People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No. 30
July 28, 2013
|
Vol. XXXVII
No. 30 July 28, 2013 |
TAMILNADU Gruesome Casteism Ends
Dream for Life S V Venugopalan THE
sudden death of
Ilavarasan has shaken the conscience of many in our caste
ridden society ---
not just in the state of Tamilnadu where this gruesome end
to a life of love took
place but across the entire nation. As reported earlier in
these columns, the
body of this dalit youth was found near the railway track
near Dharmapuri town
on July 4. THREATENED EXISTENCE The
end of Ilavarasan was
preceded by an eight month long traumatic existence,
involving round the clock
anxiety due to ceaseless threats from several directions.
It also involved a
trying experience of the legal forum for this couple ---
Ilavarasan and Divya ---
and one of them is now no more in this world. It was the
death of a young man who
had been harbouring the dream for a better life. Readers
would recall the
violent attacks launched, on November 7, 2012, by casteist
forces in the three
colonies of Naickenkottai village in Dharmapuri district
in order to avenge the
inter-caste marriage of Divya, a Vanniya girl, with
Ilavarasan, a dalit boy,
following the death of Divya's father a few months back.
At that time, over 270
dalit houses were ransacked and razed to the ground, and
all belongings of the poor
dalit families were burnt to ashes by an arrogant mob in a
predetermined
attack. Even while the stink of the gutted houses is yet
to recede, there came
as a rude shock the ghastly end to a life and a marriage
of love. Though
the media and
vested interests immediately started a debate as to
whether this could be a
suicide or a murder, they did not acknowledged the fact
that it made little
difference in the given situation. Let
us recall the basic details. A
month ago, Divya had
left her marital home after telling Ilavarasan that she
wanted to visit her
indisposed mother. In the meantime, her mother had filed a
habeas corpus
petition before the Madras High Court, seeking production
of her daughter. Then
they both appeared together for the court hearing in the
said case. There, Divya
reportedly told the judges in chamber that she preferred
to go with her mother
as the latter was upset and confused, but added that she
had neither regret about
her m,arriage nor any ill feeling towards Ilavarasan, her
husband. She had also
told the media that Ilavarasan had been taking good care
of her. Following adjournments,
she appeared in the court on a few more occasions and
then, at one point, she
told that she would wait for her mother’s consent to
rejoin her husband. However,
on July 3, she was reported to have said that she had
broken her relationship
with Ilavarasan once and for all and that there could be
no reunion. Next day,
Ilavarasan's body was found near Dharmapuri. CASTEIST UTTERANCES But
all along in the court
and outside, she was surrounded by and was seen walking in
the midst of leading
advocates of the PMK party. It is only too well known that
the past few months have
witnessed the venomous casteist speeches and utterances by
top leaders of the
Pattali Makkal Katchi (Toilers Party) led by none less
than its founder, Dr S
Ramadas, ably supported by his son and former union
minister Dr Anbumani
Ramadas and their lieutenant, Kaduvetti Guru. There was an
outbreak of violent
attacks after their rally at Mahabalipuram on the night of
Chitra Pournami in
April this year, with their cadres vandalising the 1400
years old While
the innocent girl,
Divya, had been pouring out her own feelings in truthful
words in the court,
these forces were constantly distorting her words and
bringing all kinds of
pressure upon her so that she was compelled to pour out
words having a totally
different connotation in order to satisfy the ego of her
intimidators. Who
gave these casteist
forces the right to intervene, disturb and bring to an end
a relationship of
love? It is up to an individual to like another one or to
marry a person of
her/his choice. None else has the right to trample upon
the rights of a couple just
because they disapprove their way of life. When
some bank employees, including
the present writer, visited the three colonies that were
put on fire on December 4 last
year, these colonies looked almost like a war
field. The residents of these totally devastated houses
told us that there were
cordial relationships between the caste Hindu and dalit
families till the issue
of Ilavarasan-Divya marriage was blown out of proportion
by the vested
interests. The dalits were taken aback and caught unawares
when those who
shared mutual hospitality during festivals and family
functions, began to
exhibit a totally different mindset. The casteist
intoxication was so powerful
that it impacted the camaraderie exhibited for long and
led to disastrous
attacks on innocent people. That
there was a pattern
in these attacks was evident from the fact that the houses
belonging to the
inter-caste couples and their relatives bore the maximum
brunt and were
targeted for extremely concentrated attacks. A woman from
one such house
vehemently challenged the repeated assertion made by PMK
leaders that dalit
boys lure Vanniya girls into marriage only to relieve them
of their assets and
ultimately leave them in the lurch. She was herself a
non-dalit who had married
a dalit decades ago. She said that her husband had never
asked for any money or
materials from her parents after their marriage. She added
that her children
had not even visited their grandparents who disapproved of
their marriage. The
real truth behind the caste consolidation attempted by the
PMK was, she said, that
they had had an eye on the ensuing parliamentary polls as
the PMK’s prospects
appeared to be bleak otherwise. ‘Why should they use
us as scapegoats for
their electoral politics?’ she angrily asked. DEPLORABLE POLITICS While
the Ilavarasan-Divya
case has come to the knowledge of the nation as a whole,
in fact scores of such
marriages were prematurely terminated at the behest of the
Vanniyar Sangam, the
social outfit of the PMK. In several of such cases, either
the couple or one of
them was done to death as a punishment for the 'sin' of
having gone through an inter-caste
marriage. Scores of such cases went almost unreported by
the media. The identity
politics indulged in by the PMK is highly deplorable and,
as though as an extension
of its platform, other middle caste parties have begun to
exhort and rally
their respective communities as a block. This poses a
serious challenge to the
socio-cultural fabric of our country. Nagarajan,
the father of
Divya, was a friend of dalits and as an employee of the
local cooperative bank
he worked for securing them the services of the bank. But
he was humbled was
humiliated by the caste panchayat that was very much akin
to the khap
panchayat of Soon
after the death of
Ilavarasan, pages of newspapers were replete with the
photographs of Ilavarasan
standing with his mother, looking tired but hopeful of
rejoining his wife, and
those of Divya, looking shattered in the midst of a
powerful security ring cast
by the so called leaders of her community. The society
owes a reply to their
travails. It
is a pity, indeed, to see
the victims of neo-liberal policies that have pauperised
them alike, standing
apart, with this kind of identity politics sharpening the
division between
them. The violent end to the life of Ilavarasan holds a
lesson to one and all.
It calls upon the toiling people to remain vigilant
against such divisions
based on caste or other such identities. It urges to
people to denounce the
ruthless interference of the casteist parties in their
otherwise harmonious
relationships. It pleads that they must understand the
common enemy, unitedly fight
against the latter, and move together towards their total
emancipation from
exploitation, rather than standing divided to the
advantage of the exploiting
classes.
