Image Courtesy: IMDb

A First World War veteran begins life as a postman in Kuttanad, a small village by the backwaters of Kerala. The Second War is about to begin. Young men from the village, like others across the country, are enlisting in the colonial army. Many have already joined and gone to their postings. He paddles around in his little boat delivering money orders sent by the soldiers to their poor tenant-farmer families. For those who live by the whims of rich landlords, the money is a godsend and the postman a good omen. Maimed from the war and supporting himself on a crutch, gently dismissing the blessings gushed on him, he is the only person who has actually lived through a war. Small children talk excitedly of killing unknown enemies, the young are desperate to compensate their families’ meagre finances, the old are just grateful to not be entirely at the mercy of landowners and the weather. The postman watches all this worriedly.

Director Jayaraj’s Malayalam film Bhayanakam fills a gap in the grand chronicles about the Second World War that are painfully incomplete – the histories of those who fought, served and died at the behest of their colonisers, unthanked and largely forgotten. Similar omissions occur of the role that African-American men and women played in the War. In her article, “African-American GIs of WWII: Fighting for Democracy abroad and at Home,” Maria Höhn writes: “Until the 21st century, the contributions of African-American soldiers in World War II barely registered in America’s collective memory of that war. The ‘tan soldiers,’ as the black press affectionately called them, were also for the most part left out of the triumphant narrative of America’s ‘Greatest Generation’.”

Films like Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk use visually stunning cinematography to peddle a false narrative about the “plucky little country defying the massed ranks of fascists and Nazis”. As a review of Yasmin Khan’s book The Raj at War highlights: “The British always liked to believe they stood alone in 1940 … Britain did not fight the Second World War, the British Empire did.” That this empire’s colonies were a steady supply source of impoverished men fighting for a living is conveniently left out from big-budget Hollywood takes on the War. What could Europe and America’s war have possibly meant to those soldiers? What could “fighting for freedom” mean to those living under the multiple oppressions of colonialism, caste and race? Dunkirk ended with an archival recording of Churchill’s speech in Parliament (that alone is a sign of its exclusionary politics): A British hero, Bengal’s oppressor and a racist. A man responsible for the Bengal Famine (1943) that killed close to four million, because food grains were diverted to British soldiers instead — genocide.

Telling a fragment of this history, through the people of a small village in British India, Jayaraj brings together the consequences of war and the stories of the colonised. As the film proceeds, the money orders dwindle and the death notices increase. The goodwill that the superstitious villagers had towards him turn to fear and loathing. To them, he is a grim reaper— a sign of death in the family. They flee his presence, curse him, even beat him, seeing in him a corporal cause for their confusion, grief, rage and terrible loss, rather than the distant war they don’t understand. Their son is dead; so says a brusque telegram they can’t read, on which a name and the word “expired” are printed. He must read it to them. It’s his voice delivering an irreversible truth, if he didn’t speak those words, their son would still be alive. But the postman must do his job, so he plods on, grieving each death with them.

Image Courtesy: IMDb

The sweeping rain and the lush landscape of Kerala’s gorgeous backwaters, bleed colour as the death notices pile up, until everything is dull and lifeless. Renji Panicker who plays the postman is at first soft-spoken and mild, but becomes increasingly broken and tormented. Asha Sharath’s character rents him a room in her small house. She has both sons in the army. She saves up all the money they send her, hoping that they will be comfortably off when they return. She and the postman grow to care for each other and she confides her fear of their deaths in him. Each day, he in turn fears that a fresh batch of letters would also mean informing someone he loves, that she has lost her sons. Sick with anxiety, he becomes trapped in his own world of past trauma from the war, nightmares and a terror of the death notices that arrive with almost daily frequency.

Bhayanakam is the sixth film in Jayaraj’s “Navarasa” series. This film, as its title suggests, centres on fear. The previous films from the series are Karunam, Shantam and Bheebhats (made in Hindi), Adbhutham and Veeram. He hopes to finish the series with films on the remaining rasas – sringaram, roudram and hasyam. The story is adapted from two chapters of Malayalam novelist, Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai’s book, Kayar. The novelist carried the place of his birth in his name. As a nod to the film’s resource material, when the postman is asked where he’s from, he replies that he’s from Thakazhi. Bhayanakam has won the National Film Awards for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, the Vijay Award for Best Music Director and the Kerala State Film Award for Best Processing Lab/Colourist. It was screened recently at the India International Centre, New Delhi as part of the Malayalam Film Festival (03-06 July) curated by film editor and artistic director of International Film Festival of Kerala, Bina Paul.

Image Courtesy: IMDb

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Movie Poster

The film, set in Uttar Pradesh is supposedly based on the Badaun gang-rape and murder. Aesthetics is how the film lures its viewers: A pretty, light-skinned Brahmin boy, so earnest, so bewildered by caste hierarchy who is as clueless as the research team for the movie is the hero and saviour. Khurrana’s character, Ayan is after all an IPS officer. I wonder how he even passed his UPSC exam without hearing about the caste phenomena that befuddles him for most of the film? But this pales in comparison to the other missteps in the film.

As I watched the film amongst an audience who hooted, clapped and cheered, all I could feel was horror and disbelief. How could this pass muster with the audience? How could a sick exhibition of violence and brutality get mistaken for awareness? How can a movie on caste discrimination in which dalit bodies exist only as props to be raped, murdered, lynched, beaten and shredded with bullets be okay? Dalit characters bow and scrap. They clasp their hands in servile supplication, either begging for mercy or in gratitude. As if fetishised oppression is the only way to convince the savarna viewer about social justice, they are denied agency and assertion, they are denied their humanity. They are even mostly denied dialogues unless they are meek wide-eyed beseeching to the powerful.

The portrayal of dalit culture: protest songs, rallies and “Jai Bhims” betray the writer who has never heard and seen any of those. It dehumanises and humiliates the very people in whose favour the film has supposedly been made. Clothed as gritty cinema, it denies dignity. It is inebriated by its own righteousness. The sheer breadth of its ignorance, matched only by caste-blind entitlement, is stupefying.

How does this industry create the impression that it has dared to go into murky places that no one else has? How does Bollywood and its viewers exist even today, not knowing the fearlessness of many in “regional” cinema? Pa Ranjith, Leena Manimekalai, Amshan Kumar, Mari Selveraj – these are directors from just the Tamil film industry who deal with caste issues sensitively and powerfully. There are others in other Indian languages. How does Bollywood crudely play catch-up and yet convince a certain audience that it is leading from the front?

Article 15 is trapped between a rape and murder cop mystery and giving ham-fisted lessons in casteism. It chooses a macabre Nordic drama aesthetic with matching music and lightening, further distancing the atrocities from reality. The framing of the scene where two minor girls are found hanging by their necks from a tree as a restless fog swirls around them, while the music is adequately chilling, says that their deaths mean nothing without the cinematographic drama. It says simply that these deaths are worth less in their ability to move the viewer in comparison to what some good computer work could accomplish. Anubhav Sinha himself acknowledges this cinematographic style, reminiscent of the HBO series True Detective, but fails to recognise that as a problem. This, when the 2014 Badaun case led to immense trauma for the family and the CBI stalled the investigation. When the photograph of the two girls hanging from a mango tree was already hungrily consumed by media and viewers alike. Even without the cinematic drama, the photograph is shattering. It should never have been made public.

Characterisation too continues to be problematic throughout the film. The dalit constable in the station is the source of comedy, portrayed as dim-witted and ignorant but an essentially good soul. It recalled, forcefully, the racist “humour” of 30s American cinema that routinely used black-face or included black characters only for the jokes or as simpletons. The corrupt brahmin police officer played by Manoj Pahwa for all his casteism is so reduced by the villainy of his role, that he’s just a grunting, barely coherent creature filled with malice, stomping about as he rages at subordinate officers. It’s hardly surprising that the audience clapped in unison when he is slapped dramatically by the constable. One wonders if the same people would be equally thrilled about a brahmin being slapped by a dalit man in real life. Not all caste oppressors look and act like cine-villains.

The dalit constable in the film was apparently played by a brahmin actor. The caricature version of someone modelled on who appears to be Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad was allegedly played by a baniya actor. But the role of a sanitation worker rising out of a septic tank, covered in black sewerage was reserved for a real life worker. The director has defended the scene saying the set had been created by the production designer and that the sewage was artificial.

In the scene, the man rises out of the sludge, black liquid waste clinging to him, and wipes his eyes. The music soars. Everyone is supposed to be obligingly moved. I just felt sick. Do we really need a suitable background score and a towering theatre screen to see the inhumanity in the jobs of sanitation workers? Are the deaths and the actual news not enough? Is the fact that it continues to exist not enough? If the movie is about oppression, what is the director saying if not that a flesh and blood dalit’s sole role in a film about his community is to clean fake sewers for an audience? Is that his “aukaat” — a word the movie throws around relentlessly? This is when I also have to point out that the film in setting the events in a village in UP, reitetrates the urban myth that caste is only a problem in rural India. 

Of course, the legally aware viewer is wondering why the filmmaker has only just discovered Article 15 of the Constitution. Article 15 promises equality, but Article 17 of the same constitution specifically abolishes “untouchability”. Yet, these were not enough. The 1955 Untouchability Offences Act was amended in 1976 as the Protection of Civil Rights (PCR) Act. This act continues to exist. That too was not enough. That is why we have the Prevention of Atrocities against SCs and STs Act (PoA), 1989, that was amended in 2018. An act that has been in the news only in the last couple of years for the several changes it went through. An act under which such a case as depicted in the movie would be registered, if only the savarna hero knew his pretend job.
 
Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

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On May 22, Jignesh Mevani, MLA from Vadgam, Gujarat, released a strongly worded statement on his Facebook page, following the killing of Rajesh Sondarva. Sondarva was a 21-year-old dalit murdered by upper caste Hindu men in Rajkot, Gujarat. Earlier in May, a village sarpach in the state’s Mehsana district issued a diktat for the social boycott of a dalit man and his family, because he rode a horse at his wedding. Mevani titled the statement: “Gujarat: Hell on Earth for Dalits and Adivasis”. He wrote: “In 2019, the Gujarat government revealed a 32% rise in crimes against Scheduled Castes between 2013 and 2017, and a 55% rise in crimes against Scheduled Tribes for the same period”. Mevani also reminded people that the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (PoA Act) had been enacted to ensure that state agencies could take proactive measures to prevent atrocities. He added that the Gujarat state government had failed to either take corrective measures or to ensure that the victims and their families get justice when crimes are committed against them. Speaking to Newsclick and the Indian Cultural Forum, Mevani said, “In the state of Gujarat there is a mindset among upper-caste people that absolutely nothing is going to happen to them even if they keep subjecting Dalits to violence, discrimination and brutality. So the strong message that should have gone from the administration, the police and the government has not gone at all. Rather, through callousness and indifference, the BJP government in Gujarat is telling upper caste people that it is only them that they stand for.”

After the results of the 2019 General Elections were announced, Modi made a speech about minorities to the NDA MPs. He said that minorities live in an “imagined fear, this imagined atmosphere and this environment of dread was created – thereby keeping them aside, keeping them repressed, and only using them during elections.” Modi’s staggering capacity for Newspeak aside, the reality he dismisses as a “myth” is quite dire. That is true of both the state he ruled as Chief Minister from 2001-2014 and the nation that he will take over for a second term.

What atrocities?
Political figures like Jignesh Mevani who have fought for civil rights for years have a sobering side to tell. To understand the attitude of the government of Gujarat, Mewani says we have to take another look at the death of the Right to Information (RTI) activist Nanjibhai Sondarva. Nanjibhai was the father of Rajesh Sondarva. In May 2018, he was clubbed to death for filing an RTI application that sought details on financial irregularities for a road recently built to the village. The Manekawada village sarpanch was one among the accused. An article in CounterView written in the days following Nanjibhai’s murder, says that 11 RTI activists had been murdered for questioning the “Gujarat Model of Development”. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), an independent international organisation, has been “mapping” the assault, harassment and killing of RTI activists based on news media reports. According to it, between 2008 and 2019, 45 incidents have occurred in Gujarat. 12 were murders and one was a suicide. Earlier this year, Scroll.in had taken a look at the steady attempts to dilute the RTI Act by the Modi government. It is an unhappy read.

In the case of Gujarat, a state that consistently brutalises dalits, this is what happens to those who have the courage to question upper castes wielding administrative power. Mevani alleges that there was a video made by Nanjibhai that was widely circulated before his death in which he expressed fear for his life. Mewani asks why it is that the PoA Act is not being implemented properly to prevent atrocities. “Why did the local police, concerned Superintendent and District Magistrate not take cognisance? The result? Nanjibhai Sondarva, one of the best RTI activists we had from the dalit community was killed on May 9, last year” he says. “Instead of being ashamed about their failure, the police and the Gujarat government have gone into deeper slumber. Within a year Rajesh Sondarva, his son, was requesting adequate protection so that at least he is not killed. Police protection was provided, but the attitude of the operatives was apathetic. These casteist-feudal forces are so sure that nobody is going to touch them and that the state is not going take any stringent action against them. This boy was also killed last week.” Rajesh had refused to withdraw the case against the accused in his father’s murder. The accused were out on bail. An article by The Wire, quotes social rights activist and Association for Democratic Reform (ADR) Gujarat state coordinator Pankti Jog. Jog reportedly told them that Rajesh managed to identify his attackers. Right before losing consciousness, he apparently informed someone that he had been attacked by those accused of his father’s murder. In the same article, Jog adds that Mevani has been in touch with the Sondarva family in order to help them with the case. 

The May 7 incident in Mehsana is one of four incidents to occur within a week in Gujarat and all of them just concerning dalit wedding processions. On May 12, in Khambhisar village, a wedding procession was pelted with stones by upper-caste people. It was reported on May 28, that the horse used by the groom succumbed to its injuries.

On May 20, in the Baroda taluk, a dalit couple, identified as Tarulataben Mackwana and Pravin Mackwana, was attacked by over 200 upper caste men for a Facebook post. The husband in a Facebook post had said that dalits were not being allowed to get married in the village temple by the state government. The attack itself appears to have occurred on Monday, May 20, but came to light on Thursday, May 23, after the FIR was filed. To add insult to this grievous injury, Pravin Mackwana, who wrote the Facebook post, has also been booked for “promoting enmity between different groups.”

For a sordid, but by no means complete, list of injustices and discriminatory practices from 2014-18, the extract from Bhed-Bharat, by Martin Macwan, is necessary reading. Martin Macwan is the founder of the Navsarjan Trust (1989) and the Dalit Shakti Kendra (1999). He is an activist who has fought caste injustices in Gujarat and other parts of India for 40 years.

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989
The National Coalition for Strengthening SCs and STs, comprising of 70 organisations, activists and experts, published a “Report Card” in 2010, reviewing 20 years of the PoA Act. This 70 page report card also provides a historical sketch of the Act. According to it, post-Independence, it was clear that despite Article 17 of the Constitution abolishing and forbidding “untouchability”, discriminatory practices continued. To check this, the 1955 Untouchability Offences Act, was amended and renamed the Protection of Civil Rights (PCR) Act, 1976. Though not entirely sufficient, it continues to exist. To quote the National Coalition for Strengthening SCs and STs, a “more comprehensive and more punitive Act was required to protect SCs and STs from violence committed by other communities”. This was the origin of the SC/ST (PoA) Act, 1989.

In its introduction to the PoA Act, the above report highlights how the term “atrocities” was defined for the first time. These are enlisted in Chapter II, “Offences of Atrocities” when committed by “whoever, not being a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe”. In 2015, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act was passed. The entire PoA Act including these amendments can be read here. The announcement for the amendments can also be perused by those interested. Reading through them, one will see that the atrocities mentioned in the article, and the countless others that SCs and STs are routinely subjected to, are in violation of this Act. In March 2018, the Supreme Court passed a verdict that diluted the PoA Act claiming that it was being used for “blackmail”. This understandably led to massive backlash. In August the same year, the Government of India passed the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018, effectively nullifying the effects of the verdict. While this seems a progressive and proactive measure, one is inclined to wonder how much this had to do with the then upcoming state and Lok Sabha elections.

In the second chapter of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities)Act report for the year 2016 the following claims are made about Gujarat among other states:
 

1. Special courts to ensure speedy trials of cases under PoA Act: Out of 33 districts, 16 special courts in Gujarat.
2. Setting up of (a) SC/ST Protection Cells at State Headquarters, and (b) Special Police Stations for SC/ST: SC/ST Protection Cell at the State headquarters under the charge of a DGP, ADGP/IGP
3. Nodal Officers for coordinating the functioning of District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police
4. Delineation of “Identified areas” or “atrocity prone areas” + Spl Officers

 
The same claims had been made in reports from the year 2010 and 2013.

A review of the PoA and PCR Acts available on the same website, was presented in a meeting of State Secretaries in February this year. It offers dismal information about Gujarat and many other states. 1321 cases of atrocities against SCs were registered in Gujarat in 2016. Gujarat also features in the list of “States where conviction rate was in single digit in regard to PoA Act related cases, in conjunction with the IPC, during 2016, as against all India conviction rate of 24.9 percent”. The conviction rate was 0.4 percent. The number of cases pending at the end of 2016, in Exclusive Special Courts in Gujarat stood at 8998. Neither of these latter two lists are specific as to whether it is regarding both SCs and STs. It must be noted that the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data that is publicly available stops after 2016.

The “Report Card” mentioned earlier, cites another report made by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) with regard to non-registration of cases under the PoA Act. It alleges that due to police collusion with dominant caste or departmental suppression of crime rates figures, crimes are registered under the IPC instead of the PoA Act. Also referring to a study made by Martin Macwan and Harshad Desai, the “Report Card” gives one such example from Gujarat. From a “sample study covering 11 atrocity-prone districts exposed that between 1990 – 1993, 36 percent atrocities cases were not registered under PoA Act. In 84.4 percent of cases where the act was applied, the cases were registered under wrong provisions with a view to concealing the violent nature of the incidents.” The study also says that between 1995-2007, less than one-third of the crimes against SCs/STs were registered under the PoA. We spoke to Paul Divaker, one of the founding members of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR). He says that the trend of registering cases under the IPC instead of the PoA Act continues.

Institutionalised discrimination and abuse are some aspects of caste based atrocities that need to be spoken of more. In Bhed-Bharat, Martin Macwan notes the higher incarceration rates of Dalits: “Around 32.9 percent of all convicts and 23.4 percent of under-trials in Gujarat’s prisons are dalits, a community that forms just about 6.7 percent of the state’s overall population” as of 2014. Access to health care, especially pre and post-natal care, is also liable to caste-based discrimination. He notes that in 2015, in Hajipur, Patan District, a three-year-old dalit girl was stopped at the gate of Anganwadi Centre No. 160 and told to go to Centre No. 159, “the one for dalits”. Keeping this mind, the question whether discrimination against dalit Aganwadi and ASHA workers by upper caste women who may refuse to be treated by them also arises. How does the PoA Act then ensure right to health care and right to work? How does it protect against systemic discrimination as illustrated by high incarceration rates?

Paul Divaker points out that in general in the country, there are discriminatory practices with regard to schools (right to education), wage labour and corporate recruitment. He told us that the PoA Act does not take such forms of discrimination into consideration. He says that they are drafting a proposal for an “Equal Opportunities and Anti-Discriminatory Act”. They hope to submit this to people in the government who are likely to respond to it. 

Divaker says that the lack of authoritative data will soon become a problem for those working for civil liberties and the rights of minorities and marginalised people. The example of the NCRB data is worrying. Divaker says that its effects will be crippling.

After being voted back to power, Modi talked to his MPs about reaching out to minorities. The Hindutva forces that helped bring him to power, on the other hand, assault and murder minorities with increasing impunity. The number of cases reported just after the election results were announced on May 23 are telling. Against this, the talk of inclusivity and safeguarding minority rights simply looks like an attempt to mislead international news media. The article in Time magazine — that called him the Divider-in-Chief, the Mehdi Hassan interview with Nalin Kohli in Al Jazeera, and numerous other international features and stories, have drawn attention to sectarianism and violence under the Modi Govt. If Modi believes that he can do away with international scrutiny with a few well-crafted words, it doubly falls on national news sources to dispel misinformation and propaganda.
 
Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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The Suya Mariyadai Iyakkam (Self-Respect Movement) is perhaps among the most radical and progressive aspects of the Dravidian Movement. The Dravidian Movement itself is often traced back to the founding of the South Indian Liberal Federation in 1916. In the then Madras Presidency, it consisted of an anti-Brahmin position by people coming together around a common south Indian identity. By the following year, it became the Justice Party. The history of the Justice Party is long-winded: it ran into several hurdles due to varying linguistic identities within it and pro-British leanings that did not stand the test of Independence sentiments. It is only meaningful to this discussion in so far as that it soon was not a federation of identities based on several south Indian languages, but only Tamil and would later become closely associated with Periyaar and the Suya Mariyadai Iyakkam. Meanwhile, Periyaar who until 1925, had been a part of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) stepped down, feeling that there was a strong Brahmin bias within the party and that leaders like Gandhi were not doing enough for oppressed castes¹. Between the mid-1930s and the 1940s, Periyaar began the Suya Mariyadai Iyakkam, took over the leadership of the Justice Party, threw out British loyalists and  brought in the demands of his movement instead-creating a split. Those who stayed with him, stayed under the banner of the Dravida Kazhagam (Federation). The remains of the Justice Party eventually died out.

The call for a separate Dravidian homeland, the anti-Hindi, anti-Brahmin, anti-British stance is well-known. Periyaar was an iconoclast for whom all organised religions were a problem, but he harboured a special dislike for Hinduism. To him the Sanskritised Brahmanical stranglehold was what endorsed caste-based discrimination and patriarchy². His travel to the Soviet Union and Europe in the 20s and 30³ made him sympathetic towards socialism, communism, and anti-Imperialist movements. Perhaps, this contributed to his belief that the desire for private property and patriarchy were closely allied⁴. In the chapter on marriages in his book Penn Yean Adimaiyanaal (How Women were Enslaved), he calls the ritualism and especially the term “deyviga kalyanam” – loosely, a wedding ordained by the gods themselves –a scam and really just a means to keep a woman “shackled” to her husband.⁵ He despised the notion of a nuptial contract that kept a woman subservient to a man in every way including sexually. It is interesting to note that born E V Ramaswami Naicker, he came to be called “Periyaar” first at the Tamil Nattu Permagalir Manadu (Tamil Women’s Conference), 1938 by Neelambikai Ammaiyar.⁶
 
The criticisms levied against Periyaar then and now though not without substance, can hopefully been seen alongside the lasting fractures he made within traditional Tamil society. The Suya Mariyadai Kalyanam was at once a rejection of oppressive gender and caste hierarchies. It recognises only marriage vows that accept both members as equal companions in life, doing away with the holy fires, priests, and any ritual that designates the woman as subordinate to her husband. It has become a sanctuary for inter-caste marriages. Speaking to the Indian Cultural Forum, Isai Inmban, representing the Periyaar Marriage Bureau in Chennai, tells us: “More than 90% of the weddings we conduct are inter-caste in which one of the couple is adi-Dravidar (the term for dalits used by the DK amongst others) and are eloping” He also added that, “the point is not only to reject caste and orthodoxy, it is ultimately to destroy it. It was also created on the principle that women specially should be able to retain their dignity (though “suya mariyadai” is translated as “self-respect” the essence of the Tamil term is dignity and the right to self-determination,  as opposed to the indignities of caste-oppression.)” The vows are simple declarations of equality. Isai Inmban who also writes for the Tamil Journal, Vidutalai (Liberation) which was launched by Periyar and is still functional, recited them: 

“Vaazhvil erpadum inmba, thunbangallil, sama pangerkkum, sama urimai padaitha, otra nanbargallaga vazhvom endru uruthi kuurugiren. Vaazhvil enidem irunthu enna enna urimigallai thangalluku ethirpaarka urmiyundo, athe urimaygalli eithirpaarka urimai enakum undu.”

The vow translates as, “In all of life’s joys and troubles, we swear to share equal responsibility and equal entitlement/right, living as firm friends/companions. Whatever privileges you have the right to expect of me in our future, I have equal right to expect the same of  you”.  The couple must be at least 21 and need to furnish name, age, and address proof. They also have to be accompanied by four witnesses. A senior DK member presides over the ceremony as they exchange their vows and garlands.

C N Annadurai, Periyaar’s lieutenant of many years, broke away from the DK in 1949 over ideological differences, the aspiration for entering electoral politics (by his founding of the DMK), and a 72 year old Periyaar’s marriage to Maniamaal, a 25 year old party functionary. Despite this, when the DMK formed the state government in 1967 for the first time, he was instrumental in ensuring that the Suya Mariyadai Kalyanam was legally recognised. Under the Tamil Nadu Act 021 of 1967: Hindu Marriage (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 1967, “an Act further to amend the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, in its application to the [State of Tamil Nadu]. Whereas it is necessary to render valid suyamariyathai or seerthiruththa marriage” an incredibly progressive attempt at social reform passed into law.

While this looks like Tamil Nadu bounded forward towards social justice and reform, the continuing reality of caste and gender oppression is dire. The state ranks amongst those with the highest number of cases of caste atrocities registered. The latest report of the National Commission of Schedule Castes that is available on the website is for 2016-17. As per the report, based on NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) data from 2015, 1782 cases were registered under the POA Act (Prevention of Atrocities Against Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes, 1989) For some perspective I must add that the numbers from UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are much higher. In the same year, Tamil Nadu also features in the list of top ten states of ‘Incidents of riots on SCs by non-SCs’, coming up at the top three with 185 such cases. According to an analysis by IndiaSpend, conviction rates between the years 2006-2016 in Tamil Nadu are depressingly low – less than 10%. All of this begs the question, if these are the official figures, what are the unofficial cases/incidents of casteist violence and how many of them are due to inter-caste marriages?

November 2018, in Soolakondapalli, 13 kilometres from Hosur, a 25 year old Dalit man’s body clad in a blue T-shirt with the words “Jai Bhim” emblazoned on it, was found assaulted almost beyond recognition. In the following days his wife’s body, split open to “remove” a three month old foetus, her head shorn was also recovered. Swati belonged to the powerful Vanniyar caste and had been brutalised and murdered by her own family. The Vanniyar community who while on the one hand regularly prey on dalits, enjoy considerable political sway in the state.  The Hindu reports that in 2016, in the AIADMK state government, 19% of the MLAs were Vanniyar. Caste continues to play too successful role in state politics with various MBCs and OBCs warring it out and choosing allegiances based on it. This has in fact been one of the foremost criticisms of the Periyaarist and the rest of the Dravidian Movement, that it in many ways, abysmally failed the most marginalised communities within the state.

Kausalya and her husband V Shakti | Image Courtesy: The Hindu

In December last year, the wedding of anti-caste activist, Kausalya, came as a desperately needed act of resistance. Kausalya’s story is one of many despicable cases of “honour killings” – this euphemism for bigotry, brutality and murder remains baffling. Her first husband also a dalit, was set up on by men from her own family, who are from the Thevar caste. He was killed in the Udumalaipet market in the Coimbatore district in 2016. In 2017 her parents and others were finally lodged in the Coimbatore Central Prison. In December 2018, she did a Suya Mariyadai Kalyanam with parai drum artist and band member, V Sakthi at the Thanthai Periyaar Dravida Kazhagam office in Coimbatore. The parai drum always reviled by caste Hindus as unclean and symbolising an ill-omen as it is played traditionally  by dalits at funerals, has now in itseld become a symbol of dalit resistance.

As the Suya Mariyadai Kalyanam was legalised as an amendment to the Hindu Marriage Act, it has to be registered under the same. The Periyar Mariage Bureau, which is run by DK functionaries, conducts the weddings and gives the couple a signed certificate that can be used to register their marriage. When asked what those of other faiths who wish for a Suya Mariyadai Kalyanam can do, Isai Inmban agreed that this a drawback. He told us that the DK has requested the DMK to make a provision for inter-religious marriages to also be included. He added that inspite of this, they offer what advice and assistance they can to inter-faith couples who are eloping, in terms of what legal options they have.  Mr Inmban was confident that if the DMK were to return to power in the state, they would take the necessary steps. We will have to wait and see when the Legislative Assembly elections happen, if this indeed does make it into the party manifesto.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Last November, T M Krishna was scheduled to perform at the concert organised by Airport Authority of India (AAI) and SPIC-MACAY at Nehru Park, New Delhi.  Mere days before the event, it was called off citing unnamed “exigencies” and that it would take place on another date. From the time of the event’s announcement on social media by the singer, an online hate campaign was launched by right-wing trolls, who branded him with epithets like “anti-Indian” and “urban naxal”, a term that currently has their relentless patronage. T M Krishna is known for his outspoken commitment to social and political justice as much he is for masterful singing. Undeterred by harassment and bullying, he declared, “Give me a stage anywhere in Delhi on November 17, I will come and sing. We just can’t let ourselves be cowed down by these kind of threats”. The AAP government in Delhi stepped in and organised an event at the Garden of Five Senses and T. M. Krishna sang as scheduled.

On his return to Chennai, he was to be a part of an event organised by First Editions Arts (FEA), Mumbai. FEA has been a platform for bringing together musical practices across genres and traditions.  In a series of tweets posted on the afternoon of May 13, he spoke of the events that transpired as right-wing groups once again attempted to stop his performance. “The day after I performed in Delhi (Nov 17th, 2018) at the invitation of the Delhi government after the Spic Macay performance series was postponed by AAI due to exigencies of work, I was scheduled to sing for First Edition Arts in Chennai. The auditorium rented by @firsteditionart was Rasika Ranjani Sabha. To cut the long story short (which has many behind the scenes sinister happenings), a senior member of Hindu Makkal Katchi called Devina Dutt [of the FEA team] and threatened to disrupt the concert. The Tamil Nadu BJP unit also called her to stop the concert. The officials of RR Sabha put pressure on First Edition Arts to cancel the event. As a final bid to stop the concert officials of RR Sabha insisted that they must be allowed to condemn my political positions publicly while I am seated on stage, just before the concert begins. And if this was not allowed they would cancel the concert. I agreed to these terms and the RR Sabha official spoke for long saying many things! My answer was in song! And here it is,” he said, with a YouTube link to the performance.

T. M. Krishna sang a composition by Subbarama Iyer titled “Yarukkaghilum Bhayamaa”. The title can be loosely translated as “Is there anyone I fear?” The song as sung by a female protagonist, speaks of the declaration of love made to her by King Lingadurai. The town gossips about her, expects her to be furtive and slink through sidedoors. But she is proud. “Let them talk,” she says. Whom should she fear? Whom has she wronged?

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Image courtesy Madras Musings

Singaravelar was far more than one of the country’s earliest Left thinkers. He was a multi-linguist who spoke German, French and Russian.

Speaking to Newsclick and the Indian Cultural Forum, G Ramakrishnan, the Tamil Nadu State Secretary of CPI, recalls Singaravelar as a social reformer too.  When Singaravelar gave his presiding address at the Kanpur Conference in 1925, also referred to as the First Indian Communist Conference, he spoke of the need to eradicate untouchability in Tamil Nadu. He was a fierce campaigner for scientific temper and knowledge. Calling him “a pioneer in this aspect”, Ramakrishnan points out that Singaravelar wrote extensively on these themes in EV Ramasamy’s journal Kudi Arasu,. Speaking to the Indian Cultural Forum, Pulavar Veeramni, one of the foremost researchers in Tamil Nadu on Singaravelar, also spoke of his commitment to science, rationality and social reform. Singaravelar was originally a Congressman, but left the party in 1928. Until the mid-1930s, he stayed with Periyar and the Self-Respect Movement, writing on critical topics like environmental conservation, translating works of people like Freud into Tamil, and writing scientific commentaries on themes such as the Theory of Relativity, the Nebular Hypothesis, and the contributions of Giordano Bruno, for Kudi Arasu. After leaving Periyar over ideological differences, he continued to publish similar articles in his own scientific journal called Pudhu Ulagu (A New World). He also translated works of Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, and Herbert Spencer into Tamil. Reportedly, his insightful critique of Das Kaptial was the reason he was invited to give the presiding address at the Kanpur Conference in the first place.

Pualvar Veeramani tells us that Singaravelar also wrote on and envisioned a “world without war” as a reaction to the terrible fallout of the First World War. He stood his ground when Sardar Patel did not want to include sex education in schools based on conservative sentiments. 

His writings on caste, education, science and more are available in Tamil publications even today. 

Singaravelar courted arrest for his participation in the South Indian Railway Strike in 1928, serving a four and a half month prison sentence in 1930. He died in 1946. The then Chennai Collectorate was named Singaravelar Maaligai in his honour, as was the M. Singaravelar Memorial Group House Scheme.

Courtesy: Two Circle

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The issue came to light in the third week of February when a woman approached the police, initially with a complaint of chain snatching. It was later revealed that four men had allegedly sexually harassed and blackmailed her. The arrest of the suspects revealed a huge racket of blackmailing women for sexual favours or money which has been going on since 2013, with officials stating that at least 50 women may have been sexually harassed. On March 12, the case was transferred from the Tamil Nadu Police to the CB-CID and the next day, the government announced that the CBI would conduct the investigation. Despite these steps, there is a general distrust of the fairness of the probe, especially due to the lapses in the investigation so far.

For instance, Coimbatore SP R. Pandiyarajan, who was initially responsible for the investigation, actually revealed the name of the survivor in a press conference. Both the Pollachi police and a Government Order reportedly also revealed her name too. Though the IPC clearly protects survivors from such disclosures, the repeated instances of such revelations are being viewed as a means of intimidation to prevent women from coming forward and complaining. “This is gross injustice. Just this one act will function in keeping other women from coming forward, threatening them effectively into silence. Severe action needs to be taken against him”, says P. Suganthi, State General Secretary for All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA).  In her view, the police have deliberately impeded the investigations.

In a press statement, Henri Tiphagne, Executive Director of People’s Watch, Madurai, condemned the disclosure and called for serious action to be taken, “It is worrisome that none of the higher police officers including the Additional Director General of Police(L&O), Inspector General of Police, Coimbatore and Deputy Inspector General of Police of Coimbatore range have not taken any disciplinary action against Mr. Pandiyarajan known to the public for revealing the identity of the victim. Secondly, Mr. Pandiyarajan by stating that there was no “political influence” in this case has raised more doubts and concerns about the nature of the investigation.” Tiphagne also alluded to an earlier incident of misdemeanour by Pandiyarajan, in 2017 when he was a Deputy Superintendent. A widely publicised video shows him slapping a woman protestor at a demonstration against TASMAC (Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation that has monopoly on liquor sales in the state.)  People’s Watch has registered a complaint against him with National Human Rights Commission, which has been transferred to the Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission. The SHRC has attached this complaint to their suo-motu complaint, according to Tiphagne.

Media Mishandling
The Editor of Tamil journal Nakheeran, has come under fire from the state wing of the Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI). In a statement shared by a member on Facebook, they strongly condemned “…the publication of audio-visual content pertaining to a horrific incident of rape through various platforms. The content, unambiguously, belongs to Nakkheeran, and Mr. Gopal has also urged people to “watch the video” … Contrary to the claim that the video has served the purpose of initiating outrage, it has only taken perversion into homes via mobile and television screens, as perverted and voyeuristic content, and we do hope you will take all efforts to remove that content forthwith from all fora, including social media.”

Political Rows
These events have led to massive outrage in the State. Opposition parties and civil society organisations have mobilised strongly on the issue. The protests intensified after an AIADMK worker, A. Nagaraj, was reported to have assaulted the brother of the survivor. Nagaraj was expelled, citing ‘actions that run contrary to the beliefs and aims of the party’ in a statement co-signed by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisami and Deputy Chief Minister, O. Paneerselvam. However, opposition parties accused the AIADMK of protecting the suspects. On March 12, a DMK-led protest at Pollachi resulted in the arrest of MP and Women’s Wing Secretary K. Kanimozhi. SFI had also organised protests on the same day.
Most of these organisations have also expressed scepticism of SP Pandiyarajan’s claim that there is no “political connection” to this issue.

Makkal Needhi Maiam, in a press release, stated that the Women and Children Welfare Wing Co-ordinator, Sri Priya rallied together more than 300 “social activists” at Pollachi to submit a petition to the Sub-Collector’s Office demanding, “to take severe action against the culprits, take necessary measures to prevent the identity of the victims being revealed and to punish those who spread the identities of the victims immediately.” Party President and Founder, Kamal Haasan reportedly filed a complaint at the DGP’s office in Chennai.

Concerns and Demands
Speaking to Newsclick, Kaviya demanded strong punishment for not only the four accused but also all those involved in the racket. She also sought protection for the survivors. “We can convert the courage of that one woman, into the courage of all the survivors; we can convert it into the courage of all the women of this state. We will fight for this until they get justice,” she said.

Suganthi said the investigation should be monitored by the High Court. She also wanted cases of accidental deaths in the region to be re-opened to examine if any of them were connected to this racket. Expressing AIDWA’s solidarity and support for all the women who come forward to file complaints, she said the government should create a safe space for them

AIDWA will be organising protests on March 15, in Pollachi and all district headquarters in the State. They are trying to bring together student organisations, youth federations, and  trade unions for joint mobilisations on the issue. The SFI Tamil Nadu’s Girls’ Sub-Committee is planning a hunger strike on March 17.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

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