annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 Tamil Nadu
in the prestigious Coimbatore seat. The
upper caste villagers blamed the Dalits for
the BJP’s debacle. Of the 1,100 Dalit
voters only 300 of them had reportedly
voted in the elections. 15 Fearing further
escalation of violence, many Dalit parents
had pulled out their children from the local
school, and moved out of the village.
Although a small police picket was
stationed at Kalapatti after the incident, a
mob of upper caste allegedly attacked a
Dalit villager, 60-year-old Muthan. He
was severely beaten up fracturing his right
arm when he alighted from the bus and
started walking towards the village. 16
Dalits have not been allowed to
contest the election to the posts of
panchayat president in Pappapatti,
Keeripatti and Nattarmangalam villages of
Madurai district, as it is deemed a
“sacrilege”. Ever since the Panchayati Raj
Act was implemented in Tamil Nadu in
1996, no Dalit has been made president in
these villages, though they are reserved
exclusively for the Scheduled Castes.
Even if any Dalit won an election, he was
forced to quit before taking charge. The
Dalits live under economic servitude of the
upper caste Thevars and thus have to
follow their diktat. In April 2002, a Dalit
named E. Subban decided to defy the
Thevars and filed his papers for the
president’s post of Pappapatti panchayat.
However, the local bigwig Chellakannu
Thevar then asked his Dalit servant
Thanikodi to contest against Subban and
won the election by a whopping majority
of 900 votes out of 1,500. But his master
made him to quit the post even before
taking charge. Fearing for his life, Subban
fled to his sister’s house in
Chokkathevanpatti hamlet, 10 km away
and never went back to his village. 17
Following criticism from the NHRC
and the SC/ST Commission, the AIADMK
government reportedly set up a legislative
panel in 2003 headed by minister O
Panneerselvam who is a Thevar. The panel
promptly concluded that Thevars were not
preventing Dalits from contesting
elections. However, a study paper
submitted by V Sudarshan and S Sumathi
of Madras University to Adidravidar
Welfare Department alleged “the
committee did not even visit Dalit colonies
in Pappapatti.” 18
On 16 September 2004, a 19-year-old
Dalit named Suresh was allegedly
murdered in Nalagampalle village in
Bangarupalyam of Chittoor district. The
deceased was a labourer in the mango
orchard of former Member of Parliament
Jhansi Lakshmi. He reportedly had an
altercation with Malarapu Krishnama
Naidu and Lakshmaiah Naidu, who came
to supervise the work on 15 September
2004. Suresh fled following the dispute.
His body was found hanging from a
mango tree on 16 September 2004.
Viswanathan, father of the deceased, went
to lodge a complaint with the
Bangarupalyam police but the police
allegedly did not bother to register a case
against the landlords. Sub-Inspector I
Raghunatha Reddy did not even visit the
village to find out the truth, in spite of
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