End discrimination

Caste violence and the police firing that followed it, which took six lives in Tamil Nadu’s Ramanathapuram district on Sunday, show that the embers of caste tensions that lie just under the surface of society can break into flames any time. Accidental or even flimsy reasons provoke them but it would be wrong to assume that they are happenstance.

The groundswell of tension finds vent in different ways and for some reason or the other. So the unwelcome comment on an icon of the Thevar community on a village wall, written by a Dalit boy, could only be considered as the immediate cause of all the unfortunate events that followed it.  The boy was killed and the Dalits who were protesting against the killing and the detention of a leader, were fired upon by the police. The area is still tense.

It is ironical that Tamil Nadu, which has a history of fight against caste oppression, has recently witnessed many conflicts between intermediate castes and Dalits. The intermediate castes, like the Thevars, had gained from the social reform movement. They became economically and politically strong. Dalits who have for long been at the receiving end of caste discrimination and oppression and are still ill-treated in many ways, have started fighting back. There is also a political colour to last week’s conflict because the Thevars are identified with the AIADMK which has recently come to power in the state.

The identification will not do any good to the Jayalalitha government. There was a lull in caste conflicts and clashes in Tamil Nadu after a spate of them in the 1990s. It will be difficult to put an end to them as long as there is social conflict and oppression of those at the lowest rungs of society. The newly empowered castes should realise that the social reform movement would achieve its aims only when the Dalits are also  empowered. Political parties should also realise that their mobilisation on the basis of castes is ultimately harmful to society and to their own interests.

The administration and the police mishandled the situation. Adequate  precautionary measures were not taken in time even when it was known that trouble was developing. The police also used excessive force when it fired on the protesting mob. A probe has been ordered but the causes of such incidents and the ways to eliminate them should be clear to every one without an inquiry.