Vachathi hero Shanmugham becomes first Dalit secretary of CPM Tamil Nadu
Shanmugam is one of the leaders who led and won the unparalleled struggle for justice for tribal people at Vachathi in Dharmapuri.
P Shanmugam
CHENNAI: The 24th State conference of the CPM on Sunday elected 64-year-old P Shanmugam, who hails from a Dalit community, as the State secretary, replacing K Balakrishnan after the end of his second tenure.
He will be the first Dalit leader elected as the Marxist party’s state secretary in Tamil Nadu.
Shanmugam is one of the leaders who led and won the unparalleled struggle for justice for tribal people at Vachathi in Dharmapuri. In 1992, police and revenue officials raided Vachathi village in Dharmapuri district and ransacked the houses indiscriminately. The aged, women and children were thrashed mercilessly, and their households were destroyed. As many as 18 women were taken to a secluded place and raped. Shanmugam led struggles in the court and outside to get justice for the victims, with the Madras High Court in August 2023 confirming the conviction of the accused.
Shanmugam, born in Peruvalanallur village near Lalgudi, Tiruchy, was actively involved in student politics. He joined the Students' Federation of India (SFI) in 1979. He studied at Ramasamy Tamil College in Karaikudi, in the present-day Sivaganga district. He held leading positions as the State president and secretary of the SFI.
After Shanmugam became a full-time worker of the CPM, he was elected as the first general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Tribals Association in 1992. He has been working as the state general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Farmers' Union for 13 years and has been its state president since 2020.
Born in a Dalit community, Shanmugam led the struggles for the uplift of tribal people and fought against atrocities committed against them. He also fought at the forefront of the struggles of the tribal people, demanding community certificates and implementation of the Forest Rights Act. The historic Forest Rights Act became possible only after the tribals launched a land rights struggle and met the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on November 24, 2006, the party release said.