Chennai: “I am happy that my ‘no-caste, no-religion’ certificate has created a positive upsurge on the social media; now I hope it will trigger a mass movement to do away with the caste system”, says Sneha, perhaps the first person in India to have managed to get a ‘No-Caste, No-Religion’ certificate from the revenue administration.
The gutsy lawyer from Tirupattur (Vellore district) had to wage a relentless war through several dozens of letters to officials at multiple levels over almost two decades before receiving her ‘dream’ certificate from Tahsildar T.S Sathiyamoorthy on February 5. And no sooner did the news of her success break out, the 35-year-old woman has been flooded with phone calls congratulating her and hailing her as a role model.
Among the many that paid her rich compliments are celebrity stars Kamal Haasan, Satyaraj and Rohini hailing her as the symbol of success in the war against caste. “You have actuated a long-dormant desire among Indians. Let’s discard ewhat never belonged to us. Let’s cast away caste”, tweeted Kamal.
But all this joy of success could happen only after long years of frustration through reams of petitions to multiple officials. “Some said they had the authority to issue community certificates but no authority to issue one that said I have no caste or religion. Some others said they cannot issue this certificate because they were not clear what purpose it would serve. They would ask me, why this certificate?” recalled Sneha.
“I began sending out my applications in 2010. Then I started sending proper official applications from 2017. We asked the officers to give us a certificate in the same format used for the caste certificate, just mentioning I do not belong to any caste. It was difficult to convince, but finally I got it”, Sneha told DC.
Her husband Parthiba Raja is a Tamil professor and a writer. More than anything, he has been a huge support in her long struggle to establish her “right to identity self, sans the burdensome caste-religion tags”. He says he finds his wife’s certificate as “an important and a very positive step” towards the larger pursuit of a casteless society.
“This has started the debate. Many are talking about this. Several people have asked us for the procedure to get such a certificate”, said Raja.
Sneha says she is excited that her certificate has shaken the very foundation of the caste system that bedeviled the society while feeding the political parties and leaders with the incendiary fodder to stir up hurtful divisions among the people only to get votes. “Now they could feel threatened that this foundation is hit, and a new foundation for a truly strong society could be built”, said the mother of three girl children.
Sneha and Parthiba Raja have given their three girls names that reflected different faiths. For example, the eldest is Aadhirai Nasreen, combination of Buddhist and Muslim. Perhaps Sneha got her inspiration at childhood as her parents too had practiced casteless ideology, naming her sisters Mumtaz and Jennifer.
