KASARGOD: For over four decades, Mankukutty T, 60, a member of Moger Scheduled Caste community, has been working as a coconut and arecanut plucker for a ‘pattar’ — a term the workers use to describe the wealthy and landed Brahmins. Every evening, Mankukutty waits with cupped hands and stretched arms at the landlord’s courtyard to receive his daily wage. “The pattar will stand at the wraparound of the house and drop the wage into my hands,” said the Tulu-speaking Mankukutty.
The ‘pattar’ not only ensures he does not touch Mankukutty, but also makes it a point to be seen not touching him. “If the pattar is not around, the woman of the house will place the money on the wraparound and step back.” The coconut plucker would take the money and leave the courtyard.This is not a practise of the bygone era. In Kasargod district’s gram panchayats that border Karnataka, untouchability and caste discrimination is part of everyday life. “I still receive my wage like that,” said Mankukutty, a resident of Thottathumoola colony in Bellur panchayat, just 40km from Kasargod town.
But now there is a certain defiance in his voice and sounds unhappy about it. The other residents of the colony and neighbouring Posolige colony too have stopped working for the landlord. “They realised the brutality of this discrimination when Manku’s son Ravi was left to die when he was bitten by a snake while working for the pattar,” said Jayan Kadakam, a local leader of the DYFI.