Decode Politics: Behind PMK pitch for parental nod for under-21 marriage, caste faultlines, ‘love jihad’ spectre

PMK manifesto

Releasing the PMK’s manifesto Wednesday, party chief and Rajya Sabha MP Anbumani Ramadoss, son of party founder S Ramadoss, said its key pledge addresses concerns over young marriages impacting women’s education and health. “For a woman, 18 years is such a young age… if they get married at 18, there is no future and her education is also stopped,” he said.

The PMK claimed that its proposal would protect young women and preserve family structures. Citing similar examples from countries like Singapore, Philippines, Japan, and Brazil, the party argued that parental consent for marriages at young age would benefit Indian society.

The PMK claimed the Karnataka High Court has also “emphasised it”. The manifesto said, “In order to prevent young women from being deceived by premature love affairs, to protect the family structure, and to safeguard the future welfare of the youth, we will make it mandatory to obtain the consent of the parents from both sides for the marriage of individuals below 21 years of age.”

The manifesto also said, “The environment of insecurity for young women is increasing. Considering family advancement and economic livelihood, women who go to school and college, and those who go to work are affected by indecent overtures and sexual harassment. School and college-going girls are deceived by false promises at an ignorant age and are mistreated. We will endeavour to eradicate all forms of sexual harassment and atrocities against women and create an environment where women can live with complete security.”

Currently, the legal age for women in the country is 18 years as compared to 21 for men.

Caste conflicts

The PMK’s promise, which was also made in the party’s 2019 poll manifesto, reflects social tensions in Tamil Nadu over inter-caste marriages, with some observers drawing an analogy with the “love jihad” claims made by the right-wing groups to target Muslim youths. These tensions had intensified over a decade ago in the wake of several inter-caste marriages in rural Tamil Nadu, with Dalit youths finding themselves on the receiving end of accusations that they had allegedly “lured” women from the intermediate communities or backward castes through “romantic adventures”.

Dharmapuri riots

The conflict between the Vanniyar and Dalit communities flared up following widespread anti-Dalit riots in Dharmapuri in November 2012 over the marriage between a Vanniyar girl and a Dalit youth. The PMK was said to have been at the forefront of the protests against the Dalit community that erupted against this marriage.

These protests turned violent when the girl’s father ended his life after she refused to obey the Vanniyar community’s diktat to go with her parents. A mob of over 1,000 people attacked Dalit hamlets near Dharmapuri town, torched over 150 houses belonging to the community. In July 2013, the Dalit youth was found dead on a rail track, a suspected case of suicide, after the girl decided to go with her mother.

The PMK faced allegations of orchestrating these attacks on Dalits. Anbumani was then a Union minister in the Congress-led UPA government. His father Ramadoss, who denied the PMK’s role in the riots, made a controversial statement accusing Dalit men of “luring” Vanniyar women. “Dalit men sporting jeans, T-shirts, and fancy glasses lure our women into marriages that don’t work,” he said.

PMK vs VCK

In Tamil Nadu, OBCs (Other Backward Classes) include BCs (Backward Classes) and MBCs. Backed by Vanniyars, the PMK has always been at odds with the VCK, Thol Thirumavalavan’s party, which has a significant Dalit vote base.

The campaign against inter-caste marriages has been a unifying factor for the PMK as well as several smaller OBC outfits in Tamil Nadu after the Dharmapuri riots.

Ramadoss had then reached out to several OBC groups to mobilise intermediate castes for launching a socio-political campaign against the Dalit outfits.

Ramadoss had then raked up the demand for preventing the “misuse” of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, accusing Dalit youths of allegedly fomenting social tension by filing false complaints under the law and “luring girls from other castes with bogus profession of love”.

One of the resolutions adopted by the PMK-led OBC caste groups then had even cited figures of broken marriages to claim that inter-caste marriages ended in failure because they were “unions born out of mere love”. Even some Muslim groups in the state were part of this campaign launched against Dalits after the Dharmapuri violence.

PMK’s poll performance

The PMK was founded in 1989 by Ramadoss to champion the rights of Vanniyars, one of the largest OBC communities in the state. The PMK’s formation was the outcome of a struggle that Vanniyars, along with other backward communities, undertook as part of the larger anti-Brahmin movement in the state. The PMK grew as a political outfit over decades representing the interests and aspirations of the Vanniyar community.

The PMK however could not open its account in the 2009, 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls. It also drew a blank in the elections to the 234-member state Assembly in 2016. Contesting the 2021 Assembly polls in alliance with the AIADMK and the BJP, the party won five seats.

Trouble for DMK

While the VCK is the DMK’s partner, one of the candidates of the latter’s another ally Kongunadu Makkal Desia Katchi (KMDK) – a PMK-like outfit of the BC Gounder community in the Kongu region – has caused trouble for the ruling alliance now.

A decade-old speech of S Suriamoorthi, the KMDK’s Namakkal candidate, who has been fielded on the DMK’s “Rising Sun” symbol, recently started circulating on social media in which he was seen to be purportedly saying that “Dalit youths should not think about getting rich by marrying women from the Kongu Gounder community”. He warned that if they did so, they would face consequences. After this video sparked outrage, the KMDK was forced to replace Suriamoorthi with another candidate V S Madeswaran, the party’s Namakkal South district secretary.