Uthapuram has the most humble of demands. The 3,000 Dalits who live in this sun-burnt village off the Madurai-Theni highway seek the shade of a neem tree that stands in the courtyard of the Mutharamman temple. The administration, however, is reluctant to demolish the long wall that was built by upper caste men to keep Dalits away from the temple and their colony.
“We had decided not to vote. Then the district collector called us for talks and assured us that everything will be taken care of once the elections are over,” says Sundara Pandi, whose father died in a caste clash in 1989. Six Dalits were killed — either by the upper caste Pillais or the police — when they tried to build a bus shelter at the only opening to their hamlet.
The 20-year-old “theendamai chevaru (untouchability wall)” was built by the Pillais to cut off Dalits from the rest of the village. It reduces their access to the road to one muddy opening. The Dalits wanted a bus shelter to protect themselves from the sun. But they were denied that. Just before CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat’s visit here in October 2008, the local administration forced open a small passage through the wall at another spot.
“We don’t use that path unless we move in a group,” says Mari Muthu, who expects more trouble any time. The community marks time by the many clashes — in 1962, 1989, 1991 and 2008, when the police chased away all men and took into custody all women and children in the Dalit quarters. “They beat us up and did not spare even male policemen,” says V Pushpa, who is the panchayat president of Uthapuram.
Political empowerment doesn’t bring any solution to the rigid caste matrix. Pushpa was elected president in October 2007, when Dalits voted en masse for her. There are over 1,600 votes in the two Dalit settlements in the village. Pillais protested, with their two members staying away from the council meetings. “When there are clashes I can’t even go to the panchayat office,” she says.
The village comes under the newly formed Theni constituency, where Congress MP JM Aaroon Rashid fights AIADMK’s Thanga Tamilselvan. Though the major parties are locked in a tight fight, they don’t seem very keen on the 1600-odd votes in a constituency of 10,64,050 voters. The only posters in this colony are that of BSP and Puthiya Tamilakam, a local Dalit party. But the village splits its political loyalty among all powerhouses, including the DMK, the AIADMK and the CPI(M).
The Dalits admit they don’t stand united for a cause. “If at all a candidate comes here, he doesn’t mention the wall. We can’t tell him either because his partymen would stop us,” says Chinna Raja, who studies at a private college near Usilampatti. Consequently, the offensive wall escapes the acid test of every elections.
