Chennai: Why should it be that only the oppressed castes should fight for their rights – it is important for the rest of society also to take up the cause, says Meena Kandasamy, celebrated poet, writer and social activist, emphatically.
In an informal chat with journalists of Deccan Chronicle here on Wednesday, Meena said it was not enough for the state machinery with its quota system – a term she abhors – to unshackle people from the caste system, but also for others to fight for their rights.
Elaborating on the point, she said Indians live in denial that there is oppression and caste disparities and there is no “guilt” about such a system. We must first overcome this “hypocrisy”, she stresses, to make any advancement in creating a casteless society as we are perpetuating the myth that we live in a society where everyone is equal.
We have to acknowledge our own history to move ahead, she says, and quotes the example of Australia that has a National Sorry Day where the settlers apologise to the natives for the injustices perpetrated.
She says that women are the most suppressed in Indian society and that is why the Dharmapuri incident happened when an upper caste girl was denied the right to choose her husband – from a lower caste. Charging PMK leader S. Ramadoss with charging Dalits with practising love jihad and making them vulnerable, she declares that “a person like him has no place in democracy”.
Not one to accept weeding out the creamy layer among castes, Meena also speaks of using the economic criterion for state benefits to reach the needy.
The author of the well-acclaimed book Gypsy Goddess, where she talks of the Kilvenmani episode (Thanjavur district, 1968), feels that we are ignoring an important part of Tamil history by blanking it out in our textbooks. The book has got good reviews from all over the world, she said.
Meena, who confesses that she likes to dabble in different things, also starred in Malayalam movie Oralpokkam, and the poet in her has no problem in being “provocative”.
