The tragedy of Ilavarasan and caste politics in Tamil Nadu

Finally this is where Ilavarasan, a Dalit boy, who married a backward caste Vanniyar girl in Dharmapuri, that led to arson and destruction of three villages last year ended up: dead on a railway track near the government arts college of the town.

Police said they suspected suicide, and said it was too early to say if there was foul play involved. His relatives and rights activists have asked for a judicial probe.

Divya, the girl who Ilavarasan married, left him recently and had told the Madras High Court that she was going to live with her mother. She had also said that she wanted her mother to accept the boy before she went back to him.

However, on Wednesday, she told reporters in the court premises that she didn’t intend to go back to him. Besides the attacks on Dalit villages in Dharmapuri, her wedding also led to her father’s suicide.

Leader of Dalit party Viduthalai Chiruthaikal Katchi (VCK) Pon Thirumavalavan asked for a judicial probe.

The death of the 19-year old boy is a stark commentary on the politics of caste hatred that is whipped by parties such as the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) in the state.

Historically, PMK has been opposed to Dalits, but of late it has been trying to bring Other Backward Castes and Backward Castes on a political platform against Dalits. Its anti-Dalit hate-speech has been relentless. The party’s apparent aim was to keep away from the main Dravidian parties and capitalise on the majority caste votes of the OBCs and MBCs and become an influential electoral bloc. To highlight the possibility of such politics, the party even brought Akhilesh Yadav to the state.

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The Times of India reported that Divya and her family, who are in Chennai, are deeply affected by the boy’s death.

“She is not in a position to speak now,” the paper quoted a relative as saying.

Outraged by the incident, civil rights organisation PUCL and left parties slammed caste politics in the state, particularly parties that tried to whip up communal passion. Social media was abuzz with messages of anger and outrage.

Whether it is a suicide or murder, Ilavarasan’s marriage, the suicide of the girl’s father, violence and onslaught of hate that followed (more Dalit villages subsequently came under alleged attack by PMK and Vanniyars at a place called Marakkanam on the East Coast Road near Chennai), and finally his death; it will be yet another dark chapter in the sinister caste politics of Tamil Nadu.

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Unfortunately, Dalits in Tamil Nadu have been at the receiving end of violence, and have received little relief, for decades. Since the 1970s, incidents at Villupram (1978), Kodiyankulam (1995), Melavalavu (1997), Gundupatti (1998) and Thamiraparnai (1999) have been serious blots to the state’s communal record. Despite an Act to protect them, very few have been punished for anti-Dalit offences.

It’s also a failure of Dalit politics that it has not been able to galvanise an influential front out of 19 per cent of the population in the state compared to Mayawati in UP, who had harnessed the support of a similar share of population to create a winning political front.