Tamil Nadu: Dalits Get Crematorium After Long Wait Of 75 years In Madurai

After a long wait of 75 years, the adi dravidars of Thammakundu Village in Chellampatti union in Madurai district gets a crematorium with a compound wall and paver block path. A villager named Sundaram S says that earlier, they faced a lot of problems. There were many incidents in our surroundings where other communities were not permitting Dalits to use the public road to carry their dead people.

"We have to paddle through knee-deep water in the village tank to reach the crematorium about a half a kilometre away," he said as reported by The Times of India.

Promise To Villagers In Polls

More than 500 families live in the village, out of which around 200 families are Adi dravidars. The other families are chettiars, kallar and others. Panchayat, president of Thummakundu M O Perumal, said that this was a poll promise he gave the community members two years ago during the elections.

"I started exploring different ways of fulfilling the promise, but there was no land available, then two villagers, Saraswathy and her husband Chinnasamy, both from the community, came forward to donate 12 cents of land near the other crematorium," the Panchayat President said.

Other communities also welcomed the construction of a new crematorium. The construction was done at the cost of ₹9.70 lakh and was completed about a week ago. Earlier the Adi dravidars had to cremate their dear ones on the banks of the local tank, and it was a challenging task, especially during the rainy season. According to community members, now elders will get a decent funeral like everyone else in other communities.

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