Ruth Manorama

At 72 years old, Ruth Manorama physical status not available right now. We will update Ruth Manorama's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Manorama has dedicated her life to battling a host of interconnected issues related to oppressions arising from caste, gender and class hierarchies. Among the issues she has fought for are the rights of domestic workers and the unorganised labour sector, slum dwellers, Dalits, and for the empowerment of marginalised women. She works at both the grassroots level as well as focuses on mass mobilisation and advocacy at the international level.

Manorama is an integral part of many organisations working for the rights of Dalits, women, slum dwellers, and the unorganised sector. Some of these are:

She is also a part of several international collectives and organisations such as:

Within India, she is also a member of the Karnataka State Planning Board, the State Commission for Women, the Task Force on Women’s Empowerment of the Government of India and a number of other state and national bodies.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Manorama led processions of over 150,000 people to protest against ‘Operation Demolition’ by the State Government of Karnataka, which was a forced eviction campaign. She and other activists demanded protection for those to be evicted and the right to live legally and with dignity. On behalf of the slum dwellers, Manorama fought court cases at the High Court and the Supreme Court of India against this move by the Karnataka administration.

Manorama also established the first trade union in the country in 1987 for domestic workers in Bengaluru and strove for inclusion in the Minimum Wages.

Manorama has worked to mobilise the underprivileged from a grass-root levels since the 1980s. In more than 120 slums, she has been responsible for the mobilisation, training and empowerment of women to deal with the discrimination and violence that they face and to take leadership within their communities. Ruth is also committed to the cause of emancipation of Dalits. She has participated in several struggles against human rights violations, for land rights and for the cause of Dalit women and contributed immensely to the mainstreaming of Dalit issues.

“Dalit women in India are the Dalits among Dalits and suffer from three-fold oppression — on account of gender as a result of patriarchy, caste ‘the untouchable', and class — as they hail from the poorest and most marginalised communities. Eighty per cent of Scheduled Castes live in rural areas, are dependent on wage employment and have to contend with high rates of under employment which results in greater incidence of poverty,” said Ruth forcefully in an interview with The Hindu.

Manorama has been vocal of her opinion that women should be more involved in politics. In a panel about 'Dalit Women in Politics: Past, Present, and Future', organised by All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch and The Blue Club, she talked about the shortage of dalits, particularly women, who participated in politics. She spoke about the patriarchy that is so rampant in Indian politics so most women who entered politics was through nepotism and were simply used as a false token of equality in parliament. She also said that marginalized communities, such as dalit women. were the drivers of change.

She first entered the political scene as an independent candidate in the Bharathi Nagar constituency in 2004. She gained 1.61% of the vote share.

In the 2014 Indian general election, she was named as the Janata Dal (Secular) candidate from Bangalore South (Lok Sabha constituency) which constitutes fairly upper-class and literate voters. She campaigned on her live long dream of seeing a safe, corruption-free, and inclusive society. She gained 2.30% of the vote share.

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