Chennai: A Dalit woman’s three-year social and legal battle to take oath as president of Nayakaneri village panchayat in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruppattur district seemingly came to naught as the Madras High Court Friday struck down the government order reserving the post for a Scheduled Caste (SC) woman.
This means that Indhumathi Pandian’s election as village panchayat president stands nullified.
Angry upper-caste Hindus had fiercely opposed both her election and the Election Commission’s decision to reserve the village panchayat president’s post.
On Friday, Madras High Court Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan directed the state government to reserve the Nayakaneri panchayat president’s post for women from the Scheduled Tribes (ST) or general category in four weeks and conduct fresh elections.
The order has come as a big blow for 26-year-old Indhumathi, who has been waiting to take oath as panchayat president after being elected unopposed in November 2021.
After the orders were reserved by the Madras High Court on 20 August in connection with a petition filed against her election by former village panchayat president K. Sivakumar, Indhumathi was confident of winning the case.
Speaking to ThePrint after the court order, she said she was being punished for no mistake of her own.
“I did not do anything in this. It was the government that reserved the village panchayat and I contested and won unopposed. But I am being dragged from pillar to post just to be recognised (as president) according to the procedure,” she said.
Although Indhumathi is not happy with the court order, she is sure about continuing her fight in the legal corridors.
Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF), a wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), had deputed senior lawyers to fight the case on her behalf.
TNUEF’s state secretary K. Samuel Raj said he would go for an appeal against the Madras High Court’s single-judge order.
“Even going by the orders of the Madras High Court, it was the mistake of the Election Commission of India and not of the village panchayat president-elect,” he told ThePrint.
Meanwhile, upper-caste Hindus in Nayakaneri village celebrated the court order by bursting crackers and distributing sweets to residents.
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Indhumathi’s battle
It all started in 2014, when Indhumathi, from the SC community, fell in love with Pandian (now 31), belonging to a Most Backward Community (MBC) from Nayakaneri village, and they married against the wishes of their parents.
After being ostracised by villagers in Nayakaneri because of their inter-caste marriage, Indhumathi and her husband chose to live outside the village and that’s when the rural local body poll announcements came in 2021.
Indhumathi contested and won the election for the Nayakaneri president’s post as it was reserved for women from the SC community.
However, even before she could take oath as panchayat president, Sivakumar along with former village ward member R. Selvaraj filed a petition in the Madras High Court against the reservation of the seat for SC women.
In his petition, Sivakumar had argued that there were no SC families in the village as it was located on the hills. Of the nine wards in the village, there are 3,440 voters, of which 66 percent are tribals and the rest are from the backward community and MBC, he stated.
On 7 October 2021, the Madras High Court restrained Indhumathi from taking charge as panchayat president. After hearing all three sides (petitioner, State Election Commission and Indhumathi), the court reserved its orders on 20 August and pronounced the verdict Friday.
The court observed that the post was not meant for people from the SC community as there was no family from the community in the village.
“I contested with the hope of living with dignity and proving to them that everyone is equal. But three years have gone and I don’t know how many more years it will take to win the legal battle,” Indhumathi said.
It was in 2016 that the Tamil Nadu government amended various municipal laws and Tamil Nadu Panchayat Act, 1994, increasing the percentage of reservation for women from 33 to 50 in municipal corporations, municipalities, town panchayats, village panchayats, district panchayats and panchayat unions.
Although many women from the general category and SC community have benefited from the reservation, discrimination against SC representatives continues.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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