Barbers in a village in Bellary District of Karnataka are facing a boycott by the upper caste people who are cut up with them for extending saloon services to Dalits disregarding their diktat, prompting state government to provide them financial relief.
It all started when the upper caste people recently ordered the barbers of five saloons in Talur village not to provide hair cutting and shaving services to Dalits.
Tension erupted between the Dalits and barbers when the latter refused to cut their hair, which ended in the shutting down of the saloons for five days, one of the barbers, who received a cheque for Rs 50,000 from Social Welfare Minister Anjaneya at the secretariat here today, told reporters.
However, after the intervention of social welfare department officials, the barbers resumed services to Dalits, which angered the 4,000-strong upper caste people and they started boycotting the saloons.
Caught in a piquant situation with their livelihood in question since the village had only about 100 Dalits, the barbers approached the government yesterday, which provided the financial help under the Devaraj Urs Backward Class Development Scheme, the Minister said while distributing the cheques to seven barbers.
He said the assistance will be extended to 11 more barbers of the village.
Mallikarjun, a beneficiary, told PTI: "We were threatened by the upper-castes that if we extended haircutting and shaving services to the Dalits, they would stop coming to our shops."
"We also shut our shops in fear of upper-caste people throwing us out of the village if we went against their diktat," Mallikarjun said.
"We came to Bangalore and met Minister Anjaneya, and explained our problems. Soon, he realised our problems and immediately took a decision to give Rs 50,000 cheque in 24 hours," he said.
