A 40-year-old demand for a road to a Scheduled Caste village is causing a rift in the Nilgiris

For more than 40 years, residents of Ambal Colony in Kengarai panchayat of Kil Kotagiri in Nilgiris district have had only one demand – to lay a small road measuring a few hundred meters closer to their village to help the locals get basic amenities.

After a long and protracted battle that included petitioning the government, protests, threats to boycott elections and hunger strikes, the villagers, consisting of 40 Sri Lankan Scheduled Caste (SC) repatriate families, finally got some relief when they found that funds were sanctioned to get 18.77 cents per 6 ₁ and 17 cents for owning local land. Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.

The order was issued by the office of the Directorate of Adi Dravidar Welfare on 3 September 2026 with an acquisition notice to the local land owners. However, the villagers’ relief was short-lived as the dominant caste community that surrounds their village staged a protest last Wednesday (September 23) demanding the scrapping of the project. The community cited concerns that the proposed road to come on the land could cause landslides and also that it would pass close to the Sri Mahalingaswami Temple in Havoor village.

View of Sri Mahalingaswami Temple from Ambal Colony Village | Photo credit: Rohan Premkumar

For residents like C. Srinivasan (64), a daily wage laborer who was born and brought up in the village, the reasons why the dominant community opposes the road are clear. “The community, who are vegetarian, are worried that the road will be used by Dalits to bring meat near their temple. They also don’t want us to walk to the temple,” he told The Hindu on Saturday (September 26).

Srinivasan’s wife S. Lakshmidevi said the residents of Ambal Colony feel socially excluded. “Even before that, our children stopped playing in the public playground near the temple because we felt unsafe and unwanted. Meanwhile, when our demand for the road became more urgent, local traders also stopped selling us food and produce as directed by a few members of the dominant community,” she said. In addition, she claimed that the tea estate owners on whose land they were working had also stopped giving them work.

Scheduled Cate residents reported that they had a good relationship with most members of the dominant castes in the surrounding villages, who attended functions and funerals in their homes. They believed that a few people were creating opposition to the road and creating tension between the two communities. “Most of the tea estate owners located near the village will also benefit from the road as the cost of transportation of tea and material will be reduced substantially,” said Mr. Srinivasan.

The people of Ambal Colony do not demand to go directly to the village as it is impractical, but only to a small clearing below the hill on which their village stands.

Residents face an arduous walk uphill, which is about a kilometer from the main road to the village. The road is dangerous due to the presence of wild animals | Photo credit: Rohan Premkumar

“During the last 15 years, there have been prenatal deaths and elderly people have also died due to people not being able to reach hospitals on time,” said R. Subhash (name changed), a resident of the village. He said his father has a heart condition, but to get to the road he has to walk a kilometer through difficult terrain. “Pregnant women and residents with mobility issues have to be transported in makeshift stretchers on the road, while there is also danger from wild animals that inhabit the surrounding areas,” added Mr. Srinivasan.

Even this method of getting people to hospitals was highly dependent on men in the village being available in case of emergency. “Most of the men in the village do daily work for wages, so we don’t get home until very late at night. So if there are no people there when there is a medical emergency, there can be a longer wait to access health care,” he added.

Maran, the state joint secretary of the People Power Party, who is assisting the residents in sanctioning the road for the village, said the residents have been demanding the road for more than four decades, but the demand was thwarted by officials at the local panchayat level. “Residents have threatened to give up their ration cards, abstain from voting in elections and go on hunger strike to finally get the road approved,” he said.

The matter was noted by Minister Vanni Arasu

Mr Maran said he had met Tamil Nadu’s Social Justice Minister Vanni Arasu to push for the road and urged him to visit the village to ensure there was no further antagonism between the two communities. “We also demand that the officials who have failed to fulfill the demands of the villagers for so many years should face the ministry’s action,” he added.

Ambal Colony has crumbling infrastructure, including poorly lit and damaged footpaths | Photo credit: Rohan Premkumar

A. Kathir, founder and executive director of ‘Evidence’, a human rights organisation, said public opposition to the construction of a road in a Scheduled Caste village should be considered discriminatory. He said the opposition for laying the road violates Section 3(1)(za)(A) of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which deals with obstructing or denying access to public resources to SC/ST members.

“An entire dominant caste community coming together to oppose a project that was supposed to uplift an oppressed community is definitely a form of discrimination,” he said.

‘No discrimination’

When contacted, members of nearby villages opposed to the project denied that they discriminated against local residents. The Sri Mahalingaswami Temple and Village Preservation Association said in a statement that local residents have “strongly condemned” the attempt to build a road “in the premises of the historic Sri Mahalingaswami temple – located in Thuneri-Melur village under Kengarai panchayat in Kotagiri taluk, worshiped as the traditional spiritual center of all people and the guardian deity”.

“Villagers are outraged by the implementation of this project, which completely ignores the sanctity of the temple and the safety of local residents,” the temple committee added, noting that Ambal Colony has been alerted as highly vulnerable to landslides.

“This century-old temple is worshiped as the main tutelary deity of the people of the Nilgiris district. The entire village including women and elders poured into the streets and declared that these wanton construction works on the road carried out without the permission of the temple committee and without any respect for the religious sentiments of the local people are condemnable,” the temple committee said in a statement.

Charges of ostracism were dismissed

When contacted, members of the temple protection committee denied allegations of discrimination against residents of Ambal Colony. They denied that local businesses had been instructed to stop selling food to residents of Ambal Colony, adding that the playground, which they claimed was on the temple premises, was closed to all people except students of the Havoor Panchayat Union Primary School.

K. Manoharan, president of the temple committee and former Kotagiri panchayat president said the community was against the road as there had been incidents in the past where residents of Ambal Colony had “created nuisance” near the temple. He said the temple committee was worried that if a road was built near the temple, they would drink alcohol and violate the sanctity of the temple. “This could create communal problems between the communities,” he said, adding that claims that they discriminate against residents of Ambal Colony are false.

Published – 27 Sep 2026 17:20 IST