On the night of February 28 this year, residents of Ebbanad village, around 15 kilometres from Udhagamandalam in the Nilgiris, staged a protest. They blocked a Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) bus on a newly extended route to Koranur, a Dalit village two kilometres from there. Following the protest, the police asked the passengers to disembark and walk to their village. The Ebbanad residents, belonging to the dominant OBC, known as the Badagas, refused to allow the TNSTC to extend the bus service to Koranur. The extension would mean that around 25 Dalit and Adivasi families of Koranur and Bikkapathy Mund would have an easy access to transport, and children and adults could reach the district headquarters easily.
Eight-km walk
Dinesh Kuttan, a resident of Bikkapathy Mund, around four kilometres from Ebbanad, says the Toda residents there would have had their daily commute by walk halved, had the service been extended to Koranur. This is the habitation where he and his family have been forced to move to from their village for lack of bus services. “Our children can go to school only if we live in Koranur. Otherwise, they would have to walk a cumulative distance of eight kilometres, cutting through a reserved forest — populated by elephants, sloth bear, and tigers — to get to Bikkapathy Mund,” he says.
