In the last week of December 1968 the long simmering struggle of organised labour against oppressive landlords in Keezhvenmani hamlet of Venmani village, boiled over. Dalit landless labourers of this village in Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam district were on strike, demanding higher wages, control over agricultural lands, and an end to feudal oppression. The landlords’ response? They burnt alive 44 Dalit labourers in the hamlet. The rich and powerful landowners, riled by a new political awakening among the Scheduled Castes, decided to not only hire other workers from neighbouring villages, but also planned a massive retaliation.
On the night of December 25, the landlords surrounded and attacked the hamlet, cutting off all routes of escape. A group of 44 workers who had rushed into a hut were locked inside – before their attackers set it on fire. Fully half of those murdered – 11 girls and 11 boys – were children below the age of 16. Two were over 70 years of age. In all, 29 were female and 15 were male. All were Dalits and supporters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
In 1975, the Madras High Court acquitted all the 25 accused in the murder case. But Mythili Sivaraman, one of the great chroniclers of this incredible atrocity, continued to write powerful and extensive analyses that not only brought the massacre to light but also its underlying issues of class and caste oppression. We publish this poem on that tragedy in a week that has seen the demise of Mythili Sivaraman of Covid-19, at age 81.
