Khakhi-Clad Activists

Tamil Nadu deploys an unlikely weapon to counter caste discrimination — ‘social justice tea parties’ hosted by none other than the state police, reports PC VINOJ KUMAR

OF LATE, rural Tamil Nadu has been witnessing a strange sight; policemen sipping tea and munching biscuits with villagers in local teashops, trying to convince them that they should not discriminate against Dalits. Through these ‘social justice tea parties’, the cops are attempting to drive home the message that untouchability is an offence and those practising it would be booked under law. Introduced since last year, it is an innovative attempt to eradicate untouchability by the Social Justice and Human Rights (SJHR) wing of the State police, which deals with atrocities against Dalits. Till date, the wing has organised over 500 tea parties, where both Dalits, non-Dalits and representatives of NGOs are invited as guests.

Most of these parties are held in the vicinity of village teashops, where in many places Dalits are served tea in separate tumblers. Prateep Philip, IG of Police who is head of SJHR, identified teashops as an ideal location to gather people and spread the message against discrimination. “Tea shops are village hubs, where people congregate and socialise. They are also known to be epicentres of alleged discrimination against Dalits through the twotumbler system. We chose to convert the negative into positive by using the very tea shops to fight against discrimination,” he says. Through these tea parties, the police want to promote confidence among Dalits and create awareness about provisions in the law that protect them against discrimination. They are educated about offences under the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

According to Philip, the initiative has increased awareness levels among Dalits about their rights and the obligations of others vis-avis laws relating to discrimination and atrocities against them. He says the number of cases registered under the SC/ST Act has increased from 851 cases in the previous year to about 1,359 cases last year. “It is the highest number of cases registered in a year in the history of the Tamil Nadu police,” says the officer, whose efforts in developing community policing in the state got him the UK’s prestigious Queen’s Award in 2002 from Queen Elizabeth II for Innovation in Police Training and Development.

SJHR has now got the go-ahead to organise tea parties in about 37,854 of the 81,787 villages in the State in the next 12 months. The government has allocated Rs 70 lakh for the programme. SJHR hopes to take the campaign against untouchability to about 2 crore people within a year. “We can achieve the target if each person who attends our tea parties takes the message to at least five others,” says Philip.

The activism in the SJHR wing coincides with a period of intensive campaigning against untouchability in the state in the last one year. Social outfits have been holding protests against the two-tumbler system. In August 2007, Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (PDK) published in its party organ Periyar Muzhakkam the list of shops in some of the districts where the two-tumbler system was being practised. PDK cadres held demonstrations in front of the shops and broke the glass tumblers as a mark of protest and courted arrest in large numbers.

The state unit of the CPM has floated the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF). In Virudhunagar district, the members of the front identified teashops having separate tumblers for Dalits and took up the matter with district authorities. “Many shops stopped the practice. Some closed down and others switched to serving tea in disposable cups,” says P. Sampath, state convenor of the Front. Sampath welcomes the police tea parties but says unless such efforts are combined with a broader, government sponsored mass campaign, the results may not be sustainable.

HOWEVER, A. Kathir, director of Evidence, a Madurai based NGO that has been exposing various forms of discrimination against Dalits dismisses the police department’s ‘social justice tea parties’ as humbug. “These parties won’t serve any purpose, except give some publicity to the police. If the government really is serious about eradicating untouchability, it has to launch a mass movement on the lines of the literacy campaign or the awareness campaign for AIDS that it conducted in the past. In those campaigns, the messages were taken to nooks and corners of the state on a war footing.”

But Philip, who believes in the credo that the police must take an active role as social reformers, thinks that he could bring a change through the tea parties. He says police chiefs from about 15 out of the 30 districts in the state have already written to him stating they have eliminated the two-tumbler system within areas under their jurisdiction.

“It is a challenge to the NGOs to come and prove us wrong. Let them identify the shops that are still continuing the practice and we will take action,” he promises. •