Contemporary Indian writing can be seen as a
record of the changing Indian society with various social, political, religious
and even technological factors in the background, acting as catalysts. However,
there have always been a few issues in every society including ours which never
received treatment or even mention in the mainstream literary works. The growing
popularity and interest in Dalit literature is an answer to this challenge of
representing the 'unrepresentable' in society. Recently, writers and activists
are opening up for public debates on issues of caste, identity and the politics
of Dalithood, its manifestation and representation in public life and
literature.
The onset of
globalization in India
enabled dalits to raise the issue of discrimination based on caste in
international forums. Dalit activists and intellectuals made out a case for
recognition of caste-based discrimination in India
as being similar to racial discrimination in the west, in the world conference
against Racism on 31st August to 7th September 2001 at Durban, South
Africa. The debates on caste and dalit
rights at the global level gave a new dimension to the struggle against caste
with the emergence of non-governmental organizations and Dalit Diaspora as
representatives of Dalits in India.
The new visibility of Dalits and the debate on caste in the global arena
created a new interest in Dalits and their literature.
The new category
of writing ‘Dalit literature’ has established itself as a new literary movement
in several regions in India
in the last four decades. Arjun dangle
offers a definition of Dalit literature: “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. It matures
with a sociological point of view and is related to the principles of
negativity, rebellion and loyalty to science, thus finally ending as
revolutionary.”1 The literal meaning of the word dalit - is one who has been trampled
under feet or who has been oppressed, exploited, insulted, humiliated and
thrown outside the pale of civic society, i.e., turned into an untouchable,
riff-raff of the society. All those who are born in the Dalit community will not
be considered dalits; we have to stress the category of ‘Dalit’ as a historical
construction. Dalit writing is revolutionary in its aims; the destruction of
the caste system and the establishment of equality in the social and political
spheres. Dalit critics and writers have raised a number of critical questions
about Indian literature and Indian literary history. They identified two of the
important functions of Dalit writing. Firstly, Dalit writing attempts to
deconstruct ‘the dominant, castiest constructions of India identity’ and secondly’ it
constructs a distinct Dalit identity.’ Dalit writing presents a dalit centric
view of life and constructs Dalit identity in relation to Colonial identity and
Indian identity.
The Outcaste
(Akkarmashi) is the firsthand experience of Sharankumar Limbale, a
well-known Dalit activist, author, editor, and a critic. Limbale has lied his
hand successfully at several literary genres and has to his credit more than
twenty four books. Sharankumar, who was once engaged in seeking in vain
visibility in Indian society and culture, shot into international prominence
with his emotionally violent and noisy autobiography, The Outcaste, after
its publication in English. In the acknowledgements to the contemporary
classic, Limbale asserts: "My history is my mother's life, at the most my
grandmother's. My ancestry doesn't go back any further" (ix).This suggests
that due to his being "half-caste growing up in the Mahar community,"
he limits himself to the ancestry of his mother and grandmother. Sharankumar,
the protagonist of the novel, is born to an untouchable mother and a high-caste
father, the caste which is one of the privileged classes of India. Limbale brings
forth this rift between the two castes at the very outset: "My mother lives
in a hut, father in a mansion. Father is a landlord; mother landless. "My
father had privileges by virtue of his birth granted to him by the caste
system"(ix). These experiences of the protagonist show that the hegemonic
dominance is still widespread in Indian society. Limbale expresses his anguish
against all the repression prevalent in Indian society. Projecting his mother
as the victim of the social and economic system, he questions: "Had she
(Limbale's mother) been born into the high caste or were she rich, would she
have submitted to his (Limbale's father) appropriation of her?"(ix). An
acknowledged masterpiece, The Outcaste is written in the dialect of
Mahar community of Maharashtra. It is a
first-person narrative that gives the numbing account of the humiliation of the
community at the hands of an unthinking privileged class. Sharan is haunted by
the question of his fractured identity and asks himself: "Am I an upper
caste or an untouchable?" (ix). The Out caste is a bitter critique
of the lack of compassion that the lower castes have endured for centuries. The
search for identity in this autobiography is not the identity of an individual
but the identity of the Dalit community as a whole. Silenced by generations of
prejudice and oppression, Dalits expressed their outcry in a wave of writing -
poetry, fiction and autobiography that
provided critical insights on the question of their identity. The oppression,
suppression, depression, segregation and marginalization have given Dalits
power and strength to express their cry for humanity. In the words of Janardhan
Waghmare: "Emergence of Dalit literature has a great historical
significance in India.
It is generic in the sense that all other marginalized and oppressed groups of
people are under its sway and sweep. It has struck a keynote awakening their
consciousness of their identities" (Waghmare 22). However, it will not be
out of place to mention that Dalit literature has not yet been recognized by
the traditional readers and critics too. But it has given rise to Dalit
poetics. If we want to criticize Dalit literature, we need a new aesthetics
that takes into account the differences of Dalit writing in content as well as
form. To recognize the aesthetic value of Dalit literature, freedom has to be
considered, the freedom of expression that the Dalit writers are using. Limbale
proposes the standards of evaluation of Dalit literature. The critics of Dalit
literature should take into consideration the intensity of experience of
Dalits, the way the experience is socialized, and its power to cross the
boundaries of time and space. Attention must be paid to Sharad Patil's
book Abrahmani Sahifyache Saundaryashastra in Marathi when we talk of
aesthetics in Dalit literature. This book launched an attack on Brahmin aesthetics.
In it Patil has asserted the need for a counter poetics. In Towards an
Aesthetics of Dalit Literature, Limbale has attempted a critique of
status-quoist Marathi aesthetics as also of adultery as well as negative
criticism of Dalit literature by the Savarna critics. He affirms that
Dalit literature is not meant for entertainment of the readers but to provoke
them into rethinking their society and its ethics and aesthetics. The
Outcaste is a true milestone that publicized the Dalit cause. The Marathi
version of Limbale's autobiography has gone through four editions till date.
Translated into several Indian languages, it has attracted the attention of all
who are interested in subaltern studies. It is appallingly the candid story of
the protagonist's childhood experiences and growth as an unidentified person in
Indian society. Limbale says: "My father and his forefathers were
Lingayat. Therefore I am one too. My mother was Mahar, my mother's father and
forefathers were Mahar, hence I am also
a Mahar. From the day I was born until today, I was brought up by my
grandfather Mahmood Dastagir Jamadar. My grandfather lives with my grandmother,
Santamai. Does this mean I am Muslim as well?" (38). On account of a
fractured identity, he does not know to what caste and community he belongs.
And the reason for this is also obvious as he is born from a Lingayat (a caste
in Maharashtra) father and Mahar mother but he
lives with his grandmother under the fatherly loving hand of a Muslim. So he
feels that why should Jamadar, who showed him fatherly love and affection, not
claim him as Muslim. He further says, "How can I be high caste when my
mother is untouchable? If I am untouchable, what about my father who is high
caste? I am like Jarasandh. Half of me belongs to the village, where the other
half is excommunicated. Who am I? To whom is my umbilical
connected?"(38-39). Sharankumar, the protagonist, knows his father well
but he doesn't get his father's name. Even the Sarpanch was not ready to sign
the form of Sharan as the Sarpanch was in a real fix about how to identify
Sharan. Moreover the Sarpanch was in favor of Hanmanta Limbale and was
concerned about the latter's prestige. So Sharan feels, "What else did I
have except a human body? But a man is recognized in this world by his religion
or caste of his father. I had neither a father's name, nor a caste. I had no
inherited identity at all"(59). The autobiography tells us the story of
the pitiable conditions of Dalits in India. Dalit literature is the cry
for humanity. Dalits want emancipation from all kinds of injustice, depression,
oppression, suppression, marginalization, and subjugation. They hope for
elimination of caste discrimination. This is in essence the content of The
Out caste. Aware of the cry of Dalits in general as victims of Indian
society with no identity as human beings, Limbale enters into the realm of
philosophy of poverty and says, "Bhakari is as large as man. It is as vast
as the sky, and bright like the sun. Hunger is bigger than man. Hunger is more
vast than seven circles of hell. Man is only as big as a bhakari, and only as
big as hunger. Hunger is more powerful than man. A single stomach is like the
whole earth. Hunger seems no bigger than your palm, but it can swallow the
whole world and let out a belch"(50). This evidently shows that man has
been made slave of hunger and he has been in search of food to satisfy his
hunger, the root of several disasters. Limbale asserts: "there would have
been no wars if there was no hunger. What about stealing and fighting? If there
was no hunger what would have happened to sin and virtue, heaven and hell, this
creation of God? If there was no hunger how could a country, its borders,
citizens, parliament, Constitution come into being? The world is born from a
stomach and also the links between mother and father, sister and brother"
(50-51). Limbale indicts the society categorized on the basis of caste, creed,
language and religion. The life story of Limbale presents his attitudes towards
women folk too. There are a number of woman characters in his autobiography,
none without serious complication in her life. The exploitation of womenfolk in
the autobiography does not remain isolated to a single woman but it takes the
form of a type representing widows, childless women, exploited and deserted
women. Limbale views his own mother as the victim of discrimination and
poverty. The author does not have any tone of pity for the women portrayed in
the autobiography. He shows a remarkable understanding of the situation of these
women who have been crushed under their plight in their life.
Finally, in
conclusion, it may be said that The Outcaste is the cry for liberation
of humanity. It is the search for identity neither of a man, nor of a woman but
an incessant quest for the liberation of humanity from all kinds of repression.
WORKS CITED
1. Alok
Mukherjee, “Reading Sharan Kumar
Limbale’s Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit
Literature: From Erasure to Assertion” in Sharan Kumar Limbale, Towards an
Aesthetic of Dalit Literature. Trans. From the Marathi by Alok
Mukherjee, Hyderabad:
Orient Longman, 2004.
2. Arjun Dangle, Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature, Hyderabad, Orient
Longman, 1992.
3. Limbale,
Sharankumar. The Out caste. Translated by Santosh Bhoomkar. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2008.
4. Limbale,
Sharankumar. Towards An Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and
Considerations. New
Delhi: Orient Longman, 2004.
5. Mukherjee,
Arun Prabha , A Note by the Translator
in “Joothan: A Dalit’s Life”.
Kolkata: Samya Publications Ltd India,2004.
6. S.Anand, Touchable Tales: Publishing and Reading
Dalit Literature, Pondicherry,
Navayana, 2003.
7. Valmiki,
Omprakash “Joothan” Trans. Arun Prabha
Mukherjee. “Joothan: A Dalit’s Life”. Kolkata: Samya Publications
Ltd. India,
2003.
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