Idioms of Protest and Resistance: Assertion of Subjectivity and Identity Formation in Dalit Writings (original) (raw)

DALIT WRITINGS: RECONSTRUCTING MEMORY FROM THE MARGINS

Dalit writing, embraces the social & cultural functionality of the changing metaphors of 'Caste' in Contemporary India. Caste has continued to slip the collective nationalist(s) memory, where writing from the margins seems to convince the global consequences for all the marginalized groups, around the world, contesting and resisting the varied strategies of domination and discrimination, through the medium of writing across the various disciplines of social sciences. Dalit writing embraces the complexity of the sociology of cultures, even sub-cultural and regional variants dealing with the legacy of Pain and Humiliation, reconsidered for the readerly experiences. The paper strives to examine the role of the marginal writings, bonding the Dalit identity among the various writers across different Indian laguages and regions. The paper also examines the foundational legacy of the humiliation, entrenched in the socio-cultural metaphors, icons of marginalization, and the symbols of Dalit subordination, since scores of centuries. It traces the development of the extraordinary repertoire of stereotypical Caste-idioms across various regional and lingustic Regions, Caste-symbols, and Casteist gestures of verbal and physical denigration of the Dalits over centuries. Dalit writing restructures the mainstream sociological and cultural aesthetics, exploring the constructedness of the negated 'self' of a lived social community. Dalit conciousness in the wake of Contemporary Indian reality, results out of the myriad challenges registered through the modules of the contestations, discourses through the writing by margins, such as translations, literary and cultural approaches, involving the various Indian langauges, restoring the growth of the awakened Dalit conciousness in the post-globalized ambience. Dalit writing, embraces the social & cultural functionality of the element of the changing metaphors of 'Caste' in Contemporary India.

Imagining the Dalit Identity: An Analysis of Narrative Techniques in Select Dalit writing

The Creative Launcher

This paper analyses the narrative techniques of two Dalit texts; an autobiography called Joothan by Omprakash Valmiki and a novel called Koogai: The Owl by Cho. Dharman. Through this analysis, the paper presents an account of the changing socio-political conditions of the Dalits in India after independence. Using the theoretical framework of narratology, the paper argues that the two very different narrative styles present in these two texts are reflective of the respective conditions within which their writers found themselves in and the larger socio-political questions that the Dalit emancipation movement was dealing with during those periods. Another aspect that the paper covers is how these two texts present the inherent conflicts and contradictions within the Dalit identity. It then asks the question whether these contradictions should be flattened to present a more homogeneous conceptualisation of what it means to be a Dalit or whether the identity should be imagined alongside...

Giving Voice to Voiceless: A Study of Dalit Literature

Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research journal, 2014

The term ‘Dalit’ is synonymous with poor, exploited, oppressed and needy people. There is no universally acclaimed concept about the origin of Indian caste system. In every civilized society, there are some types of inequalities that lead to social discrimination. And in India, it comes in the garb of ‘Casteism’. The discourses catering to the gentry tastes did not include the subaltern literary voices of the tribals, Dalits and other minority people. The dalits are deprived of their fundamental rights of education, possession of assets and right to equality. Thus Dalit Literature emerges to voice for all those oppressed, exploited and marginalized communities who endured this social inequality and exploitation for so long. The major concern of Dalit Literature is the emancipation of Dalits from this ageless bondage of slavery. Dalits use their writings as a weapon to vent out their anger against the social hierarchy which is responsible for their degradation. After a so long slumber now, they have become conscious about their identity as a human being. This Dalit consciousness and self-realization about their identity has been centrally focused in various vibrant and multifarious creative writings and is also widely applauded in the works of Mahasweta Devi, Bama, Arjun Dangle, D. Gopi and in many more. The anguish represented by the Dalit writers is not that of an individual but of the whole outcast society. The primary concern of present paper is to show how Dalit writers shatter the silence surrounding the unheard exploitation of Dalits in our country in their writings? And how Dalit Literature has become a vehicle of explosion of these muffled voices. The paper makes an attempt to comprehend the vision and voice of the Dalits and their journey from voiceless and passive objects of history to self-conscious subject. The paper will also make a study of the reasons behind the development of Dalit Literature with its consequences on our society, social condition of Dalit in India and how they write their own history. Keywords: Self-realization, Identity, Exploitation, Caste, Subaltern

DALIT LITERATURE ACTS AS A MANEUVER FOR DALITS PERSPICACITY AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

Studies in Indian Place Names, 2020

India is well-known for its culture and traditions. It is one of the fastest emergent countries in the field of technologies and skills in the universe, yet, it is tarnished for its stubborn prevailing caste system. This paper proposes to examine the persisting socioeconomic condition of Dalits, and how it has been explicated by the Dalit writers through the genre of autobiographies. The study includes the scope of Dalit literature and how commendably they have attempted to achieve in uplifting their community. It discusses in detail, the socio-political experience and how the 'Varna System' functions in India. It also depicts a clear picture of Dalits' struggle for their basic human rights and liberation through autobiographies of eminent Dalit writers like Omprakash Valmiki, Bama, Daya Pawar, Baby Kamble and Urmila Pawar. This paper tries to show how Dalit writers throughout their writings bring to mind an imperative and frequent thematic alarm: a heedful protest against and refusal of the political and cultural supremacy of the caste Hindus. Dalit literature; openly investigates cultures and ideologies from a marginalized position and makes the voiceless to 'voice' on various issues like caste, class, race and gender.

Drumming out oppression, or drumming it in? Identity, culture and contention in dalit politics

In the past decade, there have been an increasing number of academic articles on the dalit drum or parai. For the most part, they note the processes by which this once humiliating caste service has been re-symbolised as an art form and has become central to dalit struggles for liberation. In such articles, there is an easy assumption that the parai is an art that dalits can take pride in. In this article, I problematise such claims by pointing to dissenting voices and campaigns by people who claim that the celebration of the drum merely perpetuates degradation. This raises questions such as who speaks for a community, whether a symbol of oppression can truly become an icon of resistance and how marginalised communities can construct positive identities when their cultural memories and practices are inescapably associated with their subordination.