Friday, December 4, 2009

[ZESTCaste] The Write Way

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main43.asp?filename=Ws121209dalit.asp

Posted on Dec 04, 2009
WEB SPECIAL

The Write Way

This gritty Dalit woman author has quit the BSP to launch her own
party in Tamil Nadu. PC Vinoj Kumar on her never-say-die mantra

Acclaimed Tamil writer and Tamil Nadu's first woman Dalit IAS officer,
P Sivakami, who in November last year took voluntary retirement at age
51 to join the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and was made its state
general secretary, is launching her own outfit.

Says Sivakami: "The party I plan to launch will take up issues
concerning Dalits and the poor." She found the BSP inactive in the
state, but won't comment on the two other Dalit parties -- the Puthiya
Thamizhagam and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal.

Sivakami, who has been part of the Land Right Movement for Dalits
since 2003, has developed a network of activists, besides mobilising
women's groups. "In February last year we organised a meeting in
Trichy in which 2.5 lakh women participated. It was a huge success,"
she says.

Sivakami comes from a political family. Her father, M Palanimuthu, was
an independent MLA, who later joined the Congress and became a close
associate of the late Kakkan -- a popular leader known for his honesty
and simple lifestyle. It was her father's wish that she should join
the IAS.

While in service, Sivakami was known for her integrity. When she was
secretary of the Adi-Dravida Welfare Department in 2002, she fell out
with then chief minister J Jayalalithaa when her demand for higher
allocation for a special Dalit scheme was not met. Soon after she was
shunted out to the obscure Government Data Centre, and later kept on a
month's 'compulsory wait' without any posting; and for about a
month-and-a-half for taking part in a Dalit rights seminar.

Sivakami has written four critically acclaimed Tamil novels, all of
them centering on Dalit themes. One of these was translated into
English and published as Grip of Change in 2006. She also edits a
Tamil monthly, Puthiya Kodangi which she has been bringing out since
1995.

In literary circles, Sivakami is considered a strong critic of the
Dravidian movement and its ideologue Periyar. When she joined the BSP
she was hopeful the party would emerge as an alternative to the
Dravidian parties, the DMK and the AIADMK -- which between them have
ruled Tamil Nadu for over four decades now. But the BSP failed to
upstage the regional giants. The party tried to replicate the UP model
of Brahmin-Dalit alliance in Tamil Nadu. BSP leaders met Tamil Nadu
Brahmin Association leader N Narayanan and sought his support. The
party also fielded two Brahmins in the last Lok Sabha polls. But none
of the candidates won and Sivakami herself lost from Kanyakumari,
where she polled 7,000 of the 7.6 lakh votes.

But that has not caused her to change her views. "Dalits were not the
focus of Periyar's so-called revolutionary movement. The Dravidian
movement placed more emphasis on the backward classes," she insists.
Meanwhile her detractors accuse her of seeking to build a political
identity based on anti-Periyar polemics. "A social activist should
find ways to resolve the contradictions between the Dalits and the
backward classes, because both sections have been historically
oppressed. But Sivakami has only striven to sharpen this contradiction
at the behest of the upper castes," says M Punitha Pandian, editor of
Dalit Murasu.

Now the question is, will Sivakami succeed where the BSP failed? Watch
this space.


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