Lakshmanan Elayaperumal

                           (இதன் தமிழ் வடிவத்திற்கு இங்கே சொடுக்கவும்)

• Lakshmanan Elayaperumal was a leader who worked for the progress of Scheduled Castes and was the first president of the All-India Committee for the Abolition of Untouchability.
• He served as the President of the Tamil Nadu Congress Party (1979 -1980) and as a Member of Parliament for twenty years.
• He started the Human Rights Party of India and fought for the people.
• Elayaperumal was born in Kattumannarkovil, Cuddalore district.
• He was born on 26th June 1924.

School days

• He has seen that in schools there is a separate pot for the poor and a separate pot for the others.
• Unbeknownst to anyone, he kept breaking the pot that was written as the pot of the sages.
• One day, when he was caught by the school principal while breaking, he presented the justification of his actions.
• Due to this, the double system from the students was removed from that day.

First struggle to protect the Parayas

• Elayaperumal joined the army in 1945.
• In 1946, when he was returning to the Kattumannarkovil, there was a situation to carry out a protest.
• A farmer who did not go to work for two days due to his ill health was severely beaten by a farmer.
• The injured was taken to Elayaperumal police station and refused to register a charge sheet.
• Elayaperumal united the people of the list and appealed to the District Collector.
• Elayaperumal did not rest until he received a fine of one hundred rupees from the farmer who had harassed him.
• He led protests in favour of landless wage labourers, against eating beef and against the use of parayas only to announce events involving the Sudra caste by beating drums.
• He was accused of forgery by Sudra caste people and imprisoned for six months. After India's independence, he was awarded a gold medal for his social service.

Family

• He married Thayalmuthu.
• His sons are Vetri Veeramani, Jyoti Mani and Nandakumar.
• Elayaperumal passed away in the fifth month after his wife Taiyalmuthu died of ill health.
• His son Nandakumar, a dentist, died of kidney failure.
• Nandakumar worked for some time with the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Party.

Political Life

• Elayaperumal Chidambaram served three consecutive terms as a Member of Parliament from 1952 to 1967.
• From 1962 to 1967, he formed the All-India Committee for the Abolition of Untouchability in the then Prime Minister Nehru's government and served as its first chairman.
• When there was a split in the Congress party at the national level, he took office in 1979 as the Tamil Nadu president of the Congress wing led by Indira Gandhi.
• In the 1980 general elections, Indira Gandhi formed an alliance with the DMK.
• In 1980, he served as a member of the Egmore assembly constituency in Chennai.
• Elayaperumal, who broke away from the Congress due to differences of opinion, started and ran the Indian Human Rights Party in 1989.
• He rejoined Congress in 2003 under Sonia Gandhi.

The Elayaperumal Committee report

• The Abolition of Untouchability Act was introduced in India in 1955 and in 1976 the P.C.R. Act was renamed (Protection of Civil Rights Act).
• As the Act did not function properly, Parliament set up a committee headed by Ilaiya Perumal, former Tamil Nadu Congress president and first chairman of the All-India Committee for the Abolition of Untouchability.
• Elayaperumal chaired the committee which had six more members — BK Gaikwad, C Dass, R Achuthan, PL Majumdar, Narain Din, and VV Vaze.
• Then MP SM Siddayya was also a part of the committee.
• The team was asked to study various aspects of untouchability — particularly the implementation of The Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955 — and any restrictions on the entry of Dalits into public places of worship.
• The committee was also tasked with addressing problems with education and economic upliftment of SCs, evaluate the impact of existing welfare schemes, assess the progress achieved so far and recommend remedial measures.
• The committee’s first meeting was held on May 5, 1965.
• It was the first such committee in Independent India.
• Though its tenure was only for six months, the team travelled extensively to various Indian states to conduct the study.
• An interim report was submitted in December 1966.
• The final report was submitted in January 1969 to the then Union Law and Social Welfare Minister P Govinda Menon.
• The report had five parts — untouchability, education, economic development, public services.
• It needs for reorganising the existing set-up of the Office of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
• In the birthplace of Gandhi, untouchability is rampant in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's constituency, pointed out the Elayaperumal Committee report in 1969.
• However, the fact that the statement was ignored in his own time caused consternation among the leaders of the list.
• He headed the Nandanar Educational Society in Chidambaram after the demise of Swami Sahajananda.

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act

• The Prevention of Atrocities Act was brought in 1989 to protect Scheduled Tribes on the recommendations of the Elayaperumal Committee.
• The Act was brought into force very late in 1995.
• The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, which is currently in force, was brought on the recommendation of Elayaperumal.
• The Supreme Court has now given its opinion to amend this law.

Abolishing hereditary priesthood in Hindu temples

• In 1971, the Tamil Nadu Government amended the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious Endowments Act.
• This amendment abolished the system of hereditary priests in temples.
• When the aggrieved party filed a case in the Supreme Court challenging the amendments, the state government informed the court that it had carried out social reforms based on the recommendations of the Elayaperumal Committee.
• On 14 March 1972, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court comprising Chief Justice SM Sikri and Justices AN Grover, AN Ray, DG Palekar and MH Bagh. The Bench upheld the amendments in the case of Seshammal and Ors v. Government of Tamil Nadu.
• He got the goodwill of Thanthai Periyar, Kamarajar, Kakkan, M. Karunanidhi and MGR, etc.
• Elayaperumal lived with Comrade Jeeva as his role model.
• He is fondly called Ambedkar of the South because he brought great change in the lives of the caste people who were neglected by the Shudras.
• In 1998, the DMK government honoured Elayaperumal with the Ambedkar Award for his social work.
• He was the first recipient of the Annal Ambedkar Award instituted by the DMK government in 1998.
• He died on 9th September 2005.
• Recently, under Rule No. 110 in the Assembly, the Chief Minister said that a centenary memorial will be set up in Chidambaram of Cuddalore district in memory of former Congress MLA Elayaperumal.

-------------------------------------