Rejecting the accusation that the BJP, RSS and its sister organisations were driven purely by a communal agenda, Puthiya Tamizhagan leader Dr K. Krishnasamy on Wednesday said that nationalism and regaining national pride was their ideology. In an interview to The Hindu, the Dalit party leader explained the reasons for supporting NEET. Excerpts:
Puthiya Tamizhagam is among the few Dalit parties that have taken a sympathetic view of the BJP even though communal elements have raised their heads after the party came to power at the Centre.
Ours is not an absolutely Dalit party. While we are fighting for social, political and economic equality, we are constantly taking efforts to regain our identity as a community of wetland farmers.
We are the community that provides food supply to the society. I do not want to call BJP, RSS or its sister organisations communal. Nationalism is their political agenda and they are fighting to regain national pride. They might resort to communal agenda sometimes.
What is your view on religious conversion?
Dalits converted to other religions after the Mudhukalathur, Meenakshipuram and Ramanathapuram incidents. There was also an attempt to convert them to other religions after the Kodiyankulam incident in 1995. I travelled to every village in southern districts and put an end to conversion of Dalits into other religions. Why should we feel inferior to other communities? We are the sons of the soil. We have our worship methods and traditions.
Your party workers targeted writer and documentary film-maker Divya Bharathi after you came down on her for saying that Pallars were also involved in manual scavenging. What is your objection?
What she had said was wrong. She can highlight the plight of those who are involved in manual scavenging. But there is no need for her to go into the details of the colour and creed of the communities. As far as Pallars are concerned, they are wetland farmers and she had a motive in attaching a permanent stigma to them through her comments. Today, Pallars are ready to forgo even reservation to regain their original identity. How then do you expect them to tolerate her? When she faced objection she could have withdrawn her comments. But she remains adamant.
I opposed jallikattu when everyone supported it and I had at least one lakh comments and phone calls abusing me. I faced them.
In Tamil Nadu, all political parties have come together to oppose the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, and you are the only leader welcoming it.
The NEET has become a political slogan and the parties seem to have little respect for students’ welfare. NEET was decided by the Medical Council of India to regulate admissions to medical colleges mushrooming all over the country.
Through NEET, the MCI has set a benchmark for medical admission. Even backward States like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and UP had prepared themselves for NEET. Tamil Nadu already got one-year extension and it could have prepared the students to write the exam. When students who studied in Tamil medium are able to clear UPSC examinations and become IAS and IPS officers, they can easily crack the NEET.
In fact, NEET has a lot of advantages as it allows multiple attempts to fulfil the aspiration of a student to become a doctor. Mark-based admission is nothing but a single-door entry into medical college. Moreover, NEET has substantially increased the opportunities of Tamil Nadu students in getting admission in medical colleges in other States to pursue their post-graduate courses.
For many years, students from schools in Namakkal and Rasipuram outnumbered others in medical college admissions.
