B. R. Ambedkar
The routine duties of Thenmozhi Sekaran, dalit president of Karupur panchayat in Cuddalore district, do not just include the challenges of administering a village. He also has to frequently attend court and enquiries in connection with a case, which he claims has been foisted on him. But then, the panchayat presidency has been an uphill task for him all along, right from garnering votes to holding onto his post.
“It’s been a dirty fight all along,” he told TOI at a convention on dalit issues held in the city on Saturday. “After I occupied the office, we began construction of a link road from the village to the highway. But non-dalit members filed a case against me stating that the road passed through their private property. However, it was well known in the village that the property in question is poromboke land.”
The harassment meted out to Sekaran is not an isolated case. Today, in Tamil Nadu, despite years of welfare schemes and reservations for the dalits, both by the central and state governments, the situation remains largely unchanged. Says N Thalayan of the Dalit Panchayat Presidents’ Federation, “In many villages, dalit presidents are still not allowed to sit on chairs during panchayat meetings. The harassment meted out to women is more. I’ve known of women dalit presidents who were driven out of the village. They now reside in another village and visit their own village for purposes of administration.”
A good portion of the blame was apportioned to the government for improperly implementing the schemes. Says Vasanthi Devi, former chairperson of Tamil Nadu State Women’s Commission, “Very little of the funds meant for dalit welfare each year actually reaches them. The rest of the money is later channelled to other departments and schemes.”
Corroborating their claims, P Sampath, CPM state secretariat member later told TOI, “The government is only a silent spectator. Since 70-80% of the population comprises of non-dalits, successive governments prefer to defend the caste system in order to keep their vote banks happy.”
It does not seem so long ago that caste prejudice prevented elections to four reserved panchayats in Tamil Nadu for a decade until 2006. “Now that there are a few dalits who have become officials or hold key posts in the government, they (casteists) hesitate to directly attack us,” said Janaki Stalin, the panchayat president of Senji in Villupuram district. “Instead they’ve resorted to other means like piling up false cases against dalit presidents or creating internal strife among the dalits.”
Source: The Times of India dt 24.10.2010
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