Discrimination against elected Dalit panchayat presidents reveals entrenched caste-based hate and bias

The recent incidents of humiliation of Dalit women panchayat presidents in Tamil Nadu reveal the extent of caste-based hate, but social media has given a voice to the oppressed.

Published : Oct 23, 2020 06:00 IST

April 6, 2002:  Karutha Kannan (sitting on the floor), who won the Keeripatti village panchayat president election but resigned soon afterwards.

April 6, 2002: Karutha Kannan (sitting on the floor), who won the Keeripatti village panchayat president election but resigned soon afterwards.

For Dalits in Tamil Nadu, political empowerment at the grass-roots level is an illusion and will remain so because entrenched regressive caste Hindu groups strongly resist attempts at dismantling the power structures they have established over the years.

Ever since the nationwide lockdown owing to the coronavirus pandemic began in late March villages in Tamil Nadu have recorded a sudden spurt in atrocities against Dalits. More than 100 atrocities, mainly social, against Dalits were reported from across the State.

Discrimination against elected Dalit representatives, both men and women, has been a constant feature in the three-tier local bodies in the State since the first election to these bodies in 1996. Many elected Dalit presidents were killed, driven out of their villages or forced to remain puppets of dominant caste lobbies. In a bid to revitalise the democratic process, the Tamil Nadu government reserved 34 per cent of all village panchayat president posts for women and 25 per cent for Scheduled Castes in the 12,618 village panchayats in the State.

However, recent incidents where a Dalit woman president in Tiruvalur district was denied the right to unfurl the national flag on Independence Day and another Dalit woman president in Cuddalore district was forced to sit on the floor during a panchayat meeting, highlighted the strong prevalence of caste-based hate in rural Tamil Nadu that has prevented political empowerment of the marginalised weaker sections of society.

Atrocities against women

Saravanakumar Rajeswari (37), president of the Therkuthittai reserved village panchayat of Bhuvanagiri Union in Cuddalore district, was humiliated when the vice president, who belongs to the Vanniyar community, a Most Backward Caste, forced her to sit on the floor at a meeting in the panchayat office on July 17. The issue came to light after a picture of her seated on the floor went viral on social media. All the others, including ward members, were seated on plastic chairs.

The widespread criticism of the incident forced the government to institute an inquiry by the District Collector, Chandra Sekhar Sakhamuri.. Rajeswari accused the vice president, Mohan Raj, and panchayat office secretary Sinduja of humiliating her since she was a Dalit. The Collector initiated necessary action. Rajeswari also alleged that the vice president used to hoist the national flag at all functions while she would stand on the sidelines.

In her police complaint preferred on October 10, a copy of which is available with Frontline , she claimed that at a meeting held on July 17, she and another ward member named Suganthi, also a Dalit, were made to sit on the floor while the vice president and other ward members and Sinduja sat on chairs. “Since I thought of doing service to the people who elected me, I preferred not to reveal this discrimination to anyone till recently,” she noted in her complaint. While the vice-president was absconding, the secretary was arrested along with a ward member, R. Sugumar. Cases under Sections 3(1)(m) and 3(1)(r) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act 2015 were registered.

Earlier, on Independence Day, in Tiruvallur district, a woman Dalit president,V. Amurtham, 60, said that she was invited to hoist the flag at a government school in her own Athupakkam village. However, at the last moment the school authorities told her not to come and cited COVID as the reason. The flag hoisting ceremony was held at the school despite COVID but without the president. Amurtham claimed that she was not allowed to hoist the flag because she was a Dalit. She said she had been denied the right to hoist the flag on Republic Day too.

The State Human Rights Commission suo motu took up the issue and sought a report from the government. After the incident flared up on social media, the district administration organised an event on August 20 in which Amrutham hoisted the flag at the panchayat office with the District Collector as a keen participant.

Exactly a week later, another such incident surfaced, this time from Coimbatore district, where V. Saridha, president of the J . Krishnapuram panchayat, was allegedly harassed and discriminated against. She told mediapersons that she was not allowed to function because of a gang of casteist elements in the village. She said that she tolerated their casteist slurs since she wanted peace in the village.

“But one person, Balasubramaniam, who belonged to a dominant caste in the Kongu region, barged into my office one day and started threatening me with dire consequences. He insisted that whenever he came to the office I must stand as a mark of respect to him,” she said. On the basis of her complaint, the police registered cases under Sections 3(1)(m), 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act.

Violence against Dalit men

Male Dalit presidents have faced violent acts of discrimination since 1996, which ended either in murder or brutal assault on a few occasions. A. Kadir, a Madurai-based social activist, told Frontline that six Dalit presidents had been killed in caste-based violence in Tamil Nadu since 1996. The worst perhaps was the violence relating to the June 1997 election at Melavalavu village panchayat in Madurai district. Seven Dalits, including village president Murugesan, were brutally killed for defying the diktat of the caste Hindus, the Ambalams, and contesting the election. The election had been postponed twice because the caste Hindus boycotted it in protest against the village being reserved for Dalits in 1996.

The Dalit president of Maruthangudi village in Madurai district, V. Nagar, was not even allowed to enter his village after he won the panchayat election in 1998. His crime: he contested against the wishes of the Piramalai Kallars, the majority community. He was severely beaten and forced to resign after the election and driven out of the village with his family. When this correspondent met him then, he was earning a living riding a cycle rickshaw in Madurai city.

Similarly, following vicious opposition from Piramalai Kallars, elections for the reserved village panchayats of Pappapatti and Keeripatti in Madurai district and Kottakatchinendal in the neighbouring Virudhunagar district could not be held for long. The caste Hindus, opposing the reserved status, refused to participate in the election process. They either did not allow a Dalit to file papers or fielded a puppet candidate who would be asked to resign immediately. This continued until 2006. The State intervened through legislative action to hold elections. It extended the reserved status of these village panchayats and forced all concerned to participate in the elections. However, to date the Dalit presidents of these two villages have not been able to function independently. In fact, in 2002, the then village president of Keeripatti, Karutha Kannan, was forced to sit on the floor of the village tea stall to drink tea.

Although the Tamil Nadu government enacted the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act in April 1994, it came into force only in May 1996 during the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) regime. The first ordinary elections for all rural and urban local bodies were held in October 1996. To ensure equitable participation of all sections of the society, the government, as per Article 243 D of the Constitution, which relates to reservation and rotation of seats for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Women in rural local bodies, made relevant provisions in the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act, 1994, and supplemented it with the Tamil Nadu Panchayats (Reservation of Seats and Rotation of Reserved Seats) Rules, 1995.

Worried over the unsavoury developments in villages like Pappapatti and Keeripatti, where it could not conduct elections until 2006, the government brought about an amendment to Rule 7 of the Tamil Nadu Panchayats (Reservation of Seats and Rotation of Reserved Seats) Rules, 1995, on September 1, 2006, in which it specifically stated: “The offices of the presidents of the Pappapatti, Keeripatti and Nattarmangalam Panchayats in Madurai district and Kottakatchiyendal village panchayat in Virudhunagar district reserved for Scheduled Castes shall continue to be reserved as such until the government direct otherwise.” In fact, only after the amendment were elections held there.

It is unfortunate that in a country where Dalits are able to become the President, they are not allowed to function as village panchayat presidents.

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