Ma Venkatesan's Non-Glamorous But Relentless Struggle For The Rights Of Safai Karamcharis

On 30 April 2023, in Chennai, director Pa.Ranjith held a 'festival' at his Neelam Cultural Centre.

In this a 'poem' was read by one of his assistant directors - Viduthalai Sikappi.

The 'poem' was purportedly about the pain of those who do manual scavenging and the tragedy of the frequent deaths of manual scavengers.

However the 'poem', which is essentially a collection of a few abusive sentences with neither emotional or humanistic value, aims to bring in Rama and Lakshmana as the ones who jump into a manhole and Hanuman as the one smoking a cigar looking at them work.

Hanuman leaves for getting food for Sita ('as upper caste hunger is too important') and when he returns he finds that Sita has left for Lanka, the manhole had been covered and Sita has left a message not to open the manhole.

Naturally the 'poem' had attracted vehement protests from Hindu groups.

The Police has filed an FIR under following Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections: 53 (provocation with intent to cause riot), 153A (1)(a) (promoting religious enmity) 295 A (outraging religious sentiments), 505 (1)(b) (inciting fear or alarm among the public), and 505 (2) (promoting enmity between classes).

Pa. Ranjith came to the defence of his assistant director.

It was an assault on creative freedom he said. The 'poem' speaks about the pain and tragedy of manual scavenging he said. Following the path of Dr. Ambedkar, the 'poem' described in a satirical way that even Gods would face such conditions if they were to enter the manhole he said.

But that was not what the 'poem' said.

When it was read—and the video clip has gone viral—there was no accompanying silence that a poem which deals with suffering would effect. Rather, there was euphoria of perversion at Hindu Gods being ridiculed.

The poem spoke of Sita having left a note that the manhole with Rama and Lakshman in it should not be opened and that she had left for Lanka. In no way these lines could be an expression of the pain and misery of manual scavenging.

Manual scavenging in Tamil Nadu

In reality as Ma Venkatesan, Honourable Chairman For National Commission For Safai Karamcharis, pointed out, it is Tamil Nadu that ranks first in the number of hygiene workers deaths.

On his part, Venkatesan has been relentlessly fighting, crisscrossing the nation for the rights and safe working conditions of the Safai Karamcharis.

On 3 May, he was in Punjab where he obtained compensation for four victims of a meat plant tragedy. Then he went to the families of the workers who died while cleaning the tank of Federal Agro Meat Plant at Behra village. He made sure and personally saw to it that the families of the victims were handed over the compensation.

He then had to rush to Tamil Nadu.

In Tamil Nadu, at Meenchur of Thiruvallur district, two persons had died because of the toxic gas from a the septic tank of a school - Immanuel Matriculation school.

Here again Venkatesan was there making sure that the victims are properly compensated. He personally went and studied the tank site along with district collector.

Thanks to his efforts and concern not only the compensation but collector's order for making the jobs of other workers permanent was also realised.

As an Ambedkarite scholar with an in-depth knowledge of social history of Tamil Nadu and also as Honourable Chairman For National Commission For Safai Karamcharis, he shared what he thought about the entire controversy.

He was categorical in his statement regarding this 'publicity seeking' act by Pa. Ranjith:

Having obtained a few glimpses of how he works, it is amazing to see him humbly refuse the gratitude offered by a team of Karamcharis from Delhi. 'Why thank me? We are all one family!' he said.

The workers, so moved, came and hugged him.

While one film director follows the path of pseudo-activism, Ma Venkatesan works on the ground bringing about real change.