Chennai: Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi leader Thol Thirumavalavan is a happy man. Recently, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli conferred on him a provisional doctorate degree for his study on ‘Religious Conversion of Meenakshipuram Dalits.’ Soon we would be seeing him in an academic robe receiving the doctorate at the university convocation.
Narrating reasons for taking up the issue, he said, “during my college days, I was moved by en masse conversion of Dalits into Islam at Meenakshipuram in 1981. Nearly 150 Dalit family members were converted to Islam. With such incident having attracted nationwide attention, the then BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee had visited the village, while the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had deputed a Central minister to the village.
Prolonged caste oppression and police atrocities were the main factors for mass conversion, the Dalit leader said. He said he was wondering why people following Dr Ambedkar had not embraced Buddhism, as done by their leader. “The question was lingering in my mind. Hence I decided to study about the conversions. Initially, I proposed to do research ‘on police atrocities’ that led to the mass conversion.
However, his guide, Dr K Chokalingam, former VC of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, suggested that he look at the issues from the minds of the people who were converted to Islam. Based on his suggestion, the research work was done, not only as a theoretical sociological study, but also an empirical one.
Amidst his busy schedule, the leader visited Meenakshipuram on three different occasions and met the people personally. He also met local leaders and others in the village.
Before venturing into the study, he consulted large volumes of literature, including legislative assembly proceedings, official, police and media reports. He met all the family members and handed over questionnaires and their response and reports helped him to complete the work, the VCK leader noted.
In September last, Thirumavalavan made two presentations on ‘Religion and conversion’ and ‘Victimological perspective of Meenakshipuram conversion’ before faculty members and academicians in Madurai Kamaraj University.
After attending the public vivo-voce at the University on August 24, the MSU has issued the PhD provisional certificate to him for the degree of doctorate of philosophy in Criminology subject.
Thirumavalavan also pointed out that he was awarded the doctoral degree by the University for his methodical research on the religious conversions at Meenakshipuram. In his study, he concludes, “conversions in Meenakshipuram changed the livelihood of the people, both economically and socially.”
“After 37 years, their life has been changed for better. They are economically better and majority of them have concrete houses. I also found the second generation of the converted families to be treated as born Muslims,” the leader said.
Denying the role of Arab money in the conversions, he said “the families have come out of the social stigma and stratification imposed on them by the caste system”. “The converted men are called as ‘bhai’ by others, which gives a sense of equality and dignity for them,” Thirumavalavan added.
