The Fall And Rise Of A Discriminatory Wall; Remembering 17 Dalit Lives

December 2 marks the third death anniversary of 17 innocent humans in Mettupalayam’s Nadur village, located in the Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu. It was an early rainy morning at around 5 am. The sounds of crushing stones and human screaming were heard by the neighbourhood residents. A big sound like stone pelting strikes the ears of natives in the Kannappa layout in Nadur village. When they rushed out of their homes, they witnessed a horrifying scene of murky water gushing. The 20-foot-high giant wall, constructed by a famous textile trader in Mettupalayam, collapsed on three houses in the village due to incessant rains.

It was a row of three houses where 17 Scheduled Caste people who belonged to the Dalit Arundhathiyar community lived. Children, teenagers, men and women were the victims of the accident. They were in deep sleep when they were buried alive brutally under the compound wall.

Right in the morning, police, politicians and the disaster management team arrived at the accident spot. According to the residents of Kannappa layout, Nadur village, the accident scene was intense. Those three houses were completely destroyed, and soon after that, the nation came to know none of the members of those three houses was saved.

The incident sparked outrage in various places in Tamil Nadu. Protesters from Pro-Dalit organisations started reaching Nadur village. Following the collapse of the wall, the natives of the Dalit colony made some serious allegations against the owner of the wall, Sivasubramaniyan. The residents had informed him about the threat posed by the wall even months before the incident. They had been complaining about the safety concerns regarding the wall for years. As per the natives in the colony, the owner of the wall, Sivasubramaniyan, also an upper-caste textile trader, never spoke or interacted with the residents in the colony.

Untouchability Or Poor-Rich Segregation?
Residents in the village claimed that the 20-foot-high wall was a symbol of caste discrimination and a living example of practice of untouchability in 21st century India. As per the sources, the Kannappa layout residents had been demanding to demolish the giant wall ever since it was built five years ago, but their voices went silent. On October 13, 2018, the Dalits from the colony reportedly sent a letter to the Municipal authority to ensure the safety of the big wall, which was constructed using the unsafe Basalt rock (Karungal). The wall cut off their pathway to the main road, thus the segregation of poor from rich can be witnessed clearly. Residents alleged that the wall separated Dalits from Mudaliyars of OBC. In Nadur village, the majority of the residents are engaged in daily wage work for a living.

Protests And Outrage
In the meantime, a clash erupted between the police and protesters in front of Mettupalayam government hospital. Protesters demanded the arrest of textile trader Sivasubramaniyan under the SC/ST act. They also demanded an increase in the compensation amount from 4 lakhs to 25 lakhs for the families of deceased ones. Protesters demanded government jobs for the kin of the dead ones. They said they would not take the dead bodies if their demands weren’t met. The protest outside at the government hospital was carried out by family members of those who died, along with the solidarity of organizations like Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), Tamil Tigers and Dravidar Tamilar Katchi.

Later, the police arrested around 25 protesters, and they were sent to jail for 15 days. Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam had protested against the arrest of the protesters by Police. On the same day of the wall collapse, politicians and hundreds of people blocked the road in front of the government hospital at Mettupalayam. Politicians like DMK leader and the current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, MK Stalin, VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, director Pa. Ranjith expressed their condolences to the family members. D Ravikumar MP mentioned the incident in the Lok Sabha session.

“The colony is built on a sloping plane. We were sleeping at that time when the accident took place. We woke up from our sleep by hearing the sound of stone crushing. I came out from my home and what I had witnessed was shocking. Three houses in a row were completely destroyed. We heard the screaming of those 17 people. There were small children, women and men inside the houses. They screamed. The stones were big. The accident scene was scary. We suddenly informed the police about the disaster. Politicians came to our village and consoled us. The later government promised compensation and government jobs for the victims’ families. But the promise remains stagnant.”

A resident of Nadur village said
The Arrest Of The Wall Owner
The mishap attracted nationwide attention. Due to this and the protests all over Mettupalayam, Police had to arrest Sivasubramaniyan under offences for culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304) of IPC and Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Property (Prevention of Damage & Loss) Act. He was produced before the Madhukkarai Judicial magistrate and remanded later. The protesters had been demanding a case against him under the SC/ST act, but the accused, Sivasubramanian, got bail soon after the incident.

Rise Of The Wall For A Second Time

Less than a year later, another wall of the same height was again erected by Sivasubramaniyan in the same place where 17 people were killed. The local body in Mettupalayam gave him permission to construct the compound wall again with the strict instruction that the height of the wall cannot exceed six feet from the surface of the property. However, the textile owner’s property is on the elevation of 14 feet from the surface. The newly built wall is 4-6 feet from his ground level. Thus the wall is about 18-20 feet from the ground level on the other side.

CCTV On The Giant ‘Caste’ Wall

If we visit the accident spot of Nadur village today, we can see CCTVs installed by the textile owner on the wall. Residents say he wants to monitor the poor people in Nadur, the Adi Dravidar settlement. CCTVs pose privacy violation to the residents in Kannappa Layout in the village. It shows the surveillance of casteist minds to suppress the human rights of marginalized people in that locality.

Untouchability in 21st Century

After the death of 17 Dalits in Nadur village, the discussion about the practice of untouchability gained momentum in various parts of Tamil Nadu. People have opposite opinions about the wall, some would say it is just a normal wall constructed to protect the property of textile trader Sivasubramaniyan. But most importantly, the wall symbolises the casteist mentality among upper-caste Hindus in Tamil Nadu. The compound wall poses a question on the uneasy caste dynamics in rural areas of 21st century India. Some of the residents in Nadur village are still unaware of the discriminatory angle of this wall.

According to them, the wall is just a matter of poor-rich division. Apart from this unawareness, many residents allege that the giant wall has been built to keep the lower caste people away from Mudaliyars. However, India’s social fabric needed 17 lives to discuss more about untouchability. Caste-based discrimination is still a prevalent social evil in many parts of Tamil Nadu. Dalit organisations claim that after this incident, around 3000 Dalits in Tamil Nadu have converted to Islam because of caste discrimination and torture. The American poet Robert Frost says “Good fences make good neighbours” in his poem “Mending wall”. The 21st century discriminatory practices force us to rethink the lines of Frost. That is, the wall of ‘untouchability’ is going to make good neighbours or casteist products.

Courtesy : Youth ki awaaz

Note: This news piece was originally published in youthkiawaaz.com and used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes exclusively for Human Rights .