Branded by law

The Criminal Tribes Act has been repealed four decades ago but the kal-ottar community are still hounded by law, ostracised by society, and ignored even by the rights organisations

When 24-year-old Muthu was taken away by police in a midnight swoop on

his village, no one was surprised. His neighbours and his family sound

quite resigned to the fact. They don't know if he has committed a

crime, but they believe it would make no difference to the police. For

Muthu is by definition a criminal from birth. He is a kal-ottar

(stonecutter), a community branded as a criminal community by the

Madras Presidency in 1911 when it enacted The Criminal Tribes Act of

1871. The law was repealed four decades ago, but the stigma remains.

"Our community is branded by law as criminal," says Murugeshwari.

"Police routinely make midnight raids to arrest our men. We don't have

permanent homes. We are hunted by the law and dare not stay too long

in one place. As a result, we don't have identification papers, no

ration cards, no voter ID cards. We have petitioned the chief minister

for help but there's been no answer so far. So the police continue to

enter our houses and take away our men and put them in jail. Sometimes

even the women are not spared."



Lack of papers

Muthu was in jail for over two weeks before his wife Parvathi could

see him. No one would tell her where he was or why he had been taken

away. The seven months pregnant Parvathi ran from pillar to post for

almost two weeks. He was in Madurai Central Jail.

When she went to the jail to visit her husband, a fresh problem arose.

"Do you have a voter ID card or a ration card?" the official asked

when she presented her application.

"No, I don't," she said.

"Sorry, without an ID card we can't let you in," the official replied

as she turned to another applicant.

Tears welled in Parvathi's eyes. "Please madam, please. I just want to

see him once." The official looked at her for some time and then

relented. "If someone in your locality has identification papers they

can help you out."

A neighbour stepped up and signed some papers for Parvathi so that she

could get permission to meet Muthu. Two weeks after he was taken away

from the Muniyandipuram area of Madurai, he got a chance to meet his

family. No charge sheet has been filed against Muthu.

The police have no qualms about their treatment of these people. "They

are a violent community, involved in murder and theft cases," says a

police official.

But Tamil Nadu Ottar Kuruvar Vallurimai Sangam organiser Radhakrishnan

says the police are biased. "Most of those arrested remain in custody

without any cases filed. Some are tortured and forced to give

confessions.

"We are easy targets. If police fail to solve any case, they pick us

up and book us for crimes we never committed," alleges Selvam, the

secretary of the sangam. He says himself was tortured by police and

released only after intervention by human rights activists.

The community is scattered around Madurai, Theni, Villupuram and other

parts of Tamil Nadu. The men work in stone quarries or construction

firms while the women sell fancy items like bangles and earrings. Most

of their earnings are spent getting the men out of jail.



Bail money

"Whatever we earn is spent getting bail or hiring a lawyer," says

20-year-old Savitri, whose husband Muniyandi is jailed under the

Prevention of Anti-Social Activities (PASA) in Madurai. Savitri was

pregnant when her husband was arrested. Now her son Vignesh is

one-and-a-half years old. The family reunion takes place only during

Savitri's jail visits.

Polygamy is one of the more curious side-effects of the jail time the

men spend. Kathamuthu, for instance, has three wives and 14 children.

With so few men around, Radhakrishnan says polygamy is understandable.

"It is mostly due to the frequent detentions of the men folk."

It's not just the Tamil Nadu police who are after them, the kal-ottar

say. Police from neighbouring Kerala recently raided Bethaniapuram and

dragged 60-year-old Velayudham and his two sons from their home and

took them away in a Kerala-registered vehicle. Sukumari, Velayutham's

wife, says they were taken to Ottapalam police station.

"Three days later we were freed," says Naganandan, one of the sons.

But Velayutham is still missing. "We tried to file a complaint. But

the Karimedu police station refused to entertain it. A letter was also

sent to Ottapalam police station but they refused to acknowledge it,"

says Sukumari.

Branded as criminals from birth, the kal-ottar suffer from other kinds

of discrimination. At school, the children face taunts and jibes from

fellow students or teachers. "It is very humiliating," says

14-year-old Mahalakshmi. "Our classmates call us by names, saying bad

things about our community. Sometimes even teachers abuse us."

Mahalakshmi, a student of Pasumalai CSI Girls' Higher Secondary

School, is one of the few to have got as far as the 10th standard.

Most of the children are illiterate. In Mottumalai, it is common to

see them idling around, playing desultorily at some game or other.

Mahalakshmi, though, has ambitions. "I want to be a lawyer. I want to

fight for the rights of my community."

"We want our children to be educated," says Maduraiveeran, released

from jail a couple of months ago. "But most of them get branded as

criminals at a tender age. No one will give them jobs. So many enter

the crime world." He also says police routinely foist cases on them.

But Inspector General of Police South Zone Sanjeev Kumar dismisses the

allegations. "Most of them are involved in criminal activities. And in

fact there are instances when police intervention saved them from

being lynched by a crowd."

Their fear of the law is such that the community dare not approach the

police when a theft happens at their own home. Even weddings are

usually hushed up to avoid notice. "There is no fanfare as with the

other communities. They only exchange betel leaf and nuts,"

Murugeshwari says.



Easy target



B Parthasarathy, state director of the National Project on Preventing

Torture in India, says the community makes an easy target for the

police. "They are taken to different police stations across the state

so that police can close the old files, due to pressure from the top,"

he alleges.

Radhakrishnan says even the state human rights commission has turned

its back on them. "We sought their intervention over police torture.

But they turned us down, as though our rights never existed."

When this correspondent contacted the rights panel, a spokesman said

that since the petition was just a carbon copy and was circulated to

competent authorities in the state, "we felt there was hardly any role

for us. According to the petition, the community members threatened to

commit mass suicide. What else could we do in this regard?"

Hounded by the law, ostracised by society, and ignored even by the

rights organizations, the kal-ottar have no one to turn to for relief.

As generation after generation lives in dread, one wonders if there is

any hope at all for the younger generation.