The head of Tamil Nadu RSS belongs to the Thevar community. The State Religious Endowment Minister, who organised the temple dinner of Untouchables to counteract the Rehamat Nagar mass conversion to Islam, is also a Thevar. The Rehamat Nagar mass conversions are stated to be due to the Thevar community atrocities on the Untouchables. The Thevar community is basically anti-dalit and the RSS, which wants to fully exploit the Rehamat Nagar mass conversions to build up its organisation in Tamil Nadu, wants to make use of the Thevar anger against the dalits and therefore, is recruiting mostly Thevars to the RSS. There is need for a probe into this. All official and non-official inquiry has established that in the TN conversions to Islam no foreign money is involved. Neither any force. The Untouchables are preferring Islam because in TN Muslims as a rule employed Untouchables as household servants. They were allowed inside their houses and no discrimination was practiced by them against the Untouchables. Muslims being mostly landlords, they gave equal status to Untouchables. Many of them even dined together with Untouchables. But the Hindus kept them out and even tortured them. Atrocities against the Untouchables is continuing even today after so much of press publicity given to the mass conversions The Hindus have not shown any sign of changing their attitude to Untouchables. The Thevars are rushing to become temple tenants. The Hindus are taking revenge on the Untouchables by evicting them from temple tenancy. In Rehmat Nagar (Meenakshipuram) also such evictions have taken place. The Mutts have transferred the tenancy from Untouchables to Thevars. Muslims have not gone to protect the Untouchables in such cases.
(Summary of the speech delivered by Kadiravelu at the Gurukul Theological College, Madras, on Oct. 2-4, 1981).
