Coimbatore: At a time when religious debates are gaining momentum with the announcement of CAA-NRC, more than 3000 Hindu Dalits have decided to convert to Islam as they feel insecure and claim that their self respect is hurt based on casteist grounds in their day to day life.
Coimbatore: At a time when religious debates are gaining momentum with the announcement of CAA-NRC, more than 3000 Hindu Dalits have decided to convert to Islam as they feel insecure and claim that their self respect is hurt based on casteist grounds in their day to day life.
The announcement came following the Mettupalayam Nadur wall collapse incident that killed 17 Dalits and the arrest of Nagai Thiruvalluvan, President of Tamil Puligal Amaippu that came after.
“Would the police have arrested him if he belonged to an Islam organisation? Or was a leader of an Islamic outfit like Jawahirullah?,” questioned Ilavenil, from Tamil Puligal.
When questioned about the number claimed by the organisation, he said that Dalit Hindus from Western Tamil Nadu from Salem to Coimbatore, both members of the organisation and non-members are to convert to Islam.
“We made a headcount of the people who supported our move. The count could only exceed 3000 and not go less. Residents of the Nadur village also showed interests, but are being threatened by Hindu outfits and the facilities of the State Government", Ilavenil added.
Claiming that discrimination was happening at all scales in their day to day lives, Ilavenil pondered that Dalits were being harassed in all corners of society and are heckled with restrictions to use only certain roads, eat from certain shops and even entering temples.
“The discrimination is both verbal and official. Not even a single Government has been able to address this issue and even the police are being partial in taking actions. Not to mention that our people are being treated like criminals in police stations when it is them who are giving complaints,” opined Ilavenil.
“Even if we give cases, police are not registering them based on caste grounds and at times we are forced to protest to even register cases. Arrests are a rarities despite the brevity of the issue,” he said.
Coming down heavily on the Hindu outfits for claiming that the conversion was instigated by money, Ilavenil states that it was propelled only by self respect and not money.
“We also thought of converting into Christianity. But casteism is seeing a rise among the modern day Christians and discriminations have become common. Hence we chose Islam,” he opined.
The decision was taken in a review meeting held on December 17, whence the members chose to take up Islam on January 5th, 2020.