A long pending demand of the Devendra Kula Vellalar community to delist from the Scheduled Caste and put them in the Other Backward Community would soon become a reality, according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Addressing a public meeting at the International Indoor Stadium at Chennai on Sunday after laying foundation stones for various development schemes in the State including a Discovery Centre for the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, the Prime Minister declared that the long pending demand of the Devendra Kula Vellalar community would soon become a reality. “The law which meets this demand would be introduced in the Parliament when it meets the next time,” said Modi.

The demand of Puthiya Tamilakam, representing the scheduled caste community was to merge the seven sub sects Pallar, Kudumbar, Pannadi, Kaaladi, Kadayar, Devendra Kulataar and  Vadhiriyaar and rename the integrated entity as Devendra Kula Vallalar, according to Dr Krishnasami, party president.

The Prime Minister said in his speech that the Devendra Kula Vellalar was  a community in search of its original identity. He remembered the meeting he had with the representatives of the community sometime back in Chennai. “Their craving for the reclamation of their original identity was discernible and I had assured them that the demand would be considered favourably,” said Modi.

According to Dr Krishnasami, the DKV constituted eight per cent of the Tamil Nadu population which means that there were 90 lakh members belonging to the community.

The DKV leaders had asked the State and Centre to delist them from the status of Scheduled Caste and  they be included in the OBC list. “It was a travesty of history that a community  which was experts in wet-land farming was dispossessed of their land and listed as scheduled caste by the colonial Britishers. Sreenivasan Pillai, the then leader of our community had written to the British administrators that we were culturally and traditionally  different from Adi-Dravidar,” said Dr Krishnasami who also disclosed that because of the poor financial status of the community , they could not travel to London to argue their case.

He said the stigma attached to the community could be removed only after it  was delisted from the Scheduled Caste and incorporated in the list of OBC. According to Dr Krishnasami, hundreds of thousands of DKV had been forced to get converted into Christianity because of the harassment meted out to the community members by caste Hindus.