Sudha V, the panchayat president of Eduthavainatham village in Tamil Nadu's Kallakurichi is allegedly being blocked from hoisting the tricolour at a local government school on Independence Day and Republic Day. In a letter written on August 3 to the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP), Susha said that she is being stopped from hoisting the national flag in the local government school since she belongs to a Scheduled Caste. In the letter, Sudha stated that ten panchayat presidents before her had all hoisted the flag on Independence and Republic days in the school but she has been blocked by the Parent Teacher Association (PTA).
The letter said, “Since I am a woman from a Scheduled Caste, I was not allowed to hoist the flag during the last Republic Day by the school’s PTA president Arulkumar and vice-president Kannan.” Further, she requested the DySP to provide her with the necessary security and the opportunity to hoist the flag on the 75th Independence Day in the school.
Sudha's husband Varatharaji, a carpenter by profession, said, “My wife is the eleventh panchayat president of the village. The ten leaders before her were able to hoist the flag but she is not being allowed to do so. We were informed the night before Republic Day by the PTA president Arulkumar and vice-president Kannan that she will not be hoisting the flag. Although they did not cite her caste as the reason, we could understand that it was about her caste.”
Varatharaji alleged that there are members of the Dalit community in Eduthavainatham who are still not allowed inside temples. “If a Dalit woman hoists the national flag in a school, villagers from dominant castes are worried that Dalit people will begin asking to enter the temples as well. People are creating a connection between these two unrelated things to prevent Sudha from hoisting the flag,” Varatharaji said.
Sudha’s husband said that the headmaster of the government school, Mani, asked them and the PTA leaders to resolve this matter outside the school. After Sudha and Varatharaji had written to the DySP’s office, it was decided by the PTA leaders and the aggrieved party that the headmaster of the school will hoist the flag in the school hereafter and nobody from the village will be doing it.
“My wife and I are an inter-caste couple, which has already irked some people in the village. We decided to make a compromise because we did want to disturb the peace in the village or make enemies. There was no other option for us,” said Varatharaji, when asked why such a compromise was made.
This is not the first time panchayat leaders from Scheduled Castes have alleged discrimination in Tamil Nadu. In November 2020, Rajeshwari, panchayat president of reserved Kalpiravu constituency in Sivaganga district, resigned from her position alleging caste discrimination by panchayat vice-president Nagarajan. Rajeshwari said that she took the decision because the public started to question her for not doing her duty without knowing the complete picture.
In a similar incident in July 2020, Rajeshwari, the Therukuthittai panchayat president in Cuddalore district was forced to sit on the floor by Mohan, the vice-president of the panchayat and a caste Hindu. Mohan allegedly refused to conduct the meeting until Rajeshwari sat on the floor. The incident was known to the public after a photo of Rajeshwari sitting on the floor went viral on social media.