The caste tensions that sparked after T.N. Scheduled Caste activist Immanuel Sekarans homicide in 1957

September 11 carries a particular significance for Tamil Nadu for multiple cause. The date marks the demise anniversary of nationalist-poet Subramania Bharati. It can be on this present day that Immanuel Sekaran, an activist representing the pursuits of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) within the caste-ridden composite district of Ramanathapuram, was murdered at Paramakudi 68 years in the past. The homicide led to sensational occasions, together with the arrest of U. Muthuramalinga Thevar, a recent of the then Chief Minister, Okay. Kamaraj, of the Congress and a key political determine of the Forward Bloc. Interestingly, Sekaran spent the day attending a operate in reminiscence of Bharati. (In January 1959, Thevar was acquitted of the cost by the trial courtroom at Pudukkottai).

Despite the passage of time, the 1957 occasions, beginning with riots at Mudukulathur, recognized for the focus of the SCs, proceed to dominate the general public discourse. While the SCs had been among the many adversely impacted individuals, an incident of the police firing at Keezhathooval, whereby 5 individuals belonging to the Mukkulathors had been killed, confounded the scenario. It gave rise to an impression that the Congress authorities of Kamaraj was ill-disposed in the direction of the group. Much has been written on the Mudukulathur episode, with the variations of the 2 sides offered. A senior citizen, who was within the mid-20s then and who belongs to the Maravar group (which is the denomination of Thevar too), feels that nice readability continues to be not out there on each side of the episode and maybe, extra time is required to grasp the total import of sure occasions of 1957.

An finish to servility

There are different views about the entire affair. V. Geetha, a writer-social historian, in an article in June 2024, described the occasions as one “signifying a conflict between social and political democracy”. A veteran tutorial, Okay.A. Manikumar, in his work, Murder in Mudukulathur (printed by Leftword in 2017), referring to the killing of Sekaran and the following “optimistic intervention” of the Congress authorities, said that this had “helped to finish the servility of their [SCs’] social relationships”.

The Mudukulathur disturbances had been an end result of the altering political and financial dynamics in jap Ramanathapuram. Radha Kumar, in Police Matters-The Everyday State and Caste Politics in South India, 1900-1975 (printed by Cornell University Press in 2021), cites two elements — the rise of Nadars (to which Kamaraj belonged) when it comes to “financial and caste standing” over the primary half of the twentieth Century and the improved activism and political participation of Devendra  Kula Vellalars (to which Sekaran belonged) — for sharpening of the long-standing tensions among the many three caste teams. Though Thevar started his profession within the Congress, he adopted his chief “Nethaji” Subhas  Chandra Bose, who shaped the Forward Bloc in 1939. It so occurred that Thevar and Kamaraj, who turned chief of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) in 1940, discovered themselves on totally different sides of the political spectrum. Though the Forward Bloc posed no menace to the Congress’s dominance within the State, the political variations between the 2 leaders had been additionally considered as one of many elements that contributed to the disturbances, which had attracted media consideration within the western international locations, together with the United States, as mirrored in a information merchandise of The Hindu on October 26, 1957. Predictably, the remedy by the worldwide press of the federal government’s dealing with of the scenario was adverse.

Union Minister’s take

Union Minister of State for Home Affairs B.N. Datar, who made a three-day go to to the riot-hit areas, instructed reporters in Madurai on October 7, 1957 that the origin of the disturbances in east Ramanathapuram was “political” within the sense that what occurred after the final basic and by-elections in Mudukulathur gave an impetus to the “already current bitter communal emotions” between the Maravars and the Scheduled Castes. Beyond that, he added, it couldn’t be referred to as political, in response to a report printed by this newspaper on October 8, 1957. Datar was on the dot, when he stated the first process could be “to allow the individuals” to recover from the “sturdy communal feeling”, a degree that holds relevance forever to return. Biographers of Kamaraj, together with VK. Narasimhan and A. Gopanna, report that the Chief Minister and his authorities had realised that elementary wants, together with these on the financial and academic fronts, had been uncared for within the jap a part of Ramanathapuram. An emphasis was laid on housing and rural roads that might profit all of the sections. Manikumar mentions that “the measures that the Kamaraj authorities adopted may not have put an finish to the caste animosity between the 2 conflicting teams within the area. But, definitely, they helped the Mukkulathors achieve higher entry to instructional and job alternatives.”

Police firing in 2011

In the final 68 years, the successive governments have carried out their bit to maintain the communal equations beneath management in the course of the demise anniversary of Sekaran and the beginning anniversary of Thevar in October. Only as soon as — in 2011 — did the scenario go uncontrolled when seven SC individuals had been killed and plenty of others injured in police firing and the following violence. Jayalalithaa was the Chief Minister then. The firing occurred when SC members assembled in massive numbers at Paramakudi to pay homage to Sekaran on his 54th demise anniversary. The violence broke out after the arrest of Tamizhaga Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam chief John Pandian, whose supporters demanded his launch. Last month, this newspaper reported that the CBI, which had taken over the probe into the Paramakudi incident on the orders of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, declined to share particulars of its investigation beneath the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. The Mudukulathur riots of 1957 have been brought on by a mixture of advanced social, political and financial elements. The want of the hour is to check the explanations dispassionately.