“A young girl was allegedly burnt alive by her parents in Madurai in Tamil Nadu on Gandhi Jayanthi day (October 2, 2014) for wanting to marry a Dalit boy. The only way to eradicate such monstrous acts is giving death penalty to those found guilty,” said Markandey Katju, Chairman, Press Council of India, on his blog as well as Facebook account on October 4 referring to the suspicious death of a girl at Usilampatti near here.
Detesting such inhuman acts and casteist prejudices that turn people so violent that they go to the extent of killing even their children, Mr. Katju, a former Supreme Court judge, said: “We must strike terror in the hearts of these barbaric, feudal-minded killers by hanging them. That alone will send a message that such horrendous acts are simply unacceptable in the modern age.”
This comment had made Madurai hit the headlines, one more time, for wrong reasons. Barely a week later, a 17-year-old Dalit boy from Tirumangalam near here lodged a police complaint accusing a few Caste Hindus in his village of assaulting him because they could not stand to see him walk with his footwear on and sit on a bench alongside men belonging to other castes in a teashop.
The complaint was made just two months past the conviction of a Caste Hindu youth for committing a similar atrocity against a 13-year-old Dalit boy at Vadugapatti near Usilampatti in June last year. A special court for hearing cases related to protection of civil rights had sentenced the youth to one-year rigorous imprisonment for forcing the school student to carry the footwear on his head.
The case gained momentum and ended in conviction only after a few Dalit organisations intervened and demanded justice for the little boy by pasting posters across the village and charging the police of soft pedalling with the accused. Despite the conviction, similar and even more gruesome atrocities continue to be reported from various parts of the district.
R. Alagumani, an advocate practising in the Madras High Court Bench here, points out that the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, states that complaints made under it should be investigated by officers not below the rank of a Deputy Superintendent of Police. It also prescribes punishment for public servants who fail to perform their statutory duties.
“Yet, we see that the police, many a times, do not attempt to curb such atrocities with an iron hand thereby giving a leeway for recurrence of such offences. A few months ago, a Caste Hindu outfit had put up a wall painting in Tamil near the Madurai Central Jail stating ‘Inathodu seraadhavan pinathirkku samam’ (Those who do not identify themselves with their community are equivalent to a corpse).
“Police should act against such offensive messages. But they don’t, possibly, for want of a formal complaint. It is these kind of messages that develop hatred between people belonging to different castes and project Madurai in bad light,” he feels.
Radwan Azam, a non-resident Indian from Dubai, says he viewed Madurai as “a land of violence where blood-thirsty people roam around with machetes as an indispensable part of their outfit and where caste and creed matter the most than love, affection and relationships.”
“All I knew about Madurai, until my recent visit, was through Tamil movies and the famous dialogue ‘Naanum Maduraikaaranthaanda’ creates an image that violence is an inborn quality of Madurai residents. Movies show Madurai as a land where blood flows like water. I hope that it is not so in reality and that incidents of honour killing are only stray events which can be prevented,” he says.
