Meenakshipuram Dalit Conversions

One people, many identities

When hundreds of dalits in Meenakshipuram in Tirunelveli district converted to Islam in 1981, it surprised the nation. So did the fallout in clashes between people of different communities andreligions. Why did they do so? What drove them to it? A furious, often irrationaldebate on conversions shook the country. Yet, through that chaotic period, and insubsequent years, the people of Meenakshipuram - against tremendous odds - puttheir lives back together, with dignity, in a manner that holds many lessons for allIndians. Eighteen years later, P. SAINATH visited the once infamous hamlet.Continuing the series of exclusive reports on the condition of dalits, especially in therural areas.Meenakshipuram & Panpozhi, Tirunelveli (Tamil Nadu):``ALL I did was install this handpump in our house,'' says Jayalakshmi. ``Next thing,people asked me: `are you converting?' You see, Muslim women didn't go much tofetch water from public taps. They used handpumps at home. So when ourhandpump came, I was asked if we were converting to Islam.''Jayalakshmi's is one of those dalit families here that did not change their faith in1981. That was when Meenakshipuram hit the headlines, with several dalits turningto Islam. It was the conversion story of the Eighties. And threw up perhaps the mostheated debate on conversions India has ever seen.The story, broken in April 1981 by the Indian Express, was graphic. It reported that``180 Hindu harijan families have changed their faith. Nearly 1,000 persons haveshifted their loyalty to Islam.'' Relatively better off dalits, it said, had sought equalsocial status with higher caste Thevars of the area. Instead, they were ill-treated.The story quoted dalits who alleged that they had been socially boycotted andpersecuted.The story pointed out that things erupted with the murder of two Thevars in nearbyMekkarai village. The police, suspecting the involvement of dalits, came down veryheavily on the whole community. ``...it is alleged,'' said the report, that ``some harijans(were) illegally detained for more than a month. Agitated over the attitude of thepolice and to gain status, the harijans turned to Islam.''The report quoted one dalit as saying he had been `forcibly converted'. It indicatedthe likely conversion of 50 more families by the month end. And reported the effortsof groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) to hold a ``re-conversionceremony'' for 50 of the new converts.The issue exploded in both the Tamil Nadu Assembly and in Parliament. Ministers inthe State and from the Centre trooped in to Meenakshipuram, bringing of course,countless journalists in their wake. Top leaders of most major political parties in thecountry paid a visit. So did a number of social workers and fact- finding committees.Some, with clearcut political links, produced `independent' inquiry reports widelypublicised by the press of the day. Many religious leaders also showed up.Ahmed Akbar was one of the dalits who converted. ``Barring Indira Gandhi, MGRand Karunanidhi,'' he told us, ``anybody who was important came here. Vajpayee,Makwana, R. M. Veerappan, Subramaniam Swamy...''The fallout of the caste and communal polarisation was more fierce outsideMeenakshipuram. Clashes in Tirunelveli found echoes within and beyond TamilNadu. Sometimes between Thevars and Muslims. Often between Thevars and dalits.In some places in tensions between mainly upper caste Hindus and Muslims. Thedebate on conversions that followed often ran more on rhetoric than reality; wasmore given to fury than to fact; and was one where rage mostly overwhelmedreason.Nearly two decades later, relations within and between different communities in thevillage tell us much more. Relatively speaking, Meenakshipuram is an island oftranquility in turbulent Tirunelveli. In a district notorious for caste violence, it remainsmostly serene. (Meenakshipuram is mainly a dalit hamlet in the village of Thenpottai.It is just next to Panpozhi village and is a few kilometres from Tenkasi.)A typical 1981 headline on Meenakshipuram ran: ``A whole village goes Islamic.''Actually, the dalits were evenly divided. Both Muslims and non-converted dalitsconfirm this.Subramanian is the priest at the Kaliamman temple patronised by dalits. (They werenever allowed to enter the Padaivituamman temple in Shencottah.) He's been incharge there for over 15 years. ``We used to have 300 families coming here,'' he toldme at the temple. ``Now the number is 150 because half became Muslims.'' Theestimate of the Jamaat chief of Meenakshipuram, Zafrulla Khan (himself a dalitconvert) matches that of Subramanian. ``It would be broadly correct to say about 50per cent converted,'' he told us.While the rest of the country raged over the ``mass'' conversions, Meenakshipuram'sdalits swiftly put their lives back in order. ``There is inter-marriage between people inthe different religions,'' says Jayalakshmi. Others, too, confirm this. ``It came up incurious ways,'' she says. In some families, father and son converted but not motherand daughter. ``So you have boys who are Muslims with sisters who are Hindus.''``There has been no change in our cultural interaction, though. After all we remainbrothers and sisters and cousins and uncles and nieces and nephews. How does thatchange if some of us change our religion?''Jayalakshmi and her husband Subramanian who is the Block Health Supervisor, didnot embrace Islam. Some of their close relatives did. ``I am neither happy norunhappy about their conversion or about our non-conversion,'' she says. ``I think wemade the correct decision for ourselves. Perhaps they made the right decision forthemselves. They come for our weddings. We go for theirs.''And there are also the complex inter-marriages. One reality is that their social statushas vastly improved. Another is that, though greatly eroded, the disabilities ofdalithood do not just vanish. Caste, to some degree, permeates every religion. Nor doclan and kinship structures melt with a change in faith. Even as these institutionschange or adapt, people still have to seek spouses within their old caste groups.That's another reason for marriages across lines of faith.Jayalakshmi's husband - who was away the day we arrived - led those dalits whoopposed the conversions. Yet, it was in their house that I met Ahmed Akbar,Thenpottai panchayat president. He was one of the converts, and was later a jamaatchief. It seemed odd we should interview him in the house of one of those who ledthe anti-conversion drive in the village. To Jayalakshmi and her son Ganesh Kumar, itseemed perfectly normal. We now understood better what she had said of peopleremaining uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, brothers and sisters. Ahmed Akbaris Jayalakshmi's brother.``On the whole, I believe our decision to convert was correct,'' says Akbar Ahmed.``I pass no judgment on others. Some of my relatives did not convert. They have theirfreedom, I have mine. Each had their options. All compulsion is wrong. People had aright to decide for themselves.''So why did those who convert, do so?``Terror and untouchability were the hallmark of our lives,'' says Ahmed Akbar. ``Thetwo-glass system was in full force here in tea shops. In most shops they would notserve us at all. We were harassed in every way.''One 1981 report spoke of some dalits here as ``by and large, sufficiently rich.'' Therewere educated dalits here. But in reality, most residents of the hamlet were eitherlandless labourers or marginal farmers. Ahmed Akbar, for instance, owned less thanhalf an acre. They did make ends meet, though, by tilling lands leased from theThiruvaduthurai Adinam Math in the adjacent village of Mekkarai. But they had topass through Panpozhi to reach those fields.That was tough. Very often, dalits were roughed up merely for being who they were.Sometimes, their offence was simply the wearing of a shirt.``The maravars (Thevars) heaped humiliation, even torture, on the scheduled castes,''says Jayalakshmi. ``The dalits of Meenakshipuram had it worse than those of uswithin Panpozhi.'' At least one inquiring government official of the time (reported inTheHindu) found this true. He recorded that dalits were not allowed to wearchappals while walking through non-dalit areas.Zafrullah Khan, a convert and now jamaat chief, sums it up. ``We had no respect atall. Even those with government jobs were ill- treated. When they got such jobs in thetowns, no one would give them houses on rent. We started to think: What are thereasons for this? Why does government behave the way it does? Why two glasses atthe shops? Why that same treatment in hotels? Why were our children mistreated atschool? Why were there even separate burial grounds or burning ghats? At thetemples, the same treatment. These were our reasons.''``In 1969, I was a panchayat member at Thenpottai. We had this meeting inCourtallam. I was not served water. I did not dare take water from the pot there.Outside, the shop owners refused me tea. What could I do? Also, anything that tookplace in this area, the police regularly picked up and thrashed our boys. We saw thestate of dalits in Tamil Nadu and then decided to convert. It was our last resort.Oppression and oppression alone was the reason. I do not want to single out Thevarsas those who behaved badly with us. All non-SC people, Brahmins onwards, behavedthe same way.''``Our older generation had often discussed conversion. But they were not united onit,'' says Ahmed Akbar. ``A few did convert some years ago. I had no desire to doso. I was simply stuck in my life as a cultivator working to survive. Then came themurder of the two Thevars. The police simply picked up everyone here. I too, thoughwe had nothing at all to do with it. I was sick that day. I was just bundled up andthrown into the van like an animal. That's how we were treated. Like animals. Someof my relatives had to pay a bribe of Rs. 1,000 to get me released. As I lay sick inthat station, that was my breaking point. I knew I had had enough. I was going toconvert.''Thirumalai Kumar, then a teenager, was reported in some accounts to haveconverted - and later `re-converted'. He now says: ``We wished to change, certainly.Sons and fathers were divided on this issue. I thought, yes. My father felt no. Finally,I respected his decision.''His memories of the time: ``The RSS came and put the sacred thread on many of us`You are not low caste' they now said. We will treat you as equals. Don't leaveHinduism.' Nobody worried about us when we were miserable within their Hinduism.No one protested when we suffered untouchability. But once the conversions tookplace, they were all worried about us. The RSS and others came running then.''His father, S. Shanmugavel, retired as Block Development Officer in 1992. He didnot convert. But, he says, ``the police were terrible. Their oppression was a majorcause for conversions.''He also sees that it gave the dalits a new bargaining power. ``I was manager in theTenkasi BDO's office at the time,'' he says. ``The then Brahmin BDO called me. Hesaid: `whatever facilities your village needs, Shanmugavel, tell me. I'll get it donestraightaway'. Till that day,'' he laughs, ``we had no overhead tank. No approachroad. No tap facilities. There was nothing in this village. Suddenly, everything wasbeing offered to us.''Why did the dalits who converted go to Islam? Why not Christianity? Or Buddhism?``Why Islam?'' asks Zafrullah. ``We knew other religions indirectly. But Hinduism weknew directly. Buddhism we knew nothing about except that Ambedkar hadconverted to it. Here in Tamil Nadu, we knew something of Christianity. We knew itwas riddled with caste. My father-in-law was a Christian.'' A few dalits had oncesought a way out through Christianity. Some of these, too, converted to Islam in1981.``We discussed the pros and cons of each faith after talking to the elders of thosegroups. We took the initiative for conversion. We went to the South India Isha-AthulSabai (SIIS) in Palayamkottai. We sought conversion. They asked endless questions.Why did we really want to convert? We had only one aim: equality.''A myth of the time was the eagerness of local Muslims to score over the Thevars viaconversions. It wasn't so simple at all. Class interests, too, made themselves felt.``Some Muslims in Panpozhi were against our being converted,'' says Ahmed Akbar.``They feared they would lose a good source of cheap labour if they had to treat usas equals.'' Some of them were landowners. The dalits, mainly landless.``The Muslims were unwilling to convert them,'' says Palai N. Shanmugham. Nowretired, he was for years a leading advocate of Tirunelveli. ``They were afraid toantagonise the Thevars.''``There was a time,'' says Ahmed Akbar, ``when some Muslims of Panpozhi alsopractised untouchability. They too, called us caste names. The separate glassessystem existed in their shops, too. But the Muslim elders in Tenkasi behaveddifferently. They changed things - after we went to those in the Islam Sabai. Suchattitudes have long ago died out in Panpozhi, too.''Muthupandian Thevar led his community's drive against the conversions in 1981. Hismost cherished memory of the time, he told us at his house in Meenakshipuram, was:``when Vajpayee came here. He stayed for three days in the area. There were 3,000people in the Arya Samaj procession when he came. He said: `what's happened hashappened. But from today on, there should not be a single new conversion'.''``The dalits thought they were suppressed and discriminated against,'' saysMuthupandian Thevar. ``I think there was some truth in that. Maybe in the nextgeneration there will be real equality. Yes, there was social oppression. But it is notthere now.''Where you speak to converts, non-converts or re-converts, dalits, Thevars orMuslims, on one point, there is broad agreement: social relations have improved andeveryone has benefited. To the extent it has had a sobering effect on the uppercastes, the Meenakshipuram incident seems to have hit untouchability itself. At leastin the vicinity.``Untouchability has gone down even in some nearby villages. Though, of course, itexists elsewhere in the district,'' says Ahmed Akbar. ``Today, here at least, there areno separate glasses for different castes. Those who with contempt called me castenames, now show me respect. Those who shouted, `dey, pallan', now call me bhai. Igo to the Thevars homes and eat there. They come to our homes and eat there.There are no caste tensions today.''Meenakshipuram's residents now get on with their lives. Families can exist withmembers being Hindus, Muslims, even possibly Christians. Their multiple identities donot come in the way of family and community ties. With all its problems - and they are many and complex - the village has come through its ordeal. Here, humanrelationships have survived caste and religious hatreds. Human ties have endured, achallenge to rage and unreason.