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november 5, 2011 vol xlvI nos 44 & 45 EPW Economic & Political Weekly14

land titles and bear the cost of litigation and ancillary matters if they were to arise.

The draft Land Titling Bill is not about updating land records. It is not about the accuracy of land records, but about its finality for purposes of determining encum brances and saleability. It is about deciding on a means by which land may be easily dealt with in the market.

The displaced, project affected and dis-possessed and their advocates have been campaigning long and hard for a law that

will limit the coercive power of the state in taking over land. The LARR 2011 adopts some of the language and concerns from the sites of conflict. But, in beginning with the premise that land acquisition is inevi-table and that industrialisation, urbanisa-tion and infrastructure will have lexical priority, the LARR 2011 may have gained few friends among those whom involun-tary acquisition has displaced, and those for whom rehabilitation has been about promises that have seldom been kept.

Notes

1 Ibid. See also, Butu Prasad Kumbhar vs SAIL ,1995 Supp 2, Supreme Court Cases, 225.

2 Walter Fernandes and Vijay Paranjpye (1997), Re-habilitation Policy and Law in India: A Right to Livelihood, Indian Social Institute.

3 Samatha vs State of Andhra Pradesh (1997) 8, Supreme Court Cases, 191.

4 See for e g, Ashish Tripathi, “HC Quashes Acquisi-tion of 600 Hectares of Land in Greater Noida”, dated 19 July 2011 found at http://articles.times-ofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-07-19/noida/29790 697_1_urgency-clause-land-acquisition-act-greater -noida-authority.

5 See, for instance, Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act 1952.

Muthukaruppan Parthasarathi (sharathishar-athi@gmail.com) teaches cultural studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad.

Paramakudi Violence: Against Dalits, Against Politics

Muthukaruppan Parthasarathi

The killing of six dalits in police firing in Paramakudi in September again exposes the manner in which state institutions work to enforce the social dominance of certain castes. In the southern districts of Tamil Nadu there is an upsurge within dalit castes, but there is also a continuing complicity between the dominant castes, political parties and state institutions to beat this back.

The police killing on 11 September of six dalits on the 54th memorial day of Immanuel Sekaran in Parama-

kudi town of Ramanathapuram district in southern Tamil Nadu (TN) once again demonstrated the casteist nature of state institutions and the Government of TN.

Immanuel Memorial and Police ViolenceImmanuel (1924-57) is considered to be the first leader to dedicate his life in the struggle against caste oppression in post- Independence TN. Back from the Indian Army in 1952, Immanuel involved himself in revolutionary activity against caste oppression and organised Pallar youth in Ramanathapuram district.1 The period 1952-57 in Immanuel’s life was marked by a series of militant activities against untouchability. During this time he also organised a number of conferences and public meetings against caste discrimin-ation. He associated himself with both the Depressed Classes League and the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church. He became a nightmare for the upper castes, especially for the Maravars of Ramanathapuram dis-trict. It is widely believed that a day after his confrontation with Muthura malingam in a peace meeting called by the district collector over some local dispute, hit men of Muthuramalingam murdered Immanuel on 11 September 1957.2 Immanuel’s death

resulted in the Mudukulathur riots, a clash between the Devendirars and Thevars that lasted for a few weeks. Though there has been a rivalry between Devendirars and Thevars since Mudukulathur riots, it cannot be reduced simply to a caste feud; rather this is rooted in the dialectics of the Devendirars’ revolt against the domination of the Thevars.

From 1958 onwards the Devendirars in the Paramakudi region started gathering at Immanuel’s burial place to conduct a memorial at the taluk level. By 1969, the memorial had started attracting a substan-tial number of Pallar youth and students from the Ramanathapuram district. The formation of the Thiyagi Immanuel Peravai (TIP), a dalit movement for the annihilation of caste by P Chandrabose in 1988, paved the way for a routine and larger gathering on memorial day. The memorial also at-tracted the Devendirars from Sivagangai, Virudhunagar, Tirunelveli and a few nearby districts. The memorial gained larger mobilisation only after 2007, the 50th anni versary of Immanuel’s death. Now it has become an event in which several political parties and organisations participate.

There were certain significant develop-ments a few weeks before the day of the present Paramakudi police killings. Gene-rally, there seems to be hostility and dis-taste among the Thevars towards the growing popularity of the Immanuel memorial day. The release of John Pandian

(jp) after 10 years of imprisonment and the victory of the Puthiya Tamilagam (PT) party in two assembly constituencies have added fuel to Thevar hostility.3

The demand that the Immanuel Memorial should be conducted by the State has been pushed by dalit forces. The fact-finding

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Economic & Political Weekly EPW november 5, 2011 vol xlvI nos 44 & 45 15

teams which went to investigate the police firing point to the notice of the Appanadu Maravar Sangam circulated among Thevars which asked for a plan to spoil the Im-manuel memorial and also to prevent the Pallar attempts to make it a government-sponsored celebration. It has been a pat-tern for the past few years that the Thevars indulge in violence against the dalits every year during the Imma nuel memorial cele-brations. This year 16-year old Palaniku-mar of Pallapacheri village was killed by the Maravars of Mandalamanikkam village on 9 September. Later, the Thevars alleged that Palanikumar wrote “Muthuramalin-gam Thevar was a eunuch” on the wall. The fact-finding reports (FFRs) have con-clusively shown these allegations to be baseless. It has also been reported that the flex boards of Immanuel were torn by Thevars in many places across TN. On 7 September Maravar advocates of Para-makudi, with the help of local police and revenue authorities, removed the flex boards carrying the title “Deivathiruma-gan” put up by SC/ST transport corpora-tion employees.4 Consequently it led to more flex boards of that kind and the local authorities were annoyed by the “disobedi-ence” of the Devendirars. On 10 September police refused jp permission to visit Palla-pacheri; he obeyed the orders and went back. JP was arrested by the police and prevented from attending the memorial. Rumours also spread that the police had planned an “encounter” with JP.

On 11 September, around 30 party mem-bers of the Tamilaga Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (TMMK) demanded the release of JP and staged a protest at the five-point junction of Paramakudi. The strength of the police force at the site was around 2,000. Without any provocation, police opened fire on the people straightaway without first trying out any other method such as lathi-charge or tear gas. The police claimed that they had to resort to firing because the protesters were pelting stones and setting fire to vehicles. Dalit organisa-tions allege that the entire episode was pre-planned and was an attempt to suppress the assertion of the dalits. They have also pointed out that some of the high level police officers, who had been especially deployed for the Immanuel memorial day celebra-tions, were known for their anti-dalit

activities. Dalit activists and writers at the site claim that police set fire to the vehicles and stones were being pelted, not by dalits but, by the policemen themselves in mufti.

Similar firings took place at two other places – Chinthamani and Ilayangudi – on the same day. More than 30 people were severely injured and six were killed. Several political parties and organisations, civil and human rights collectives have con-demned the brutal acts. Media reports have mostly reproduced the police state-ments justifying police action. The Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa justified the police action by saying that they had resorted to firing to prevent John Pandian and his men from rioting. She also justified the killing of Palanikumar saying that it was the result of his graffiti on the wall defam-ing Muthuramalingam Thevar.

Several civil and human rights organi-sations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other collectives of public interest have come up with ffrs con-demning the wanton police action and the fabrications by the media. Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) Krishnasamy staged a walkout from the assembly with a few other MLAs when he was not given an opportunity to raise the issue. Jayala-lithaa has announced a compensation of Rs 1,00,000 for those killed and ordered a judicial enquiry. Some of the dalit organi-sations are demanding an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and

action against the guilty police officials under the SC/ST Atrocity Act.

Violence of ConditionsThe Paramakudi violence was not acci-dental nor was it due to efforts at restoring law and order by the police, as the media reported. The issue needs to be viewed in the context of the frequent incidents of violence by the State on the Devendirars in southern TN. It has been a routine prac-tice of the TN police to enter Devendirar villages and destroy their properties and unleash cruel violence on the inhabitants (Viswanathan 2005: 156-62, 87-94). Po-lice looting of the dalit hamlets increased after the Bodi riots of 1989 (Human Rights Watch 2001: 102-12).

Police in the region are notorious for extorting, looting property, abusing women and children, beating men and foisting false cases. The false cases framed on Devendirars around the 1989 Bodi riots were closed only a couple of years ago. Devendirar villages have been blacklisted by the police and the community is, unof-ficially, considered a “violent community”. Policing the community has drastically increased after 1989.

These are the “initiatives” taken by the State in TN to keep this community under control. Even the community leaders have been framed in criminal cases and the Devendirars’ attempts to participate in democratic politics have been repressed.

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There have been reports from Paramakudi that large numbers of dalit men are thus framed in police and legal cases. Across the southern districts of TN, dalit movements are not allowed to conduct any public protest and police have objected to any democratic protest condemning the recent Paramakudi police firing. Though the deadly police violence against dalits is erupting on and off, what needs to be un-derstood is that it is not a new development in TN. Violence has become an inevitable part of dalit life in southern TN. Conditions have become, or have been made, too violent, rigid and constraining for dalits to be able to conduct eman cipatory politics, especially mobilisation politics.

Caste, Governments and the StateDalits strongly believe that the Thevars have engineered the police killings with the support of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (AIADMK) govern-ment. In the assembly, Jayalalithaa’s justification of the police firing and arrests of dalit youth across the region has strengthened this perception of the dalits. Though one may not believe in conspiracy theories, one has to pay attention to the history of class/caste interest and how it is played out in administering state power, particularly police power. There are two issues which need to be understood.

First, the nature of the police institution needs a historical understanding. Inde-pendence did not constitute an event of structural transformation. It has been noted that the basic apparatus of govern-mental administrative structure is drawn directly from the colonial structures. The basic structures of civil and criminal law and the Indian armed forces have been derived largely from the colonial period. (Chatterjee 2010: 3-15). Arnold (1976: 3-16) has shown that the transformation of sovereignty in 1947 did not produce any change in the nature and function of the (Madras) police that was loyal to landlords and propertied classes. The Con gress, in the late colonial period, used the police force to curb the activities of communists, self-respecters and labour activists. That practice was continued by its successors.

Arnold has also pointed to the cases where dalits were repressed by the police

when they revolted against the landlords and their poor material conditions. It has been argued that given the dominance of upper castes in the police force, the distinc-tion between upper caste violence and state violence is of no theoretical relevance (Roberts 2010). The colonial and oppres-sive nature of police has always been used by the ruling classes to monitor and curb the political activities of the oppressed groups. Apart from curbing political acti-vities, the institution of the police, by its very nature, is brutal and the possibilities for an excess of violence are always present. Even in exceptional cases, where the police is used to protect the weaker sections, bru-tality never fails to show itself. Though the Congress managed to control the Muduku-lathur riots that erupted after the murder of Immanuel in 1957, the subsequent police killings of five Maravars in Keela thuval vil-lage were brutal and unwarranted.

Second, the questions related to gov-ernments are of great importance. Are governments capable of democratising state institutions that are clearly oppres-sive? Since governments largely function within the given frames of state institu-tional structures it hardly seems a possi-bility. That is to suggest that the change in the nature of the State would have a more transformative effect than the change of governments. The history of TN, at least for the past three decades, shows that police violence on dalits or the collabora-tion of the police with the upper castes against dalits are closely tied with the rise of an independent dalit political leader-ship, organisations and parties. One of the defining features of the 1990s is the coin-cidence of the rise of dalits as a political force and the increased violence on dalits (Satyanarayana and Tharu 2011: 1-69).

This also signifies the dalits’ moving away from Dravidian parties. The Dravidi-an parties, both at the party level and in their governments, privileged the domi-nant castes and kept the lower castes as vote banks. The representatives from the reserved constituencies were kept under strict party control. They recruited the dominant castes more into the power struc-ture, especially the police (HRW: 86-87). MSS Pandian (2000) has a useful account of the AIADMK’s public collaboration with Thevar groups in oppressing the dalits.

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However, he avoids any discussion of the police killing of 17 people that happened in 1997 during the Dravida Munnetra Kaza-gham (DMK) regime. The DMK is no excep-tion from the upholding of Thevar interests or unleashing the police against the Dev-endirars (Viswanathan 2005 and Viswa-nathan and Syed Muthahar Saqaf 1999). The response of the then chief minister K Karunanidhi to the Thamiraparani police killings was no less virulent and openly biased towards Thevars than Jayalalithaa’s recent statements in the assembly justifying the Paramakudi violence. Thevar groups praised the Thamiraparani killings as “maintaining law and order” and it was so reported in the newspapers too (Viswanath-an 2005: 135). Ravikumar’s (2009: 109) comparison of Karunanidhi with Manu-neethi Cholan (an ancient king who care-fully observed the laws of Manu) is worth mentioning here. This to say that the Dra-vidian parties and governments, in general, play an active role in the violence on dalits.

Dalit Politics of Recognition?Given that class and caste are intimately interwoven in TN’s agricultural land rela-tions, most labour mobilisations mostly amount to dalit mobilisation. Kilvenmani mobilisations of agricultural labourers in Thanjavur district and the consequent massacre in 1968 is a classic case illustrat-ing this point. The Thamiraparani mobili-sation in 1997 was also based on labour issues of the Manjolai tea estate.

The Immanuel memorial mobilisation is different from all these and it is a move towards symbolic equality and recognition. The earlier instances cited are of mobi-lisations for wages, land and other material resources; in short redistribution of re-sources. The latter is an instance for sym-bolic recognition; its relation with material resources are subtle. However, both recog-nition and redistribution questions are deeply interconnected and inseparable.

Mobilisation as part of the politics of recognition has been gaining momentum among the dalits of south TN. There has been a demand from the Devendirars that since Immanuel was a freedom fighter and social activist who sacrificed his life for the cause of equality, the Gurupooja of Immanuel should be conducted by the TN state. This struggle for symbolic equality

and recognition has intensified after the late 1980s. There was also the Devendirar demand for a transport corporation to be named after the historical figure, Veeran Sundara lingam. Another demand is that Madurai airport should be named after Immanuel.

Given the nature of such demands and the history of the symbolic role played by both Ambedkar and Immanuel statues in the previous instances of violence across southern TN, one can clearly see the poli-tics of recognition emerging parallel to dalit arguments for the redistribution of material resources. The mobilisational dim-en sion in certain ways has the potential to overcome the state’s standard method of addressing social issues through a policy regime. In a way, these symbolic demands are going to serve as the basis for dalit mo-bilisations for a long time to come. Such mobilisations may not be contained by any of the developmental programmes of the State or depoliticised by neo-liberal and NGO forces. In a situation where dalit poli-tics has, to some extent, become a part of NGO activism and advocacy, the politics of mobilisation seem to rejuvenate the mili-tant trajectory of dalit politics.

Though in the Paramakudi incident there was no violence from the Devendirars, the last three decades have shown how Devendirars have been resisting police and upper caste violence and on occasion how they have been forced to take re-course to violent modes of resistance. This trajectory of dalit politics and its mobi-lisational dimension seem not to have principles of consensus and resolution as the driving force, but rather dis agreement and conflict at the heart of its politics. It is precisely this kind of politics that is under attack by the State.

The celebration of Immanuel’s memorial day is more of a political mobilisation for equality. It is primarily about the claim to symbolic equality and to ensure that pub-lic spaces are common; it is a verification of equality. It needs to be understood against the background of the century-old practices of caste in constraining and regulating dalit bodies and not allowing them to have their place in the public. The reception of the dalit presence in the pub-lic is seen by both state institutions and the upper castes in a similar manner and

they both respond in similar ways. Dalit politics is aware that the struggle against caste is simultaneously a fight against the caste interests of both state and society.

Notes

1 Pallars are a scheduled caste community largely located in the southern districts of TN. They are mainly agricultural labourers. As early as the late colonial period they called themselves Devendirar kula vellalars; vellalar in Tamil means people who involve in agriculture/cultivation. For an in-sightful interpretation of the lineage of Devendir-ars and Buddhism by Ravikumar see the intro-duction in Viswanathan (2005).

2 Muthuramalinga Thevar (1908-63) was a Thevar leader of Ramanathapuram district; he associated himself with Forward Bloc Party and preached Hin-du spirituality and authoritarian politics. As an op-positional force to communists and congressmen of his time, he politically mobilised Thevars. He was arrested in the Immanuel murder case but was lat-er acquitted. The caste Thevar is a broader category which refers to a cluster of castes including Mara-vars, Agamudayars, and Kallars.

3 John Pandian (or JP as he is popularly known) is the supremo of the TMMK which represents an assertive leadership against the inequalities of caste. His rise as a dalit leader in the 1980s coincides with the rise of dalit assertion in southern districts. State police and the media have projected him as a criminal by separating his persona from the socio-political cause he is fighting for. But the Devendirar community con-stantly contests this media/state manufactured im-age and affirms him as a leader and fighter against caste and untouchability. The Puthiya Tamilagam is a dalit party, largely of the Devendirars. Its president K Krishnasamy is anothor leader with a mass following.

4 Deivathirumagan, the title generally refers to some-one who attained god and is very commonly used in Tamil to refer to ancestors. It also bears the meaning of a divine persona. However, the use of new titles and names also has another intent; they are meant to counter the Thevar use of these terms with reference to Muthuramalingam Thevar. There was an opposition from both Thevars and the po-lice against the use of these titles for Immanuel in Paramakudi. It is also worthy of note that when Arunthaiyars (another scheduled caste communi-ty) adopted the title Mamannan, meaning emperor, for the historical icon Ondiveeran there was similar opposition from the upper castes.

References

Chatterjee, Partha (2010): “The State” in Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Neeraja Gopal Jayal (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Politics in India, OUP.

David, Arnold (1976): “The Police and Colonial Con-trol in South India”, Social Scientist, Vol 4, No 12 (July), pp 3-16.

Human Rights Watch (1999): Broken People (Banga-lore: Books for Change).

Pandian, M S S (2000): “Dalit Assertion in Tamil Nadu: An Exploratory Note”, Journal of Indian School of Political Economy: 12:3-4, July- December.

Ravikumar (2009): Venomous Touch: Notes on Caste, Culture and Politics, trns R Azhagarasan (Calcut-ta: Samya).

Roberts, Nathanial (2010): “Language, Violence and the State: Writing Tamil Dalits”, South Asia Multi-disciplinary Academic Journal.

Satyanarayana, K and Susie Tharu (2011): No Alpha-bet in Sight: New Dalit Writings from South India (New Delhi: Penguin).

Viswanathan S and Syed Muthahar Saqaf (1999): “The Tirunelveli”, Frontline, Vol 16, Issue 16, 31 July, 13 August.

Viswanathan, S (2005): Dalits in Dravidian Land (Pondichery: Navayana).