Dalit cook resumes work, 29 students keep off school

TIRUPUR: A day after the Tirupur district administration intervened, a dalit cook who was prevented by non-dalit parents from preparing noon meals for their children at a government school resumed her work.
Police have booked 87 non-dalits, including the parents who stopped P Pappal from carrying out her duty and abused her using caste name. They said 12 main accused were absconding.
The case was registered under various sections including 147, 294 (b), 353, and 506 (i) of the IPC, the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Women Harassment Act, and the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2015.
Nearly 30 parents had objected to the appointment of Pappal, who belonged to the Arunthathiyar community, as cook in the Thirumalaigoundenpalayam government high school. They refused to send their children to school. An FIR filed in the Cheyyur police station said they threw away the cooking utensils Pappal was using.
Pappal, 42, told police that the non-dalits were wondering how their children could eat food cooked by a dalit. “Why has Pappal taken up this work? She should have remained an agricultural labourer, they were saying,” she said, alleging that they verbally abused her and tried to force her to commit suicide.”
When contacted, one of the non-dalits from Thirumalaigoundenpalayam said, “While government schools in other villages do not have dalit cooks, why should only our village be given one. It would be a shame for us if our community/relatives ask us about it.”
But another non-dalit told TOI that “It was not the collective stand of the non-dalits in his village. They opposed the appointment of Pappal as they were apprehensive about her work. I was told that when Pappal was appointed in the same school in 2006, some children of non-dalit families suffered health problems. Citing ‘safety’ issue, we wanted her to be transferred.”
Out of 75 students, only 46, including the children of a few non-dalits who did not object to Pappal’s appointment, attended school on Friday. All of them had food cooked and served by Pappal.
The school’s headmistress M Sasikala told TOI that “caste-based allegations may have been raised now. But in our school such discrimination was never seen among either the students or the teachers. I have often seen students from dalit and non-dalit communities sharing food.”