IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018 753

Dr. Jayshree Singh,

Associate Professor,

Dept. of English, F.S.S. & H.,

Bhupal Nobles’ University,

Udaipur (Raj.)

RETRIEVAL OF DALITS IN THE LITERARY INTERPRETATIONS OF MULTILINGUAL INDIA

ABSTRACT

Dalit Writings in India problematize displaced socio-historical space of marginalized, essentialized

category of people belonging to caste-ridden Hindu society of India. Their multiple subjectivities
reclaim semiotic literary interpretations as regards their contestations, violated and fragmented
self. At the same time emerging Dalit writings have posed categorically their daily realities in
context of dismemberment, disablement, deprivation, discrimination and disembodiment in the
socio-cultural privileged hegemonic caste system. The writings of dalits such as Joothen by Om
Prakash Valmiki, Untouchables by Mulk Raj Anand, An Anthology of Dalit Literature edited by
Mulk Raj Anand and Elleanor Zelliot, Poisoned Bread:Translations from Modern Marathi
Literature by Arjun Dangle, The Exercise of Freedom: An Introduction to Dalit Writing by K.
Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu, Dalit Hindu Narratives by Manohar D. Murali, The Oxford
Anthology of Tamil Dalit Writing by Ravikumar and R. Azhagarasan, Black Lilies: Telugu Dalit
Poetry by K. Puroshattam, Surviving in My World: Growing up Dalit in Bengal by Jaideep Sarangi
etc. have raised consciousness against dalits’ alienation, excommunication and ideological
distancing, inflicted upon them due to cultural hegemony and relativistic idea of polemic theology
practised in Brahmanical Hinduism. In addition to violence done to dalits at language, socio-
cultural, literary, aesthetic and political level, the marginalised discourse have addressed issues
related to countering gender-caste nexus, colonialism and nationalism and last but the most
important relating to identity and self-expression. Similarly dalit women’s writings such as Ants
Among Elephants by Sujtha Gidla, Rudaali by Mahasweta Devi, Grip of Change and Taming of
Women by Sivakami, Sangati and Vanmam by Bama,Bay Kamble’s The Prison We Broke, Urmila
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Pawar’s The Weave of My Life, Susheela Takbaure’s Revenge articulate new found political
awareness and self-respect as regards their exploitative embodiment within their marginalized
community and in Hindu society. In my research paper the study aims to sensitise the
autobiographical memory of a hateful past and their desire of resurging from the lost socio-
historical-cultural space. The study will attempt to explore the emotional register, cathartic release
of inequalities and flight from weak boundaries of marginality.
KEYWORDS: socio-historical-cultural space, multiple subjectivities, marginalized discourse

Introduction

The question of representation by various classes and communities in India has become
problematic because of the power politics amongst the number of men belonging to different
communities and caste. Till date the blasphemy of caste is a superficial embodiment of Indians on
sectarian and class/caste lines. As Ranjit Guha argues “politics of the people is left out in this un-
historical historiography. The parallel autonomous domain of subaltern castes and groups
misrepresented or erased under the overarching elite domains of historiography (Guha 4).

India is a nation of cultural diversity that identifies ethnicity with regard to religion and caste. The
existence of plurality and linguistic diversity indeed reflects the melting pot in India; yet since
historical times - political compulsions, cultural relativist psyche, cultural hegemony and
imperialism - have been imposing rifts and disintegration in the school of thought with regard to
the medium of instruction, education and opportunities and capacity building. The pedagogy of
language instruction varies as regards to upper caste and Dalits. Dalits have always driven to clear
discriminatory and disadvantaged division to avail English medium education in Indian society.
They are detained at rural and government run schools to get educational instructions in the
regional language, whereas upper caste elite get benefits of educational policies because of the
privilege of policy-making in socio-historical and political context.

The colonialists during the British Raj in India attempted to regulate democratic polity in India.
Subsequently, the British first tried to demarcate the functions of imperial and provincial states in
this context. “To lay down the federal home rule British in 1851 through the Board of Revenue in
Madras promulgated a standing order (No. 128, clause 2) by which the entry of Brahmins into the
revenue department could be suitably regulated; secondly communal or proportional
representation, as a norm of for recruitment of members to government services became an existing
 IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018 755

aspect of English official policy” (Geeta & Rajadurai 133). But such process could not last long
due to some discrepancies; eventually British government thought of recruiting process that
seemed /proved pro-Brahmins, because non-Brahmins lacked education and experience. Thinking
of home-rule, self-governance and self-development turned to be invalidated by the intellects and
by the nationalists seeking freedom for India, because more than half of the total population lacked
knowledge and were incapacitated to be part of national mainstream struggle due to ignorance and
ignoble mindset of caste factor.

Subsequently assertive triumvirate nationalists like Bal Gangadhar Tilak from Maharashtra, Lala
Lajpat Rai from Hisar and Bipin Chandra Pal from Bengal could not even defile the British
attempts of divide and rule in India. Colonial rule had usurped the Brahminical order of Indian
society with its imperialism. Indian subcontinent due to its illiteracy, casteism and degradation into
categories, class, creed, sect, color, gender and sex became a victim to divide and rule policy of
British. The zamindar of Telarpole, quoted in Varadarajulu Naidu’s book title, The Justice
Movement, written in 1917, defended allegedly the implementation of Home Rule in India due to
the below given reason. He said:

“England is responsible for the welfare and for the uplifting of the socially downtrodden
silent masses who form the majority of the population of Indian. She cannot in the name
of fairplay, make a present of them to the Home Rulers, like dakshina given to officiating
Brahmins in a temple. If we are to Home Rule, then it will have to Home Rule in every
sense, not from Home Rule enforced by British Bayonets but Brahmin Vakil rule by a
posse of litigants with full liberty to the peoples of India to deal with and as may seem
proper…..”(109)

Since Indian society claims communal machinations as its inherent characteristics so it has never
been able to get rid of cultural tyranny of religious and eugenic order, prejudices have grappled
Indian mindsets inherently; consequently a healthy public opinion and national consciousness can
never prevail upon legislations.

As an economic organization caste is therefore a harmful institution in as much as it involves the

subordination of man’s powers and inclinations to the exigencies of social rule (Ambedkar 264).
Political ideologies and ideological influence disallow justices, law and social change. For
example in Tamil Nadu, Adi-Dravidas (aboriginals) expressed their subversion with acts of willful
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violence arming themselves with swords and knives, either to do self-flagellation or to draw
attention. But politically they had instigated into violence, so that they might remain forever
subjected to discrimination, violence or left ignored and deprived of their right to stand against
their oppressed and depressed predicament (New India Reader 13.10.21). Ironically the
categorization of a class as untouchables or Adi-Dravidas was chosen by non-Brahminical section
of Indian community in Madras, in order to segregate their representation in inter-marriage, inter-
dining and to “courting oppression from hands of higher castes” (Geetha & Radurai 172).
Consequently historical block and political affiliations signify untouchability with reference to
political consensus and colonial power; while cultural imperialists practiced it as tool to negotiate
the reality of political power and to set nexus between elite upper castes, non- Brahmins and Adi
Dravidas/ pariahs.

The politics of identity manifests contradictions in political will of the ruled and rulers; such
political relationship predominately causes a fairly incendiary situation, vicious and disruptive
instances of either oligarchy or communal representation. This has been the trend pre and post
independent period of Indian history, because the brahminical order that comprise of government/
of all posts got flourished nepotism, favoritism consciously and their interiority manipulated
alleged misfeasance (a wrong that arises from an action, wrongful use of legal authority) and
malfeasance (an act of wrong doing by a public official i.e. a legal action is performed in an illegal
fashion). In relation to this experienced truth and imaginative response to the historical truth many
writers such as Vivekanand, Jyotiba Phule, Gandhi, Raja Rao, Mulkraj Anand, Vijay Tendulkar
and Arundhati Roy have contested and debated the hegemonic presence of upper caste elites in the
public sphere, who tried to appropriate caste-bound hierarchy and patriarchy and the culture of
masculinity.

One of the key figures Jyotiba Phule (1827-1890) was a revolutionary reformer. The philosophy
that he believed in was manifested in his activism as well as in his writing. His major works
Gulamgiri (1873) gave a call to the lower castes to resist the exploitation and subjugation in the
name of caste and overcome their hardships with the help of education.

E.V. Rama Swamy (1879-1973) popularly known as Periyar led the self-respect movement in
Tamil Nadu. It was one of the greatest Indian anti-Brahmin movements in India, which targeted
the Brahmin dominance criticizing the idol-worship. “Periyar educated the Dravidians and Adi-
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Dravidians to bring about a cultural revolt with an aim to establish egalitarian society.”
(Krishnaiah 61).

Social Radicalism

The reformers and activists imagined a new civic society based on the mutuality, self respect and
fraternity. They opined of Swadharma as a counter of Manu dharma that standardized hereditary
difference, patriarchal identity and social hierarchy, even it propagated rules of social and sexual
embodiment of bodies with regard to distance, touch, pollution, relationship and un-touchability.
Therefore narratives on Dalits’ existence, entity, struggles and sovereignty, justice and equality
are written with sensibility and empathy. They legitimize mutual advancement of the
underprivileged sections of Hindu-caste society, instead of secular oligarchy of any class or caste.

Swami Vivekanand (1899) inquires allegedly to the stakeholders and privileged, “Who would have
carried today the culture, learning, acquirements and articles of food and luxury of one end of the
world to the other? None has ever the least wish that the power should pass on from the kingly to
the Shudra class”. He symbolically referred to Shudra-ness as to the beast of burdenness, which is
metaphorically the metaphysical entity of Indians themselves, who have been enveloped with a
cloud of impenetrable darkness of slavery (in pre-independent phase of India) and in self-
gratification of ghastly obscenities. According to him unless there is diffusion of racism, casteism,
relativism or imperialism, there will remain enslavement and inhuman brutality. Such social
irrationalities valorized the Dalit’s selfhood and gave way to vociferous and violent resistance
across India, which resulted in their being given recognition and status not only in socio-
ideological commitments but also their polluted representation which retrieved from religious -
cultural practices from the point of intellectual-moral consensus. The understanding for their
distorted picture became the beliefs and practices; reinterpret and also reconstruct the entire past
in the course of self-emergence and erect a new sacred canopy.

Iyother Thassa (1845-1914) prominent paraiyar and anti-caste activist, with his new insight
gathered the puzzles of history, religious myths, beliefs, practices, the general folk and oral
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traditions of the subcontinent in order to add meaningful coherence through Sanskritic-Shastric

Brahmanism for a new angle in relocating the representation of suppressed groups (Aloysius 212).

Mahatma Gandhi expresses the condition of India, that had started to modernize herself with the
advent of British Raj. Indians had not yet abandoned the nuances of religious and irreligious in
their practical real life. Indian people who began to live in humbug of modern civilization, had
mobilized their body to seek protection, but it has indulged them in greed of exploitation, ignorance
and difference. He said “To conquer them is your and my work” (Hind Swaraj, 1938). In the book
entitled Gandhi and His Critics, B.R. Nanda writes that Gandhi was always regretful and expressed
his discontent against the evils of untouchability and he even observed fasting “to block an
affirmative action” planned by Britain in favour of outcastes, the so called untouchables. He
undermined the centuries old caste-system and to remove the blot of untouchability from
Hinduism. He never wanted segregation of untouchables on political grounds, but Gandhi disliked
the dangerous structure of caste society. He preferred Varna Ashram that caters to the eulogy of
caste in context of hereditary principle of occupation along with work division on the basis of work
and strength. But at the same time he recognizes different outlook of caste as a natural order of
society and that corresponds to different modes of life. In this connection Ambedkar (1891-1956)
pointed out that “the Mahatma’s view of Varna…..makes nonsense of Vedic Varna. Vedic Varna
and caste are two different concepts. Varna is based on the principle of each according to his worth,
while caste is based on the principle each according to his birth…..If the Mahatma believes as he
does in everyone following his or ancestral calling, then most certainly he is advocating the caste
system and in calling of the varna system he is causing confusion ( Ambedkar; 1946). Ambedkar
wanted to erase the stigma of untouchability by annihilating caste system and by providing Dalits
equal socio-economic rights. According to D.R. Nagaraj in his book entitled The Flaiming Fleet
and Other Essays: The Dalit Movement in India (March, 2011), “Dalits as the whole can never
attain the status achieved by their visible community which is in minority, unless there is structural
change or overhauling of the entire society of which they are part”. Basically he endorses B.R.
Ambedkar’s campaign to free the untouchables from severity by accepting conversion of faith and
religion to save themselves from “the misfortune of being born with stigma of an untouchable” (p.
41).
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Emergence of Self Respecters

Barriers of language have stood between village/regional community and Sanskritic tradition,
between the indigenous one and the intrusive colonial ones, between the centres of pilgrimage and
the proletariats, between the western education and Indian caste system. The institutional complex
of Indian society disrupts not only harmonious commonalty of interests and also it mars cultural
anthropology to acquire a sense of equal opportunities and a personal sense of importance. It was
Gandhi, Tagore and Nehru as modern India reformers felt that the social ideal of a nation lies in
equality cultural hegemony signifying hierarchy and social domain need to be reviewed with the
spirit of the age that represent the social reality of contemporary India - the contradiction between
the ideal of equality and practice of inequality still remains deeply and firmly lodge in Indian
society (Beteille 128).

Division and hierarchy have always been stressed as the two basic principles of caste system. It
depends upon the nature of their boundaries of caste division are fairly clear in the village
community as for example Brahman, Vania, Rajput, Kanbi, Carpenter, Barber, Leather-worker
and so on. In the village there is a strict probation of inner-division marriage. The rules of purity
and pollution and other mechanisms maintain the boundaries of division.

Rupa Vishwanath in her book ‘The Pariah Problem’ quotes from the Tamil Christian magazine
Cattiyatutan (1861) (Messenger of Truth) to explain to its readers the distinction between caste
system and class order. The word jati (caste) denotes several levels of society (vakuppu)
distinguished by Hindus. Throughout the world people belong to different levels. Other nations
call these “class” (antastu, also “status”). Between the Europeans, social divisions of “class” and
that which the Hindus call “caste” there is a great difference. The difference of class is an ordinary
(potu, also “natural”) distinction; whereas according to Hindus, caste was founded and created by
Divine. A man can move from low class to a high class but no one can enter one caste from another.
(Viswanath 53) (Cattiyatutan 4,).

Although caste is found in both villages and towns, but the factor of caste in town/ in urban
population are based on economic and political aspects. In urban areas mostly trading class
categorized as Vania, Lohana and Bhatia are found. Then the writers and educationists class
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comprising of Brahmin, Kshatriyas and Kayasthas mostly are employed in bureaucracy, academia
and in other elite civil jobs. Then in urban areas division of specialized artisans, craftsmen and
servants such as goldsmith, blacksmith, weavers, dyers, printers, florists, carpenters, painters,
vendors, tailors, laundrymen etc. reflect the special lifestyle of the town. But all these specialized
works in population differ from the first order division of ruling class i.e. Kshatriyas which
currently in India due to de-sanskritization have also mingled with endogamous units (membership
is hereditary and permanent in stratified society) third or fourth division i.e. they have become
weak and poor. Supriya Agarwal in her paper ‘The Poetics of Societal Hypoxia’ defines the poor
in Hegel Marxist sense i.e. individual minus money and social status. According to her “the poor
must be defined as individuals under unsupported, marginalized, oppressed, depressed,
underprivileged, deprived and helpless conditions” (IJSELL 92).

The caste strictures actively thwarts new democratic practice and protects tradition, even though
half of the population of India is in category of poor, yet it considers the status of population; It is
not religiously, hierarchically and patriarchally applied to the caste system. The social
stratification, discretion and distraction is conditioned per se caste division/group/community
based; hence Dalits are rendered “powerless, silenced and forced to be regulated with caste-
governance, the interiority of Indian governance” (Thol. Thirumavalavan, Atanka Maru et al.,
Refuse to Submit, trans: Rupa Vishwanath, Chennai: Thaaimann Parthipagam, 2004; p. 17-18).
Consequently the policy of ghettoization is a kind of moral policing and a means to evade any sort
of solution to the ‘Phariah Problem’ in India. Confining Dalits to ghettos and formulating for them
gentle servitude and facilitating their education in segregated schools, demarking them with
religious disability or religious neutrality result with the rise of hegemonic view on one hand, while
at the same time it disables enforcement of legal rights and encourages violators and perpetrators
to either persecute Dalits or to exclude them from political power. So understand this phenomenon
of treatment, the emergence of self-respect in multilingual India for the status of Dalits became the
question representative expression to instill essential oneness of humanity and to debate issues of
faith, ethics, politics, caste, Brahminism, untouchability, social justice and equality.

Gandhi’s disengagement from the world of power and politics is not to harm away, but to turn
towards a change of ordinary people of rural India. Aniamuthu in the book entitled Thought of
Periyar writes while inflecting the Gandhian message in very specific terms:
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“A sense of self-respect and fraternity must arise within human society. Notions of high
and low amongst men should disappear. A sense of the unity of all humankind must dawn
(in each one of us).Communal confrontations must cease to be. In the course of propagating
these ideals we will not hesitate to take on friend or foe if they range themselves against us
and criticize us through word and deed”. (Anaimuthu xxiv).

Rajgopalchari too endorsed Periyar’s contentious written manifestation in Kudi Arasu and
advocated Non-Cooperation forum in Madras on Gandhi’s ideas of Khadi Prohibition and
Untouchability Abolition to prevent various sections of the populace to fall victim to degeneracy
and moral laxity.

On the other hand Dr. Ambedkar in his Presidential Address at Nagpur in 1930s while approving
the attempt of the Somvanshiya Nirashit Fund to collect money for “the temple for the Mahar
people where they could come and think about social work for the society’, and he said that “we
are not ready yet to give an answer to question of whether the untouchables should have a temple
of their own or whether they should attempt to enter the Hindu peoples’ temples according to their
rights.” (Zelliot 92, 266).

Ambekar in 1930s or Eleanor Zelliot in 2013, both locally and globally have raised the question
of retrieval as regards the status of Dalits who have been detained from doors of knowledge, legal
rights, understanding political consciousness and writing religious books. They have alleged
Brahmanical order and the paradox of religion that preach high thoughts and practice law
behaviour. In this context Khairmode in the book entitled Da Bhimrao Raoji Ambedkar, Vol. 1
writes “ If there is to be independence, the views of the backward classes must be represented, and
these backward classes are now awakened to this knowledge” (261-64).

The cultural memory, cultural baggage of being self-designated as Dalits expresses emotions of
bewilderment, rage, resentment. This is constructed due to the role of historical consciousness and
existing power relations in the imagination of Dalit culture. The authors of post-independence
phase have problematized the retrieval of Dalit selfhood. They have argued that historical
circumstances and codes need to be subverted to relocate and radicalize social and individual
consciousness in order to substantiate memory retrieval so that alternative way of imagining
community and nation can be deconstructed to rebuild and to abide by faith in the powers of
humanity to remake itself” (V. Geetha 289-290).
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Premchand was one of the first major mainstream novelists to have written on caste and caste
relations especially in rural areas. From the novel Kanthapura, wrteen by Raja Rao we derive that
the depressed classes were deprived of reading and writing and the upper class divest them of their
right to live with dignity and equality and also with right to educate, develop themselves. One finds
thet Mahatma Gandhi, the principal proponent of Swaraj, had to face rejection from the
traditionalist who oppose Gandhi’s doctrine of equal treatment for untouchables, because the
profits of the Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical community business are larger as a result of the
cheap labour that pariahs provide to them. Bhatta, the first Brahmin, chief priest at ceremonial
priests and primary landlord of Kanthapura tried to sabotage humanitarian concerns of Gandhi’s
supporters like Moorthy, but later Bhatta had to face retribution from the hands of resisters, his
house was burnt by untouchables. The novel demonstrated that internal dissentions and
contestations within caste community had first to be tackled and resolved with fret and fury before
the goals of national struggle for Freedom of India. Social harmony could only prevent nation from
cultural nationalism and casteism. The writer Raja Rao potrays Moorthy as the representative of
Gandhi in the small village who strives to unify all people, men , women, children to join in -and
the pariahs and the weavers and potters all seemed to feel they were one caste, one breath (p. 178)
and have to participate in the Don’t-Touch-the Government Campaign in 1930 when Mahatma
Gandhi induced passive resistance against the British Raj in India (Rao; 1974).

Arundhati’s novel The God of Small Things is an attempt to situate agitations and subversive rage
against an unjust social order and sets precedents of irreverence and impiety of Untouchables
towards household conventions and religious observations. Roy shows how Kelan, Vehitha’s
grandfather along with a number of untouchables in Kerala embraced Christianity to get out of the
clutches of the problem of untouchability. The irony of conversion became poignant for pariahs
and Dalits in post-independence period when constitutions and legal implications denied them
quota or reservation on grounds of converted Christian Untouchables. They faced internalized
oppressions of caste at one level, at the other level they had been condemned to a life of segregation
and disparity . Arundhati Roy also brings forth an ideological and historical understanding of the
Pariah’s condition and their antagonistic relationship to Brahmanical Hinduism. Velutha in the
novel becomes a victim of social ostracism both by the owners of the Paradise Pickle factory and
by the Syrian Christian Community because of their high caste profile. In Kerala Untouchable
Paravanas alike Pariahs of Tamil Nadu, are socially disarmed just like a non-human in the
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hierarchical set up and those who transgress the rigid social order meet with tragic death. Arundhati
Roy in the novel reflects her concern vis-à-vis antagonism that prevails against low caste people
in Brahminism in this way:

“It is apparent that Velutha, the untouchable doesn’t sweep off his footprints like his
forefathers. His footprints were wiped off by the caretakers of society, the police, the state
and tradition. The patriarchal society and customs punish the woman who has ‘defiled
generation of breeding’ (GST 258) and the Paravana who has challenged the age long
tradition of social morality. Both these lesser mortals, the mombattis ‘of the society get
punished for- “Civilization’s fear of nature, men’s fear of women, power’s fear
powerlessness” (p. 308). Hence Velutha, Roy writes about him- was the God of loss, God
of Small Things, of goose bumps and sudden smiles who had to go about furtively denying
his own presence” (The God of Small Things; 330)

One finds that novel The God of Small Things restores the history of Brahmin domination. It
renders debate on the nature of humanity, divinity, faith, belief, as it fosters instances of insolence,
defiance, neglect, disregard, torment, hate and murder of innocent mind. The novel attempts to
measure self-worth of an outcaste who are either exiled or domesticated. Their language and
culture resonate with caste and civilization.

The writings of Roy and Raja Rao internalize the fact that India’s cultural diversity lies in its
sociology, but not in biology of species; secondly reinvent the notion of touchable and untouchable
in context of ecology, psyche, freedom, humanity and fundamentalism. The writings investigate
emptiness in existence and entity of both classified groups of caste. Both novelists strike with a
spur (Sharma 19).

To argue further the question of repressed memory and representation in case of Dalits
consciousness and culture is relevant in order to understand the negotiation of Dalit identity
amongst society’s stakeholders to examine identity claims of Dalits, to investigate the real
historical relations of discrimination, to evaluate their imagination for cultural selfhood and to find
possibilities for the construction of culture that encourages equality and justice. With reference to
social distinctions and man-made barriers against underdogs, Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchables
deals with the problem of untouchability and injustice. Bakha, the main figure in Untouchable
believes, “They think we are dirt because we clean their dirt’ (Varshney 22). The novel strikes us
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as picture of a decadent and perverted orthodoxy. Mulk Raj Anand wrote this novel to support
Gandhiji’s campaign against untouchability and caste system/practice. It is the product of his stay
with Mahatma at the Sabarmati Ashram in 1932-33. The novel becomes interesting when Gandhiji
enters it as a character. (Ibid 155). In contemporary age this novel essentialise Dalit’s selfhood
complexity, because of their self-reflective representations and experiences. The author as a
reliable witness of the humiliating incidents with untouchables on sports grounds, in educational
institutes, in matters of job seeking fields shows how untouchables invite infernal wrath and
acrimony of upper caste if the Dalits come across within purview of high caste Hindus in public
or private space of privileged ones. Mulkraj Anand captures culture experience in our Indian
Modern literature, but ironically the characters like Bakha, Gulabo, Sohini, Chota , the millions of
Indians due to rigid inhuman casteism.

Vijay Tendulkar’s play Kanyadan situates Dalits resistance and discourse of selfhood “in complex
description of human reality and the evolution of preconceived notions” (Shyamala; 2012). The
play opens with an optimism and with a note on democracy the character Nath Devalkar with his
wife Seva, son Jayaprakash and daughter Jyoti involves in improving the condition of
downtrodden and socially neglected depressed people. As an authors spokesperson he dissuades
ethical ground between the fallacy of appropriation and denial of history, a ground where other
will not disappear either in our empathetic embrace or in our nonchalant anxiety, a ground where
historical knowledge is possible even if in a very limited way, and where knowledge is replaced
by acknowledgement and cognition by recognition”. (Huang 227). Therefore at the opening of the
play, Nath in his middle class family backdrops is shown discussing intercaste marriage proposal
of his daughter Jyoti to the Dalit poet and writer Arun. Nath ecstatically agrees to the proposal and
although his wife and son expressed their dissension and apprehension for such transformation in
their culture of tradition and casteism. Jyoti introduces Arun to the family, after a discussion with
Arun, Nath condescendingly valorized his involvement and integration with other’s identity in
these words to his wife Seva, he utters-

“Seva, until today, ‘Break the caste system’ was merely a slogan for us. I have attended
many inter caste marriages and made speeches. But today I have broken the barrier in the
real sense. My home has become Indian in the real sense of term. I am happy today, very
 IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018 765

happy. I have no need to change my clothes today. Today I have changed. I have become
new. (Act I, Scene ii, 23)”

Nath believes that Dalit youths like Arun who have borne cultural memory of hate and humiliation,
need to be given environment, opportunity and self-expression, as they have been silenced,
subservient to face shame and stigma of being Dalit. Psychologically they require space to recover
from their repressed memory of difference and it is extremely difficult to understand “the
unspeakable nature of horrors experienced by the victims” (Yuante, 229).

The playwright Vijay Tendulkar attempts to give readers and audience his insight to resolve the
cultural difference gap, to acknowledge their integration, to acknowledge their integration, to
recognize Dalit’s assimilation with an equal opportunity and status. This realization and social
transformation can only achieve successfully achieve social harmony. So it is apt to say that
Tendulkar recognizes the modernist fallacy of appropriation and the post modernist denial of
authenticity. He condemns as an activist the notion of biological differences and human
distinctions, segregates historical experiences and fictionalization, rather he raises questions of
epistemology that theorize an imaginative making of ‘other’ or gaze others and opens the
possibility of collective responsibility and self assurance of objectivity and relies on the veracity
and subjectivity of the other in order to the poetics of resentment, authenticity and planetary
imagination (Barbara 232).

Narratives of Caste Dissidents

In 1945 Ambedkar in his major work ‘What Congress and Gandhi have done to Untouchables’,
lamented the Poona Pact’s facilitation of separate electoral system that further supports segregation
to control untouchable candidate’s elected in reserved seats from the Hindu caste society. Secondly
in his book ‘Who were the Shudra’ that he dedicated to Jyotibha Rao Phule, rejects 19th century
radical racial theory of caste that happened due to Aryan invasion and even he disapproved
Purushasukta Theory of divine origin. He argued that Shudras were a subset of Kshatriyas denied
by Brahmins sacred initiation (upanayana) and thus doomed them to social degradation, ignorance
and poverty (Ambedkar; 2013).

When it comes to caste debates, the book ‘Homo Hierarchichus’ (1966) by Louis Dumont is the
central treatise on anthropological caste discourse comments on antithetical notions of the ‘West’
 IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018 766

and ‘India’- the former based on individualism and equality and the latter on caste hierarchy (Dirks
52-60). This book indeed in 1940s issued a rage among dissidents of casteism such as Ambedkar,
R.S. Khare, heralded anti-caste struggle that grade inequality, social injustice and formed the
coalition of underprivileged, which foregrounded the Manusmrithi’s emphasis on the bastard
origin of certain castes. Consequently Dalit Panthers were rooted in Bombay and the youth-Dalit
activist like Baburao Bagul, Namdeo Dhansal, Raja Dhale, Arjun Dangle, J.V. Pawar, Namdeo
Golpitha an equal to T.S. Eliot.

The ‘Wasteland’ is full of repulsive pathos and springs from an untouchable source in every sense
of the term. Rakesh Nambia writes that Dhasal goes one step further by subverting even the
mainstream Dalit literature and poetical oeuvre in Golpitha. In Dhasal’s ‘Man You Should
Explode’ (Golpitha), the elitist notion of civilization, religion and philosophy is bizarrely shredded
for the creation of a new worl. For Dhasal language and societal conception becomes tool for
subversion that also concurrently transforms into a motif for Dalit Consciousness and expression.
(Dhasal; 2016)

Just as language and societal conception undergoes a constant negotiation between the elite upper
caste and lower caste in Indian society, so does the sharing and consumption of ‘water’, when
Dhasal says “Upstream, the water is all for you to take/Downstream the water for us to get” (p. 43)
which evidently shows the hegemonic imposition of the upper caste in the villages. The
socialization of human beings is key to nationalistic concerns and anxieties; if language and
education is not medicated through the core concerns, the backwardness of depressed classes or in
national character. Dhasal’s critique on oppression in the Indian society voices the most
reprehensible lessons of repressive mentality followed by upper caste against margins and
underclass to keep them away from education and independent identity (Dhasal; 2007).

Arjun Dangle’s book The Translations from Modern Marathi Literature entitled ‘Poisoned Bread’
is an assertive minority expression to support Dalit Panther’s rebellion (1972) against caste-feudal
bondage and slavery. Baburao Bagul in his collections of short stories Jevha Mi Jaat Chorli Hoti
(When I had Concealed my Caste) characterized the writer as Young Angry Man who articulates
Dalits’ revolt of consciousness against the social system. Poets like Satish Kasekar, Tulsi Parah,
Raja Dhale, Bhalchandra Nemade’s Kosala related their literature to the Dalit and toiling masses.
Om Prakash Valmiki’s Joothan ((1997) (Trans. Arun Prabha Mukherjee) describes from his
 IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018 767

personal experiences the torments of Dalits in Uttar Pradesh who even have no right to fight for
education or food. Few other writers like him have him have crafter an authenticity of experience
and breached an opening for our understanding and knowledge about a people so marginalized
that they disappeared from the world’s awareness , their cultures, lifestyles, folk knowledge and
aspirations represented nowhere in mainstream or scholarly sources. Joothan relates to scraps of
garbage or leftovers of food which meant for untouchables or polluted beings of society i.e. the
underclass is deprived of the best and have to content with what is decided for them, or made
destines to accept just as stray animals are to do. The sufferings and anguish of outcastes and their
state of beastlike oppression are represented by the author as an anatomy of oppression and
humiliation.

Political Mobilisation of Caste through Writings

M.N. Srinivasan, well known for his concepts of Sanskritization and dominant castes, has written
extensively on the changes that are creeping into the caste system. He writes how the lower castes
are slowly emulating the language and lifestyle of the upper castes , who are defined by their
member resources and monetary strength. The dominant caste differs not only from state to state
but also from village to village. In some villages the other Backward Castes may be the dominant
castes and not the Brahmin and Kshatriya. To illustrate this from Irathima Karkalan’s Orakali
(2002) which tells the story of the relationship between and Kshatriyas have left the village for a
better life in the cities, leaving behind the Dalits and Vanniars. The latter are just above the Dalits
in the hierarchy, yet the Dalits do not have control over the land, instead the Vanniars became the
landlords and the dominant caste and exploit the Dalits.

Arvind Adiga’s The White Tiger is a winner of the ‘Man Booker Prize’ (2008). The following is
an excerpt from the book that showcases the attitude towards caste in India today:

“….. ‘Halwai’…….he turned to the small dark man. ‘What caste is that, top or bottom?’
And I know that my future depended on the answer to that question…..I should explain a
thing or two about caste. Even Indians get confused about this word, especially educated
Indians in the cities…..See: Halwai, my name, means “sweetmakeer”. That’s my
caste…my destiny….These days there are two castes:men with bug bellies and men with
small bellies” (Adiga 62-65)
 IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018 768

Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men was the winner of the Hindu inaugural best fiction award
in 2010. It is essentially a commentary on the perceived intellectual superiority of Brahmins and
the attempt by a Dalit to break this hegemony of a certain caste over knowledge. Similarly
Rohinton Mistry’s novel A Fine Balance (1995) revolves around two leather workers (caste name
chamars) who flee to the city due to the atrocities meted out to them in the cities and take up jobs
as tailors/

The contentious issue of reservation has been depicted in the short story called Poisoned Bread
(Dangle 2010) The following is a telling excerpt from Promotion :

“Awale Saheb: Does Godbole respect you?

Wagah: He doesn’t and I suppose its quite natural that the fact that I have been promoted
to the post of Assistant Purchase Manager even though I was junior to him.

Awale Saheb: Listen it is only now that we are being promoted to the Sahib positions in
33% category. The other people have enjoyed being in the 100% reserved category for
centuries.”(Dangle 169).

Girish Karnad’s play Tale-Danda (1993) tells the tale of Basavanna, a 12th century reformer from
Karnataka and the founder of lingayat faith. One such disciple of Basavanna defies tradition and
tries to transcend the barrier of caste by marrying his daughter to an untouchable. He had to face
violent aftermaths. The king Bijjala of Kalyana was dethroned and the disciple is killed, while
even Basavanna dies a mysterious death. The story of 21st century India doesn’t seem to have
changed much, still caste based violence routinely is read in newspapers.

Urmila Pawar’s autobiographical work Aidan (2006) shows resistance to girls studying. Urmila’s
father would often face taunts from his community people asking whether the education would
turn his daughter into a Brahmin woman. Bama in her work Sangati (2009) exposes the
exploitation of Dalit woman by upper caste men and also by Dalit men. “Everywhere you look,
you see blows and beatings; shame and humiliation. If we had a little schooling at leas, we could
live with more awareness. When they humiliate us we do get furious and frustrated….because we
haven’t been to school or learnt anything, we go about slaves all our lives, from the day we are
born till the day we die. As we are blind, even though we have eyes” (Bama 118).
 IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018 769

Bama’s Karakku (2000) is an autobiographical work is an attempt to share with the world ill-
treatment meted out in the name of class , caste and religion. She shares the experiences of being
the child of a Dalit and the abuse that they have to undergo. It seeks to expose the plight of
thousands of Dalit children. The author also finds that several of her own people have internalized
the feelings of inferiority that are imposed on them by the upper classes.

Meena Kandaswamy’s book Ms. Militancy draws on Tamil mythologies to throw open the debate
on caste discrimination. Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke (2008) reveals the insider account
of the socio-cultural conditions and the historical and the political scenario in which the Mahar
community loved in the pre-independence time. She claims that suffering of her community has
always been more important that her individual suffering. A distinctive aspect of her life narrative
is Jina Amucha (2008). She tries to instill a sense of pride and the spirit of resistance among the
present and future generations of her people.

Urmila Pawar’s author of The Weave of My Life (2008) is a Marathi Dalit activist of feminist
struggles in Maharashtra. In the Konkan region of Maharashtra, it was the Mahar caste to which
Pawar herself belongs,that performed the traditional job of weaving aaydans. Pawar has claimed
that there is ling between the weaving of bamboo by her mother and the weaving of words in her
own writing that “it is the weave of pain, suffering and agony that links us” (Pawar 10).

P. Sivakami’s novel The Grip of Change (1999) discusses the politics of writing that not only
targets the ‘others’ from outside, but also the ‘others’ within one’s community or the group one is
associated with. The urgency of having to decide one’s loyalties pushes a writer , especially a Dalit
woman writer into the urgency of having to decide her location and position amidst Dalit lives and
in context of caste and gender. J. Bheemaiah, while critically interpreting the story of Kolakaluri
Enoch’s Vigna Vinayakudu writes how in a village Papili situated on the highway of Bangalore in
Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh embeds the notion of Hindu fanaticism that colonize Dalit’s
space. The mythical nature of God Vinayaka in Hindu belief is responsible for tension between
castes, which unleashes violence and reflect social reality of myth of caste. The concept of equality
before God becomes abused on caste lines and Dalit victimization (58).

Conclusion
 IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018 770

These critical formulations in the writings of Dalits, non-Brahmanical and Brahmanical theorize
indeed the question of representation the idea of recovering repressed memory and the historical
discovery of the invisible, silenced, subordinated subalterns. The writings also questions the
Dalit’s consciousness that became visible and aware, have articulated their encounter, experiences,
emotions through counter literature expressing both their self and being other in their writings,
these allegories of nation have now been analytical source of discourse. Non-Indian readers feel
anxiety while going through the pathetic picture of homogenous Indian society, whose inherent
weakness lies in caste prejudices. We can notice caste in itself constitutes a ‘nation’ in India and
people’s attachment to their particular caste and their prejudice against other castes becomes their
‘nationality’. Ths caste nationalism assumes ‘jingoistic’ quality and demands the distancing and
despising of other castes, thus it is apt to stand by Savitri Bai Phule’s (1831-1897) insightful stand
on English education which is a source of liberation especially for the underprivileged sections.
She started a school for untouchable girls in 1852. She gave a clear call in her poetry to move
towards English to subvert the patters of hegemony.

“Learn English
Make self-reliance your occupation
Exert yourself to gather the wealth of knowledge
Without knowledge animals remained dumb
Don’t rest! Strive to educate yourself
The opportunity is here,
For the Shudras and Ati Shudras,
To learn English
To dispel all woes
Throw away authority of the Brahmin and his teachings
Break the shackles of caste
By learning English” (Sundararaman 4).
 IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018 771

Notes Cited

Adiga, (2009), The White Tiger, pp. 62-65.

Ambedkar, B.R. () The Depressed Classes: A Chronological Documentation, Vol. 1. Ranchi’ Rev.
Fr J. Jans. S.J., Catholic Press, pp. 41.
Anaimuthu, V. (1974), Thoughts of Periyar Vol.3, ed. Periyar [Link]. Ra. Sitharaikal, Trichy
:Sinthanaiyalar Pathipagan, pp. xxiv.
B. Krishnaiah, ed. (2011), “Social Movements and Identity Formation”, by K. Purushotham &
B.S. Raghavulu, Dalit Movements and Literature, New Delhi: Prestige Book
International, pp. 61.
B.R. Ambedkar “Annihilation of Caste”, The Essential Writings of B.R. Ambedkar, ed. Valerian
Rodrigues, New Delhi: OUP, pp. 264.
B.R. Ambedkar, “What the Congress & Gandhi have done to Untouchables” p. 305, quoted in
Gandhi on Caste by Oksana Akulona, [Link] [Link]/ 2480402/ Gandhi on
Caste / What Congress and Gandhi have done to Untouchables, 2nd ed. Bombay: Thacker
and Co., 1946.
Babasaheb Ambedkar (2013), Writing and Speech, Vol. 7 quoted in Sharmila Rege, ed. “Caste as
Endogamy”, Against the Madness of Man. New Delhi: Navayana Publication.
Bama,( 2009), Sangati, p.118
Barbara, Santa, Comparative Literature, University of California, pp. 232.
Beteille, Andr (2011), The Reproduction of Social Inequality in India, ed. K.L. Sharma, New
Delhi: Rawat Publication, pp. 128.
Beteille, Andre (2011), The Reproduction of Social Inequality in India, ed. K.L. Sharma, New
Delhi : Rawat Publication, pp. 128.
C.G. Shyamala (2012), Class & Gender Conflicts in Tendulkar’s Kanyadan: A Historical
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Seagull Books, [Link].
Dhasal, Namdeo (2007), Poet of the Underworld, Poems 1972-2006, Tran. Dilip Chitre. New
Delhi: Navayana Publication, pp. 43.
 IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018 772

Dhasal, Namdeo (2016), “Thematic Implication and Metaphorical Expressions of Marginality in

Namdeo’s Dhasal’s Poet of the Underworld”,
[Link]
Dhasal’s ‘Man You Should Explode’, Golpitha
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Permanent Black, pp. 52-60.
Dumont, Louis (1966), Homo Hierarchichus, trans. 1970.
Eleanor Zelliot (2013), Ambedkar’s World, New Delhi: Navayana Publishing Pvt. Ltd., pp. 92,
266
G. Aloysius (2014), “Rediscovering God”, A Dalit View from the Bottom on Caste in India, eds.,
Subhadra Mitra Channa & Joan P. Mencher. Washington DC: Sage Publications, pp. 212.
Gandhi, M.K.. (1938). Excerpts from “Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule”, Ahemdabad,
Gujarat:Navajivan Publishing House, Hind Swaraj-
[Link]/hindswaraj/hindswaraj:htm.
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Vinayakudu, “Counter-Writing-Dalits and Other Subalterns, New Delhi: Prestige Books
International, pp. 58.
Jati, Cattiyatutan (1891), Vol. 4, no.3:10; translation by Rupa Viswanath.
K. Purushotham & B.S. Raghavulu ( 2011), “Social Movements and Identity Formation”, Dalit
Movements and Literature, ed. B. Krishnaiah New Delhi: Prestige Book International,
pp. 61.
Khairmode, Bhimrao Raoji Ambedkar, Vol. 1, pp. 261-64.
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Dandle, Arjun (2010), ‘Promotion’, Poisoned Bread, pp. 169.
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History and Society, Subaltern Studies Vol. 1, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp.335.
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Inheritance of Loss”, Voices, ed. Rajul Bhargava, Vol.5, Issue 1 (Oct-Nov); pp.19.
 IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2018 773

Sivakami, P. (1999), The Grip of Change.

Sundararaman, T. (2008), Adapted from Mali, M.G. pp.4.
Supriya Agarwal (2014), ‘The Poetics of Societal Hypoxia’, IJSELL, Vol. 2, Issue II (Nov.):
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Chennai: Thaaimann Parthipagam, pp. 17-18.
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Periyar”, New India Reader 13.10.21, MI 23.7.20, Calcutta: Samya, pp.172.
Valmiki, Om Prakash (1997), Joothan, Trans. Arun Prabha Mukherjee.
Varshney, L (2015), Untouchables, New Delhi: Surjeet Publications, pp. 22-155.
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