Malavika Prasanna - Week 5
RESPONSE PAPER
Reading Title: A brief
history of the Dalit memoir
Submission Number: 4/10
‘A Brief History of the Dalit
Memoir’ seems, on the face of it, to be a plain discussion of the emergence of
Dalit Literature. But the piece makes several notable observations regarding
the rupture brought about by Dalit memoirs.
The first and most striking
observation, as I personally believe it to be, is the assertion that Dalit self-stories
can be positive as well. The ordinary anticipation of a sad and touching
personal story is possibly challenged through the positive reclamation of the
literary space through a Dalit autobiography. This assertion does not, in any
sense, take away from the common thread of painful or harsh life narratives of
the oppressed castes. In fact, it has to be conceded that most autobiographies
of Dalit authors are narratives of pain.[1]
The second most poignant observation
is made by historian Gyanendra Pandey, when he says that Dalit poetry is the
poetry of protest and Dalit literature is the literature of resistance. Dalit
writing surfaced in the context of political, cultural and intellectual
oppression at the hands of Brahmins. Dalit Literature emerged as a challenge to
the hegemonic claim that Brahmins and other upper castes wielded, and continue
to wield, over the intellectual and literary space.
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