38 PVK Blog Post. ‘Devika Ammachi’s Cruel Deeds’
Note: This is the sad and frightening story of how a scholar from America, Mallory Cherlokski got her Indian visa cancelled, was put on the IB’s watch list and deported from India at a week’s notice.
Cherlokshi, or Mallory as I will refer to her, as she is a friend, was often hosted by us to dinners, here at my home in Kamalalayam Trivandrum, or at restaurants in town.
Mallory was a tall, attractive, incredibly naïve, researcher who worked on the topic of food. As common in researchers from good universities abroad, she breathed, walked and talked food. In our home, she went into the kitchen, phone in hand, to record how ‘kozhu katta’, rice balls with fillings of grated coconut, jiggery and ripe banana cuttings, were made. Or how ‘idi appam’ a rice noodle-like dish steamedin an ‘idli kuttuvam’ was prepared.
At ‘Plav’, near the Police Ground at Thycaud, she amused everyone by photographing the dishes, tasting each one like a food taster, chatting with the waitresses and so on.
For some reason, she was in awe of Devika, professor of history, at the once reputed ‘Centre for Development Studies’ or C D S at Prasanth Nagar in Trivandrum. Established by the reputed Dr. K N Raj of the Delhi School of Economics, the London School of Economics and other international institutes, she benefitted from this enormously. Currently she is the only “scholar’ worth the name at the CDS. Things are so pathetic there now. True, they do publish in international journals but they do virtually nothing for the public understanding of the subject of economics and its theoretical and practical impact on the world.
Here, in the sequence in which I originally recorded it, is what led to Mallory’s banishment from the Republic of India. It is a sadly comic tale.
Mallory had been originally referred to me by Dr Robin Jefferey, a close friend, anthropologist / historian / author / expert of waste and pollution etc. He wore many hats all of them with style and distinction. My friendship with Robin goes back to 1971 when he was this boyish researcher with a ready smile and an obsessive need to find out, record and publish. My parents, K Prabhakaran and B L Rajam, exceptional people themselves, took Robin under their wings and were his hosts when in he was in town.
My father had found him asleep on a bench at the Asan Memorial at Thonnakkal, tired after a hot journey by KSRTC or our public transport system one afternoon, tapped him gently to ask him who he was and what he wanted and taken in home, just yards away from the Memorial to feed him and generally look after him. That evening, Robin arrived at Kamalalayam, as I was watering plants in our garden at Kamalalayam, the home I still stay in, and we became friends.
Robin is one of my best friends and well-wishers. He has flown down to Trivandrum to be at the launch my lovely wife Khyrunnisa A’s ‘Of Course, It’s Butterfingers’, driven around with me, first on my scooter and later my car, been to Vilappilsala, the disastrous and aborted waste disposal site near Trivandrum, attended one of my lectures at IISER, Trivandrum, delivered the ‘Puthpally Raghavan Memorial Lecture, the ‘Hrydayakumari Endowment Lecture and so on.
Here is the sequence of events, as originally posted by me. It also contains copied and pasted mails about all of this from Mallory, Robin and me.
[Mallory has to quit India by or on 16/Oct/2025.]
Strd 8/Sept/2025.
Mallory’s mail in the morning.
Hello Vijaya sir and Khyru,
This is Mallory as you know, sorry for the scary subject line. I tried to call you both but it wasn’t coming through, I am in a pretty bad situation.
CDS has decided to kick me out of my affiliation and I am left without any support or guidance. I am flying to Trivandrum now, all can be explained later. Could I come see you both this evening?
Please let me know,
I will be getting on the plane now, so I won’t be able to be reached until 1pm.
Talk soon,
I asked her if Devika could not help. She replied:
Hello,
J devika is the person who has decided to kick me out, it was her prerogative.
For staying I don’t need a place—I just meant to meet to explain situation.
Mailed this too:
Thank you both.
I will go to the FRRO to explain the situation immediately when I land at 2pm, and then try and go to CDS to speak with the director.
After this I will try to come over to you all.
Updates to come, I will call before of course.
She came home in the evening, cried over Rosie’s shoulders and then told us her story. Later, she mailed the basic plot to me. Here, copied and pasted:
Hello,
Thank you for tonight—it was very therapeutic. I am messaging on the phone quickly to explain the events:
-in May I sent an email to CDS asking if I did not come to Trivandrum immediately, if they could still be my partner institution, they did not reply to this inquiry and still sent me the paperwork for the affiliation.
-I arrived in shimla 20th sept. I wanted to go there actually for research purposes, although my partner hosted me. We are writing a piece on the comparison between the Dham feast and Sadya, and I checked out the institute for advanced studies for future research collaborations. The ONLY instructions for visas states “registration within 14 days of arrival”, so I registered at the FRRO office shimla
-the application was denied and they told me to send the application to Trivandrum office
-we went in person and also gaurish dad called many people in the government , we were given two responses, the first was that I should email Trivandrum office immediately with my itinerary and they should inform me of the steps to follow, I did this, I sent them a very comprehensive itinerary. The second thing the police told us was that it doesn’t matter if I am in Trivandrum, I can get a friend to advocate for me and submit the application from there.
-in the meantime Trivandrum replied with no clear message on what to do all they said was “submit the application immediately”
-so I did this, I submitted a new application to Trivandrum from shimla, and they sent back a request for new forms from CDS
-I messaged CDS and they sent me the new forms, all stamped and signed and I submitted these to FRRO
-FRRO came back and asked for S form, this is for CDS to fill out, still they had no problem, the registrar asked devika to fill out the form which asked for my activities the last trip, and this is when she realized she has no attendance form for the last time I came, (and in my opinion this is when she realized she can get in trouble for the last time she advised)
-she started texting me asking me many questions , I told her I was in Mumbai passing from shimla and this is when things got bad, she told me she never gave me approval to do that and asked for travel plans
-I sent her my travel plans which is the document I sent to the FRRO. This document , as I told you today, I put the CDS Logo on the top of it, which in my defense, I do not see this as letterhead, I do this with my University all the time to make sure people know which institution I am affiliated with. Also in my experience , no government would take a document without a stamp and signature as a document coming from a school, so I put that on there genuinely as an aesthetic addition to go with the rest of the pdf being sent
-she accused me of forgery and that I am impersonating the school and that I would receive an email from the registrar tomorrow
-now we are close to coming to the present, yesterday (Oct 7th) I get an email from the registrar withdrawing my affiliation , citing the two errors above, that I forged documents and that I traveled in north India without their approval.
-in the meantime the FRRO is calling me and telling me to come to the office, I told im in Mumbai and they’re asking me, why did you submit fake documents etc etc
-I knew I needed to come in person so i immediately booked the flight and came today straight to the office
-I was able to explain everything, and they asked me when I want to leave the country, I said in 7 days once I finish the trip which I already had planned, at first they said I needed to stay in Trivandrum jurisdiction but then I told them, I was going north and wanted to fly out of kochi and they approved .
This is mostly the end of the story.
My take away is that I did do something wrong, but ignorantly, if I thought that this form was actually forgery, why would I of sent it to devika?
If I wanted to hide myself and not let anyone know where I was , why would i immediately submit an application to shimla FRRO?
Anyways, taking rest now.
All the best,
Mallory
I told her I would write a small essay titled ‘The Cruel Deeds of Devika Ammachi’. Explained that Ammachi was a name only Nair women in feudal Kerala were allowed to use. Promised to run the essay past her. Would later post I
&^
In short, J Devika, post colonial and anti Hindutva intellectual has just helped deport a white researcher from India by uttering brazen lies to Modi’s immigration department.
9/Oct/2025. Robin’s mail:
Vijayan – wah! wah! I’ve interacted with Mallory by email quite a bit a few months ago. She seems very diligent, a bit naive, and like lots of us who have done PhDs, was still figuring out what her thesis is really about. She’s attached to the U of Heidelberg and also an Italian university.
Why would Devika dump her in it? I think I’ve met Devika once at Shimla 15 or so years ago. I admire Devika’s work in digging out and writing about women’s writing of the early 20th century, but I didn’t realize that as well as being prickly as a pear, she would, knowing the Osella case, knowing the RSS project going on all over, stuff up a grad student. Misunderstanding? A very cursory relationship with Mallory so that D genuinely didn’t connect her to the questions being asked by “the authorities”?
At Heidelberg, Mallory is attached to Kama Maclean, who is my old friend and who did a PhD with us at La Trobe U twenty years ago. Kama is very good – tough, clever, energetic, effective. As this plays out, I’m sure I’ll be hearing from her.
I’ll keep you posted. Please let me know what you might come across at your end.
Hope you and Rosie are okay and happily busy. Very best wishes – Robin
My answer, copied and pasted.
Dear Robin,
Mallory was a little like you and Assa and some other researchers I’ve known — always working. While you had questions and index cards on which you noted your observations, Mallory used her phone to both record and take photos. Every item of food she had, whether here at home or at a restaurant, she would want to know what the ingredients were, how it was cooked, where the originals were from etc etc. All her questions were about things connected to her work.
I have no idea why Devika behaved as she did. Some guesses.
Devika is one of the loudest anti Modi voices in Kerala. Not just anti Modi, but also anti Pinarayi and CMP. Her passport is up for renewal. The passports are issued and renewed by the Union Government. I am sure the IB has a box file on her statements. She is a big star here, one of the biggest. She used to be on social media. I am not sure if she is still there. While she does seem to have some good work behind her on women in Kerala history, deep inside she is just another avarna / Nair woman happy with traditional arrangements and structures.
Once Rosie and I met her at a funeral. Sugatha Kumari, poetess and environmentalist and probably the most powerful voice among cultural leaders in Kerala in about half a century, had passed away and we were making our way out of her home. It was crowded and as we were slowly picking our way through the crowd, D appeared. She stopped Rosie and told her, it is wonderful that you should write these very funny books because everyone knows that humour is a male thing. I am glad your writing career is doing well. Humour, a male thing? Was she a Christopher Hitchens, making a similar statement and trying to back it up with some dubious arguments? Hitchens was torn apart by friends, male and female.
I have listened to D a few times. She is great at provoking people. She can attack with very eloquent Malayalam, coining phrases that then enter popular usage. She was the one who called Pinarayi Vijayan, CPM leader and current CM, “mundu udutha Modi” or Modi in a Mundu. Won huge applause for it. She is a little addicted to this kind of adulation, I suspect.
She loves to shock and is an effective serial shocker. She studied at Women’s College when I was teaching there. Did a BA in history. Never attended lectures. Used to bad mouth all her lecturers, except, I think, Salim Balakrishnan. Could always be seen walking around the campus with a few fans around her. Often with her arms around an admirer on each side.
Went to Delhi and JNU and turned totally postmodern. Which meant, at least the way I saw her, that she could say anything and everything without bothering about being consistent or rational or coherent. Knew and used the jargon very well. Tvm had its share of would-be Devikas.
She will speak with authority on topics she has absolutely no idea about. One example. There is a writer named K R Meera who wrote a novel titled ‘Aarachaar’ some years ago. It means hangman. But her hangman was a woman. D drummed up support for the book to such an extent that it became a huge hit. Most people I know said it was in atrocious Malayalam and became a hit only because of D’s taking on the role of its marketing manager.
At its book release I heard her say that it was a challenge trying to get the correct rhythm of Meera’s Malayalam into English. Oblivious of the fact that English is a stress based language and Malayalam is not. Malayalam is spoken with equal emphasis on every syllable. If she had attended her English lectures during her BA she may have picked up some phonetics, which was then prescribed and which may have given her insights into both English and Malayalam phonetics.
The writer who comes to mind who succeeded in capturing Indian rhythms in English is Raja Rao. His ‘Kanthapura’ has a short introduction in which Rao tells his readers that his biggest challenge was to capture the rhythms of Indian languages in English. ‘Kanthapura’ is unique and does read like a Tamil or Kannada novel.
D knew nothing about any of these, but pretended to be master of all.
The one thing I did not fathom about Mallory was her fascination for Devika. Almost drooled over her. At CDS everyone thinks D is one of the great intellectuals of India or the world. She is incredibly superficial and shallow. But in the world of the blind she is the undisputed myopic and squint-eyed queen.
Devika has applied for renewal of her passport. It is highly unlikely that the Union government will look kindly at her application. She is unintelligent enough to think, I suspect, that she can earn some points to her credit by exposing and getting deported a “colonial”, a white person who had to be exposed.
Mallory had repeatedly asked her about maintaining a record of the work she was doing at CDS. K was cavalier about it and told her you can do what you like, you do not have to keep any records. Just tell anyone at CDS who has a question that you are my ward. But Mallory did maintain a record. Everyday she would jot down what she had done, whom she had interviewed etc.
Devika passed on her letterhead with the CDS name and logo to Mallory for something. Wanting to make her record of work done look authentic Mallory used the letterhead.
This, she now feels, was a mistake. This has made it possible for D to state that she had nothing to do with the record. That she never signed on any of the papers. Technically, that is right. She told Mallory do the work you must, don’t report to me but tell anyone who asks that I am your guide or co-guide or whatever. When Mallory used the letterhead D had given her, complete with the institution’s logo, it enabled D to say I had nothing to do with it. The letterhead was probably forged or stolen.
That was the final nail in Mallory’s coffin, so to speak. The immigration authorities who questioned her were laughing over the phone, she said, when she tried to explain some of this.
They rang up when she was at Bombay airport. Why did you leave Kerala without permission, she was asked. Apparently her researcher’s visa was valid only inside Kerala State. She assumed that a visa applied to the whole country. No one told her she could only travel in Kerala with that visa. I find this very odd. I wonder if the chaps at immigration were bluffing.
Whatever it is, she is now accused of fraud and will find it tough to worm her way out of this. I have promised to look for a good immigration lawyer so she can fight the case. I will ask my lawyer and friend, Suresh Venkatachalam, to suggest some good advocate who specialises in such cases. But I have asked her to try to get someone from Delhi, using her partner’s contacts. Delhi would be a better bet.
More on this sad story when I hear of any developments. Will keep you posted.
Vijayan
21/Oct/2025. Tuesday. About 3.45 p.m. Mail from Mallory and my reply. [Copied and pasted.]
Hi Vijaya (and Khyru),
I am finally back working and in the flow of life, starting to feel like everything is normal. I guess that is what they mean when they say time heals all.
No more word from D, luckily, and no more word from the situation. All my supervisors do not approve of me returning to India anytime soon and for sure not before my current visa expires (July 2026). Apparently, if you get another visa on top of a valid one it raises many many red flags. I have accepted this fate and will stay put working until I can return safely. Its all unfortunate, but it could be a blessing in disguise to rely on my networks and get my work done remotely. I will just focus myself on writing and reading the materials I already have.
All of my supervisors (3) are on my side and are disappointed in the situation, but will support me through it. I will be talking to Filippo Osella tomorrow.
How is everything there?
Talk soon,
Mallory
To this I replied, close to 4 p.m.
My dear Mallory,
Thanks for the mail and the update.
For the time being, I suppose this is as good as it can get.
Here I have not heard anything about the Devil woman, not even from those I know are or were her admirers. All quiet on the Devika front.
It should be possible, using a contact or so, to find out what’s going on at CDS but I imagine that you are better informed about it.
It’s still raining regularly and, occasionally, with very strong winds and warnings of thunderstorms. The north east monsoon, the second of the two monsoons Kerala usually receives, could not be distinguished from the south-west monsoon. Most years, the monsoon departs after Deepavali; this year there is yet no sign of that happening. Even as I type this it is cloudy and threatening to rain. Except that usually the north east monsoon has bright, sunny mornings and heavy thundershowers in the evening. Now it is gray and threatens to rain 24×7.
I am really happy you are over this particular hump.
Can I speculate a bit, Mallory?
I think that if in a future general election, which is an agonising four years away, a non religious, non Hindutva coalition comes to power, the IB and other wings of the government will change their policies and become much more reasonable and tolerant. Or so I hope. They might, then, reconsider a lot of the decisions taken by the previous regime.
I normally think of myself as a cheerful pessimist, but in this case I am hoping that such a turn will take place and sunny days will be here again.
Meanwhile continue with your work and all the things you do. If I were in your shoes I would be wary of my social media postings, since I think at least two governments, the desi one and the one led by the Donald, are keeping tabs on all that you do.
Whenever I feel a little blue, I think of what you have been through and how you bore it all with fortitude and stoicism. I hope to become a bit of a stoic as I get older and I am full of admiration for how you put up with all this torture and held on to your sanity.
High fives, Mallory. A couple of fist bumps too.
Love and best wishes,
Vijayan
PS
When you talk to Osella you can tell him, if you find the time, that you have a friend here who has read his work, listened to him once at a public lecture in Tvm, knew his guide Leela Gulati the anthropologist once attached to CDS, is a very close friend of Jeffrey’s and keeps wishing him well.
Should he ever find his way back to Trivandrum, I would love to meet him.
^#
[That sounds like closure, at least for the time being. Mallory is much calmer that she was, is focussed on her work and is determined to carry on. Must mail Robin.]
P. Vijaya Kumar / PVK
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