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The world is flatter
The tsunami gave S Kannan what half a lifetime of labour could not. After spending two decades as a helping hand on boats owned by Meenavars, the fishing elite of Tamil Nadu, this 35-year-old Dalit got a boat for himself, writes Amitava Sanyal.
The tsunami gave S. Kannan what half a lifetime of labour could not. After spending two decades as a helping hand on boats owned by Meenavars, the fishing elite of Tamil Nadu, this 35-year-old Dalit got a boat for himself. His livelihood is no longer at the mercy of the fishermen whose strong-armtactics ensured a tight control on the trade for ages. Kannan also got a 325-square-foot, insured, brick-and-mortar house and a sea-worthy fishing net — exactly what the Meenavars got.
It’s not just the experience of Kannan, who stays in the Killai region of Tamil Nadu’s Cuddalore district. The tidal wave, which flattened seven coastal districts a day after Christmas five years ago, levelled some old playing fields across the state. The massive rehabilitation effort gave out relief in equal measures to all. And inadvertently, for the first time, it brought the worst affected — the Meenavars, Dalits, and the Irular and Narikuruvar tribals — to the same ground.
“This would have been unthinkable a decade ago,” says Senthil Babu, a Puducherry-based researcher who has been coming to Killai since the 90s. “If the Dalits wanted more, they wouldn’t be allowed to the sea. If they floated their own catamarans, their way would be blocked.”
But it’s too simplistic to assume that the dole of fibre-reinforced plastic boats have smoothened the inequalities that have persisted for centuries.
Unlike Kannan, some of the region’s Dalits are not trained to fish in the high sea. Out of the 51,078 boats that were given out by the NGOs, thousands were sold soon after. Kannan alleges that the Meenavars are still trying to keep the Dalits from getting the state’s handouts during the three non-fishing months.
But more than that, the region has witnessed a major shift in mindset that’s likely to last longer. Annie George, chief executive of the NGO Coordination and Resource Centre that managed the work of more than 500 NGOs in Nagapatttinam, the district that accounted for three-fourths of all the tsunami deaths, says, “The Dalits and tribals have won some social acceptance...A Narikuruvar family proudly showed me a wedding card they got from another community for the first time.”
Some NGOs such as Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA) and Salvation Army proactively focused on the Dalits. Rajkumar Thambu, who has worked with CASA for 27 years, says, “One Dalit family from Annakoil had seen a girl before the tsunami to marry their son. The girl’s family wasn’t so sure. After the tsunami, the boy’s family moved into a pukka house — and the girl came with a car (as dowry)!”
The measures addressed some other old inequalities too. J. Radhakrishnan, who was appointed Collector of Nagapattinam a few days after the tsunami, says the region’s women have come forward like never before. More than 38,000 women’s self-help groups have been formed along the coastal districts, and they have been given more than Rs 3,800 crore of assistance.
C.V. Sankar, who headed the tsunami project management team in Chennai for four years till November 2008, says, “The 1,25,000 kids who are going to school on scholarship — some of them for the first time — could change the region.” If you needed assurance that lasting good can come of a catastrophe, you need not look further.
