'Thevars at power centre'

By Radha Venkatesan

CHENNAI, SEPT. 27. How do officials perceive the influence of Thevars, Dalits and other communities with the power centre in Tamil Nadu? They seem to think that the Thevars are right at the power centre and the Dalits, just the farthest. And, the Brahmins? They control the power centre.

All these curious official perceptions of various castes and communities emerged at a workshop on SC\ST welfare held at the Secretariat here today.

About 40 high-level officers including Collectors and Superintendents of Police, who attended, were put through an interesting exercise. They were asked to choose a caste and profession, to which they did not actually belong, and fill in a questionnaire on how that particularly community people were treated at work places and in temples and villages.

The officials were then asked to move to a circle if they felt that their chosen castes were the closest to the power centre.

With no hint of reluctance, half-a-dozen officials who had chosen Thevar community, irrespective of the professions they had selected, immediately moved to the power centre. Whether it was a Thevar engineer, lawyer or agriculturist, they were all there at the ``power centre''.

So did a few officials who chose to play professionals from the Vanniar and Nadar communities.

Interestingly, almost all officials who had chosen the Dalit community stayed farthest from the seat of power. As for forward castes, particularly Brahmins, they were one step away from the power centre, implying that they controlled it from behind-the- scenes.

And in an interaction that followed, there was a near- unanimous view that untouchability prevailed in the State.

The exercise was designed to help officials appreciate the ``realities'' of various communities, the human rights activist, Mr. V. Suresh, who conducted the workshop, told The Hindu.

The Adidravidar Welfare Secretary, Mr.P.Sivakami, who also attended the workshop, said similar programmes would be held in the districts for government staff at various levels.

Earlier, the Chief Secretary, Mr. P. Shankar, presiding, called upon officials to imbibe the spirit of various schemes for SC\ST.

Pointing out that there was a general perception that the benefits of the welfare schemes failed to reach the beneficiaries, he said officials should not be keen on denying benefits to the needy, instead they should ensure that they reached the deserving.

The Adidravidar Welfare Minister, Mr. V. Subramanaiam, said the bureaucracy should be fully senitised the welfare of SC\ST.

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Section  : Southern States
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