The narrow road that leads to coastal Nagapattinam is flanked by barren paddy fields, where scrawny people, their heads covered with mucky towels that were once white in colour, tend to their cattle. Forty kilometres off Nagapattinam is the nondescript Badrakali (goddess Durga) Amman temple, where 600 families from 18 villages come for spiritual solace. Located on the banks of a lake that has long since gone dry, the temple hit headlines recently when 180 dalit families in Pazhangkallimedu, one of the two big villages in the neighbourhood, threatened to embrace Islam as they were denied permission to perform rituals at the five-day festival during the Tamil holy month of Aadi (July-August). On August 9, the temple was again in the news when the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court observed that a compromise had been worked out, which would allow the festival to be conducted without any hitch from 2017.

Though dalits are allowed to worship, they cannot perform the Mandagappadi (rituals) during the annual festival. While the rituals in the first and last days are led by the state government (the temple is under the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department), in the intervening three days it is the caste Hindus (mainly Pillaimars) of Kallimedu and Thamaraipulam who perform the rituals.

“We want to perform the Mandagappadi,” says Nagappan, who represents the dalits in the peace committee. “Our forefathers were slaves doing menial jobs. Now we are educated like others. There are doctors and engineers from our community. I wish the next generation gets all the rights and does not face any discrimination.” After several rounds of peace talks, police and government interventions, says Nagappan, “we have decided to embrace Islam, because there is no caste difference in it”.