The bushy public playground in Palayamkottai stands as a metaphor for caste differences. The untended open stretch in this twin town of Tirunelveli silently speaks of how things can change for the worse with a single fight.
Unused for the last three years, it has deprived the local children of the space they need to play outdoors. A rusty board hangs forlornly, put up there by the police prevents entry to the premises. It’s a stark reminder of what happened in 2006 during and after a cricket match in this downstate Tamil Nadu town. A 15-year-old boy hacked to death his rival team’s leader with an aruva, the dreaded elongated sickle.
The boy was not armed when rival team members, whom he had questioned during the game, took him there for ‘talks’. When one of the rivals pulled out a hidden aruva, the boy managed to grab it and attack the rival leader. “It was in the ground that he killed a Nadar leader,” says the boy, now a reformed person, while recalling the incident that sent him to jail and then to a juvenile home before he was freed. Belonging to the Thevar community, he was conscious of the caste differences even then.
Not just in sports, even in normal social interaction, caste pride has a dominant role in the lives of the people in Tirunelveli district. It’s an identity one imbibes at a very early age. “It is very normal in Tirunelveli,” says a senior professor of a reputed college in Palayamkottai, “for school and college students to stand mobilised on caste lines and fight over petty issues.”
The head of an NGO recalls an incident. “We spotted two student groups belonging to different communities fighting with knives at St John’s Higher Secondary School,” says Joseph Kennedy, director of Tirunelveli Social Service Society. “An immediate alert to the police helped us thwart a bloodbath.”
Most bloody deaths in the district — it has recorded over 60 in 2009 alone — have a caste colour to it. The caste prejudices with which school children grow up
develop into deep-seated enmity as it happened in the recent killing of Muthuramalingam Thevar. His son Rajadurai and Jeyaprakash were rivals from their school days, and each had a gang of boys from their caste. Last year, what began as a trivial fight during a temple festival kindled the rivalry, and Jeyaprakash killed Muthuramalingam.
Caste pride has gripped women too. An educated lady killed a youth from another caste just because he dared to fall in love with her daughter. On April 14 this year, Chitra Devi (45) of the Nadar community, who had worked as post-master in Tirunelveli, murdered Muthu Ganesh, a youth from the Thevar community, by spiking his drink with pesticide. Since her daughter Kalairani was in love with the boy, Chitra Devi invited him for lunch and served him a glass of fruit juice mixed with poison because ‘caste honour’ was more important to her than anything.
But when the ganging up on caste lines ends in the formation of criminal gangs, it breeds professional killers who murder for money. Rajiv of Chettikulam, Koliarul of Perumalpuram, Suresh of Tiruvaikundram and Kittappa of Kanachapuram are rowdies who started off as members of groups that took up arms to uphold caste honour. Of late, they have gotten into contract killing. The advent of finance companies and real estate businesses give them work; they act as mercenaries for businessmen from their own community to settle ‘disputes’.
Besides, the gangs of Thevars and Nadars, the two dominant caste groups among the Backward Classes, even
a few Dalit gangs have become active of late. It started with the Dalit assertion of the 1980s that saw the emergence of a few Dalit political parties. Early this year, Kumalai, a Dalit rowdy, while in prison, directed his henchmen to murder a popular Thevar rowdy, Mathan, of Suthamalli — somebody who had murdered four Dalits and even attacked Puthiya Tamizhagam leader Dr K Krishnasamy.
One major reason for such incidents is the persistent discrimination faced by Dalits, who had earlier been targeted for attacks by the BCs. In the last seven months, the district has reported five caste conflicts that killed more than five Dalits. In 2007, the district had seen the highest number — eight cases — contributing to 20.51 per cent of the total murders reported against Scheduled Castes, as per the State Crime Records Bureau statistics. The figures for 2008 are yet to be released.
Though the history of Tirunelveli is replete with caste violence, the incidents are termed as law and order problems. “You can’t dismiss these like that,” says K A Manikumar, a historian and registrar of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University. “Rather it is only the reflection of a deep social malaise that plagues most parts of Tirunelveli.”
Manikumar, in his report on ‘Social Violence in Tirunelveli’ about the 1995 caste conflict in the district submitted to the University Grant Commission, noted the feudal social structure has to change for the people to escape the unjust social condition. Otherwise, “they will be deprived of the chance to realise their human potential, which would only perpetuate caste violence”.
Importantly, the study also observes that unemployed educated youth play a decisive role in the caste conflict. From both castes, after all, educated youth too take part in the riots. And, incidentally, most of these youths operate as caste-based criminal gangs, he adds.
— gogul.vannan@gmail.com
Kandasamy knows it best
Almost three decades have passed since Kandasamy (name changed) first stepped into the central prison in Palayamkottai, but the first question he faced is still ripe in the memory of this now-reformed criminal. “Which caste do you
belong to?” asked the official as the Tirunelveli man was brought into the cell in 1980. For, segregation on caste lines is the in thing in the jail. The blocks meant for remand prisoners are divided into two sectors — one for the Nadars, the other for Dalits. As for the Thevars, they are locked up in one portion of a separate building meant for lifetime convicts.
As there was no space available for Kandasamy, a Thevar, in the blocks allocated for convicts of his caste, he was asked to stay in a cell meant for the Muslims. “They treated me well; changed my name to Nazeer. They gave me the food they cook in the cells, and made me join their namaz,” notes Kandasamy.
Later, he was moved to a cell for Thevars. “We cooked together and shared our caste feeling,” he says, adding he even became popular in the fellow community.
Prison authorities explain that such enclosures are necessary to prevent caste clashes inside the prison. The chances of their perpetuating casteism don’t bother them. For instance, Kandasamy recalls that several unfamiliar people used to pay patronising visits to him. “They even also used to give me money.” So much so, by the time he was released, Kandasamy had Rs 32,000 with him.
After his release, the Muslims he met in the prison came to his house and asked him to join them. They offered to teach him the Quran and Tamil in a Madrasa in Madurai. Kandasamy refused, but his friendship with them continued for long.
Same-caste superior gets an extra salute
Ivan namma jathikkaaran, thambi’’ (He is our from our caste, brother) is a common phrase heard in the corridors of police stations in Tirunelveli district if it’s an influential person who walks in to get things done — say, the release of a man in the lock-up.
The singular phrase sums up the way connections are made. It means that at least three parties are from the same caste: the benefactor, the suspect and the police officer. This sense of camaraderie is common to all castes. That, in turn, has divided the police department on the
basis of caste. So if a policeman’s superior is from his caste, he feels better and even addresses the officer by name or even with other local friendly salutations like ‘annamakka’.
An unhealthy work culture, particularly when caste can be the very motive of a crime. So, the department recently cracked the whip by transferring three inspectors. In fact, there have been instances where police officers have shown caste discrimination even in investigating crimes. When a caste gang robbed a certain Subbu Reddier of Maharaja Nagar at gunpoint, the local inspector didn’t probe the case properly. Action was taken against the gang only after a senior police officer intervened.
In another case, when two Dalits were murdered by some caste Hindus following a tussle that broke out in connection with worshipping in a temple in Senthadi of Sankarkoil Taluk, the police inspector called the members of that caste to locate the bodies that were missing. And all this, right in front of the Dalits who had gone to complain.
In fact, a 1994 government order stipulates that police officers above the rank of sub-inspector posted in southern districts, particularly Tirunelveli, should not belong to certain dominant castes in the region. “But,” rues a police officer, “the norms are not followed properly.”
What’s more, another officer says, “caste groups manage to get officers of their castes posted in the district through political influence and ensure that those reporting to him are also of the same caste.” Not surprisingly, most officers of the rank of inspector operate only on caste lines, deploying cops of their caste to work in their station houses.
— GV