K. Deivakumar and his cousin Raju are both descendants of repatriates from Sri Lanka.
Mr. Raju, a farmer based in Namakkal, holds a community certificate stating that he is a member of the Pallan community, one of the castes included in the Tamil Nadu list of Scheduled Castes.
Mr. Deivakumar, a resident of Bellare in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka and rubber trader, is not so lucky. He hasn’t got the certificate though the community figures in the SC list of the neighbouring State too. The 32-year-old, who heads the Sulia Taluk SC-ST Tamilians’ Welfare Association, says he has been denied it.
This is not an isolated case. Mr. Deivakumar, who spoke to The Hindu over the phone from Bellare, says there are a number of repatriates in the Dakshina Kannada District who ought to be given SC certificate but have been refused by revenue authorities.
The problem began only in 1992. Citing one reason or the other, none of the descendants of the repatriates have been given the certificate since then. And it is not confined to Karnataka. Of late, it is being experienced by the repatriate community settled in Kulathupuzha, a picturesque place 70 km from Kollam in Kerala.
“Till 2010, there was no hassle in getting the community certificate,” says K. Kandan Perumal, delegate member of Repatriates Cooperative Finance and Development (REPCO) Bank and founder of the Harijan Welfare Development Association.
Mr. Perumal and parents of Mr. Deivakumar were among those who were repatriated from Sri Lanka under the bilateral agreement signed between India and Sri Lanka in 1964, popularly known as the Sirimavo-Shastri Pact. [In 1974, one more agreement was entered into]. Both Mr. Perumal and the parents of Mr. Deivakumar were repatriated to India in 1974. Mr. Perumal was settled in Kerala and Mr. Deivakumar’s parents, in Karnataka.
The Information Handbook prepared by the Rehabilitation Department of the Tamil Nadu Government under the Right to Information Act 2005 (http://www.tn.gov.in/rti/proactive/public/handbook_rehabilitation.pdf) states that 988 families of repatriates were settled in Karnataka and 1,599 in Kerala. Following the eruption of the ethnic conflict in 1983, the Centre suspended the repatriation in October 1984.
As a senior government official says, these people, whose ancestors were from Tamil Nadu, were not migrants to the other States on their own volition but were settled there as a matter of policy by the Centre. No option or choice was given to them.
As part of the rehabilitation programme, the repatriates were provided employment on government plantations.
In Dakshina Kannada, the Karnataka Forest Development Corporation’s plantations, now spanning over 4,443 hectares, have been raised and 2,000 persons successfully rehabilitated, according to the Karnataka Forest Department’s website (http://www.karnatakaforest.gov.in/english/forest_corporations/ forcorp_kfdc-.htm).
In Kulathupuzha, 700 families were rehabilitated by providing employment to two persons a family on rubber plantations of the Rehabilitation Plantations Limited (RPL), a 40-year-old company owned by the Kerala and Union governments. Over 2,000 hectares were planted with rubber.
Among the reasons cited by the authorities in Karnataka is that the persons such as Mr. Deivakumar are ‘migrants’ and cannot claim SC status. As their roots are in Tamil Nadu, they can seek redress only there.
Ironically, the repatriate community at Sindhanoor in Raichur district does not face any such problem and community certificate is being issued, says A. Ganapathi, a lecturer in the government college, Hassan and repatriate Tamil.
But, the response of the repatriate SC community is that its members should not be called migrants as they are repatriates. In both States, the SCs account for over 50 per cent of the repatriates. They generally belong to three prominent groups — Pallan, Paraiyan and Chakkilyan, all of which figure in the SC lists of Kerala and Karnataka [as available in the website of the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment].
In Kerala, the stipulation is that only those who were settled there 50 years ago are eligible for community certificates. “We can never fulfil this condition as the process of repatriation gained momentum only in the 1970s,” says the 65-year-old Perumal.
In recent months, Mr. Deivakumar and Mr. Perumal have intensified their efforts to get justice for their community. They have also brought their case to the attention of the Commissionerate of Rehabilitation and Welfare of Non-Resident Tamils in the Tamil Nadu Government.
Home Ministry note
In April, K. Deenabandu, Principal Secretary/Commissioner, in his letter to the Joint Secretary (Freedom Fighter and Rehabilitation) in the Union Home Affairs Ministry, mentioned that it was “unfair and unconstitutional” to deny the repatriates their rights.
A month later, the Home Affairs Ministry wrote to Chief Secretaries of Kerala and Karnataka, explaining the nature of the problem and seeking their views. “We have not yet received their replies,” says R.R. Jha, Joint Secretary (Freedom Fighter and Rehabilitation) in the Ministry.
In Kerala, the issue was raised recently in the Assembly by the Member of Legislative Assembly from Punalur, K. Raju. When asked whether the Home Affairs’ communication was brought to his notice, K. Jayakumar, Chief Secretary, told The Hindu over the phone that it had not yet been referred to him. When it was referred to him, he would act on it.
The development that the Home Affairs Ministry had written to the two State governments has gladdened the leaders of the repatriate community.
“We are hopeful that our grievance will be redressed early,” says Mr. Deivakumar. Mr. Perumal, it seems, is willing to fight further. In case the authorities do not render justice, he is planning to take legal recourse.
(With inputs from Ignatius Pereira in Kollam)
