Meenakshipuram alias Rahmat Nagar sparkies clean. The villagers have stopped rearing pigs -most are now Muslims. The congregation (prayers in) the mosque, built four years ago ... (On) February 19, 1981 around 300 Dalit families of the Pallan subcaste converted to Islam ... Mohammed Mustafa (Muniyandi till he was 60) ... blurts out ... "Conversion was the only way to gain respect and equality."
Meenakshipuram did not decide to convert in a day or even a year. It has never been desperately poor, and has always had its own primary school. The villagers are mainly landless sharecroppers Reservation in education and jobs brought about awareness - and resentment at the way the landlords (mostly Thevars, an 'other backward caste') treated them. ...
"Acceptance, equal status and self-respect were the reason for the conversion of 20 families in Paruthiyar Kuruchi", says ISM Hussein, a Muslim leader who helped Meenakshipuram villagers convert. In the village, they cite a newspaper report that the Tirunelveli district collector, while inspecting tea shops in the district, found 13 instances of the two-tumbler system: one set for Dalits, another for the rest. ..
"Reminisces Muhammed Raja Sharief when atrocities continued for a year in1980, we decided to go ahead. Japa Mani, the headman, and a few of us took the villagers' consent and approached the South India Isha Athul Islam Sabha. Thus we got converted".
Born Hindus, Japa Mani (now Jamaat chief Zafarulla Khan) and Raja Sharief first converted to Christianity, only to find the caste system had followed them – they were Harijan Christians..
They believed they have found their dignity in Islam. Sharief married into a prominent Muslim family of the neighbourhood. Many point to their marriages into "old" Muslim families as proof of the respect they have gained.
Their Hindu relatives agree. Headman Udayar, a Hindu, leads the way to the Kaliamman temple, and the Muslims troop in as well. "The incessant police raids led to the conversion", he concurs. Why didn't he convert?
Udayar was a bonded labourer, a "slave" and could not survive without Thevar patronage. He laments that he commands no respect. Any Thevar child can call him by name, but the day his son dons the cap and walks out of Meenakshipuram with a new name, he is called Bhai.
Many others remained Hindu because they were sharecroppers in land owned by the Thirumala temple, the biggest in the neighbourhood, and Kaliamman. Upper caste Hindus threatened to keep converts out of the temple fields. This led to some friction because, when some Kaliamman trustees themselves got converted, they claimed the property. Anantha Rama Seshan, who spearheaded the Hindu reconversion movement and got 185 neo-Muslims to re-convert a week later, claims he helped a villager Shivanu to reclaim the Kaliamman property.
For non-converts, Hinduism was never a cause in itself; it was just that, if not dignity, it afforded other benefits ...
Raja Sharief's brother Pandaram, who works in the telecom department, remained a Hindu because he feared he would lose his job. Village development officer Thurairaju got the job in the reserved quota, and was suspended when he converted. The suspension was revoked only after he re-converted.
Then, why did others who enjoyed the benefits of reservation converts ?... Says Khwaja Moiddeen. "I had some land. Now my elder son has a diploma in engineering and is in Saudi Arabia. The younger one is running a poultry shop. If he were still a Harijan, no upper caste would have touched his chicken"
Local Muslims helped by getting some of the leaders, including Raja Sharief, jobs abroad.
Outside the mosque, the villagers are curious but taciturn ... Was this true? Supraich, a cattleman, responds: "I had six daughters to marry off and Muslims ask for a huge dowry. But conversion was necessary".
.. Seshan says it was all for money: "Outsiders came here and got a few converted with money and promises". However, the "promises are not very apparent. Just a handful of people, including Hindus, found jobs in the Gulf. "If promises lured us, then we should have re-converted by now because there were none", says Hussein. Also, the Hindu organisations' attempts to woo the converts has failed. Seshan admits the school he opened in Meenakshipuram attracts no students. The RSS shakha, opened in the wake of the conversions, too has closed.
"Before 1981, there were just five or six shakhas in Thenkasi taluka", explains Rajendran, a Thevar and former local RSS chief. "After conversions, we had 22, but to no avail. The Harijans somehow feel the RSS is of the upper caste."
"Now it is they who harass us", says Kuttralingam Thevar ...
The socio-economic changes have affected local politics. Very much part of the Dravidian movement, the Thevars are now drifting away from the DMK towards the BJP ...
With every Muslim having a Dalit relative and vice versa, the Dalits and Muslims of Meenakshipuram live in perfect harmony. They appear the same, dress the same and live together - often there are Hindu and Muslim houses in the same compound ....
Though Seshan thunders that conversion is a grave threat to the country's peace, the people of Meenakshipuram have been living for 18 years in harmony. And, if there is a call from their new leader, Dr. Krishnaswamy of the New Tamizhaga Party, they warn that those who haven't yet will also convert. They know that the threat of Meenakshipuram completely merging into Rahmat Nagar is a potent weapon. (Source: The Hindustan Times, 19 January, 1999)
