On Saturday, February 11, in Thoothukudi district’s Naduvakurichi, the family of a 72-year-old man from the Pallar community (Scheduled Caste) were prohibited from using a public road leading to the common crematorium. The Other Backward Class (OBC) Nadar community allegedly refused to allow the family access to the road, which falls under the Manakkarai panchayat, to carry out the funeral procession. The Nadars refused to allow the Dalit family to take the funeral procession through the main road and forced them to access the crematorium through the paddy fields instead. This is one of many such incidents to have taken place in the area, the village residents tell TNM.
T Shanmugam, a local activist and PhD scholar in Economics from MS University, Tirunelveli says, “This kind of discrimination has been prevalent for many decades in the area. People are forced to use the paddy fields instead of the road that is common to four villages. In 2018, when my father died, I carried out a protest until I was able to take his body through the main road. I threatened to leave his body on the road itself if they didn’t allow me to go through.” Shanmugam says that was a rare incident when someone from the Pallar community was able to use the road for a funeral procession.
“My father was a former Union government employee. Our family is given a certain amount of respect, but that doesn’t mean that anything else has changed for others,” Shanumugam adds. The activist also alleges that the discriminatory behaviour by the Nadars happens through the backing of the Maravar (also OBC) caste. Maravars belong to the politically powerful Thevar caste cluster of Tamil Nadu.
Shanumugam’s protest, as previously mentioned, was a rare success, despite push back from the Nadars who even went to the extent of filing a police complaint against him, he says. “Even until two to three years ago there were no bridges over the canals in the paddy fields. People would have to use makeshift floats with banana stems and drag the bodies across the water,” he says.
Abirami, an assistant professor at a local private college and a resident of the Dalit colony, adds, “They want the old ways to remain and they claim Dalit bodies being taken through the public road are polluting. People have made complaints to the police, we have given a letter to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Commission, but nothing has been done.”