Arjun Dangle
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Transcript of Arjun Dangle
Chapter II
The Dalit Societies
Writing is not simply writing, it is an act, and in man’s
continual fight against evil, writing must be deliberately used
as a weapon. It is necessary that he understands this.
(Sartre What is Literature? 233)
India, from time immemorial, has remained a fragmented society owing to the
caste system. Almost one-fourth of the country‟s population constitutes what Dr. B.R.
Ambedkar called the "depressed classes". Though there have been many saints and
social reformers who castigated the caste system in India since medieval times, their
overall impact has been peripheral. Only in 20th century Ambedkar was able to
sharpen the consciousness of the "untouchables" as a "class" and groom them as a
powerful constituent of the present-day political system.
Dalits, who constitute one-sixth of India's one billion people, have for
centuries been at the lowest rung of the social ladder. They are kept outside and
subservient to the four-tier hierarchical caste structure sanctified by Varnasrama
Dharma. Mahatma Jotirao Phule was the first to use the word Dalit in connection
with caste. The Dalits are those who were referred to as the Chandalas, Ati Shudras,
Avarnas, Panchamas, Antayas and Antayavas in the Hindu religious scriptures:
They were „broken men‟ and „Protestant Hindus‟ to Dr.Ambedkar and
„Harijans‟ to Gandhi. To the Britishers they were the „untouchables
12
and depressed‟ classes. They were referred to as the „scheduled castes‟
in the constitution of India. „Dalit‟ is a recent term adopted by the
Dalits themselves to indicate the fact that they are the most oppressed,
exploited and dehumanized section of Indian culture.
(Massey Indigenous People: Dalits 81)
Caste permeates every aspect of our lives. Dalits have been victims of class-
related economic exploitation by upper-caste landholders. They remain as landless
agricultural workers and do menial jobs for the rest of society. Contrary to the
expectations generated among people during the freedom struggle, Independence has
not brought any significant change in their lives. Atrocities against the Dalits continue
unabated.
In recent times there has been a host of publications mainly dealing with the
Dalit situation in India. A parallel body of literature called Dalit literature has
appeared on the literary horizon that perceives the world from the Dalit angle. There
are quite a few Dalit ideologies and theoreticians. Many universities have Ambedkar
Chairs dealing with the theoretical aspect of Dalit consciousness.
Dalit Literature is not only a literature of protest and rejection but also a
literature of reconstruction of the past. Dalit consciousness has inspired intellectuals
to probe the entire Indian history and culture from below. This Subaltern historical
approach has set in motion a process for the true discovery of India. One of the most
significant features of the postmodernist movement in India is literature dealing with
13
the social outcast or Dalits. Like Black Literature, Dalit writing was characterized by
a new level of pride, militancy, sophisticated creativity and above all sought to use
writing as a weapon.
The recent spurt in Dalit literature in India is an attempt to bring to the
forefront the experiences of discrimination, violence, and poverty of the Dalit. This
phenomenal growth in Dalit writing is part of a growing need of the Dalits themselves
to articulate their experiences. These voices question the institutions and ideologies
that have placed them at the margins. As Arjun Dangle observes:
Dalit Literature is one, which acquaints people with the caste system
and untouchability in India, its appalling nature and its system of
exploitation. In other words, Dalit is not a caste but a realization and is
related to the experiences, joys and sorrows, and struggles of those in
the lowest stratum of society. […] 'Dalit' means masses exploited and
oppressed economically, socially, culturally, in the name of religion
and other factors. Dalit writers hope that this exploited group of people
will bring about a revolution in this country. (264-65)
Dalit Literature introduces a new world of experience in Indian literature. It
widens the range of expression and makes use of the language of the outcasts and
underprivileged in Indian society. Both novels GB and GUI voice against
humiliation, subjugation, and call for implementation of social justice. Both the
novels interrogate and deconstruct caste supremacy. Their works reflect the
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frequently turbulent developments specific to Indian society and their lasting appeal
lies in their talent for exploring the condition of Dalits with such grace and dexterity.
Today's Dalit Literature that occupies a pride of place is actually born out of
the heinous system of untouchability and caste discrimination that have been
practiced in India for the past millennia. Outside the caste-Hindu chaturvarna-order
came the „untouchables,‟ or the Panchamas, who are the present-day Dalits. The
concepts of purity and pollution, dreamed to their logical extremes, made life a living
hell for some people of the same land. This religiously sanctioned inequality called
the caste system, in the words of Ambedkar, was not just a division of labour, it was a
division of labourers. For ages, they have been peddling a complacent justification of
the caste system through the belief in karma and sins of the previous births. In fact,
the Hindu tale of the creation of human beings and castes shows the oppressive
workings of the system. The gods are not only content with creating a society, but
they create a wretched social order too. In other words, as Dangle in his discourse on
Dalit literature observes, “religion and the state joined hands and bound the lowest
class namely the shudras into mental, cultural and social slavery and later into
untouchability” (235).
Recently a few Dalit writers have published their autobiographies that dilate
on the Dalit situation and the process leading to the emergence for a distinct Dalit
consciousness as a parallel ideology. Dalit autobiographies are sites of anger and
protest conveyed through a specific locale and language. A central incident of atrocity
inflicted upon a powerless Dalit by an upper caste Hindu, the rural locale of a 'vas'
15
(separate quarters for untouchables) and dialects stand as hallmarks of a good,
authentic Dalit autobiography. With that cultural and aesthetic mapping in mind, the
researcher tries to look at the preoccupations of Dalit autobiographies.
Marathi Dalit literature is the forerunner of all modern Dalit literature. It was
essentially against exploitation, and made use of writing as a method of propaganda
for the movement. It was not immediately recognized by the mainstream which was
obsessed with middle class issues. Dalit literature too has an excess of
autobiographies. Critics condemn these literatures of lament, but they too have a
central place within the creative core. Dalit literature is characterized by the call for
self-identity and assertion. It tramples all conventions with its intensely personal
expression; is concerned with the life of the subaltern, and deals with a stark brutality.
This literature should be viewed not as a literature of vengeance or a literature of
hatred, but a literature of freedom and greatness.
Both Vasant Moon‟s GUI and Aravind Malagatti‟s GB are social critiques of
the caste condition in their states-Maharashtra and Karnataka respectively. The Dalit
experience portrayed in the autobiographies of Vasant Moon and Aravind Malagatti
can hardly be considered as complete. It is at best fragments of total reality. Both the
novelists incidentally belong to one gender that is male. Moon belongs to the
predominant Mahar caste which is at the top of the Dalit pyramid and Malagatti hails
from Holeya community. Any assessment of Dalit literature would have to take into
account a complex web of social, political and economic contexts.
16
Dalit Autobiographies in India can be interpreted as the transformation of pain
into resistance. Both Moon and Malagatti try to assert that Dalit life is excruciatingly
painful, charred by experiences and Dalit autobiographies are „narratives of pain‟. It
is pain which strings one narrative event to the next, and it is pain that binds
individual Dalits together into an „imagined community‟ of fellow sufferers. Yet the
experience of oppression does not imprison Dalits in eternal victimhood, but rather
used by the authors as a tool mobilized against the cruel and inhuman social order
which supports caste-based discrimination.
Dalit autobiographies transform an experience of pain into a narrative of
resistance. This is especially important because, as a marginalized community, Dalits
have previously been excluded from participating in mainstream public debate.
However, beginning in the late-1980s, Dalit literary expression has shown a dramatic
increase throughout the nation. Within this larger trend of literary assertion,
autobiography in particular has been one of the most important genres since many
Dalit writers have launched their literary careers by first narrating their life-story,
making autobiography an institutional space through which Dalit writers can first
enter the literary public sphere. The dissertation attempts to understand how Dalits
have used autobiography as a means of assertion against untouchability by looking at
two well-known Dalit autobiographies of Aravind Malagatti and Vasant Moon.
The researcher elucidates the powerful narrative agenda of Dalit
autobiography which contests both the basis of caste- discrimination as well as the
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institutional claim that caste no longer functions as a social force in modern India.
Delving straight into GB and GUI, the dissertation looks at the way this agenda of
contesting untouchability is expressed within the narrative, specifically regarding the
construction of Dalit subjectivity and the flow of narrative events. Then, Dalit Hindi
autobiographies are contextualized within certain larger socio-historical processes,
including as well the influence of the Dalit autobiographer‟s own status as an urban-
dwelling member of the middle class. Dalit writers have used autobiographical
narratives as a form of political assertion by providing entrance the public sphere and
a reassertion of control over the construction of Dalit selfhood. Moreover it has given
Dalit writers a way of uniting with a larger Dalit community to create a powerful
group which can be used to fight against caste discrimination.
A dalit writer, avowedly, speaks, not as an individual but as a member of a
community and must therefore avoid individualized expression. The 'sociology' of
Dalit literature, which according to Manilal Patel, a Dalit critic, is a meaningful way
of examining Dalit literature (25). The researcher now turns to an examination of
emerging sociological contexts or signs of social activity underlying Marathi and
Kannada Dalit writings. Like Moon, Malagatti too seeks to transcend all barriers,
aims to break all shackles, and promises liberation. Hence, a brief account of the
social milieu of both Malagatti and Moon becomes inevitable.
Unlike the autobiographies of famous individuals, autobiographies of
marginalized groups differ as they are usually written by anonymous individuals who
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emphasize the ordinariness of their life rather than their uniqueness in order to
establish themselves as representative of their community. Subjectivity in these
autobiographies is thus complicated by the deep connection between the individual
self and the communal self. The autobiographical narrative is perceived as the actual
site of the power struggle, where the voice of the marginalized individual contests the
institutionalized narrative of the dominant group.
Since authenticity and liveliness are the hallmarks of Dalit literature, both
Moon and Malagatti make use of the language of the out-castes and under-privileged
in Indian society. Shame, anger, sorrow and indomitable hope are the stuff of their
autobiographies. The expressions of these writers have become sharp because of their
anger against the age-old oppression. In their search for alternatives, they have
rediscovered the low caste saint poets of the Bhakti movement. Even they found
relevance in Buddhism. Referring to folk lore, they make an assertion that Dalits
were members of an ancient primitive society and were uprooted by the alien
Brahminical civilization.
Both Moon and Malagatti make a fervent plea for a complete overhaul of
society. As Dangle puts it, “Even the Sun needs to be changed.” Thus the contribution
of their autobiographies to Dalit literature has been immense. First and foremost, they
effectively threaten the Brahmanical hegemony from literature. They try to mobilize
Dalit masses for assertion, protest and positive action. They also stir up thinking in
Dalit intellectuals and catalyze creation of organic intellectuals of Dalits.
19
Certainly, the strength of Dalit autobiographies has been their act of exposing
the continuation of caste-based discrimination and the power structures and belief
systems that support the practice of untouchability. The power of Dalit
autobiography‟s narrative agenda is its use of the author‟s life-experiences of pain as
a means of political assertion. By writing about their own experiences as a Dalit,
Moon and Malagatti reveal two objectives in their autobiographies. One is to contest
the basis of caste discrimination. For example, in GB, Malagatti asserts, "While
carrying the corpse, I think, they used to observe us just as keenly as we did them.
They would lift the corpse only after confirming our presence. Once the money
thrown on the corpse fell on the ground, it was the job of the Dalits to fight among
themselves to pick up the coins. If there were no dalits, what worth would their coins
have?”(7)
The narrative agenda of these Dalit autobiographies is to expose the reality
behind the institutional narrative that caste no longer functions as a significant force
in the public sphere of modern India. In other words, the mainstream narrative
disseminates that untouchability was abolished by the Constitution of India in 1950,
and consequently, there is no longer caste-based discrimination in government jobs,
public schools, transportation, etc. Moon addresses this issue in his autobiography:
“Pundalik got the most marks of any Untouchable student, and won the Behere
Award. After Inter, Pundalik wanted to complete B. A.(Honors), which took three
years. But only selected students got admission. And when Sinha, the principal,
20
interviewed Pundalik, he told him in bad English, "How do you Scheduled Caste
peope aspire for Honors? You be a graduate and just do your M. A."
When Pundalik came out of the principal`s room and met me, he told me
about this. The scorching blast of caste hatred left a sear on our minds. There was no
question but that Pundalik was intelligent and that he had the command of English
required for Honors.”(133-134)
Thus, Dalit autobiographies constitute a challenge to this institutional
narrative by presenting what they claim are „factual‟ experiences of untouchability
from the writer‟s own life. Malagatti, for instance, does this by repeatedly narrating
his experiences of pain as exclusion due to the continued practice of untouchability.
He writes,
Accustomed to such punishments, our bodies lost all sensation and
turned into logs. When it was time for punishment, we assumed the
posture even before he could say the words. A slight delay in assuming
the punishment posture- there would be beatings. And if we were
quick about it, he would remark „Look at the bastard`s zeal!‟ and there
would be beatings! But we untouchable lot never had the good fortune
of receiving slaps from his hands! (13-14)
In another instance, Malagatti relates how he was continually punished in his
school: “Do you know what the offences were that deserved such severe
punishments? Not that we did not do our homework; nor were we untidy. The reason
was that we skipped sweeping the classroom sometimes before the morning prayers at
21
school. It was mandatory that we, friends from the lane, should come early to the
school and sweep it fully!”(14). Simon Charles reiterates the same point in
Challenging Untouchability,
Although Untouchability is legally forbidden, Holeyas and Madigas
are subjected to it in several ways in Rahapura, as elsewhere in
Karnataka. First, they are not permitted entry into the houses of most
other castes, particularly of Lingayats and Okkaligas, though some of
the latter make a distinction in this regard: they permit entry to the
outer but not inner parts. The main living area is still inaccessible to
them. (85-86)
There is a tension between the institutional ideology of meritocracy and
Moon‟s own experiences as a Dalit student. He laments, “There were no other boys
from our community in the normal School. I was the only Mahar. The boys and girls
of Maharpura used to go to the city primary school. In my class, all except me were
Brahmans”. (14) According to Charles, “Educationally, one person has been able to
reach post-graduate level and was pursuing doctoral studies in history, but no other
has gone beyond the tenth standard.” (83) Thus, pain, whether experienced as
humiliation, or as exclusion, or as actual physical violence, all serve a similar purpose
in the narrative, that is to expose the contemporary occurrence of untouchability,
which is otherwise ignored in the public discourse. For the Dalit readers, pain is a
uniting phenomenon, as they will see their own pain in the pages of the
autobiographies. For the non-Dalit reader, this pain and the social reality it exposes
22
means something different all together—shame, accusation, and hopefully an
invitation for change.
Through the process of narrating their life-story with a focus on their Dalit
identity, Dalit writers are able to come together into a powerful group which can then
assert itself against the main obstacles they still face—the continued practice of
untouchability. Corresponding to the narrative agenda of contesting untouchability,
the narrative of these autobiographies focus on events that highlight the pain of
experiencing caste discrimination and expose its continued practice in modern India.
Thus, the autobiographers value events that reinforce the 'reality' of the continuation
of untouchability, and consequently, most of the narrative time focuses on these
events.
GUI begins in a small town during Moon`s childhood, but its narrative moves
slowly from the town to other areas of Nagpur city. But GB begins in the village
during autobiographer`s childhood, and the narrative of this novel follows the
protaganist`s gradual move to the city—seen at first as a space of modernity,
anonymity, and thus new freedom from untouchability. This is originally reflected in
the protagonist‟s experience of pain. In the village, where caste identity is openly
known and acknowledged, pain is experienced bluntly, as forced exclusion or even as
physical violence (getting beaten by peers on the way to school or getting hit with a
stick for coming up to the shop counter instead of remaining on the street are
common examples).
Moon explains the way a Mahar leader was treated quite shabbily by the caste
23
Hindus when he tries to rebel against the established norms:
Around 1930 Dasharath Patil gave a call for reform, and Mahars for
miles around stopped carrying away dead animals. In every village
boycotts were imposed on these rebels by caste Hindus. Mahars who
went to the market could not make purchases. Mills in the villages
were closed to them; beatings began. Dasharath Patil proclaimed, „Let
us have our own markets‟. […] Babalya, the village watchman, came
with a message. „Master, all your goods were looted by Hindus on the
way. Murderers are hiding to kill you. Don`t go to the village‟. (12)
Along with all the adverse situations, poverty plays a key role in the Dalits`s
life. Both Malagatti and Moon suffered a lot because of a lack of money. In GBI,
Moon points out that most Dalit students have to discontinue their education. “Now I
began to live in Patil`s house. When the results of the fourth grade examination came,
Mother went to Patil and said, "Brother, Vasant has passed.” "Good," Patil replied.
"Educate him." "What can I do? I don‟t even have a penny."(34) Because of the
parents` ignorance the Dalit children are employed since their childhood itself for
menial works. So, they are thousands of miles away from the thought of education.
Their life has become only suffering without education.
On the account of caste discrimination, Malagatti suffered more than Moon.
Because Malagatti lived his childhood in his village. Moon lived his almost life in
cities. These two autobiographies show that city life is better than the village one. But
cities are not completely free from the caste discrimination. Moon says that being a
24
Dalit his mother could not get any job in the houses of Brahmins. Consequently, she
had to wander on empty stomach since morning to evening from one house to another
in search of household works.
However in the city, pain is subtler. When the experience of „passing‟ ends in
the revelation of the protagonist‟s untouchable identity, pain is often experienced as
humiliation. Again, the narrative itself is driven through consecutive experiences of
caste discrimination as well as by the protagonist‟s struggle to gain an education and
increase in political consciousness—a process which leads to the realization of his
Dalit identity.
A sense of progress through education and to the city, however, is not
interpreted as a fundamental move away from the community, despite the sense of
alienation expressed in the narrative. Instead, it is understood by the autobiographer
as a process realization of one‟s communal „Dalit‟ identity, which then incites him to
fight to regain the rights and self- respect for him and his community. Life events not
related to experiences of caste discrimination or to education and the development of
the protagonist‟s political consciousness, events such as marriage or the death of
parents, are quickly passed over with a few paragraphs. However, the idea of
„progress‟ from the superstitious village to the „enlightened‟ city emerges towards the
end of the narrative.
The Dalit autobiographers, who have escaped poverty, rural superstitions, and
ignorance to join the educated, economically stable, urban middle class feel very
strongly that they have been unable to escape their caste. Having escaped the confines
25
of the village, availed of reservation, and experienced a rise in their class status, these
writers continued to experience caste-based discrimination despite their many
„successes‟. In the face of this sense of disillusionment, several needs arose for the
Dalit writer. One was a need arose to expose the myth that untouchability was no
longer practiced in modern India, and autobiography institutionalized as a „truth-
telling‟ genre based on the „facts‟ of one‟s life provided an excellent outlet for these
individuals to raise their voices in protest.
Moon portrays the pathetic and miserable condition of the Dalits in terms of
poverty. As a boy, he was left with no other option than to steal a bunch of bananas in
order to gratify his hunger. He gives a moving account:
Now our days of hunger began. We started going hungry for two days
at a time. At first we were troubled by pangs of starvation. However,
once the body gets in [sik] the habit of fasting, hunger is not felt.
Hunger slowly begins to die. With it, the flowing spirit begins to dry
up, free laughter vanishes. We began to put whatever we could get into
our stomachs. While I was coming back from school one day, I started
brooding about what to eat. An idea came to me. An old woman was
selling bananas. I went over and stood in front of her. I asked the price
of the bananas, taking a dozen in my hand. I made a show of taking
money out of my pocket. And seeing that the old woman‟s attention
was elsewhere, I started running. (75)
26
Shantabai Kamble, another noted Dalit writer records her own childhood
experiences quite amply, “I remember those days. When I was in school in the
monsoon there would not be any work for the adults. Mother said to us, „Today we
have nothing for eating, children, let us sleep now on empty-stomach‟.”(Translation
mine) (137)
Ramanathan notes that, "From the psychological point of view, conversion
has divergent effects. When adoption of a new religion provides satisfaction of
material and psychic needs which affiliation to the older religion could not give, it
seems to strengthen faith, and consequently, identity" (Ramanathan 65). The largest
number of Gujarati dalit authors is from the vankar community of which some are
Christians. At this point it must be noted that Christian dalit authors map their literary
worlds as pre-Christian, Hindu ones.
Another need resulted from the paradox these writers experiences at being
continually oppressed and obstructed in the own lives by their caste identity, while at
the same time feeling significantly distanced from their caste community which they
had left behind in the village. Thus, autobiography also serves this second purpose of
re-establishing a link between the middle class Dalit individual and his community
through the process of narrating his life with a focus on his Dalit identity.
Dalit autobiographies like the autobiographies of other marginalized groups
are the outcome of the difficult struggle the Dalit writers face to gain the right to
27
speak. The „right‟ or „ability‟ of the marginalized group to write literature comes
under immediate contestation, and Dalit writers have likewise been forced to fight for
the right to speak as well as to redefine the boundaries of what can be said. Dalit
writers have attempted to negotiate this challenge of securing narrative authority by
emphasizing the „experience of discrimination‟ and „Dalit identity‟ as two necessary
criteria for both writing and criticizing Dalit autobiography. Phrases such as “only he
or she who has suffered this anguish knows its sting” clearly delineate narrative
authority for the Dalit writer. Autobiography is an especially valued form of Dalit
literature since unlike poems, novels or short-stories, it can only be written by a Dalit.
It is through the politics of identity that Dalits have—at least for the genre of
autobiography—successfully re-negotiated narrative authority since the nature of
autobiography itself means that Dalit identity confers on the autobiographer a kind of
uncontestable authority to speak. Dalit autobiographers also negotiate the issue of
authority to represent the Dalit community by presenting their autobiography not as a
result of their desire for personal recognition, but as a response to the pleas from
the Dalit community for representation.
Dalit autobiographies are not simply the narration of a Dalit‟s life-story. They
are also used as a means of political assertion. These autobiographies serve as a
dissident space within the literary public in which the Dalit writer can speak out
against untouchability and contest the institutional narrative that caste no longer
functions as a social force in modern India. They are the result of the process of „self-
emancipation‟ in the creation of a „dissident space‟ within the public sphere.
28
Dalit autobiographies also serve as means for Dalit writers to reclaim
narrative authority over the construction of the „Dalit self‟. Dalit autobiographers „re-
write‟ history that Dalit society is not inferior, as is claimed by the upper castes, but is
„different‟, or „oppressed‟ or „inventive in the face of extreme exploitation‟. Thus,
rather than describing their life as one of „victimhood‟, pain becomes transformed
into a uniting, „enlightening‟ experience in which an assertive Dalit identity is
realized and incites the individual to action and political struggle. Watching their
community continually oppressed by the upper castes, the protagonist of the Dalit
autobiography does not experience his pain „lying down‟, but rather pain incites him
to unite with his community in a fight against caste discrimination. Towards this
effort of strengthening the unity of the Dalit community, these autobiographies serve
as a socio- cultural record of the Dalit community providing alternative meanings to
their social traditions.
The presence of the Dalit voice in the public arena is one of the most
important contributions of Dalit autobiography and it has been a presence long
overdue. Their narrative agenda is to expose the continuation of caste discrimination,
even in modern times, and even in the urban centers of India. It attacks the basis of
this caste discrimination in a variety of ways, but especially through a stable focus on
the „factual‟ recounting of experiences of discrimination. In the autobiographical
form, these „facts‟ become uncontestable truth, since no one knows more about an
individual‟s life experiences than the individual himself.
29
Furthermore, the autobiography serves the additional function of re-affirming
and strengthening the link between the individual Dalit writer and the larger Dalit
community. Through this union comes the „strength in numbers‟ needed to contest
the institutionalized social order of caste in India. An increasing understanding and
awareness of these contributions of Dalit autobiography must also take into account
the cultural and historical processes under which they arose. Dalit autobiography is
considered a form of political assertion for a number of reasons. Besides giving Dalit
entrance into a public space through identity-based narrative authority, autobiography
provides a space for Dalit writers to regain control over the constitution and meaning
of Dalit selfhood and join in a show of strength with the larger „Dalit community‟.