CHENNAI: The Boyar and Oddar communies have been in the midst of an identity crisis with a part of the community identified as Most Backward Class and the other as Scheduled Caste.
The 25 lakh-strong Oddar community, which was promised to be brought under the same caste bracket as Boyar, Bandi and Kotta, still finds itself categorised differently. While Bandi and Kotta communities were classified as Scheduled Castes, the Oddar and Boyar were classified as Most Backward Classes, resulting in confusion among the community.
“We are already a downtrodden community. While a part of us is put under the Scheduled Caste bracket, the other half is classified as Most Backward Class. This is discriminatory,” said the president of the Bandi-Godda (Oddar) Samukha Makkal Peravai, C J Sridaharashekhar.
Even a study by the Anthropology department of Madras University stated that Boyar, Oddar, Bandi and Godda were synonymous groups acquiring different identities over a period of time in different geographic areas. “All of them share a past of harijans.
While Bandi and Godda are categorised under the Scheduled Caste category, it is simply logical that the other two synonymous groups Boyar and Oddar too are categorised as SC,” the study has stated.
Although the Adi-dravidar welfare department rejected the recommendations by the university, the community pinned their hopes on the DMK government, which highlighted their demands in its election manifesto.
Interestingly, the state yielded to the Supreme Court guidelines laid down in Kumari Madhuri Patil versus Additional Commissioner Tribal Development by forming a district level vigilance committee in the state to scrutinise the genuineness of the community certificates and treating them as one in Tiruvanamalai district in April 2010, Sridaharashekhar added.
“We all are one community but the government has classified us into different sub-castes and denied the community the reservation,” he said.
He said the government should conduct a similar study across the state to end the confusion. The community would organise a conference to arrive at a decision to vote for a party that vows to fulfil their demands.
