SIVAGANGA: Kachanatham is a tiny village in Sivaganga district, located roughly 47 km from Madurai. The last 6 km of this journey make for a bumpy ride on a mud road that only allows for one vehicle at a time. The village has been in the news over the past week after a gang of caste Hindus allegedly attacked the Dalit villagers on Monday night. K Arumugam and A Shanmuganathan died on the spot, and V Chandrasekar died in the Government Rajaji Hospital on Thursday. Five others were injured. The families of the deceased, staging a sit-in of 100, had refused to accept the bodies of their kin till Friday. Their demands had included that the village be designated atrocity-prone, and that a CB-CID probe be launched into the incident.
The root of the violence stems from a trend that has been seen across the country: as Dalit communities become more educated and empowered, they refuse to kowtow to old caste practices. At least that is how the Dalit villagers Express met over the week, explained the violence, claiming that those who were the backbone for the community had been targeted. While Arumugam was a farmer, his son was in the army. Shanmughanathan had an MSc in Agriculture and is said to have guided villagers in farming.
According to the district administration, there are 79 Dalit families and six caste Hindu families in the village. While some of the Dalits have their own land, many were agricultural labourers. Some were educated and worked outside the village. The Dalit villagers Express met said that till about a year ago, Dalit families had worked on the land of the caste Hindus, all of whom are related. However, a year ago, the younger generation of Dalits proposed that they work their own land. Two among the younger generation had degrees in agriculture. The caste Hindus had been given honours at the annual temple festival, but this year they were denied the honours.
It was against this background that one of the caste Hindus allegedly got into an altercation with some Dalit villagers, leading to the Dalit men filing a police complaint against him at the Palaiyanur police station 5km away. The attack followed just days later.
“The assailants disconnected the electric supply beforehand and they showed no mercy as they brutally stabbed my uncles and cousins,” recalled 16-year-old Malini*, the niece of one of the men who died.According to villagers, the assailants, all armed, first went to the houses of the men involved in the original altercation. But those men, one a policeman, another a jawan, were not there. They allegedly killed Shanmughanathan and Arumugham who both reportedly died on the spot. Villagers allege that police took an hour to reach the spot (police denied the charge) and that the ambulance came after that.
The next morning five caste Hindu youths surrendered. They were arrested under Sections 307, 302 and under provisions of the SC/ST act. The families and the lawyers of the accused could not be reached for a response.
However, the Dalit villagers claim that this is not the first incident of violence against them. They say that a Dalit man had been assaulted by a caste Hindu in the past year but police did not act on the complaint. A police personnel claimed there had actually been two police cases before the attack. When asked for details, police said they would check. Meanwhile, two sub-inspectors of the Palaiyanur police station were transferred even as the National Commission for Scheduled Castes urged the district administration to announce the village as ‘atrocity prone’.
Identification of villages as atrocity-prone is a provision of the SC/ST Act. As many as 223 villages are classified as atrocity-prone in Tamil Nadu and 347 villages are classified as dormant atrocity-prone. Identifying a village as such, triggers a series of steps that include law and order reviews every quarter, deployment of special police and initiation of awareness workshops.
Dalit leaders want the Kachanatham attack not be viewed as an isolated incident but as another in a series of violence against the community. Dalit activist B Pandiyarajan said, “If a Dalit occupies a higher rank in office, the caste Hindu person working under the Dalit refuses to cooperate and still treats him as Dalit. They don’t look at him/her as official personnel and show respect for the post,” he said, adding that there is a difference between atrocity against for Dalits for rising up in the social ladder and atrocity for challenging the anti-Dalit activities of caste Hindus. “This incident is perfect example of the second, as Dalits started raising voices against the caste Hindu and so the caste Hindus attacked,” he said.
However, activists stress that it is the failure of police and district administration to properly implement the Prevention of Atrocities against SC/STs Act that has made Dalits even more vulnerable.
VCK general secretary Ravikumar, for instance, has demanded a CBI probe into the incident on the grounds that he suspects involvement of police personnel. “Despite being aware of the problem between the communities, the police failed to take any steps to control it. The district administration has not conducted periodic review meetings related to SC/ST Act cases, he said, adding that the State government should announce the district as atrocity-prone.
Dalits are fewer in numbers in these parts of the southern districts of TN and caste Hindus are dominant.
Moreover police personnel and political members also support the caste Hindus, which has made them brazen, said Ravikumar.
Indeed, Sirudevi from Kachanatham, whose son Sukumaran and husband Dhanasekaran sustained serious injuries in the attack, said, “Those men (assailants) even now ridicule us asking how long will police protection continue and say that they will finish us all off even if it takes 10 more years.” Her son had aspired to become an IAS officer. “He wanted to bring a change. But, these men couldn’t stand us progressing,” she said.
Arogya Mary, district secretary of Tamil Desiya Makkal Munnani, pointed out that progress of the community was challenging caste hierarchies. “Caste Hindus cannot digest the fact that Dalits now own properties like bike, bureau, television and others. Their first move in such attacks is to damage the property that allows the Dalit to ‘raise their collars’ against caste Hindus. This is so that if the property is lost, the Dalit is forced to start from scratch and work for them again,” she argued. She pointed out that even Dalit political parties only work with sub-sections of Dalits instead of treating them as one community.
General secretary of Liberation Movement S Karuppaiya too faulted the police on failing to implement the act properly. “In most of the cases which have to be dealt with by police of rank equivalent to DSP, a police constable conducts inquiry and DSP-rank officials simply act as signing authority,” he said.
“If a caste Hindu uses filthy words against a Dalit for entering a temple, the police register a case for using filthy language but not under the relevant sections of SC/ST Act for preventing a Dalit from entering the temple,” he added. Karuppaiya added that when he filed an RTI demanding the status or action taken in cases filed under SC/ST Act in the last two decades, the government responded saying that there was no record of the status.
(with inputs from Lalitha Ranjani)
Law diluted, say experts
The recent Supreme Court judgment that is viewed by experts as having diluted provisions of the Act to protect public servants and individuals from arbitrary and immediate arrest has also favoured caste Hindus, Arogya Mary and other activists said
* name changed to protect identity of a minor.