Calcutta High Court Judge C.S. Karnan may be at the centre of a raging national controversy. He may have incurred the wrath of the Supreme Court but in his native village, there is barely a whisper of it.
“Some reporters were here and only then we came to know that there is some trouble. But I don’t know the details,” says V. Adikesavan, a former vice- president of the Karnatham panchayat near Vriddhachalam.
Born in a Dalit family to a high school headmaster father, Justice Karnan lived in this village until he completed his school education, but left to study pre-university in Vriddhachalam and subsequently migrated to Chennai.
Justice Karnan’s house still exists at Karnatham but his name doesn’t seem to have much recall value among villagers. Some Dalits are, however, proud that he became a High Court judge.
Karnatham doesn’t seem to be the typical village where Dalits live in colonies and caste Hindus live separately. Here, some 500 families – nearly 40% of them Dalits – live in mixed neighbourhoods. Village water taps are common to all communities.
Justice Karnan is the second of eight children — five sons and three daughters — born to his parents. His 87-year-old paternal uncle C. Kasilingam, who lives in Karnatham, said that his elder brother Chinnaswamy Swaminathan was the headmaster of a Government High School and the president of the teachers association in the erstwhile South Arcot district. Swaminathan passed away two years ago.
“The judge’s father was a disciplinarian and educated all his eight children well. Karnan studied at the Mangalampettai High School and did his graduation at the Vriddhachalam Arts College,” he said. Two of Justice Karnan’s siblings — Devaneethi and Arivudainambi — are practising lawyers, while another brother Thiruvalluvan is with the Tamil Nadu Special Police. Villagers recall that Justice Karnan last visited the village more than seven months ago. “He didn’t interact with locals much,” recalls Mr. Adikesavan.
Tenuous links
While Justice Karnan’s links with his native village may appear tenuous, like most people hailing from a village, he seems to have some attachment to his family deity. He has arranged to build a shrine for Vairavar, a form of Ayyanar, at Karnatham.