When they were preparing for their Class X exams at night, a group of students from the Irula community in Sripathy Nagar in Pakkam village, near Avadi, relied on street lights for illumination.
None of the Irula households in the locality has an electricity connection even though this community had settled in this locality a few decades ago.
Located on the Thirunindravur–Periyapalayam Main Road, a state highway (SH:50A), Sripathy Nagar is one of the many areas in Tiruvallur district where Irulas were resettled by the district administration.
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The members of this community say they had been promised provision of basic facilities, including land pattas, concrete roads, electricity, water supply and also enrolment in government sponsored welfare schemes. And yet, none of these promises have been fulfilled.
As a result of this, the Irular Association passed a resolution in a meeting recently to boycott the Assembly elections altogether. As a mark of protest, Irulas have raised black flags on their houses (huts). Tiruvallur is said to have around 80,000 Irula voters. “Our children study with candle lights and under street lights. We live in thatched huts with no facilities and there is no safety for us from natural calamities. All these years, we have received only promises,” said R. Prabhu, founder, Tiruvallur District Irular Development Association.
Irulas from different parts of Tiruvallur district organised a series of protest meetings near the Tiruvallur Collectorate for the past few months to draw the district administration’s attention to these grievances. The protest meetings were preceded by signature campaigns and street corner meetings at Irula settlements in the district. Also, for over two years, community elders had given several petitions to the district administration at public grievances meetings.
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“The Tiruvallur district administration ignored our plight. We decided to boycott this assembly election as voting all these years have not improved our lives,” said R. Saravanan, an Irula in Sripathy Nagar of Pakkam village, near Avadi.
According to sociologists, Irulas migrated to the city outskirts especially Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts in the early decades of the 20th century. With traditional occupations of snake trapping and wood cutting having been banned, Irulas are now mostly employed as agriculture workers in flower cultivation and loadsmen in rice mills.
At present, areas such as Kannimanagar near Kadambathur, Palavakkam and Elapadi near Uthukottai, Narasimangalam and Chatarai near Tiruvallur and Thadaperumbakkam near Gummudipoondi have Irula populations.
“Most Irulas in the Chennai outskirts migrated from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and worked at brick chambers and rice mills,” S.T. Akilan, assistant professor, Department of Sociology, University of Madras (Chepauk campus), said.