Kalathilparambil Raman Gouri Amma was the first woman to be a minister in Kerala’s state cabinet, and one of the longest serving political leaders in Kerala politics. She was born on 14 July 1919 in Pattanakaddu village in Alappuzha district. Her father had named her after the first Ezhava woman college graduate. Following his dreams for her, she went to study law in Trivandrum and became the state’s first Ezhava woman law graduate. It was in law school that she took on the role of a student union activist while the country was in the middle of the Quit India Movement. When the second world war broke out, Gouriamma found herself drawn to communism as a path to liberation.

Post independence, she  joined the Communist Party of India (CPI) and later,the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI(M)). She was a minister in the state cabinet in the years 1957, 1967, 1980, 1987 and between 2001 to 2006. In her years of service she led six ministries and held more than ten portfolios including excise, revenue, temple administration, agriculture and social welfare. Towards the end of her career, she set up her own party by the name of Janapathiya Samkraksana Samithy (JSS).

KR Gouri is considered Kerala’s most powerful woman politician who paved the way for other women in politics. She was known to be bold, frank and honest, qualities which many male politicians found to be unbecoming of a woman of her aristocratic caste. KR Gouri passed away on 11 May 2021 at the age of 101.