The tsunami has also dredged up caste, class and livelihood tussles that must be dealt with in the process of rehabilitation.
The tsunami has also dredged up caste, class and livelihood tussles that must be dealt with in the process of rehabilitation. In Bommiyarpalyam village in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu, it’s the fisherfolk versus the upper-caste Vanniyars versus the dalits
It is a warm day in the third week of April in the Bommiyarpalyam village of Villupuram district in Tamil Nadu. A colourful ceremony is taking place on the sands near the sea. A ‘goddess child’ dances frenetically and then a procession with women carrying pots of milk and turmeric on their heads winds its way through the village. A little later the oracle makes a pronouncement. The gods have given the villagers permission to go back to the sea. The leaders of the fishing community will meet the next day and decide on a suitable date.
The 250 families, comprising some 1,000 people, have good reason to propitiate the gods. The tsunami claimed the lives of five persons -- women and children -- and damaged 50 boats and steamers besides wreaking havoc on their homes.
But while the sea gods have relented, those on land have not. Access to a road and those who exercise control over a strip of land have locked this village into bitter strife for many years. The Vanniyars, an upper caste that lives on the landward side fringing the East Coast Road have, for years, denied the fishing community passage through their neighbourhood for their funeral processions. The fishing community has no access to the cremation grounds other than the road that goes through the Vanniyar stronghold.
Kabali, a former panchayat leader, and Bavadai Samy, a local leader, say that last July the fishing community or meenavars approached the Collector and revenue officer and asked for a pucca road to the cremation grounds that they could use. The Collector who visited the village said they could use the main road along the seashore until funds were released to build a road bypassing the Vanniyar neighbourhood. But even this proposal was met with hostility by the Vanniyars.
The tsunami deaths brought this simmering conflict to a head. The seashore route was not accessible because of the debris that had collected and the funeral processions were forced to go through the Vanniyar neighbourhood. In January, scarcely a few days later, another death took place in the kuppam (fishing village) and apprehending trouble, a peace meeting was arranged on January 7. The Vanniyars insisted that the funeral procession should be restricted to only 20 people.
But on January 8 even as the funeral got underway the mourners were attacked with country bombs and stones, leading to a violent clash between the two groups.
Eventually it was agreed that a third route would be chalked out for use by the fishing community and currently any funeral procession is escorted by the police.
If the incident seems bizarre the social realities behind it are not. Besides churning the ocean and leaving expanses of debris in its wake the tsunami has also stirred up society, bringing undertows of livelihood, land tussles and gender issues to the surface.
In Bommiyarpalyam the conflict is about livelihood, land and caste struggles. Kabali explains how the sea is perceived as the property of the meenavars and the land that of the Vanniyars. “The East Coast Road is a public one but the powerful Vanniyars and in particular one of their leaders, a politician, do not allow anyone from our community to sell anything along the road. Even the coconut vendors and others who hawk goods are only from the Vanniyar community. We are not even allowed to hang buntings or put up cutouts (a colourful feature on Tamil Nadu’s roads) along the road.”
The conflict, he says, is institutional. On an individual level families of both Vanniyars and meenavars intermingle and are friends. “We attend each others’ weddings and have friendly relations but it is on a one-on-one level.”
Bommyarpalyam’s problems in microcosm reflect the macro challenges and realities that face NGOs and others working on rehabilitation and development efforts in this region.
As the Prelimnary Report by Concerned Citizens (with inputs from John Kurien Centre For Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, Nalini Nayak of Protsahan, Thiruvananthapuram, and V Vivekanandan of the South Indian Federation of Fishermens Societies) points out, the people of coastal communities by and large are outliers in terms of social development and livelihood opportunities despite decades of fishery development efforts.
Besides, the communities are socially differentiated, with the weak and the poor always at the receiving end.
With the fishing community losing its nets and boats, a jostling for space and livelihoods is triggering unease and community violence.
The Dalit Mannimarai Kotta (Dalit Land Rights Federation) working in the region is trying to assist dialogue and an acceptance of others’ right to livelihood. “In the beginning the people would insist on separate meetings for separate communities. In many villages the meenavars, themselves an OBC (other backward caste) would refuse to let the dalits attend the meetings. But now in some pockets we have persuaded them and they are ready to do a rethink,’’ says Reuben Raj.
(Freny Manecksha is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)
InfoChange News & Features, May 2005