Muslim parents break Kerala school's 'Dalit only' tag

A government school in Kerala's Kozhikode District has been labelled as a 'Dalit only' school since the student population comprises only those from the lower caste Sambava community. This continued for a number of years as people from other castes were unwilling to send their children to Government Welfare Lower Primary School at Perambra in north Kozhikode.

This year, under a teachers' organisation, a group of Muslim parents came forward to enrol their children and end the discrimination towards the school, according to Maktoob Media, a Kerala-based online news portal.

Despite several attempts by authorities, Government Welfare Lower Primary School's 'Dalit only' tag remained as parents and teachers from other communities did want to be part of the institution. Though a few children from other communities have taken admission previously, they did not want to sit with Sambava students. For at least 10 years, no non-Dalit students have enrolled there.

Members of the Kerala School Teachers Movement (KSTM) were able to persuade some parents and ensured the admission of six students in the 30-year-old school.

The KSTM, the teachers' body of the Welfare Party of India political party, has named the movement as 'Operation Rohit Vemula' after the Hyderabad University scholar's name, who hanged himself after facing caste discrimination in early 2016.

The school authorities, teachers and parents congratulated the students and presented sweets to their guardians for helping the school to remove the discriminatory tag.

Many people had portrayed the school as a living example of the prevalent caste discrimination in so-called progressive Kerala.