Now, People From All Castes, Religions Can Live Together In This 'Equality Village' In Tamil Nadu
Samathuvapuram housing scheme was first introduced in 1997 by then Chief Minister and Stalin's father M Karunanidhi to promote social justice and egalitarian living.
A decade after it was constructed, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Wednesday (June 8) inaugurated Periyar Samathuvapuram or equality village at Kottai Vengaipatti near Sivaganga, comprising 100 houses, a park, a creche, a library, among other facilities.
Samathuvapuram housing scheme was first introduced in 1997 by then Chief Minister and Stalin's father M Karunanidhi to promote social justice and egalitarian living. The objective was to ensure that people from all castes and religions live together, share civic amenities and services without any discrimination or differential treatment.
equality village
Under the scheme, 40 per cent of the houses were allotted to the Scheduled Caste (SC) community, 25 per cent each for Backward Castes (BC) and the Most Backward Castes (MBC) and the remaining 10 per cent to others. The first Samathuvapuram project was launched in 1998 in the Madurai district.
About 'Periyar Ninaivu Samathuvapuram'
The scheme was initially named as 'Periyar Ninaivu Samathuvapuram' after Tamil social reformer Periyar EV Ramasamy Naicker. The ?3.5 crores Sivaganga village inaugurated is the 235th facility in the state and ninth in the district.
The project was announced in 2010-11, however, after DMK's defeat in the 2011 Assembly elections, the AIADMK government did not go ahead with their rival's signature project, The Indian Express reported.
equality village
The objective
The idea of Samathuvapuram was mooted to promote spatial equality, social harmony and social capital of the weakened, marginalised and rural sections at a time when the residential areas in Tamil Nadu were largely known as Cheries (Dalits), Nagars (caste Hindus) and Agrahaharams (Brahmins).
Even the government-sponsored housing schemes had failed to erase segregation except for the fact that Cheries became colonies.
???????? ???????????? ???????? ?????? ???????????????? ??????? ?????? ???? ????????? ??????? ??????????.
¡ª M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) June 8, 2022
'???????? ??????????????' ??????? ???? ?????? ????????? ??????? ?????????????? ?? ???? ???????? ??????????? ???????? ???????? ?????? ????????????? ??????????????. pic.twitter.com/zQRSGz4uVo
"Samathuvapuram was an idea, along with several other action plans like inter-caste marriages, inter-dining and common dwelling, to fight caste discrimination," says a 2002 study by K Jothi Sivagnanam and M Sivaraj of the University of Madras.
When it was introduced in 1997 as an egalitarian community, it had a system in which the District Collector obtained an undertaking from each family that they will not install the statues of religious or community leaders; won¡¯t sell or pledge the houses for a period of 15 years; will use a common burial ground, besides other conditions.
The first 'equality village'
The first Samathuvapuram was established at Melakottai near Madurai with 100 houses, built at a cost of Rs 35,000 each.
¡°The houses were constructed on 5-cent plots with a built-in area of 259 sq ft. The beneficiaries were selected on the basis of income criteria from the eight adjacent villages of Melakottai. The allotments (including land documents) were done in the name of the female member of the household¡,¡± said the study, detailing other facilities such as town buses from the city with stopover, post office, telephone facility, a dairy farm, milch cows for 30 inhabitants and a self-employment loan scheme for the youth.
For more on news and current affairs from around the world please visit Indiatimes News.
Senior Writer at Indiatimes. She writes on Lifestyle, fashion, beauty, astrology and health.
