In October last year, intermediate caste parents refused to send their children to a school in Tamil Nadu because it had hired a Dalit cook. They did not want their children to eat meals cooked by a Dalit. The news provoked widespread anger, as widespread as the problem itself. Earlier this week, RTI queries revealed that a whopping 640 villages in Tamil Nadu still practice untouchability.
These villages are spread across 20 districts, North to South. It’s common knowledge that the Dravidian movement, the biggest reformist movement in the recent history of Tamil Nadu, failed to destroy casteism in the state. Instead, it resulted in a change in the caste dynamics. And the oppression of Dalits continues.
There have been several instances in the recent past which indicate that this divide and oppression are growing—as in the case of the violence-hit Ponparappi, where several houses of Dalits were damaged by members of a dominant community on the polling day. While the media highlights only the bigger cases, there are a million smaller conflicts happening in the rural parts of the state, unnoticed by urbanites or policymakers in the capital.
On Friday, a minor argument during a football match in Panruti flared into a casteist clash. Four houses and 10 public transport buses were damaged, and four people were injured in the clash. While some activists blame the unending prejudice on lack of enforcement of laws by the police, experts say the bigger issue isn’t these episodes or outbursts, but deep-seated casteism.
Education and awareness, they say, will have a more significant impact than mere law enforcement. Individuals will then be empowered to make a choice, not to fall for political designs that aim to capitalise on social polarisation. Ironically, the latest data says most of the villages found to be practicing untouchability fall in the Tiruvarur district, a stronghold of the late DMK patriarch and Dravidian ideologue M Karunanidhi. A surprising turn of events, indeed.
