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Tamil Nadu controversy: No plans to convert, say some Dalit kin
On December 2, a 20-ft high wall, built ostensibly to segregate Dalits in Tamil Nadu’s Nadur Colony Village collapsed.
A day after a Dalit political outfit said 3,000 Dalits would convert to Islam starting January 5, to protest administrative inaction in the case of a wall collapse near Mettupalayam in Coimbatore that crushed 17 Dalits to death, the families of some of the victims said they had no such plans.
On December 2, a 20-ft high wall, built ostensibly to segregate Dalits in Tamil Nadu’s Nadur Colony Village collapsed. On Thursday, Tamil Puligal Katchi, passed a resolution condemning administrative inaction and announcing the conversion. The resolution claims the police did not act against S Sivasubramaniam(60), who erected the wall around his property.
Speaking about the decision M Muthukumar, spokesperson, Tamil Puligal said, “On December 2, 17 Dalits including children and women were killed as a 22-foot high wall collapsed on the houses of Dalits in Nadur colony.
“While Sivasubramanian, a caste-Hindu, who built the wall and caused the deaths has walked out on bail, our Tamil Puligal President Nagai Thiruvalluvan who asked for justice is still in prison. This shows the system is only supporting casteists and not the suppressed.”
The conversions would begin on January 5 with 100, he added.
“Our party’s Coimbatore district executive committee member M Ilavenil brought this resolution in our party meeting a few days ago. As many people accepted the mass-conversion idea, we will do that,” he said.
He declined to provide more details. In 1981, 200 Dalit families in Meenaskshipuram converted to Islam alleging continuous discrimination.
However, some families that lost their kin in the accident said they had no intention of converting.
K Easwaran (42), a resident of Nadur colony, who lost his 42-year-old wife K Thilagavathi in the accident said he could never consider conversion. A woman resident, who claimed to have lost relatives in the accident echoed the sentiment but asked not to be named.
A police officer in Mettupalayam who asked not to named said it was clear the decision was not taken by the residents of the colony but the political outfit. “No one in the colony is interested in changing their religious beliefs.”
