Victimised SC woman waits for justice

tumkur: an anganwadi worker, belonging to the scheduled caste, has been banished from her village for drawing water from a community well and entering a temple. puttanarasamma, an anganawadi worker of kenkere village in chikkanayakanahalli taluk, belongs to the scheduled caste and married a man from lingayat community in 1989. she was excommunicated from the village recently as she went against the grain.or, simply put, did not ``honour the wishes of the rural society''. she has been transferred to baradelepalya on charges of drawing water from the well. she has the ``sanction'' of the village to visit temple and draw water from the well only with her husband, who belongs to the upper caste. she had reportedly been charged with theft and shunted out to valagerahallipalya. she declined the posting there after women and child development minister motamma intervened and suggested that puttanarasamma be transferred back to kenkere. since then she has been chasing that chimera called justice. in reply to a letter submitted by the community welfare association in october, the under-secretary in the chief minister's office claimed that the cm ``is seized of the matter''. copies of the representation were also sent to home minister mallikarjuna kharge, social welfare minister kagodu thimmappa and motamma. replies have been coming forth -- motamma replied in november and medical and higher education minister dr g. parmeswar replied as recently as december 12 -- but the action is near-non-existent: puttanarasamma is yet to get back to her place of work. the child development officer of chikkanayakanahalli, acting on the directive of motamma, did try to work out a patch-up but drew a blank. the tumkur district scheduled caste welfare association working president, rangappa, said she was ``penalised'' after she visited the temple in connection with pulse polio work. the unwritten decree, which is strictly adhered to by all and sundry in the village, bars the scheduled caste people from entering a temple that belongs to the muzrai department. an instance of this, sources said, is the age-old practice of taking around the deity of kalikamba to mop up funds. though the deity is taken right into all houses of the village, the procession never enters the harijan colony. when the tahsildar ordered that deity be taken to the harijan colony too, the deity was conveniently hidden at dammadihatti, 12 km from kenkere.