When the entire nation was busy celebrating the 68th Independence Day on 15th August to commemorate the inordinate contribution of innumerable freedom fighters towards making India a free country, freedom was being curbed in the most despicable way in the Seshasamudram village of Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu.
It was just another usual day for the 23 year old Banu who was recuperating at her grandmother’s house after delivering her second child when she heard cries from outside. It was the angry mob that had launched an attack on Dalits of the village with crow bars, stones and petrol bombs. “I was holding the door from inside to prevent them from breaking open. We just shut our mouths .They wanted to burn us down”, recalls Banu’s grandmother with horror in her voice. [Source: The Hindu]
The Vanniars of Seshasamudram village wanted to prevent the Dalits from asserting their right to take the temple procession through the main road of the village. As a last resort, they unleashed their anger by burning down the temple car and attacking members of the Dalit community. The series of arsons that followed made the situation only worse. They went on to damage the livestock, property and injuring many including seven policemen.
The clash was caused due to proclivity of Dalits to go against the wishes of the major community of the village, the Vanniars. The victimized community says that Subramaniam, a Vanniar, sought their support for the Panchayat elections and in return promised to fulfil their long standing desire of holding a temple car festival. They landed him their support by voting for him with the hope that their demands will be met. But there was something undesirable in store for them. After winning the elections he backed out, and reneged his promise as there were voices of dissent from the major community. He perceived the opposition as a threat to his political career as he feared his possible projection as a Vanniar who succumbed to Dalit pressure.
After meeting with the local officials and authorities, finally the Dalits got the green signal for holding their festival under police protection. On the day of procession they were caught off guard, as the majority community launched a strong attack on Dalits. Policemen failed in thwarting the clash as they say they were heavily outnumbered.
This incident brings under spotlight the cankered casteism that still prevails in our society. The most disheartening part of the entire episode is the very existence of caste division even after so many years of independence. But apparently, existence of caste based division is immanent in a diverse country like India with various religions, castes and sub-castes. And therefore it is quite understandable that inter caste conflicts are ineluctable but this is where the real test lies. Casteism has entered the marrow and bone of a sizeable section of the society and therefore the idea of its absolute extermination would be too far-fetched but it is really in the interest of our country to eradicate it at the earliest.
The very idea of casteism is in disagreement with the scruples that our freedom legends expected us to follow. Now that we are still grappling with such social evils it is high time that we take some stringent and forceful steps to eradicate them from the social space.
We call India an independent accommodating nation, due to its diversity where each individual is free to do anything as long as the act is not a threat to the society. But the recent clashes in the village of Seshasamudram have yet again questioned this notion as for years on end we have been witnessing inter communal clashes in which dominant communities tried every bit to establish supremacy on the minor and backward communities.
Since this problem requires to be urgently addressed, the most basic step we should take is to minimise the usage of terms like caste. Lesser usage of such terms in its wake would reduce caste based classifications and that would for sure bring about a significant change.
Also we need to have special teams that would regularly keep check of the sensitive areas which are prone to communal clashes and the minority communities should be given special protection if any conflict is imminent.
Media should also play a leading role by unequivocally deprecating the politicians who try to hog votes by making caste based statements that could potentially lead to disagreements and dissension between communities.
Castesim has ailed India for long and it is time that we take it seriously and chalk out ways to make it disappear from social matrix.
