The Journey of the ‘I’ into a Discourse of the ‘We’- Transformation of the Individual into the Collective: A Study of Select Dalit Autobiographical Texts
Abstract:
The term “Dalit Literature” was first used at the first conference of Maharastrea Dalit Sahitya Sangha in 1958. Arjun Dangle traces the origin of modern Dalit literature to Ambedkar. His (Ambedkar’s) revolutionary ideas stirred into action all the Dalits of Maharastra and gave them a new self-respect. Dalit literature is nothing but the literary expression of this awareness (qtd. in Limbale 2). Dalit literature is the literature which portrays the Dalits and their sorrows, slavery, tribulations, poverty and so on. This literature is, in a word, a pathetic image of grief. There is a question whether the subaltern can speak as the marginalised voice are silenced and kept mute by the centre. The answer is that the centre can control the voice of the subaltern for a fixed time but they are unable to continue silencing them forever. It must burst out. The genesis of Dalit literature thus lies in the voice of the subaltern. Dalit writers theorizing about the need, role, content and form of Dalit literature constitutes their answer to Gayatri Chakrabarty Spivak’s now-famous question, ‘Can the subaltern speak?’(Limabale 20). The autobiographies written by Dalit writers Like Sharan Kumar Limbale, Omprakash Valmiki and others are polyphonic texts about the hardships, sufferings, exploitation and humiliation meted out to the lives of a group of subaltern people namely the communities like the Mahar, The Chuhare, the Namasudras and so on.
Key Words: Subaltern, Dalit, Mahar, Chuhra, Namasudras, Micronarrative, Alternative History.
The concept of Dalit is an outcome of the system of caste in India. Dalit forms a new identity of the people who were considered untouchables earlier as untouchability was done away with in 1950 when Indian constitution came into practice however, the reality is quite different from the legal and constitutional announcement. Even in the 21st century untouchability exists in Indian society in different disguised forms. Thus, we may say Dalit is a term associated with political concept of asserting untouchable people’s desire of possessing a new political identity. Before going to shed light on the word ‘Dalit’, the origin of caste system in Indian society should be looked back. Regarding the origin of castes in India there are two opinions among the scholars which are contrary to each other. The first is historians’ view and the second is brahminical view. According to historian’s view the source of caste system lies in invasion of India by the Aryans and its subsequent social oppression the native people subjected to. The brahmanical view which is mainly mythological religious theory is based on Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda. Here caste is seen as divine sanction. One point is interesting that both the theories depend on post-Vedic literature for internal evidences to establish the validity of their theories.
To search the etymology of the word ‘Dalit’ we will find that it had a connection with the Sanskrit root word ‘dal’ meaning to crack, split, be broken or torn asunder, trodden down, scattered, crushed, destroyed etc in the words of A.P. Nirmal, the Dalits are: 1, the broken, the torn, the rent, the burst, the split; 2, the opened, the expanded; 3,the bisected; 4. the driven asunder, the dispelled, the scattered; 5,the downtrodden, the crushed, the destroyed and 6 the manifested, the displayed”( Nirmal 139).The untouchable section in the caste based society are described over the years as outcastes, ati-sudras, exterior castes, depressed classes, harijan, schedule caste and so on. These terms used by the upper-castes, government officials and social reformers considered by the Dalits to be abusive and derogatory in nature. For this reason, people of this section have entitled themselves as Dalits which is inclusive of all oppression relating to caste, class, ethnicity, language, religion or gender. Eleanor Zelliot writes:
“The Marathi word Dalit like the word Black was chosen by the group itself.... Dalit implies those who have been broken, ground down by those above them in a deliberate and active way. There is in the word itself an inherent denial of pollution, karma and justified hierarchy” (267).
Dalit literature is the literature which portrays the Dalits and their sorrows, slavery, tribulations, poverty and so on. This literature is, in a word, a pathetic image of grief. Every human being long for honour, liberty, security being free from the domination of powerful authority of the society. These values, according to Sharan Kumar Limbale, are now being expressed in the Dali literature. He also writes, “Recognizing the centrality of the human being, this literature is thoroughly saturated with humanity’s joys and sorrows. It regards human beings as supreme, and leads them towards total revolution” (Limbale30).
History of Indian Dalit literature may be traced back to the writings of Madara Chennaiah, an 11th century cobbler-saint who is regarded as “father of Vachana poetry”. According to another opinion dalit literature has its origin in Buddhist literature; Dalit Bhakti poets like Gora, Raidas, Chokha Mela and Karmamela; Tamil Siddhas or Chittars. However, Indian dalit literature finds its impetus in Maharastra. Baburao Bagul was the pioneer in this respect. His collection of stories in translation entitled as ‘When I Had Concealed My Caste’ (1963) brought a momentum to Dalit literature. The term “Dalit Literature” was first used at the first conference of Maharastrea Dalit Sahitya Sangha in 1958.Arjun Dangle traces the origin of modern Dalit literature to Ambedkar. His revolutionary ideas stirred into action all the Dalits of Maharastra and gave them a new self-respect. Dalit literature is nothing but the literary expression of this awareness (Limbale 2).
Ambedkar, no doubt brought the renaissance in Dalit literature and Dalit movement through his writings and activities. He had set up the Bombay People’s Society in 1945 and a college named Siddarth College with the object of opening a new vista for the Dalits and educating them. His clarion call to the Dalits ‘educate, unite and agitate’ inspired the Dalit masses. Under the impetus of Ambedkar, the educated Dalit youths tried to give vent their Dalit sentiments in writing. The graduates of Siddarth College established Sidarth Sahitya Sangh which was later renamed as Maharastra Dalit Sahitya Sangh. It was not easy for them to run a literary tradition because the savarna editors or publishers were not interested in publishing the works of the Dalit writers. But this obstacle could not curb their spirit. They planned to organize the first Dalit writers’ conference in the year 1956 under the patronage of Ambedkar. But Ambedkar’s death on December6, 1956 gave a jolt to the Dalit movement and literary tradition. Soon they got recovered from the shock of Ambedkar’s death. They organized the first Dalit Writers’ conference in Bombay in 1958. The Dalit writers or activists who were present in the conference were unanimous about the bringing of all their writing under the umbrella of Dalit literature. Resolution No. 5 of the conference says that the literature written by the Dalits and that written by others about the Dalits in Marathi be accepted as a separate entity known as Dalit literature and realizing its cultural importance, the universities and literary organizations should give it its proper place (Kumar 57). After that, Dalit Panther movement started in 1972. The Dalit Panther’s objective of social reconstruction was carried forward by Dalit activists and writers through their speeches and writings. Thus, modern Dalit Literature came into existence in early 1970s and subsequently spread all over India.
Sharan Kumar Limbale is a prominent Dalit writer and critic. He formulates a new set of yard sticks to analyze Dalit literature. This yard stick is the Dalit ‘aesthetic’. He writes, “By Dalit literature, I mean writing about Dalits by Dalit writers with a Dalit consciousness, and its purpose is obvious: to inform Dalit society of its slavery, and narrate its pain and suffering to upper caste Hindus” (Limbale 19). Acording to Limbale Dalit literature springs from Dalit consciousness but this consciousness is different from other writers’ consciousness. Then, what is Dalit consciousness? It is actually a kind of mentality associated with protest and struggle and rebellion against the Varna system. Human being is its main focus. This consciousness finds its inspiration from Ambedkarite thought.
Investigation into subaltern question in Indian context involves Dalit issues as “the political unconscious of Indian society.”(Rao xiii). Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist, wrote Prison Notebooks while he was in prison for opposing the political view of the fascist Mussolini. He coined the term ‘Subaltern’ to mean the class which remained excluded from performing a valuable role in the centre of power that dominates over them. The subaltern does not possess the free place from where they can express their voice. This happens simply because the hegemony compels them to believe in the dominating values. This type of exploitation robs of the essence of the lives of poor Dalits and Dalit women. The Sharan Kumar Limbale notes: “Every time the dominant classes attack and exploit the weak, they violet their women. The sexual exploits of the men among the wicked exploiters draw legitimacy from their authority, wealth, society, culture and religion” (Limbale, xxiv).
There is a question whether the subaltern can speak as the marginalised voice are silenced and kept mute by the centre. The answer is that the centre can control the voice of the subaltern for a fixed time but they are unable to continue silencing them forever. It must burst out. Suvasis Das writes,
discovery of the self and the realisation of their own voice empowered them to question the hegemony of caste and power in their life of perpetual subordination and oppression. Their new voice is no longer the voice of the meek, subordinate creature, but is full of revolt, artistic creativity and above all subaltern pride (Das 2).
The genesis of Dalit literature thus lies in the voice of the subaltern. Dalit writers theorizing about the need, role, content and form of Dalit literature constitutes their answer to Gayatri Chakrabarty Spivak’s now-famous question, ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ (Limabale20).
Autobiographies by Dalit authors are quite different from the autobiographies written by mainstream authors as the former have a counter- canonical dimension where a single expression covers a multidimensional space. Dalit autobiographies are significant in the sense that they give a shape and separate identity to Dalit literature and formulate an alternative yard stick to the traditional concepts. Balbir Madhupuri says, “The naked truth is also that the Dalit literature, while keeping themselves in the centre stage of their autobiographies, projected more prominently the social, religious and economic conditions of their entire Dalit community” (Madhopuri, forward15). The Dalit autobiographies do not use the sugared language of the upper caste writers but they use the colloquial language of everyday use to portray the inhuman situations the Dalits fallen into. The autobiographies are the pivot round which centres the Dalit condition of entire community. The Dalits who have not found a voice till now are articulated in the self-narratives with all their struggles and sufferings. Dr. Arpita Chattaraj said in a seminar held in 2011, “The Dalit life narrative emerges is a form that seeks to mediate the position of a ‘Dalit’ vis-a-vis his society, thus transforming the journey of the ‘I (that is central to autobiographical writing) into a discourse of the ‘we’- a transformation of the individual into the collective” (qtd. in Biswas 62).
Sharan Kumar Limbale is a Dalit poet and critic who wrote in Marathi. Among more than forty books authored by him, his autobiographical novel Akkarmahi is remarkable. English translation of it, The Outcast, was published in 2003. In Marathi Akkarmashi means one whose birth is illegitimate and hence he is an outcast or impure. In the eye of society Limbale is an Akkarmashi because he was an illegitimate child of an untouchable mother and a higher caste father. The author was born with and lived with a burden of inferiority which is narrated in this autobiography (Limblae XX). He says: “My mother is an untouchable, while my father is a high caste from one of the privileged classes of India. Mother lives in a hut; father in a mansion. Father is a landlord; mother landless. I am an akkarmashi. I am condemned, branded illegitimate” (Limbale IX).
The autobiographical novel is a polyphonic text about the hardships, sufferings, exploitation and humiliation meted out to the lives of a group of subaltern people- the Mahar community. Hunger is the first challenge faced by little Limbale as well as thousands of Dalit children from his community. The author recollects in tearful eyes how the denial of the basic needs like food lead these underprivileged people to tread a wrong path: “God endowed man with a stomach. Since then, man has been striving to satisfy his stomach. Filling even one stomach proved difficult for him. He began to live with a half-filled one. He survived by swallowing his own saliva. He went for days without eating anything. He started selling himself for his stomach. A woman becomes a whore and a man a thief. The stomach makes you clean shit; it even makes you eat shit” (Limbale 8).
Hunger was rampant among the Dalits and took an alarming form to make them the victims of ‘politics of hunger’ (Rathee 62). The half-fed and under-fed Dalits had to live on the leftovers collected from the household of the upper caste. They relished those like nectar. Dr. Manjeet Rathee writes:
“The fire of hunger and its socio-cultural ramifications further add fuel to it and make him so helpless that he had no experience of any kind of life ‘beyond bread’ and ‘beyond hunger’ till he got his job after completing his education. The writer had entered the college with ‘seventy generations of utter poverty behind him and it is this deep accumulative pain of ‘detestable poverty’ that makes the burden of inferiority so difficult to handle” (Rathee 67).
The author recollects the memory of childhood of swallowing his own saliva while waiting in some social gatherings for his turn to come towards the end of the feast. The Dalits did so by sacrificing dignity and honour for the sake of stomach. What is worse is that sometime they had to feed on Bhakari made from the jawar collected out of cow dung.
Akkarmashi is written as a meta-realistic document of sufferings undergone by the author as a member of Mahar community and this may be applicable to any individual of that community. Unlike the autobiographies written by the main stream authors, Limbale has not written his autobiography to eulogize his self. This book is about the life which is worse incomparable with that of an animal. Akkarmashi is representative in nature in that senses that it includes all Dalits of his community whose lives are shattered and impoverished in a caste-ridden society. Though the author himself is the central figure, his individual identity merges with the thousands of Mahars. There is a shift from ‘I’ to ‘We’- from individual to collective. “The experiences of exclusions of both the self and community are the creative and critical sources used to create testimonies of caste-based oppression, anti-caste struggles and resistance offering a distinct world view” (Rege 14).
Omprakash Valmiki belonged to Chuhra community which is considered to be the lowest among the Dalits. In his native village of Barla in Uttar Pradesh the author had seen how this community is exploited by the upper caste people like Tyagi Brahmins. They had to sweep the roads, clean the cattle barns, wipe the floor, remove the dead animals and do other menial works. Being poor, untouchable and powerless, they easily become the victim of upper caste people’s insult and torture. Now and then they were abused and they were called as ‘oye chuhre’ or ‘abey chuhre’ which is much humiliating to them. Their condition was such that they: “Didn’t manage to get two decent meals a day, not the least because they often didn’t get paid for their labour and instead got sworn at and abused” (Valmiki 24).
Joothan:
A Dalit’s Life is an authentic and first-hand document of the suffering of the Chuhra community which constitutes the lowest strata of the hierarchical order of castiest society. Exploitation, misery, social invisibility, humiliation they suffered in the post-independent India are recorded here realistically. The author’s recollection of the events of caste discrimination is not confined to self alone. Rather, his self is merged with the entire community while he recollects: “Untouchability was so rampant that while it was considered all right to touch dogs and cats or cows and buffaloes, if one happens end to touch a Chuhra, one got contaminated or polluted. The Chuhras were not seen as human” (Valmiki 2).
Joothan gives vent to those bitter experiences of Chuhra community that does not find a representation in mainstream writing. Valmiki’s physical and mental agony resulting from his birth in a Chuhra family, his struggle to become a speaking subject and the suffering and exploitation he met not only as an individual but also as a representative of the stigmatised community have made Joothan a valuable document of Chuhra’s life struggle. In Hindi ‘joothan’ means scraps of food left on a dish after eating which are either given to animals or thrown into the garbage pail. However, English words, leftover or leaving are not a substitute for joothan. The leftover becomes joothan when it is eaten by someone other than the original eater. Out of sheer poverty, people from Dalit community relished joothan like nectar. So, the title, Joothan, is indicative of pain, poverty and suffering of Valmiki’s community.
Under the impetus of Dr. Ambedkar, dalit literature flourished as an organised voice in Maharastra. Gradually the tradition of Dalit writing spread to the states like Gujrat, Tamilnadu, and Karnataka. Later Dalit writing and Dalit movement reached the shore of Bengal. However, trace of Dalit wrting is centuries old in Bengal. Authors like Manohar Mouli Biswas think Charjapadas, composed by Shabaripada to be an instance of Dalit writing. Another Dalit author Manoranjan Byapari mentions Matua literature under the teaching of Namasudra social reformers Harichand Thakur and Guruchand Thakur as the fountain source of dalit writing in Bengal. However, the Dalit writing appears as a literary genre from the 1990s. Dalit Panther Literary Movement of Maharastra greatly influenced the tradition of Dalit writing in Bengal. The year 1992 is a milestone in the history of Bengali Dalit writing because the Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha was set up in this year with keeping in mind publishing Dalit literature, holding conferences and promoting dalit culture.
In Bengali Dalit literature the Namasudra authors and poets play a significant role “to counter the total social exclusion of the dalits, their movements, icons, experiences and worldview” (Kumar 124, quoted in Biswas, XXVI). According to Manohar Mouli Biswas, “It is a counter cultural movement that has been aiming to undo the age-old caste ridden oppressions against the dalits by representing their lives, deprivations, struggles, histories and promoting their culture and liberation through literature” (Biswas XXV). Manohar Mouli Biswas took a great initiative to establish the Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha and he is the president of this organization. He was one of the leading activists and literary exponent of Dalit writing in India. He descended from a family of small agriculturists living in a marginal village in the Khulna district of the then East Bengal. He grew up among wrestling poverty, starvation, upper caste hegemony, caste discrimination and sigma of his being an untouchable Namasudra. Side by side Biswas practises their customs, participates in their occupation contributes in their economy and experiences their cultural richness. His deep attachment to his communities’ struggle for survival, his suffocation in a hegemonic social order, his love for his own culture and his commitment to his community make him a literary activist for the empowerment of the dalits. As Dalit activists he has been writing for the cause of Dalits and arranging activities for the Sanstha since 1967.
Of late a number of autobiographies have been written and published in Hindi, Kannada, Marathi and Bengali across the country and some of them have been translated into English. They help us to reach the new vista crowded with the inner experiences of the Dalits and their suppressed pains which were so long inaccessible through the mainstream literature or conventional archives. Biswas writes his autobiography Amar Bhubane Ami Benche Thaki which is translated by Angana Dutta and Jaydeep sarangi as Surviving in My World. His autobiography is an instrument with which he fights for the dalits against the Centre. With this the author has brought into focus the untold stories of the Dalit Namasudras, their culture and deprivations, strengths and struggles so that the mainstream readers get introduced with them. In this respect the remark of Kalyan Das may be mentioned, “The land where dalit writers have different political, ideological allegiances; where internalized casteism still makes its presence felt; where “caste”/ “identity” consciousness engulfs the larger ideological maneuver of Dalit cultural politics... Biswas never forgets to ring the bell..... (He) bears the guiding torch that crates a platform where Dalits of all kinds find a place” (Qtd. in Biswas, XXVI).
In Bengali Dalit literature the Namasudra authors and poets play a significant role “to counter the total social exclusion of the dalits, their movements, icons, experiences and worldview.”(Qtd. in Biswas). Of late a number of autobiographies and memoirs have been written and published in Bengali by Dalit Namasudra author and some of them have been translated into English. They help us to reach the new vista crowded with the inner experiences of the Dalit Namasudras and their suppressed pains which were so long inaccessible through the mainstream literature or conventional archives and text books of history.Among them mentionable are Manohar Mouli Biswas’s Amar Bhubane Ami Benche Thaki translated as Surviving in My World, Manoranjan Byapari’s Itibritte Chandal Jiban translated as Interrogating My Chandal Life, Dr. Manoranjan Sarkar’s Ekjan Daliter Atmakatha, Jatin Bala’s Sikar Chenra Jiban and so on.
Manohar Mouli Biswas is a Dalit bilingual writer and activist of Bengal. His creative oeuvre pervades all genres- poetry, short story, fiction and criticism. Apart from this creative genius he has a valuable contribution to formulate critical theory and aesthetics of Bengali Dalit literature. As a historian of Bengali Dalit activism, he produced vast archival material without referring to which it is difficult to research on Dalit literature of Bengal. He is like a banyan tree under whose shadow grows and flourishes Dalit movement, Dalit creative, editorial and critical works. Biswas has to his credit a thick volume of critical discourse in which he has projected Dalit histography and theorized the aesthetic of Dalit literature in Bengali. His critical essays and theories have a counter-canonical dimension with an interpretation of radical aesthetics. His ideas regarding these issues are elaborated in these volumes- Dali Sahityer Digboloy(Direction and Dimension of Dalit Literature,1992) Yuktibadi Bharatvarsha :Ekti Aitijyer Sandhane (Rational India: In Quest of a Tradition,2008), Vinno Chokhe Prabandamala (Essays from Different Angle’2003), Dalit Sahityer Ruprekha( Outline of Dalit Literature,2007). His highly acclaimed collection of critical essays is published in English translation under the title An Interpretation of Dalit Literature: Aesthetic, Theory and Movements: Through the Lens of Ambedkarism (2017). He is also the editor of an English Literary journal named Dalit Mirror which caters to the taste of the readers interested in Dalit writings.
Biswas wrote his autobiography Amar Bhubane Aami Benche Thaki (2013) which is translated in English under the title Surviving in My world: Growing up Dalit in Bengal (2015) this autobiography narrates the difficulties which Biswas faced as a Namasudra from his childhood to get himself educated. He forged a connection between himself and the community of his belonging. The struggle of the survival of the Namasudras amidst caste discrimination is recorded to unveil the illusion that there does not exist caste discrimination in Bengal. No, doubt Biswas is a literary giant in the domain of Bengali Dalit literature and his contribution to its nourishment is immeasurable. His achievement does not lie confined to the creative and critical writing only. He is also a Dalit activist who under the banner of Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha strives for the empowerment of the Dalits.
Manoranjan Byaari is a riksha puller turned Dalit cook cum-writer. A search for new establishment and identity constitutes the literary corpus of Byapari. He stands for a Dalit’s struggle in a hostile world to strike root. When he was a riksha puller, his first story Riksha Chalai (I Pull Riksha) was published in Mahasweta Devi’s journal Bartika. His short story collection includes Britter Shesh Parba(Last Part Of the Cycle,2001), Jijibishar Golpo(Story of Desire to Live,2005) and Golpo Samagra (All Stories). His novel includes Chandal Jiban, channa Chara, Batase Baruder Gandha, Amanushik and Itibritte Chandal Jiban.
Chandal Jibon(2009), a novel centring round the story of a Dalit refugee boy, is a valuable historical document of post-1947 Bengal and Naxalite turbulence of 1970s. It is a penetrating study of the plight of the subaltern refugees migrated to India from East Pakistan, caste oppression and humiliation. Another novel, Chhera Chhera Jeeban(2019), also deals with the ‘other’ world beyond the so called civilized world. Chonna Chhara(2019) tells the story of nowhere people who wade through daily struggle without getting scanty of life supporting means. Manoranjan Byapari finds an affinity between Ambedkarism and Marxism. He emphasizes the existence of caste within class and existence of class within caste. He is a Dalit among the Dalits. Dalits strive for food, clothing, housing, education and health care. According to him the Dalits who have solved these five problems, have segregated themselves in brackets among the Dalits. They cannot represent the rest whose main concern is how to fill up their belly. This is the backbone of his writing.
Jatin Bala is considered to be a literary giant in the domain of Dalit Writing in West Bengal who has contributed in his own way to give a shape to this alternative literature of resistance. He writes with the purpose of hoisting the flag of empowerment of the Dalit people living in West Bengal. This revolutionary Dalit refugee voice has become an award-winning writer for his literary contribution. Jatin Bala is a prolific short story writer in the domain of Dalit writing .His short stories provides a fine instance of documentary realism. In his stories he nurtures the dream of an egalitarian casteless society totally free from Brahminic hegemony. He propagates Dalit empowerment through resistance. His short stories are published in the volumes called- Nepo Nidhan Parba (Nepo Slain Episode), Gondir Bandhe Bhangan (Dissolution in the Barrage of circle). Vanga Banglar Dui Mukha (Two faces of Broken Bengal), Samaj Chetanar Galpo. His translated short stories are published in the anthology called Stories of Social Awakening: Reflections of Dalit Refugee Lives of Bengal.
The shadow and touch of a Dalit are considered to be impure as soon as he is descended on earth according to the verdict given by Hindu religious scripture from time to time. They were denied the right to own property or to put on gold ornaments. They were destined to live with donkeys or dogs feeding on clay utensils living outside the human habitat. Power, fame, wealth and position were alien to them in the so-called God created hierarchy. Generation after generation this condition has been continuing without any protest on the part of the unconscious and illiterate Dalits. Babasaheb Ambedkar was such a figure who made them aware of the slavery they are undergoing in the castiest society. The mute cry of the Dalits found a voice in him which is considered to be the fountain source of Dalit literature. Sharan Kumar Limbale states, “It is not the pain of any one person, nor is it of just one day- it is the anguish of many thousands of people, experienced over thousands of years. Therefore, it is expressed collectively. The anguish of Dalit literature is not that of an individual but of the entire outcast society. This is the reason why it has assumed a social character” (Limbale 31)
Dalit literature traces the sufferings and deprivation from time immemorial and documents the social history of the marginalized section of the society. Basically, this literature is self-narrative in nature. Personal experiences of the writers generalize an authentic account of the suffering of the Dalit community as a whole. As a personalized history and marginalized resistance and by using an alternative aesthetics Dalit literature centers round caste discrimination and question of otherness. Among the other genres of Dalit writing, autobiography becomes the most powerful instrument of articulating Dalit experiences and sense of Dalitness by associating personal lived experiences with other community members. We can depend more on Dalit autobiographies for authenticity of expression. Dalit writing with its pre-occupation with pain and suffering attempts to bring the trauma in light in order to pose a resistance against dictation of caste. While narrating the real picture of life and sharing it with other Dalits, it assumes a representational dimension.
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