It is impossible to miss the political symbolism in Meenambal Sivaraj (M.S.) Nagar in the heart of Chennai. At the entrance to the Ambedkar Ground located in one corner of the locality stands an arch, constructed to mark the birth centenary of the leader who gave India its Constitution.
The spot near this ground has busts and statues of Ambedkar, Pandit Iyothee Thass, Rettamalai Srinivasan, ‘Periyar’ E.V. Ramasamy, and A. Sakthidasan (of the Republican Party of India) -- leaders who fought against caste. The area’s name (after leaders N. Sivaraj and Meenambal Sivaraj) and the statues near the ground are an indication of how M.S. Nagar, with a predominantly Dalit population, was once a politically-thriving locality. Ironically, it has been struggling for decades to secure the land rights of its own people.
A few metres away from the ground, 40-year-old Jyoti*, in her house, opens a bag full of yellowing documents, some of which are nearly 70 years old, to show her family’s rootedness in the locality and their continuing struggle to secure ownership for the plot they live on. The documents were safeguarded by her late grandmother in an old trunk that survived many a fire in the locality that was once filled with huts.
