPM.

After leaving the CPM — over denial of the chief minister’s post after being projected as such before the 1987 Assembly polls — Gouri Amma formed her own party, the Janathipathiya Samrakshana Samithy, in 1994.

The first woman lawyer of the Ezhava community of Kerala, she was legendary for her revolutionary zeal and administrative acumen. And, equally at home, dishing out rice and the traditional Kerala fish curry to visitors at home; making her an early generation multi-tasker.

But she had to contend with the glass ceiling throughout her stint with the CPM; never making it to the party’s decision-making structures despite her stature in Kerala politics. Still, she held her own and this was evident in 2019 when the top brass of Kerala’s political class was in attendance as she clocked 100 years.