Please do not refer to us as Dalits,” Ananthan Ayyasamy, a member of the Devendrakula Vellalar community in Tamil Nadu, told me over the phone.His community is listed as a Scheduled Caste (SC), but many of its members have been demanding that it be removed from the SC list and that they give up the reservation benefits that come with it.
Ayyasamy, an entrepreneur and politician, had posted about the issue on X following the suicide of an IIT Bombay student and the subsequent case filed against a professor under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. His post prompted me to speak to him and look deeper into the community’s unusual demand.
The Devendrakula Vellalar (DKV) community is officially classified as an SC, but a large section of its members wants to move out of the category. Ayyasamy also said members of the community have taken a voluntary decision not to file cases under the SC/ST Act.
India is a country of many contrasts. While the country is trying to move towards becoming a developed economy, there is also a growing demand from different communities to be included in various reserved categories. Reservation benefits in education and government employment are one of the major reasons behind such demands.
The first Scheduled Caste list after Independence was issued in 1950 and was based on the list prepared in 1936. It included 607 communities. By 2022, the number had increased to 1,258. The Other Backward Classes (OBC) category was introduced in 1993.
The issue has once again come into focus amid the debate over reservation and allegations surrounding the misuse of the SC/ST Act. Ayyasamy’s September 20 post led me to explore why the DKV community wants to move out of the SC category.
Sahil Wakode, a student at IIT Bombay, died by suicide on September 18 after he was allegedly caught cheating during his semester examinations by Professor Suryanarayana Doolla, who was the invigilator. Wakode’s parents later alleged caste discrimination and abetment to suicide, following which Doolla was charged under the SC/ST Act.
Ayyasamy said he strongly opposed the charges against Doolla under the Act. He also said that the DKV community had taken a “principled, voluntary stand” against filing SC/ST cases.
“We have seen how cases under this Act are weaponised, and how that deepens enmity on the ground,” he wrote on X.
Ayyasamy himself comes from an SC community and has seen both rural poverty and caste-related challenges. He is an NIT Tiruchirappalli graduate and holds an MBA from Arizona State University. He spent 22 years working in the US, where he eventually became an Engineering Director at Intel and holds several patents.
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu supported Ayyasamy’s position and shared his post on X. Tughlaq editor S Gurumurthy also spoke about the DKV community’s decision not to use the Protection of Civil Rights (PCR) Act, saying it can lead to caste conflicts.
The PCR Act of 1955 prohibits and penalises untouchability and works alongside the SC/ST Act.
The debate over the alleged misuse of the SC/ST Act and the relief provided under it has continued since the UGC Equity Regulations were introduced and later shelved. The Supreme Court had earlier diluted some provisions of the SC/ST Act over concerns about misuse, while the BJP-led NDA government subsequently strengthened the law through an amendment in 2018.
Amit Shah had praised the DKV community’s efforts
It is common to hear about individuals choosing not to use reservation benefits. However, the demand by an entire community to move out of the SC list is unusual.
To understand the issue better, I spoke to TR Jawahar, a veteran journalist and an expert on Tamil Nadu. He said leaders such as Puthiya Tamilagam founder K Krishnasamy and Tamilaga Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam’s B John Pandian had, at different points, supported the demand for the Devendrakula Vellalar community to move out of the SC category.
An August 2015 report in The Times of India also quoted Amit Shah, who was then BJP president, praising the community’s efforts to improve its social position.
But who exactly are the Devendrakula Vellalars? Why do they want to leave the SC list? Is this demand shared by the entire community, or only by certain sections? And is there a political angle to it?
It is important to note that the demand of one community to leave the SC category does not mean that those who need caste-based reservation should not receive its benefits. This report looks specifically at the aspirations and demands of the DKV community in Tamil Nadu.
Who are the Devendrakula Vellalars?
According to a 2015 Times of India report, Amit Shah had praised members of the different sub-groups of the DKV community for seeking recognition under the common name Devendrakula Vellalar, which translates roughly to “Descendants of Lord Indra”.
“I have heard of caste groups that try to get categorised lower down on the social status ladder to obtain benefits, but here is one that seeks social recognition as a caste of higher status,” Shah was quoted as saying.
In March 2021, Parliament passed a Bill bringing together seven sub-castes, including Pallar, under the name Devendrakula Vellalar. The move was aimed at giving the groups a common cultural identity, a demand that had been raised by members of the community.
KA Manikumar, a retired history professor from Tirunelveli’s MS University, said the community had opposed the name Pallar and that Devendrakula Vellalar represented a form of Sanskritisation.
Manikumar also spoke about the community’s traditional legend. According to the story, sweat from Devendra, or Indra, the king of the gods, fell on a plant growing in water. A child emerged from it and became the ancestor of the community.
Devendrakula refers to the community’s lineage and identity, while Vellalar is associated with cultivation and agriculture.
In a 2001 research paper, Manikumar wrote that members of the community who had once been landowners were later reduced to agricultural labourers. He described them as working in paddy fields and living in separate settlements that were treated as untouchable communities during British land surveys in the late 18th century.
The community’s history has also been marked by caste and class violence. One such incident took place on December 24, 1968, when 44 people were reportedly burnt to death.
Manikumar wrote that such incidents contributed to the community’s emergence as a politically active caste group seeking a greater role in Tamil Nadu’s politics.
Violence has continued to influence the community’s politics.
Ayyasamy pointed to incidents including the 1957 Mudukulathur riots, the 1995 Kodiyankulam violence, the 1999 Thamiraparani/Manjolai incident and the 2011 Paramakudi police action. According to him, these events contributed to a belief within the community that neither the Congress nor the Dravidian parties would adequately protect its interests.
He also said the community was grateful to the BJP for the 2021 change in its name.
Caste tensions involving the DKV community and other groups, including the OBC communities of Thevar and Nadar, continue to be reported in parts of Tamil Nadu.
Demand to leave SC list is about self-respect, leaders say
Scheduled Castes account for around 20% of Tamil Nadu’s population, with the DKV community being one of the major groups. Ayyasamy said the community makes up around 5-9% of the state’s population.
“Devendrakula Vellalars are concentrated south of Madurai and in the Cauvery Delta,” he said, describing them as largely an agrarian community involved in farming and one that reveres the cow.
Census 2011 data shows that the community is concentrated mainly in southern and central Tamil Nadu, including Ramanathapuram, Thoothukkudi, Tirunelveli and Virudhunagar. There are also sizeable populations in Tiruchirappalli, Dindigul, Thiruvarur, Thanjavur, Theni, Madurai, Sivaganga and Karur.
When asked about prominent members of the community known outside Tamil Nadu, Ayyasamy said he could not think of anyone particularly prominent, although there were IAS officers and High Court judges from the community.
Ayyasamy stressed that the demand to leave the SC list was not driven by economic prosperity.
“Most of the community still lives in poverty. The demand to leave the SC list is not about affluence. It is about self-respect. That is also why the community does not want to rely on the SC/ST Act,” he said.
He also highlighted the community’s cultural history, pointing to Pallu literature, which he said dates back more than 300 years. According to him, the community has traditional roles in the festival calendar of the Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai and other temples, along with customary worship rights in 436 temples.
Another prominent name that came up during conversations with Ayyasamy and Jawahar was K Krishnasamy, founder-president of Puthiya Tamilagam.
Krishnasamy has for years demanded that the DKV community be removed from the SC list.
DKV leaders want OBC status first, with general category as the eventual goal
“Our leaders couldn’t object to the inclusion of the community in the SC list immediately after Independence,” Krishnasamy said. “Since 1996, we have been urging state and central governments to move us from the SC to the OBC category.”
He said this would represent upward social mobility and suggested that a separate category could be considered between SC and OBC to accommodate the community.
“The aspiration is to ultimately move to the general category,” he said.
Krishnasamy described the process as a gradual one. According to him, the community could first move from SC to OBC and, after spending 10 to 15 years in that category, eventually seek inclusion in the general category.
DKV leaders say SC identity is holding back the community
Krishnasamy argued that the community’s overall condition had not improved sufficiently despite decades of SC reservation. He said the social stigma attached to the SC identity had become an obstacle to the community’s progress.
“Our people want to shed the Scheduled-Caste stigma. They might get some government jobs because of the reservation, but the SC stigma is a hindrance to our overall development. People can’t do business because of that,” he said.
Ayyasamy said the DKV community remains largely agrarian but occupies a weak position in the agricultural value chain, with traders and merchants earning more from the produce. He said education levels have improved, but caste discrimination can still affect members when they enter business.
“Even in Madurai, restaurants carrying other caste names do well, while people avoid a DKV-run eatery once they identify the owner’s caste,” Ayyasamy said.
He also claimed that government contracting is largely dominated by OBC communities, with very few licensed SC contractors, while many DKV professionals continue to remain salaried rather than becoming employers.
Ayyasamy also pointed to Tamil Nadu’s 69% reservation in education and government employment.
“Nearly every community in the state falls under some reserved category, so reservation is no longer a benefit that sets SCs apart,” he said.
Krishnasamy said DKV leaders formally approached the Prime Minister and the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister in 2017 seeking the community’s removal from the SC category. A committee was subsequently formed to examine the demand.
Is the demand shared by the entire DKV community?
Krishnasamy said the demand to move the DKV community out of the SC category has broad support across the community and cuts across political affiliations.
Ayyasamy similarly said the demand came from the grassroots and that political leaders were therefore compelled to support it.
But there could also be a political dimension to the issue.
To understand this aspect, I spoke to Chennai-based social and political expert Ravindran Duraisamy.
“A large section of the DKV community believe delisting will lead to their social elevation, and are in favour of that,” Duraisamy said.
However, he said a smaller section of the community opposed the demand and that the differences were largely along religious lines.
He said some Christian members of the DKV community oppose delisting because they benefit from reservation.
The Christian section of the DKV community has traditionally supported the DMK, but Duraisamy said some are now shifting their support towards C Joseph Vijay’s TVK.
In 2023, when MK Stalin was Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, the state Assembly passed a resolution asking the Centre to extend Scheduled Caste benefits to people from SC communities who had converted to Christianity.
“They will be socially uplifted if reservation benefits are extended to them in education and employment. Denying them all the benefits merely because they have converted to another religion is not fair. This is our stand,” Stalin was quoted as saying in a PTI report at the time.
When asked whether he knew of any other community that had made a similar demand, Duraisamy cited the Nadar community. He said the Nadars had approached the British government in 1920 against reservation. They remained in the unreserved category until 1963, after which they were included in the OBC list.
Duraisamy said the DKV demand was unusual in independent India and that he was not aware of another community making a similar demand to leave the SC list.
“The DKVs might aspire to move to the general category, but it will take time. For now, they believe the community is capable of being delisted as SCs,” he said.
The Scheduled Caste list has expanded significantly over the decades, but the DKV community’s demand to leave the list for reasons of self-respect and social advancement represents a different kind of movement. While many communities have sought backward-class status to gain access to reservation, Devendrakula Vellalars are seeking the opposite — removal from the SC category and, according to their leaders, eventually a move towards the general category.