THE LAUNCH OF a book on Dr B.R. Ambedkar in Chennai turned into an attempt to redraw political equations in the state. At the December 6 event, actor Vijay, the latest star entrant into the political scene, spoke about atrocities against dalits in the state and the need for dalit emancipation. He also took potshots at the ruling DMK and said that its “alliance arithmetic” will not sustain till the 2026 assembly elections. Interestingly, Aadhav Arjuna, the deputy general secretary of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK)―a partner of the DMK―shared the stage with Vijay and also spoke against the DMK and brought up dalit issues. Days later, the VCK suspended him for six months.
The move towards dalit emancipation first began in Tamil Nadu in the late 1980s. “Particularly in 1991, the Ambedkar centenary year―along with other landmark [events] such as liberalisation, the Mandal commission [report] and the Babri masjid demolition [a year later]―gave momentum to the voice of the marginalised,” says C. Lakshmanan, former professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) and national convenor of the Dalit Intellectual Collective. “The dalits daringly asserted themselves and had a lot of aspirations. However, this process had both positive and negative effects. It encouraged individual [growth] (through education) rather than the collective interest (unified political movement).”
In the late 1990s, the emergence of leaders such as VCK founder Thol Thirumavalavan and Puthiya Tamilagam founder Dr K. Krishnasamy helped strengthen the voices of the marginalised. The mainstream Dravidian parties―the DMK and the AIADMK―also accepted their growth and accommodated them in their alliances. Dalits make up 21 per cent of the state’s vote bank, which is split between Paraiyars (13 per cent), Pallars (5 per cent) and Arunthathiyars (3 per cent). The Paraiyars and Arunthathiyars, spread across various constituencies in Tamil Nadu, rally behind Thirumavalavan, seen as the dalit face of the state. The Pallars, who are in just a few pockets in south Tamil Nadu, go with Krishnasamy; he has campaigned to make the Pallars an upper caste and move them from the scheduled castes list.
While Thirumavalavan ensured there was dalit representation in the legislative assembly and Parliament, Krishnasamy saw limited electoral success. As part of the INDIA bloc, Thirumavalavan has played a crucial role in consolidating dalit votes and empowering them politically and economically.
Recently, his anti-liquor campaign and his vocal attempts to strike an ideological balance within the INDIA bloc have helped him grow beyond his Tamil dalit identity. “He commands credibility among the national leaders,” says VCK deputy general secretary Vanni Arasu. “He is an uncompromising, knowledge-driven leader who stands for not just the dalit cause, but also for society as a whole. He is a true Ambedkarite and a Periyarist.”
In the past decade, various incidents across the country―including the suicide of University of Hyderabad PhD scholar Rohith Vemula and atrocities against dalits in north India―have offered a larger role for Thirumavalavan and Krishnasamy, but importantly, also other players.
It was around this time that the BJP, an outsider in the state, began looking at the dalits as a prominent vote bank and tried to polarise that vote. In 2015, at an event in Madurai, then BJP president Amit Shah said that the Pallars would be elevated as Devendra Kula Vellalars―an umbrella term to unify seven Pallar sub-castes. “The BJP wanted to cultivate a space among the scheduled castes in Tamil Nadu,” said Raveenthran Duraisamy, a political analyst and researcher. “They nominated L. Murugan, a person from the Arunthathiyar community, as the party president in the state [in 2020]. They glorified Pallars as Devendra Kula Vellalars and worked to remove them from the scheduled castes list. This ensured that they brought a significant change in the voting pattern of the dalits.”
In 2019, Krishnasamy had aligned with the BJP because of its support for the Pallar cause, but would part ways with it in 2021.
Back to 2016, and Vemula’s death ushered in voices such as director Pa Ranjith. His cinema and his public speeches through his Neelam Cultural Centre played a role in the silent dalit assertion happening throughout the state today. There had been several instances of dalit oppression in the past decade, but the murder of Bahujan Samaj Party leader K. Armstrong this July became a turning point.
Ranjith held a rally demanding justice for Armstrong; the response to this made other dalit leaders in the state, including Thirumavalavan, nervous. Though Ranjith doesn’t have political talent or acumen to take the dalit issue beyond a point, one line during the protest resonated with the crowd a lot. He said dalits could no longer be spoilers in elections, but should unite and be the actual change makers.
Vijay, for his part, has not spoken about uniting the community politically. But, with his speeches against Thirumavalavan and his decision to hold his first rally in north Tamil Nadu’s Vikravandi―which has a sizeable dalit population―it is clear that he is trying to take the dalit saviour card from Thirumavalavan.
Since the 1990s, the dalit population has become less concentrated in north Tamil Nadu and is currently scattered throughout the state. The community realises this is a hindrance to unity, and they have been trying to come together on social media and several physical platforms. This alone, however, will not ensure that the dalit vote is consolidated.
“Tamil Nadu is second or third in terms of violence and atrocities against dalits,” says Lakshmanan. “There is no substantial transition or transformation of that section (dalits) of the population. Their pain is used for individual and vested interests. No one has been arrested in the Vengaivayal issue (human faeces was found in an overhead tank supplying water to dalit residents). It is a simple FIR that has not named anyone. Despite being in the ruling alliance, Thirumavalavan is not able to do justice to this community. On the other hand, this [current] assertiveness is also because casteist forces attempt to divide quota within quota. Instead of addressing the larger aspirations, politics has completely turned [its back on] actual dalit emancipation.”