CHENNAI: VCK General Secretary D Ravikumar thanked Chief Minister M K Stalin for his announcement regarding removal of “Colony” for the habitats of scheduled castes in the state and said CM's action upholds the spirit of the Constitution of India.

Earlier, the word colony was associated with colonial rule and was used in a derogatory sense to describe the alleged policy of exploiting backward or weaker peoples by a dominant power. After independence, the word came to be used to identify the habitation of Dalits, indirectly marking these settlements as those of an enslaved people, Ravikumar said in his social media post

For a long time, the VCK has been raising its voice demanding the removal of derogatory designations that demean the settlements of Scheduled Castes from revenue records.

“Our leader, Thol Thirumavalavan, urged the Hon’ble Chief Minister on this matter. I also wrote a letter 06.08.2021 to the Chief Minister requesting the same. VCK MLAs Sinthanai Selvan and Panaiyur Babu spoke insistently about this demand in the Legislative Assembly,” he said and pointed out the Madras High Court verdict on this issue in 2018.

Article 17 of the Constitution declares that untouchability is abolished and that any practice of it is a punishable offence. However, despite this constitutional guarantee, untouchability continues to manifest in government documents and procedures. One such manifestation is the use of terms like colony and cheri to describe Scheduled Caste settlements—terms that inherently denigrate these communities. Such identification is a violation of Article 17 and constitutes a punishable offence. The government must reflect on the injustice of continuing such practices, he further said

Accepting the long-standing demand of the VCK, the CM has now announced that the word “colony” will be removed. This is a significant step, but it should not stop here. The Government Order, dated November 3,1978, issued during the centenary celebrations of Thanthai Periyar, must be fully implemented.

“I also urge the Tamil Nadu government to fulfill the VCK’s demand that the derogatory use of the ending ‘n’ in the names of Scheduled Castes be replaced with ‘r’, in accordance with constitutional values,” he added