These demands are not new – they have a long history spanning decades. Dr Krishnasamy had pointed out that it was the British, who in 1926-27 made the community SC – based solely on their deprived economic status. Here, he is perhaps providing a valuable hint to researchers in history who are open-minded for free frameworks. Historian Mike Davis in his book, Late Victorian Holocausts, writes about how the British rule disrupted “a complex network of social production including communal irrigation”.

A few generations back, the Devendrakula Vellalars were the custodians of this crucial component of agriculture in the villages of Tamil Nadu. It was with the complete colonial overhaul of agricultural land ownerships that the community seemed to have suffered grave economic setbacks and subsequently categorised as a scheduled community. Antagonistic and inhuman attitudes of some of the communities that emerged dominant did not help the situation either.

The British also played their cards cleverly. They created fault lines by placing the Kallar community in criminal tribes and Devendrakula Vellalar in the scheduled community list. The ensuing enmity had gone on for almost a century and the dominant ‘progressive’ narrative put the blame on ‘Brahminical Hinduism’, resulting even in Islamist mass conversions in 1980s that shocked India. Except Dr M G Ramachandran, the Dravidian polity also perpetuated the fault lines created by the British. This often resulted in criminal and tragic loss of human lives, particularly of people belonging to Devendrakula Vellalar community.

In 1999, under the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government, the police opened fire at estate labourers who were demanding maternity leave and that their daily wages be fixed at Rs 100 a day. In the incident which is now known as ‘Thamiraparani river massacre’, 18 people including two women and a two-year-old child died. In 2011, under the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) regime, seven men were shot dead by police during a rally against the detention of a community leader. Thus the path through which the community travelled even in the current decade has been one of thorns.