Aishwarya Ramkumar- Week 5


DALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

Dalit autobiographies are referred to as narratives of pain. This is perhaps because while autobiographers usually take to praising themself in their own story, the Dalit autobiographer talks about his struggle owing to the harsh, discriminating and oppressive society. The educated Dalit writer uses her words as her form of resistance against society and its people who deny her basic rights. Manoranjan Byapari, for instance, discusses how he was lost, poverty-stricken and unemployed. However, he used his words to contribute to literature and made his story heard.
These autobiographies serve two purposes, one towards the identity of the Dalit writer and secondly towards a memoir of literature. By writing about their experiences, Dalit writers claim title over their identity and validate their struggle and experience, simultaneously contributing to books and poetry that can be accessed by others, for awareness or otherwise.
With more Dalit writers writing autobiographies, female writers took to the same as well. This presented the double oppressive intersection of caste and gender and outlined the life and experience of a Dalit woman. This helps trace an interesting aspect of identity politics, wherein one is in a dilemma as to which aspect of one's identity must be related to. For instance, Urmila Pawar talks about a double bind where outsiders discriminate against her owing to her caste, while her family discriminates against her because of her gender (by isolating her during her menstruation).
These autobiographies, therefore, offer to us, a first-hand account of the lives of Dalits through their own voice and narrative. 

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