Tamil Nadu - Madurai
"Discrimination against Dalits continues in Madurai city limits too"
Staff Reporter
MADURAI: A survey conducted by Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication
Front revealed that casteist discrimination against Dalits continued
in Madurai city limits too.
The survey was conducted by 50 members of the Democratic Youth
Federation of India, All India Democratic Women's Association,
Students' Federation of India and trade unions in 25 Dalit-dominant
places in the city in the last six months.
"Dalits mostly lived in slums where sanitation, proper drinking water
supply, ration shop are absent. Their slums are along the drainage
channels, where no distinction could be made between the living space
and dwelling units," P. Sampath, State coordinator of the front, said
on Friday.
One of the members of the front, K. Swaminathan, said in some cases,
people from elsewhere were not coming forward to marry of their
daughters to the youths of Thideer Nagar and Melavasal owing to the
plight of their locality.
"The shocking revelation is that that doctors do not even touch the
Dalits while giving treatment," Mr. Sampath alleged. Stating that
discrimination against Dalits was done by the government itself, Mr.
Sampath said non-Dalit sanitary workers were not involved in demeaning
jobs such as removing night soil and blocks in underground drainages.
"They worked either as assistants or involved in supervisory works,
while the Dalits, especially the Arunthathiyars were made to do all
those works," he said.
The families of sanitary workers were under the clutches of usury
money-lenders as financial assistance under the Tamil Nadu
Adi-Dravidar Housing and Development Corporation (TAHDCO) continued to
elude them. The Dalits have to be at the mercy of middlemen to get
loans even under TAHDCO.
Government-constructed dwelling units for Dalits were in bad shape.
Dalits did not have house site pattas. Not only was the discrimination
there in renting out houses, but also in fixing the market value of
land in Dalit colonies. "The cost of land in Dalit colonies was far
less than that of the neighbouring areas as evident in the colonies in
Tallakulam and Arapalayam," Mr. Swaminathan said.
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