Dalit Literature and Cultutre

Poetry The poem by Meena Kandasamy that deals with the sham created by the “father of the nation” particularly struck a chord with me as it instantly reminded me of two things. Firstly, I was reminded of the Kancha Illaiah piece where he specifically talks about how the Marwadi community helped him financially after which he started telling “harijans” not to eat beef and the Marwadi community promoted the Gau-rakshak ideology. This clearly shows the Mahatma wasn’t as righteous as he claimed or was believed to be, therefore all what he said wasn’t for the benefit for the Dalits as he didn’t particularly have their best interests in mind. Secondly, no matter how revered a person is, this poem gives one the courage to speak up. Find one’s voice and speak the truth, to speak against injustices and cruelties done by people who are believed to be true and honest by the masses. The second point resonates with todays era as the BJP, hides under the garb of religion, sways the upper caste ...

The Power of Poor People’s Laughter (The Flaming Feet and Other Essays- D.R Nagraj) D.r Nagraj begins the chapter by stating"To the adage that man does not live by bread alone, a counter-adage was created; no man who can live without bread has been yet born."  He continues by saying that poor are condemned to eternal begging and this chapter is a mere historical survey of positions taken by the authors imagination with regard to the poor. He compares several autobiographies of Dalit authors in order to give his analysis of how caste, colony, village, and individual personality combine to produce these grand narratives. He attempts to make his readers aware that autobiographies are ideological creations: for example, he discusses a book called Marali Mannige. The theme of this novel dealt with the impoverished life of his people, however the author highlights that they are more than accounts of his life they are creative and include imagination despite being auto-biog...

GANDHI AND THE DALIT QUESTION This piece along with the  Meena Kandasamy's Mohandas Karamchand, is a very interesting and angry verse. The former piece divides the Dalit question into two sectors, Marxist and the ambedkarite approach which proposes to adopt the Gandhian School for a wholesome approach.  The Marxist school reduced the caste problem to that of agrarian labor reforms and ownership of means without actually addressing the problems of  untouchability,  inequality, Brahmanical patriarchy. Their mere focus around land made every other problem seem like a grain.  This approach is more of a militant approach which brings young angry Dalits together in the movement. The issue with this approach lies in the fact that it doesn't solve the problem of breaking the caste hierarchy from its roots though it reduced the incidents of violence. The Gandhian approach focuses on maintaining a cooperative stance. The latter piece criticizing Gandhi of his wilful ...

Reflection Paper 9 Dalit Visibility on Screen  One of the most thought provoking documentaries I’ve watched, which have left an imprint on my mind in some way of the other is “Ram ke Naam”. The same was shown to us in our first year of law school, and in all honesty I had perhaps never given that much thought to the majoritarian politics of our country, which also speaks about my own caste and class privileges. My perceptions and compression from when I watched ‘Ram ke Naam’ the and from watching ‘Reason’ now have changed quite a bit which is why I believe I was able to get a better grasp of the scenario and gravity surrounding these two documentaries, allowing me to understand even clearly the depiction of caste and religion based atrocities. One thing that struck out the most has been involvement of the ‘Sanatan’ organisation owing to my personal experience with them and having seeing the hate politics they perpetuate under the garb of ‘lectures’ and ‘conferences’. ...

The chapter on Gandhi and the Dalit Question was an interesting read. It had divided the dalit question as per the approach carried out by two sects- the Marxists's approach (land) and the value approach. The marxist's view of dalit issue as a land question had made me relate to the Teltumde's chapter on Naxalism and the Dalit Connection. It is indeed true that the early naxal movements had a strong dalit presence in Telangana and Bihar. The oppression of land labourers by the feudal lords had a strong presence in Indian history. However it's quite unfortunate and disturbing that the tag of Naxal is used on almost all dalits by the police forces in today's times in order to inflict violence on them.  This brings us to the next aspect of the reading, which was the Ambedkerite approach. This approach is more of a militant approach which brings young angry Dalits together in the movement. However, the reading had pointed out the downsides to the ambedkarite appr...

                                                     Weekly Summary 12  The poem by Sukirtha Rani “I speak Bluntly” tells a tale of embarrassment, hardship and what seems like a fixed reality. It is poem of a child who is eating dead cows and leftovers of uppercaste which is a common occurrence and practice of the Dalit community due to poverty and in access to food and other resources. The poem also talks about the shame of occupation of the father that the child feels and hides from but with time embraces her caste and the hardship that comes with it. This is the tale of millions in India who belong to the Dalit community where their days are soaked in shame and humiliation at the expense of upper caste for a caste they were born into. This sense of helplessness is born and can only be erased with the death of the caste system. The other p...