Udhav Naig

16 October 2017 00:54 IST

Dr. Krishnasamy says removal of Devendrakula Vellalars from the SC list will destigmatise the community; critics say the contention is flawed

At a time when privileged, dominant communities are demanding that they be included in the Other Backward Caste (OBC) list and seeking reservation, Puthiya Tamilagam leader Dr. K. Krishnasamy, seen moving closer to the BJP and RSS, has been seeking the removal of Devendrakula Vellalars from the Scheduled Caste list.

Devendrakula Vellalar is an umbrella term denoting seven Scheduled Caste sub-castes — Pallar, Kudumbar, Pannadi, Kaalaadi, Kadayar, Devendrakulatar and Vadhiriyaar — spread across southern Tamil Nadu.

Last week, Dr. Krishnasamy organised a protest meeting in Chennai to propagate and press forward his demand. “Being in the SC list imposes a stigma on the Devendrakula Vellalar community. A section of the community feels that it should have never been included in the SC list since it is historically a land-holding community unlike the other Dalit communities in India,” he said.

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It was with this demand in mind that in 2015, the Devendra Charitable Trust had invited BJP national President Amit Shah and passed a resolution backing the seven sub-castes as one community.

Speaking at the meeting in Chennai, Dr. Krishnasamy claimed that the crowd that had gathered was proof enough that the demand had the support of the entire community. “The evidence is here: thousands of people have turned up. Our history needs to be written again,” he said.

There is also the charge that he is pushing the alleged agenda of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — sanskritising the Dalit communities and bringing them into the Hindu fold. Countering this, Dr. Krishnasamy says: “I will accept support from any organisation, not just Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that supports our demands.”

Fighting the stigma

Thangaraj, who runs the Devendra Charitable Trust and who organised the event in which Amit Shah participated, also claimed that this has been a long-standing demand of the community.

“This is the first step. The young people want to get out of reservation because they think they didn’t get much from reservation. Besides, we are still stigmatised. So the youth want to get out of the Left-Dalit politics. We don’t want to be confined within the Scheduled Caste list.”

However, Dalit intellectuals are not buying the argument of Dr. Krishnasamy and oppose the move to get the community out of the Scheduled Caste list.

K. Samuel Raaj, general secretary, Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front, CPI(M), says that this is an attempt to position the community within the caste-structure. The claim that the Devendrakula Vellalar community was historically a land-holding community is not entirely accurate, he says.

“Throughout India, Dalit communities only hold 7% land. Perhaps, we can say that the Devendrakula Vellalars were involved in agriculture and farming, but to claim that they were a land-holding community seems far-fetched,” he notes.

Dr. Krishnasamy and other members of the Devendrakula Vellalar community have argued that the Nadar community, which also faced severe discrimination from the society, flourished only because the community wasn’t included in the SC list. However, Punitha Pandian, editor, Dalit Murasu, said that the Nadars could have faced unspeakable discrimination but were still a part of the caste society. “They still lived inside the village, unlike the Scheduled Castes who were forced to stay in the cheri by Caste Hindus. So this comparison is not correct,” he said.

Writer Stalin Rajangam thinks that the Devendrakula Vellalars are not merely furthering the agenda of the BJP and the RSS. “We must recognise that these demands did not crop up all of a sudden. The community has a sizeable middle-class population which has floated these demands. In the last 100 years, it is a fact that mobilising as a caste-community — shunning traditional jobs, old names and adopting new ones — has become a model for other communities; together, they build schools, temples and marriage halls and help each other. The Devendrakula Vellalar community also thinks it could do something on such lines and must view these demands in comparison with rise of other OBC communities,” he says, underlining that he nevertheless does not agree with the demand.

“It was the British who created a list of oppressed communities and brought them into it. Over so many decades, this created an adverse social perception about the SC communities amongst the OBC and OC communities and also had an impact on the psyche of the communities within the SC list. The attempts by various communities to reconstruct their history should be seen as an effort against this negative psychological impact created by these modern categorisation,” he said.

The case of Pallars

Political commentators also reject the notion that the Pallar community has been disadvantaged only after being added to the Scheduled Caste List in the 1950s. Retired IAS officer Dr. R. Christodas Gandhi argues that the community had gained enormously, both socially and economically, after it was included in the Scheduled Caste list in 1950s.

“Certainly, the present Pallar community is much better than the Pallar Community of the pre-1950s. For example, how many doctors and engineers did the community have before the 1950s compared to the number of doctors and engineers today? Being in the Scheduled Caste list not only gives the reservation right, but also enormous budgetary rights which runs to more than ₹ 1 lakh crore in Union and State budgets. This is not a concession but a right attained by the Scheduled Castes,” he says.

Samuel Raaj also underlines the dangers of losing the social and legal safeguards. “All the safeguards for the Scheduled Castes such as reservations in education and jobs, the Prevention of Atrocities Act that prohibits violence and discrimination against the Dalits and government scholarships came about because the community was part of the Scheduled Castes list. The castes that want to get out of the list stand to lose a lot,” he cautions.

L. Murugan, vice-Chairman, National Commission for Scheduled Castes, says there is a provision in the Constitution for removal of certain castes in Article 341 and 342. “The State government should recommend it to the Centre which will then seek the advice of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes. The Centre will have to then seek Parliament’s approval and seek President’s assent,” he notes.