Dalits of a village in Coimbatore district have been forced to seek police protection to construct a drainage in their village. A section of Pooluva Gounders, the dominant caste group in Pooluvapalayam village in Ottarpalayam panchayat, opposed the construction of drainage from the Dalit colony that will pass through their drainage system. Construction work has now been resumed with police protection.
Four months ago, the Block Development Officer (BDO) decided to link the drainage in the Dalit colony to the already existing drainage system that ran through the area where the Pooluva Gounders reside. But when the construction began, the Pooluva Gounders – a dominant caste group in Tamil Nadu – opposed the work as they were not ready to allow the sewage water from Dalit Colony to pass through the drainage system in their locality.
Since then, the district administration has conducted peace talks twice between the two groups. Annur police have been deployed since June 20 in the Dalit colony to monitor work and stop untoward incidents between the two communities. In Pooluvampalayam, 250 Pooluva Gounder families live on one side of the village and Dalits live on another side of the village. The Dalit colony is named Adi Dravidar (AD) Colony.
Talking to TNM, a Dalit resident from the village said that the Dalit colony has 160 households. Among them, 30 houses do not have a drainage system. “These 30 houses are located on the east side of our village, while the remaining 130 Dalit households are on the west side where the drainage system is established. It was easy for the Block Development office to link the drainage line of the 30 households to the drainage system in the Gounders locality as it was impossible to redirect the line to the drainage system in the western area of the Dalit colony,” he said.
After the work was stalled, the Dalits approached the Panchayat president and the BDO but failed to get a response. They approached the District Collector's office next. Even that did not yield any result. According to the resident, the Dalits announced a sit-in protest inside the Panchayat Union office on June 12. On hearing about the protest, the district officials visited the residents and held a ‘peace talk’.
“The Gounders were not interested in peace talks and they clearly said they would not allow the construction work. They agreed to allow the work to proceed in another meeting on June 13. But, when construction workers came here for the work, they opposed it,” he further added.
Raman, who is in charge of Annur Thandhai Periyar Dravida Kazhagam, told TNM that Pooluva Gounders had agreed to allow the work to continue if their demands were met. “They demanded the construction work begin from their locality, and they also wanted the entire drainage line covered. Those were genuine demands and BDO officials accepted them. But a week later, when the workers reached the village, Pooluva Gounders arranged a bus to discuss the matter with the Collector’s office,” Raman added. Later, his organisation informed the matter to the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP). Based on DSP’s directions, construction work began under police guard.