The prejudice against Dalits
continues in various forms right from schools in the State.
Indian campuses are witnessing
unusual caste flare-ups, highlighted by the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith
Vemula in Hyderabad. The Hindu examines how caste fault lines are
muddying higher education, and the government’s ill-crafted budget cuts and
erratic decision-making are adding to the grievances of a generation.
In November, the National Human
Rights Commission sent a notice to the Tirunelveli District Collector seeking a
response to reports that school students wear coloured wristbands which act
like a marker of their caste.
The notice is a late reaction
because the custom of wearing these bands has been around for years now in the
socially charged environment of the southern districts of Tamil Nadu.
This practice is, perhaps, the
most conspicuous example of how caste-based assertion has been informally
institutionalised in schools and colleges, invariably targeting the Dalit
community.
The decades-old prejudice against
Dalits took a brazen turn in 2012 when the love affair between Ilavarasan, a
Dalit, and Divya, a girl from the Vanniyar caste, which belongs to the Other
Backward Classes, was converted into a caste clash in Dharmapuri. The State has
witnessed growing intolerance to inter-caste marriages.
The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), a
political group that represents the Vanniyars of northern Tamil Nadu, sought to
unite the OBC groups across the State against such weddings and even formed a
new political platform to carry forward the agenda.
As a result of the PMK’s
anti-Dalit activism, colleges became a campaign ground for OBC groups to spread
the word against inter-caste weddings. The mobilisation soon morphed into a
movement named ‘Campaign Against Inter-Caste Marriage Movement’,” which spread
across the campuses of Namakkal district, distributing vitriolic pamphlets that
ridiculed the Scheduled Caste community. Examples of segregation are aplenty. A
few years ago, the remote village of Kurayur on the Madurai-Virudhunagar border
delivered a shock when it was found that the government school had
systematically kept Dalit students away. “We found through the RTI Act that
segregation had been going on for four decades, though the State administration
had failed to identify it. The Dalit students of the village studied at a
missionary-run school,” says A. Kathir, founder of Evidence, an NGO working
against caste discrimination.
Dalit writer and lecturer Stalin
Rajangam says students now openly identify themselves with caste-based
organisations and proudly wear symbols that are, more often than not,
intimidating in nature.
“Whether these are lockets they
wear with faces of caste leaders or coloured wristbands, the trend on campuses
now is to assert one’s caste identity in a form that intimidates the weaker
groups,” he feels. Mr. Stalin says students group themselves on the basis of
their social background. “Explicit untouchability does not exist on campuses
these days. But caste has evolved and exhibits itself in subtle ways in terms
of access to facilities and equation among students.”
For example, Dalit literature has
been a target for long. Colleges in the southern districts have quietly removed
works of Dalits from the curriculum, bowing to pressure from OBC groups, says
Mr. Stalin.
The smoldering rage between the
communities divided along caste lines sometimes explodes into violence on
campuses. On November 12, 2008, the Dr. Ambedkar Government Law College in
Chennai turned into a war zone with students from the Dalit and Mukkulathor
communities attacking each other with deadly weapons. A one-man commission of
Justice P. Shanmugam pointed to caste-based organisations as the reason for the
animosity. The whole issue flared up when OBC students excluded Dr. Ambedkar's
name in posters while referring to the college.
Writer and activist A. Marx, who
was a Physics Professor, says teachers too group themselves on the basis of
caste in many colleges across Tamil Nadu. He charges that the quota for SCs in
teaching positions in universities is rarely filled.
“In many cases, we have found that
institutions use a policy loophole and fail to appoint Dalits. They cite
unavailability of qualified people to fill the vacancy with others,” he alleges.
Central institutions such as
IIT-Madras have courted controversy on caste. Last year, the Ambedkar Periyar
Study Circle was derecognised following the intervention of the HRD Ministry
based on an anonymous complaint that it was campaigning against Prime Minister
Modi. A furore led to the reversal of the decision but students felt the whole
episode exposed the intolerance towards ideas that question the mainstream.
The institution was also blamed by
its own faculty members for failing to follow reservation in promotions, with
the Madras High Court in 2013 ordering a CBI probe into all appointments
between 1995 and 2000. A Division Bench later stayed this order after the
institution appealed. “ The State has an important regulatory role. But despite
ruling the State for 49 years, the Dravidian parties, which claim to stand for
eradication of caste, have done little,” Mr. Marx says.
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