Desecrating Memory: The Paramakudi Police Shootings

By V. Geetha

26 September, 2011
Countercurrents.org 

 

Several amongst us might have heard of the horrific shootings that took place at Paramakudi and Madurai on September 11. Officially seven people died when police opened fire on dalits who had gathered to pay their respects to Immanuel Sekaran, a dalit leader who was brutally killed in 1957 in circumstances that pointed to the complicity of dominant caste thevars in carrying out this murder. (The thevars are an important constituent of the ‘Mukkulathor' complex of castes that includes the kallars and the maravars.) Subsequently, U Muthuramalinga Thevar, Forward Bloc leader was arrested in connection with Sekaran's death – he stood trail and was released two years later, because the case against him was not established and proved. (Thevar was proud of his anti-communism and his Hinduism; he claimed, patriotism and theistic belief constituted his very vision, they were the ‘eyes' through which he saw the world.) 

But before all that happened, a great many other deaths took place – following Sekaran's death, widespread riots happened across the region (in and around Mudukkalthur in Ramanathapuram district in the south east of Tamil Nadu), and tragically both thevars and dalits were killed in large numbers. Dalit homes were destroyed, their crops set on fire, their families humiliated, entire villages burnt down, a church where dalits had taken refuge was stormed by thevar mobs and two men killed. Several thevars were killed too, as dalits retaliated, and many more died in police firing. These events laid the basis for a volatile political atmosphere, which continues to persist in the region, and one in which the thevars have lost no chance to let the dalits know their ‘place'; dalits for their part have continued to resist, often amidst tremendous odds.

Sekaran's murder happened on the heel of widespread competitive political anger and discontent in the region, triggered it would seem, by a by-election which saw a thevar candidate returned to the Tamil Nadu Assembly. It was rumoured then, and continues to be repeated to this day that Sekaran, along with members of the Nadar community were Congress supporters, whereas Muthuramalinga Thevar whose candidate had won the by-election was a Forward Bloc man, and opposed to the Congress in Tamil Nadu, especially its leader, K Kamaraj. Political passions, we are made to believe, ran high and peace meetings, held in anticipation of further and greater violence in the wake of the elections were scuttled by the recalcitrance of all parties concerned. In the event, widespread violence was unleashed, and the rest is now history.

What is often conveniently forgotten in such reasoning is the persistence of the most atrocious forms of untouchability in the region since the 1930s, and which has not retreated with time and has in fact reinvented itself in the face of dalit resistance. What is also forgotten is the social capital that thevars have assiduously built up – through their presence in cinema, in local administration, in political parties – and which is often used to buttress their claims to social status, long denied to them in the order of things in Tamil Nadu, and which they now covet and make their own through the willful denigration and humiliation of dalits. Though, historically they have, for several periods of time, themselves been outside the pale of the caste order (the Southern kallars were counted amongst the criminal tribes by the British), that memory is not significant in their recall of times past. Their ideologues appear to want to do two things: view the kallar-maravar-thevar complex as authentic Tamilians, committed to the land and its faith; and see themselves as the ‘original' rulers of the land. Arguing that their communities served as guards of the frontier to the imperial Cholas, and of the seas for the Pandyas, these ideologues constantly reaffirm a proud past of which they claim to be forbears. This pride, in that perverse manner rendered routine by varnadharma, requires them to treat dalits with contempt, in keeping with the logic of graded inequality.

Dalits to this day continue to bear the brunt of that wretched pride.

                                                                                   II

Immanuel Sekaran has since been memorialized in song and legend and has emerged as a pivotal memory to mobilize dalits into acts of resistance. Over time, the occasion of his death has come to be celebrated as a solemn event – and ironically as it were, it precedes the celebrations that happen in October every year to honour the memory of Muthuramalinga Thevar and which are usually observed in triumphant hauteur by the members of his community, with able support from political leaders from across the ideological spectrum.

Ever since the AIAMK under MGR and later on under the present Chief Minister J Jayalalitha have chosen to patronize the Thevars (and the other sub-castes that are linked to them, including the kallars and the maravars), community leaders in the southern districts have reaffirmed their caste authority and hegemony by taunting, insulting and inflicting violence on dalits who dare to defy their diktats. Political support in fact has earned them an impunity that is explained away in terms of their so-called ‘primeval' will to acts of violent anger. It is not surprising that they are troubled by the memory of Immanuel Sekaran, his martyrdom, since it has persisted as a defiant symbol of dalit militancy.

In this latest instance of violence, which saw police shoot at a gathering of dalits at a major junction in the town of Paramakudi , as they sought to make their way to pay tribute to Sekaran's memory, it is evident that the firing was entirely unprovoked. Several sets of fact-finding reports are currently circulating in the Tamil public sphere, all of which make it clear that there was nothing to suggest that the dalits who had come together to keep vigil with Sekaran's memory were causing a law-and-order problem. Chandra Bose, a senior dalit leader in the region who was present in Paramakudi in fact attempted to counsel the police into not doing anything rash, but all his imprecations were ignored, and simultaneously, as it were, the police resorted to lathi charging and shooting – this fact has been fudged by the police who claim that they shot at the gathering only when all other attempts to quell the crowd had failed. Further teargas was not used, and the mechanism for using it remained untouched.

The police also have argued that their officers shot in self-defence, because the crowd of dalits had resorted to stone-throwing. Again, on the evidence of Chandra Bose and others who have spoken to various fact-finding teams, it appears that the stone-throwing started after the shooting and not before.

Further, just at the very moment when the police opened fire in Paramkudi, police in Madurai city shot at a modest gathering of less than 100 people. In addition, it is claimed by dalit leaders in and around Paramkudi, two young men were singled out by the police and either killed in custody or shot point-blank.

The police story has other aspects to it which do not bear scrutiny: they have argued that they were anticipating a major law-and-order crisis with the impending arrival of John Pandian, a fiery dalit leader, known to provoke his hearers into angry action, and so had to stop him from proceeding towards Sekaran's memorial – hearing the news of him being apprehended by the police, his supporters, we are told gave into rowdy action, and the police had to resort to firing to protect themselves. A very thin excuse, it would appear, since John Pandian had been granted police permission to go to the memorial and it would not have taken much on their part to render his visit ‘safe'.

So, why did the police shoot? There appears to be a malevolent ritualism to the shootings, their timing (on the very day that Sekaran was killed), that they were not provoked, that they were not preceded by warnings… and that they happened in the same month as the original riots of 1957. Further, the shootings happened in the wake of the death of Palanivel, a 16 year-old dalit youth who was murdered because he had allegedly sought to defame Muthuramalinga Thevar through a piece of wall writing that offended the thevars. Those who spoke to his family members in his native village have pointed out the very modest circumstances of his family, their fear of the thevars, and the sheer incongruity of the young man attempting something that for sure would have brought him to disaster and death. It has long been observed that the dalits in villages close to Mudukkalathur are extremely vulnerable to attack and they are least likely to indulge in lone acts of opposition.

To return to the question of the shootings: Angry progressives have noted that this is sheer police brutality; that there was not even the excuse of caste tensions (a claim that is falsified by the role played by the ‘Aapanaattu Maravar Sangam'a group that is local to the region and avidly involved in settling issues of dominance). Others have argued that the state government has been taken aback by the unexpected show of solidarity cutting across castes and faiths that has mobilized hundreds of young Tamils to protest the death penalty awarded to Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan, accused in the murder of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and have resorted to this vile measure to scuttle Tamil unity. What is of course not addressed here is that this unity which is achieved in the heat of struggles to do with pan-Tamil causes such as this one, or to do with language and opposition to Brahmin-bania authority, comes regularly unstuck when it comes to caste.

So, to understand the logic of the firings, we need to look elsewhere: at the manner in which the police continue to be wooed and pampered by both the DMK and the AIDMK; at the impunity they enjoy as custodians of ‘law and order' which gives them power and legitimacy to consistently place themselves outside civic and public scrutiny; at the ‘right' they have arrogated to themselves to use firearms speedily and without thought; at the unregenerate casteism that is present pervasively in the force; at the cultural affirmation they have received through flattering and feared media representations (a character in a Tamil soap, a ‘good' cop went by the name of ‘Encounter Dorai'); at the histories of service of the police officers who were involved in the firing, which reveal a thoroughly anti-people attitude on their part, made evident on other occasions.

More particular is the clout enjoyed by the leaders of the thevar community with the ruling party, and which has decided to use it to ‘settle' the question of dalit defiance in the south eastern districts. It is extremely telling that Jayalalitha was dismissive of the deaths that happened, did not deign to refer to the desecration of a commemorative event observed in honour of a dalit leader and that she would not allow even a glimmer of doubt to be cast on the police.

We must also look at the history of governance under the AIADMK – especially the last two times J Jayalalitha was in office. She is unabashedly elitist, an aspect of her personality that is fudged because she plays the benevolent ‘mother' to her large group of non-Brahmin and dalit supporters, and happily and successfully infantilises their politics. She has made no secret of the support she has consistently extended to Narendra Modi. She has shown herself to be easily instrumental and cynical in the manner she treats public causes, supporting them now, dismissive of them another time, all with an eye to immediate political gain. Of course, many of these ways of being would apply to the political class as a whole, including her arch-foe, the DMK, but there is a shade of political evil that she covets, which has to do with her ability to shut up people. In this latest instance, not one of the fact-finding reports, even when released to well organized press meets have found their way to the dailies. (The only report that gained some media attention was the one given out by the Dalit Panthers, but this was only because the press conference was addressed by Ram Vilas Paswan, and it seemed alright to let him speak.) The Tamil weeklies which gloat over every minor political event until they can render it sensational have shut up after making initial noises about the Paramkudi firings.

It is this ability to reach out to the undemocratic core that lies at the heart of every violently beating democratic heart that renders Jayalalitha a politician that is more than ordinarily corrupt and cynical. It is as if she allows many of us to be unabashed about our founded and cruel disinterest in the politics of caste and caste based injustice. Not only the public, but this time around, the district administration too has been drawn into this evil politics of silence and denial.

Sadly, the vibrant Tamil nationalist public voices that have created a new civic space around the issue of protesting the death penalty are all too eager to be conspiratorial about the Paramakudi events, and not entirely willing to consider the caste question as it emerges and re-emerges in all that we do, or don't do. The Dalit Panthers, the CPI (M) and the CPI have, to an extent, insisted on bringing the policemen to book, but even before the dead were cold in their grave, the two communist parties were engaged in parleys with the AIADMK on the matter of local elections. It is another matter that they, a least the CPI (M) finally have decided to go it alone in the local polls, but tragically this is not on account of Paramakudi. 

(V. Geetha is a writer, translator, social historian and activist. She has been active in the Indian women’s movement since 1988, and has written widely, both in Tamil and English, on gender, popular culture, caste, and politics of Tamil Nadu)

Police firing, result of ‘anti-Dalit bias'

THE HINDU, MADURAI, September 23, 2011

Paramakudi police firing is a result of an “anti-Dalit bias” among police and government officials and a few belonging to dominant castes, who are unable to digest the economic mobility and assertion of the Dalits, says a fact-finding report.

A fact-finding team, comprising civil rights activists and intellectuals from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, visited Paramakudi, Ramanathapuram and Madurai on September, 19 and 20 and met the family members of the deceased and injured at hospitals, government officials and general public to inquire about the police firing and subsequent attack in which six Dalits were killed and many injured. 

The team said here on Wednesday that casteist forces among the State machinery and certain sections of the dominant castes did not like to see Dalits getting organised and celebrate Immanuel Sekaran's guru puja in a big way.

Conspiracy?

The team found a letter circulated by Aappa Nadu Maravars Sangam, Mudukulathur, asking its members to take efforts to prevent Immanuel Sekaran's guru puja which was getting attention equivalent to that of Muthuramalinga Thevar's guru puja. 

Against this background, a Dalit school boy, Palani Kumar of Pallapacheri, was murdered on September 9, following which five members were arrested. 

But the Chief Minister cited a wall writing with objectionable words against Muthuramalinga Thevar in Thevar-dominated Muthuramalingapuram and Dalit-dominated Pacheri as the reason for the murder. 

But Muthuramalingapuram was a village where Dalits could not walk with their footwear on. 

How could a Dalit boy walk up to the ration shop in the middle of the village with ease to make wall a writing on a seven-foot-high wall, they posed. 

Animosity

The team found that among 28 Dalit students at Mandalamancikam Government High School 23 got their transfer certificates and moved to another school because of caste animosity during 2010-11. 

Eyewitnesses at the riot torn area and youth who sustained bullet injuries said that tear gas shells and water cannons, which were mandatory, were not used before resorting to firing. 

They also said that the policemen started to attack after abusing them by their caste names and this showed the casteist attitude among the state machinery.

Statement condemned

The fact finding team condemned the Chief Minister's statement justifying the police firing in the Assembly which reflected an “anti-Dalit” outlook. 

The CM should retract her statement because it had given an impression among the Dalits that there would be no room for justice for them, the team said. 

While demanding a CBI inquiry into the firing, the team sought the suspension and booking of cases under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against police officials Sandeep Mittal, Deputy Inspector General, K. A. Senthil Velan (Deputy Commissioner) and Sivakumar, Inspector.

Relief sought

Families of the deceased should be given a compensation of Rs.10 lakh each, along with a government job. Dalit villages in and around Paramakudi, Ramanathapuram lacked proper basic amenities and had been neglected for long. 

The government should provide them basic facilities. 

Government should also provide details of how many among the policemen and revenue officials in Paramakudi, Ramanathapuram and surrounding areas were Dalits and other dominant castes to assess the situation sociologically. 

Immanuel Sekaran's anniversary should be announced as a government function and the road leading to his memorial widened. 

The team said that government should take efforts to sensitise government officials on issues related to caste and inculcate democratic and constitutional values among them. The team was led by writer A. Marx of People's Union for Human Rights.

Jaya defends Paramakudi cop firing

Published on Deccan Chronicle   October 1, 2011

(Madurai collector U. Sagayam being briefed at the Government Rajaji general hospital about the condition of two dalit youths, Balakrishnan and Prasath, who were injured in the police firing on Sunday.)

Defending the police firing at Paramakudi in Ramanthapuram district in which four persons were killed on Sunday, chief minister Jayalalithaa said the police acted in self-defence and to quell the violence unleashed “by a few persons for their own political gains”. 

She also announced Rs 1 lakh compensation from the Chief Minister's Relief Fund to the next of kin of those killed. 

“The protesters indulged in large-scale violence and torched police vehicles. Police opened fire in self-defence and to protect public property as they threw petrol bombs and pelted stones. Unfortunately three were killed in the firing,” she said in a statement here. 

Ms Jayalalithaa said in the violence, Ramanathapuram DIG Sandeep Mittal, Pramakudi DSP Ganesh and Inspector Athisaya Raj were among those injured. 

She said, “It was highly condemnable for such an incident to have taken place, “disrupting law and order for the political gains of some persons” and appealed that none should indulge in violence.

Jayalalithaa said entry of Tamizhaga Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam founder John Pandian was banned in Ramanathapuram district to maintain law and order. 

“Since Mr. Pandian defied the order and proceeded to Paramakudi where the memorial of Dalit leader Immanuel Sekaran was located, he was arrested in Vallanadu in Tuticorin, she said. 

The chief minister said his supporters blocked traffic in five-corner junction in Paramakudi to bring vehicle movement to a halt. The police fired tear gas shells to disperse the agitating protesters. 

In Madurai, the police inspector fired at the protestors in Chinthamani junction in self-defence when they tried to attack him, she said adding that two persons were injured in t he incident.

Pacheri's loss

The family of Palanikumar, who was murdered, allegedly by upper-caste persons on September 9.

A PALL of gloom has descended over Pacheri, a Dalit village in Ramanathapuram district. All its residents are in agony over the gruesome murder of T. Palanikumar, a Standard XI student, allegedly by upper-caste persons on September 9.

The green-and-red flag of the Devendrakula Vellalar (Pallar) community flies at half mast on a pedestal bearing the portrait of Dalit leader Immanuel Sekaran at the entrance of the village. Women sit in groups and mourn the cold-blooded murder of the 16-year-old boy. Men have not been attending their routine work, not being able to come to terms with the murder.

Pacheri can be called a village of woodcutters. Most of the residents cut wood on daily wages ranging from Rs.150 to Rs.220 for charcoal-making units in the industrially backward area. The Dalits have to pass through the Mukkulathor-dominated Mandalamanickam village to reach the main road leading to Kamudhi and Virudhunagar. Pacheri is the only Dalit village under the Mandalamanickam panchayat, and it is surrounded by upper-caste villages. Access to the road is often denied to the Dalits.

The government has moved heaven and earth to link the murder of the boy to defamatory graffiti against Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar, the undisputed leader of the Mukkulathor community, on the wall of an old building in Mandalamanickam. But local people deny the involvement of Palanikumar or any other resident of Pacheri in the act. “As the upper-caste people have denied access to the pathway, it is impossible for Dalits even to enter Mandalamanickam,” one of them said.

I. Thangavel, father of Palanikumar, said his son was an intelligent boy who had won the appreciation of his teachers for maintaining good conduct and discipline in school. After completing Standard V in the local panchayat union school, he moved to the government higher secondary school at Anaikulam in Virudhunagar district, six kilometres from Pacheri.

On the day of his murder, Palanikumar and some of his friends had gone to Muthuramalingapuram, an adjacent Dalit village in Virudhunagar district, to watch a play staged in connection with the annual congregation of the local temple.

While he was returning home past midnight along Gundaru, a jungle stream, a gang waylaid the Dalit boys. Palanikumar was hacked to death.

Thangavel could not control his tears when he asked, “Tell me please, what amount of solatium would compensate the loss? Can they bring my son back?” He was firm in his demand that those who had committed the crime should be punished.

A. Marimuthu, community leader of Pacheri, accused the authorities of not responding positively to the long-standing demand of the local residents for laying alternative roads to reach the highway and ensuring adequate supply of drinking water. A well in the village, which is the only source of drinking water, was contaminated recently, he said, adding that it could be the handiwork of some miscreants in the neighbourhood. However, the apprehensions of the local residents were allayed by District Collector V. Arun Roy, who visited the village on September 14. He drank the water drawn from the well in their presence.

K. Muthukaruppan, a villager, said that until last year, 60 children of Pacheri were studying in the higher secondary school in the neighbourhood. Most of them had shifted to the school at Anaikulam this year because of alleged discriminatory practices.

“For the past four years, we have been participating in the ‘guru puja' of martyr Immanuel Sekaran, but this time we were prevented by the authorities from going to Paramakudi,” M. Sekar, another villager said.

The district authorities have told the villagers that steps will be taken for laying a new road for the residents of Pacheri. They have also promised to ensure the supply of drinking water through tankers.

Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa announced in the Assembly on September 12 that five persons had already been arrested in connection with the murder of Palanikumar and that she had directed the police to take stringent action to bring them to book.

For Palanikumar's parents, Thangavel and Bhuvaneswari, and his siblings, T. Munusamy, T. Vigneswaran, T. Soorya and T. Maheswari, the road to recovery is long and painful. The Collector had to work hard to make Palanikumar's parents accept the solatium of Rs.1 lakh announced by the government. They refused the gesture, saying that it would not bring back their son. The Collector promised them that all the accused would be brought to justice.

- S. Dorairaj

FRONTLINE Volume 28 - Issue 20 :: Sep. 24-Oct. 07, 2011

Targeting Dalits

The police action against Dalits in Paramakudi leaves indelible scars on the psyche of the oppressed people all over Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu Police, in its modern avatar, reflects a glorious tradition of over a century and a half. It was the only force to embark on State-sponsored modernisation in the early 1990s which was pioneered by me during my first tenure as Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996. Seizing the opportunity, the Tamil Nadu Police transformed itself into a mature and modern force with a humane face and unique approach to people and problems....”

                                                                                 – J. Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister, Tamil Nadu

WHEN Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, who also holds the portfolios of Police and Home, made this announcement proudly in the Budget session of the State Assembly on August 24, little would she have imagined that within 20 days her government was to face the embarrassment of ordering a judicial probe into a police firing at Paramakudi town in Ramanathapuram district. Six Dalits were killed and several others were injured in the incident. The government suffered further humiliation when the National Commission for Scheduled Castes sought detailed reports from the Collector and the Superintendent of Police of Ramanathapuram on the incident.

The Chief Minister initially appeared reluctant to order a judicial inquiry into the incident and announced a probe by the district revenue officer (DRO). However, she relented after K. Balabharathi, deputy leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the legislature, pointed out that the DRO, being subordinate to the Collector and the Superintendent of Police, would find it difficult to conduct an inquiry. Ruling out a judicial probe by a sitting judge, Jayalalithaa agreed to set up an inquiry commission headed by a retired judge of the High Court.

The police action against Dalits who had gathered at Paramakudi on September 11 to pay homage to their icon Immanuel Sekaran has left indelible scars in the minds of the oppressed people all over the State. Sekaran was brutally murdered by a group of caste Hindus 54 years ago in the same town.

In another incident on September 11, two persons sustained bullet injuries when the police opened fire on agitating activists of the Tamizhaga Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (TMMK) at Chintamani on the outskirts of Madurai.

 
THE POLICE CARRY the body of a man killed in the firing in Paramakudi on September 11. 

In Paramakudi, the police swung into action when a group of Dalits staged a road-roko at “Five Point Junction” on the Madurai-Rameswaram highway, demanding the immediate release of TMMK leader John Pandian, who was arrested in Tuticorin district. Pandian was on his way to Paramakudi to pay homage to Sekaran.

A large number of people on their way to Sekaran's memorial and back were stranded in the town because of stone-throwing, setting of fire to vehicles and throwing of petrol bombs by a group of miscreants. Things went from bad to worse as the police resorted to a lathi-charge and later opened several rounds of fire. According to local residents, gunshots were heard from 12-40 p.m. to 5-15 p.m. People who ran for their lives and those who were injured in the lathi-charge were taken into custody. Some of the policemen were also injured and several vehicles were damaged in the incident.

In view of Sekaran's memorial day, according to official sources, around 4,000 police personnel, including officers, were deployed at different sensitive villages and hamlets in the district. But in Paramakudi, the police were not deployed in adequate strength at the time of the incident, informed sources said.

The victims of the police firing are R. Ganesan (65) of Pallavarayanendal, T. Panneerselvam (50) of Veerambal, P. Jayapal (20) of Manjur, S. Vellaichamy (65) of Paramakudi, Theerthakani (25) of Keezhakodumalur and Muthukumar (26) of Sadayaneri. Almost all of them were farm workers or labourers in the unorganised sector.

Among the Dalits who were undergoing treatment for multiple injuries sustained in the police lathi-charge were I. Israel and M. Thanikodi of S. Kavanur, G. Senthil of Ammankoil, K. Vellaichamy of N. Pethanendal, S. Chandran of Pambur and K. Pandi of Ponnaiyapuram. Pandi, a 60-year-old construction worker, said a group of lathi-wielding policemen beat him up when he was bathing at a place close to the scene of protests. He has fractures in his left arm and left leg.

Vellaichamy, a 70-year-old retired headmaster of a primary school, said he had been visiting Paramakudi for the past 20 years to pay his respects at the memorial of Sekaran. He recalled that the police had never before used such brute force during Sekaran's death anniversary. Even after taking them to the police station, the injured persons were humiliated, he alleged.

Telltale signs

Even after a week, there were telltale signs of the violence – charred remains of vehicles, glass pieces and stones that lay strewn on the streets, and damaged hoardings. Schools and business establishments in and around Paramakudi remained closed, as were the roads. Bus services in the southern districts of the State were affected.

               THE POLICE RESORTED to lathi-charge and later opened several rounds of fire.

Though officials claimed that the situation had started returning to normal in Ramanathapuram and some other pockets in the southern districts, it appeared to be far from the truth. Interactions with Dalits in different villages and towns in the southern districts revealed that beneath the calm there was simmering anger at the attempts to suppress the rising Dalit assertion. They were upset at the way their plan to pay homage to their respected leader was scuttled.

In many villages, the residents, particularly Dalits, are in the grip of fear as the police have registered a case against 1,000 unidentified persons. The police have registered cases under Sections 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means), 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to cause damage), 427 (mischief causing damage), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of the Indian Penal Code and under Section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

“Don't be carried away by the officials' claim that the situation has started returning to normal. Our problems are far from over. We have to take care of the children and the aged, as the menfolk have fled the habitations in and around Paramakudi fearing arrest,” said a woman, echoing the sentiment in the Dalit colonies.

The day coincides with the death anniversary of the national revolutionary poet Subramanya Bharathi, who envisioned the emancipation of the oppressed masses, particularly Dalits. It was while returning home after addressing meetings to pay tributes to the poet that Sekaran was murdered by an armed gang in 1957.

On the previous day, September 10, Sekaran, a Congress sympathiser and Dalit leader, had participated in peace talks to end the violence that had broken out in the wake of a by-election to the Mudukulathur Assembly seat vacated by U. Muthuramalinga Thevar, All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) leader and acclaimed leader of the Mukkulathor community. The alleged kidnapping of nine Dalits close on the heels of AIFB candidate Sasivarna Thevar's victory in the by-election resulted in riots involving the two communities, claiming the lives of 42 Dalits. Objecting to Sekaran's participation in the talks on an equal footing with him, Muthuramalinga Thevar reportedly expressed reluctance to sign the peace agreement.

                THE MEMORIAL OF Immanuel Sekaran at Paramakudi

For the past two decades, Dalits have been observing Sekaran's death anniversary as “guru puja” at his tomb in Paramakudi just as Thevars do on the anniversary of Muthuramalinga Thevar at Pasumpon on October 30. Dalits from several villages and towns in the southern districts visit Paramakudi every year.

The number of participants has steadily increased in the past five years. Dalit organisations have been demanding that Sekaran's anniversary be declared a government celebration as has been done in the case of Thevar Jayanthi, but the government has not paid heed.

‘Pre-emptive action'

This time, police action pre-empted the participation of a large number of Dalits who had started pouring in from different districts to take part in the guru puja, said V. Kasinathadurai, secretary of the Tamil Nadu Federation of Loadmen Associations. Only some leaders of political parties, residents of Sekaran's native village, Sellur in Ramanathapuram district, and a few Dalit activists were able to pay homage at the memorial, he pointed out.

P. Chandrabose, general secretary of Tyagi Immanuel Peravai, said his organisation had been performing the guru puja since 1988, but this was the first time the police had used excessive force. In the past, Dalits who came to Paramakudi to pay homage to Sekaran have been attacked by some persons belonging to the Mukkulathor community while they passed through certain villages. Chandrabose said that only some oppressive-minded persons who did not tolerate Dalit assertion resorted to such crimes and that he would not blame any particular community for such attacks as right-thinking people and those who wanted to uphold human values and civil rights were spread over all communities.

Paramakudi has witnessed police firings earlier. In 1991, three persons including two Dalits were killed, and in 1998, a Dalit girl died.

Attitude towards Dalits

As has been pointed out by some civil rights organisations, the incident raises many questions not only about the handling of the situation but also about the attitude of the state towards Dalits. The events have also brought to the fore various issues relating to the plight of Dalits, who form a sizable percentage of the population in southern Tamil Nadu and the composite Ramanathapuram district (comprising present-day Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga and Virudhunagar districts) in particular. The issues are many: growing awareness among Dalit youth, deteriorating living conditions owing to dwindling livelihoods, industrial backwardness of the region, conflict between them and the oppressor communities who come in the way of their empowerment including in grass-roots level governance, calculated attempts by vested interests to keep the area as a hotbed of communal tension, and the reported partisan attitude of the police at the time of caste conflicts.

Jayalalithaa's remark in the Assembly on September 12 that the Paramakudi episode was the “culmination of a chain of events” triggered by a defamatory graffiti against Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar written on a wall at Mandalamanickam village by miscreants and the subsequent murder of T. Palanikumar, a higher secondary school student of Pacheri Dalit hamlet on September 9, drew flak from the Left and other opposition parties.

P. Sampath, leader of the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF), said no fair-minded person would accept the Chief Minister's explanation on the murder of the Dalit student. Her statement in the Assembly amounted to diverting the focus from the real issues, he said. He also accused her of attempting to justify the atrocious action of the police.

TNUEF secretary K. Samuel Raj, after visiting Pacheri, flayed Jayalalithaa's remarks. Expressing anguish over her view that the attack on Dalits in Paramakudi was the culmination of a chain of events, he said the Chief Minister must have made this observation keeping in mind her party's prospects in the ensuing local body elections. He called for the immediate lifting of prohibitory orders in the district under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure so as to allow leaders of political parties, civil rights groups and the media to interact with the residents of Dalit colonies with a view to instilling confidence in them.

There are few takers for the theory that the police firing was made in self-defence and to protect public property. Some civil rights groups are of the view that the police did not follow the guidelines of the National Human Rights Commission or those in the Police Manual to handle tense situations.

       JOHN PANDIAN, TAMIZHAGA Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam president, whose arrest led to the agitation by Dalits.

Latha Priyakumar, member, National Commission for Scheduled Castes, shortly after visiting Paramakudi and Ramanathapuram on September 15, described the deaths as “very unfortunate”. The mishandling of the issue had claimed innocent lives, she said. The preventive measures taken by the officials had not created an atmosphere conducive to peaceful observance of the death anniversary of Immanuel Sekaran, she said.

The police had not used the public address system to warn the protesters, she said. Moreover, she said, the people had stated that most of the victims of police firing were shot above the waist. The police should have cleared the protesters by other means instead of taking the extreme step of opening fire for burning government vehicles. “No one can bring the victims back to life, but vehicles can be bought,” she said. According to Sampath, the police had always let loose violence on Dalits whenever they raised their voice to assert their legitimate rights. He recalled the attacks on Dalits at Nalumoolaikinaru and Kodiyankulam in Tuticorin district, the drowning of 17 estate workers of Manjolai when they were chased by the police, atrocities committed against the oppressed community of Kangiyanur in Villupuram district while attempting to enter a temple for worship, and the beating up of women, the aged and children at Uthapuram in Madurai district.

Dr K. Krishnasamy, founder-president of the Dalit-dominated party Puthiya Tamizhagam, said the firing incident revealed the anti-Dalit psyche entrenched in the Police Department and a well-planned conspiracy to scuttle the smooth conduct of Immanuel Sekaran's death anniversary function. He urged the Chief Minister not to tolerate police excesses committed on the pretext of maintaining law and order. He also called for immediate steps to suspend the police officers responsible for the firing incident.

The Madurai unit of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) condemned the police firing at Paramakudi and Madurai. Its vice-president and coordinator, R. Murali, said, “[W]e are of the view that the police should have handled the situation very carefully and sensibly. This incident shows how the police have not been trained well to face this kind of a situation…. It seems that the police started indiscriminately firing after heavily lathi-charging the people at Paramakudi. At this situation, the police officials who gave permission to fire should explain on what authority they fired. Similarly, in Madurai, the shooting by a police officer using his revolver is obviously a violation of law.”

Henry Tiphagne, executive director of People's Watch, referring to the preliminary report of its fact-finding team, said there were “clear cases of brutal police torture of some selected Dalit activists.... Most of the [bullet] injuries have been above the waist.” He called for a re-post-mortem of all the bodies of the victims in the presence of family members, their authorised representatives or human rights defenders.

He also called upon the Chief Minister “to be sensitive to rumours making the rounds in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu that the police violence has been singularly engineered from quarters close to her with or without her knowledge”.

The issue found its echo in the Assembly as legislators belonging to the opposition parties raised it in different forms, including a calling attention motion. Members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India, Puthiya Tamizhagam and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) staged a walkout in the Assembly on September 14 protesting against the denial of permission to raise the issues relating to the police firing. However, they made their viewpoints on the issue public through the media.

     AIADMK leader J. Jayalalithaa and her friend Sasikala pay tribute to Muthuramalinga Thevar at the memorial on his 103rd birth anniversary in Ramanathapuram on October 30, 2010.

A. Soundararajan, leader of the CPI(M) in the Assembly, stated categorically that the probe would be meaningless if the police personnel involved in the firing and those policemen responsible for the riots were not suspended. He was of the view that the violence in Paramakudi betrayed intelligence failure. Had the police acted in a mature and fair manner, the untoward incidents could have been averted, he said.

He also pointed out that Dalits were at the receiving end whenever riots broke out. The violence also exposed the emptiness of the claim that TMMK leader John Pandian was arrested only to prevent untoward incidents.

Referring to the government's decision to provide Rs.1 lakh each to the next of kin of the victims, Soundararajan said the amount was inadequate as the kin of victims of attacks by wild animals were given a solatium of Rs.3 lakh. Echoing similar sentiments, CPI leader M. Arumugam demanded that the police should be asked to stop foisting cases on Dalits and conducting searches in their colonies.

G. Ramakrishnan, secretary of the State committee of the CPI(M), said the party would stage protest demonstrations all over the State on September 17 seeking action against the police officers who were responsible for opening fire on the Dalits. Veteran CPI leader R. Nallakannu said the party's activists would observe a dawn-to-dusk fast on September 20 at all district headquarters, protesting against the police excesses at Paramakudi and Madurai.

On September 15, a fact-finding team of the CPI(M), comprising legislators and functionaries, visited the villages and consoled the family members of the victims. The feedback obtained from the people in different villages clearly showed that the violence in and around Paramakudi had been triggered not by clashes between two caste groups but by the police, said A. Soundararajan, the leader of the team.

The team also called for immediate action to implement Justice Mohan Commission's recommendations to increase employment avenues in the backward region. Unemployment has been one of the major reasons for the recurring unrest in the southern districts.

The Bharatiya Janata Party and the PMK have also sent their fact-finding teams to Paramakudi. In a statement on September 12, Lok Janshakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan asked the State government to register a case against the police personnel responsible for opening fire on the Dalits. He also called for a compensation of Rs.20 lakh each to be given to the families of the victims.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the erstwhile ruling party in the State, trod a cautious course on the sensitive issue. Apparently, the party cannot afford to antagonise the Mukkulathor community whose support it badly needs in the local body elections, observers point out. However, party treasurer and former Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin visited the affected areas in Ramanathapuram district on September 15 and distributed Rs.1 lakh each to the families of the victims of police firing.

After visiting the Dalits undergoing treatment at the Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai on September 14, John Pandian said the police firing was aimed at suppressing Dalit assertion. The atrocities unleashed against these oppressed masses should not happen to any other community, he said, appealing to all sections of society to come together and strive for communal harmony. Disagreeing with the Chief Minister's view that the chain of events began with the graffiti in Mandalamanickam village and the subsequent murder of the Dalit student, he said she was misled by some government officials.

                           THE IDOL OF Muthuramalinga Thevar in his memorial at Pasumpon.

He demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the incidents at Paramakudi, Rs.10 lakh as solatium to the kin of the victims of police firing, and legal action against the erring police officers. A public interest petition has been filed before the Madras High Court Bench in Madurai seeking a probe by the CBI into the police firing.

The government has claimed that the violence was triggered by John Pandian's plans to visit Ramanathapuram district to pay homage at Sekaran's memorial in Paramakudi and to console the parents of Palanikumar in Pacheri village. It may be true that John Pandian had plans to strengthen his base in the district. But both the communist parties are of the view that the whole episode could have been averted had the police taken a wiser decision to allow him to pay homage at the memorial.

The communist parties feel that the government should take steps to ensure that there is no recurrence of the caste clashes witnessed in south Tamil Nadu in the 1990s.

The government has announced that the inquiry commission will be headed by K. Sampath, a retired judge of the High Court. The commission will go into the factors and circumstances that led to the police firing and the subsequent law and order problem. It will also ascertain whether the force used was warranted by the circumstances, whether all the prescribed formalities were observed before resorting to firing, and whether there were excesses on the part of the police. The commission has been asked to submit its findings and recommendations in two months.

- S. DORAIRAJ

FRONTLINE, Volume 28 - Issue 20 :: Sep. 24-Oct. 07, 2011