Why converting to Islam won't help Nagapattinam's Dalits

M Ramani, 26, runs a photo studio in Nagapattinam’s Pazhankallimedu village in southern Tamil Nadu. He is a graduate with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. Ramani is now at the forefront of protests by the Dalit community in the village, who are demanding their right to worship in the Bhadrakaliamman temple there.

“We want to be able to propitiate the Goddess in our traditional five-day thiruvizha (festival),” explained Ramani. “Since 1982 we have not been allowed to conduct our poojas. For about 10 years we have been protesting for our rights. This year, we said that if we are not allowed, we will convert to Islam. We have given a petition to the collector,” he said.

Last month, 250 Dalit families signed the petition and stated their intention to convert if they were denied their rights by the dominant caste Pillaimars in the village. A court case filed by the agitating Dalits is pending since August 2015. The Nagapattinam district administration, after holding peace talks, decided to cancel the festivities altogether, citing the case pending before the courts. And so, the Dalit community is holding off on the decision to convert, awaiting the court’s pronouncement.

Ramani says the community is aware that conversion will not make much of a difference to their reality. “Bhadrakaliamman is our kuladeivam (ancestral deity),” said the youngster. “If we are not allowed to pray, then we will go to a God who allows us inside His abode to pray. We do not foresee any great change in our social status or any improvement in our lives due to conversion. It is simply about the right to pray to our Gods the way we want to,” he explained.

The Meenakshipuram Experiment

Ramani is perhaps more realistic than the Dalits of Meenakshipuram in Tirunelveli. In 1980, around 300 Dalit families in the tiny usually peaceful village converted to Islam, as rebellion against the oppression and discrimination by dominant caste Thevars in the Hindu fold. What was then hailed as the answer to the caste conundrum faced by Dalits in the state, turned out to be an experiment gone wrong.

Today, Meenakshipuram’s converts follow the Islamic faith, but they say the discrimination continues. “The only change is that we are called Mama or Macchan or Bhai (common terms used to address Muslims in Tamil Nadu),” smiled Ismail Mohammed, a shopkeeper in Meenakshipuram village. Mohammed was 12 years old when the mass conversion happened and his family was one among the 300. “Earlier they used to call us Pallan or Parappayalu (caste names of Pallars and Paraiyars used in a derogatory manner in Tamil). But otherwise, we are still in the same village, doing the same drudgery, being treated the same way by the dominant caste,” he said in resignation.

As per the 2011 census, Dalits number around 20 crores in the country, forming 25 percent of the population. Tamil Nadu’s Dalits alone number over 7 percent of the total Dalit population in the country. Dalits who have converted to Christianity account for an average of 60 percent of the total Christian population of 6.12 percent in India. Those who converted to Islam are more in number – by some estimates, Dalits who embraced Islam number almost 10 crore in India.

Experts in Dalit studies agree that conversion to other religions does not seem to have worked out well for the community. “Conversion serves the sole purpose of registering protest,” said C Lakshmanan, associate professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies. “How much it translates to emancipation is not clear, as we can see from the Meenakshipuram case,” he said.

Lakshmanan feels that the only way to access the due rights of the community is to unite and protest, as is happening in Una, Gujarat and in Uttar Pradesh and Telangana. “The immediate need for the Dalits is to come together for a united struggle,” continued Lakshmanan. “Today Gujarat is witnessing a strong struggle because Dalit politicians are very few in that state. In Tamil Nadu there is a visible Dalit presence politically but there is no unity,” he said.