Here Dalits can’t run for a reserved post

Panchayat elections have now been announced for the three villages once again—the 17th time in the last eight years. But as an Assistant Returning Officer at Keeripatti says: ‘‘I don’t think anyone will contest the elections this time too.’’

Since the Panchayati Raj Act came to be implemented in Tamil Nadu in 1996, Dalits have filed nominations in Pappapatti and Keeripatti. But on both occasions, the winners quickly quit the posts after getting elected. And the losers—those who filed nominations defying the Thevars—have fled the hamlets.

Why? Listen to 37-year-old Thanikodi, who was elected Pappapatti panchayat chief in April 2002 by a whopping majority of 900 votes out of 1,500. He quit before taking charge.

‘‘I contested only at the instance of my master, Chellakannu Thevar. But the day I won, thunder struck the house I was given by him. I escaped by God’s grace. I realised I had sinned by contesting the election. So I quit to stay alive to feed my four children,’’ says Thanikodi.

Behind his tale of superstition are some stark facts:

• Dalits of these three villages belong to the Parayar sub-sect, which has only a miniscule presence in southern Tamil Nadu compared to the dominant Pallar-Dalits

• Besides, they are in a pathetic minority—less than one-third—and economically dependent on the Thevars.

A farm worker on Chellakannu’s fields, Thanikodi was asked to contest the polls to defeat another Dalit, E Subban, who had ‘‘defied the writ of the Thevars’’.

After the elections, Subban fled to his sister’s house in Chokkathevanpatti hamlet, 10 km away. ‘‘How could I continue to live there? They would have done something to me. I have not gone back to the village for the past three years and I don’t think I can ever go back,’’ Subban told The Indian Express. But Chellakannu Thevar insists that his community has nothing against Dalits contesting elections. ‘‘Everyone is treated as equals here. There’s no practice of untouchability,’’ he says, sitting in a tea shop.

But next to him is Dalit woman, Pechiamma, drinking tea in a glass container, while the Thevar customers are served in stainless steel tumblers. ‘‘Earlier, they used to give it in coconut shells. Now, it has changed,’’ smiles Pechiamma. As Thevars form a huge vote bank in southern TN—the CM’s close friend Sasikalaa is a Thevar—the two main parties AIADMK and the DMK would rather look away. However, prompted by criticism from the NHRC and the SC/ST Commission, the AIADMK government set up a legislative panel last year, headed by minister O Panneerselvam who is a Thevar. The panel promptly concluded that Thevars were not preventing Dalits from contesting elections.

But a study paper submitted by V Sudarshan and S Sumathi of Madras University to Adidravidar Welfare Department, says: ‘‘The committee did not even visit Dalit colonies in Pappapatti.”