A village school had invited Amurtham for the ceremony but withdrew the invitation on August 15 morning.
New Delhi: The first Scheduled Caste panchayat president of Athupakkam in Tamil Nadu, who has rallied against caste oppression and discrimination in the region, was on Saturday prevented from hoisting the tricolour at a panchayat school.
Amurtham was invited over phone by the headmistress of the elementary school, Dhanalakshmi, to hoist the National Flag as part of the Independence Day celebrations. However, as she was about to get ready to leave for the event, she received another call from the headmistress who urged her not to go.
Amurtham told local media that the headmistress said, “They would celebrate on their own [without her presence],” and that the panchayat office-bearers from the adjoining panchayat bhawan would be conducting the flag-hoisting ceremony in the school premises.
Amurtham, who became a panchayat president after the seat was reserved for Scheduled Caste women, claimed that this was not the first time that she had been discriminated against.
Recalling a similar incident at the very school on Republic Day this year, she said she received an invitation to hoist the National Flag. But when she reached there along with her husband and son, the former panchayat president, V. Haridoss, verbally abused her in front of everyone. She added that she immediately climbed down from the podium on being insulted.
On the latest incident, Tiruvallur collector Maheshwari Ravikumar was quoted by the newspaper as saying that no complaint of caste discrimination has been received. However, she assured that the matter would be investigated and necessary action, initiated.
Dhanalakshmi was quoted by the newspaper as saying that she did not know about the problem between Amurtham and Haridoss, who had been panchayat president thrice before. She, however, did acknowledge that he had prevented Amurtham from hoisting the National Flag on Republic Day.
Stating that Haridoss had unfurled the tricolour then, she did not comment on the latest incident on Independence Day.
Courtesy The Wire
