Tsunami reliefs dark side (from ATSNN)

www.infochangeindia.org
Even as people’s lives, livelihoods and property were swept away by the devastating December 26 tsunami, age-old caste barriers in India still stand firm. Reports are coming in of dalit -- the lowest caste in the Hindu social hierarchy -- survivors being denied relief supplies and forced out of relief camps in Tamil Nadu by higher caste survivors from the fishing community.

In Nagapattinam, the worst affected area in India’s badly-hit state of Tamil Nadu, where nearly 6,000 people died, dalit families from 63 affected villages -- 30 of which were completely flattened -- who survived the tragedy have been spending their nights out on the streets.

They have been banned from drinking water and using toilets at facilities provided to survivors. Some have even been muscled out of food, water and aid supply lines, and given only the leftovers, by the Meenavars, a fishing community whose members, naturally, constitute the largest number of survivors in this coastal area.

Dalit activist K Darpaya says: “Dalits are not allowed to drink water from tanks put up by Unicef.” The Meenavars say they “pollute” the water.

Elsewhere, dalit fishermen said they were being edged out of relief and compensation queues. “We are inside the camp but kept in the far corner. Whenever officials and trucks come to give food, we are left out because nobody allows us to get near the trucks. Some men form a ring around us and prevent us from moving ahead in the queue,” says Saravanan, a dalit survivor.


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