The State-wide 12-hour shutdown called by various Dalit outfits to protest against the alleged dilution of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was near total in several districts of Kerala on Monday prompting Dalit organisations that had given the call for the hartal to term it as a success politically.
Police arrested several Dalit leaders, activists and sympathizers from different parts of the State on charges like disrupting traffic with road blocks. Some incidents of stone-throwing at buses and attacks on private vehicles in which a few persons suffered injuries were reported but there were no serious incidents of violence.
Among the prominent Dalit functionaries arrested by police was M Geethanandan, convener of the Dalit Action Council and leader of Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha, a leading organisation of tribes people. The police had taken him and 17 other Dalit leaders and activists into custody on Monday morning from Kochi on the charge of blocking vehicles.
Denying the charge, Geethanandan, who had led the Muthanga Adivasi agitation of February, 2013 in Wayanad district, said at the Ernakulam Central Police Station in Kochi, “That is not true. In fact, they have not specified any charge against us. This is just another racist act of the ruling class... I would also say that the shutdown is a success.”
The dawn-to-dusk shutdown was observed by nearly 30 Dalit organisations to protest against the alleged dilution of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act through a recent Supreme Court verdict and demanding restoration of full legal protection for Dalit sections, justice for those killed during last week’s nation-wide protests and a judicial probe into the killings.
In an extraordinary move that looked like a deliberate and allegedly racist attempt to defeat the Dalit protest, the State’s bus operators had declared that their services would operate normally and the State’s largest traders’ body, Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samithi, had announced that shops would remain open on Monday.
Also, State-owned Kerala State Road Transport Corporation, which had kept all its buses off the roads during the general strike of April 2, had announced that it would run its services on Monday under police security. “That shows the leftist Government’s anti-Dalit attitude. But we don’t expect anything more from a party like the CPI(M),” said a Dalit leader.
However, the Youth Congress, Muslim Youth league and the Muslim Students’ Federation had declared solidarity with the protesting Dalit outfits. Social and cultural leaders and several voluntary organisations had in the recent days been running a sustained campaign in support of the Dalit shutdown through social media platforms like Facebook.
Though traders had opened shops in many places on Monday morning, they were forced to down shutters a few hours later under pressure from protestors. “This is the second shutdown in eight days. This strike has come just when the market is getting lively due to Vishu festival. But I won’t fault the Dalit people because their cause is justifiable,” said a trader in Kochi.
Commuters who had left homes relying on the promise of the KSRTC and private bus operators to run services had a tough time almost all over Kerala as the private bus owners kept their vehicles off the roads from the morning itself while the former was forced to suspend services in several places due to protests by Dalit organisations.
Apart from the 18 protestors in Kochi, 13 Dalit activists were arrested in Alappuzha allegedly for trying to disrupt traffic and the police took into custody about 70 persons in Palakkad. Police personnel had been deployed in large numbers at places with concentration of Dalit population across the State. The hartal was an absolute success in Wayanad district. While the Dalit outfits succeeded in making the shutdown total in Kollam, Kottayam, Idukki, Palakkad and Alappuzha districts, it was only partially successful in the districts of Thiruvananthapuram, Pathanamthitta, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasaragod. The hartal did not affect normal life in the Muslim-majority Malappuram district.