Abstract:
Exploitation of powerlessness by the powerful is not a new thing. It has been going on for centuries. The condition of the victims is pitiable. The superiors think of themselves as the masters of the victimizers so they behave with them as if they were animals. They are treated as if they were made up of other soil. They are paid less than they work. The condition of women is worse than men. They are harassed, raped and exploited by their masters at the workplaces or farms. Even girl children are not spared from the harassment by their masters. If they are sent to school to get education, they are harassed and raped by male teachers. They cannot raise their voice against injustice done to them. And if they raise their voice against them the blame comes upon them of seducing them. Dalit children do not get proper food, cloth and home. To live a civilized life is a dream to them. Education which is considered as the key to get rid of their misery proves meaningless to them as they are deprived of it. India got freedom from the former rulers, but the lower caste did not get it all, they are still governed by the upper caste. They are in the strong clutches of slavery. The present research paper focuses on the miserable condition of the Dalits who are still suffering from the social evil of the caste system. In independent India, they are still governed by the upper caste. To show the colonization of the Dalits by the upper castes, the researcher has taken the Sahitya Academy Award winning novel The Stepchild by Joseph Macwan.
Key Words: Colonization, Dalits, exploitation, untouchables, stepchild, Vankars, Patels, identity, harassment
Introduction:
The thugs have gone, and left the robbers behind. (Macwan, 199)
Lots of progress has been made in the field of education, science and technology after the independence of India. But the status of Dalits has not changed yet. They have been still suffering in the name of caste. Hindu caste system made their life intolerable and treated them as inhuman. Their touch, shadow and even their voice are suppressed by society till today. In many daily newspapers, it is often reported about Dalit women’s harassment or rape. Even today Dalits kids are expelled from the schools for being untouchables. In hostel they have to bore torture and humiliation. If they get a job, they have to bear their harassment and partiality from their co-workers or boss. To overcome the age-old miseries, millions of Dalits converted themselves into Muslims or Christians.
The Dalits have been let down both by the ruling class and the government. The constitution of India has abolished untouchability but it is only on the paper. After 74 years of independence of India, untouchability is not completely removed from the country. The constitution has abolished only untouchability, not the caste system. Himansu Charan Sadangi rightly said,
… the constitution abolished untouchability, not the caste system itself. As long as the caste system as a whole is not abolished, untouchability alone cannot be removed. The ruling class knows it and that is why it has no plans to abolish the caste system. (Sadangi, 39)
Ruling party of India does not try to remove the caste system to get socio economic benefits and a huge vote bank also.
The Dalits are more in numbers but they are very poor, weak and unorganized. Further they are divided in caste or sub castes. Illiteracy is the main weakness of the Dalits. Educationally, they are backward so they cannot get a good job and earn money to live a civilized life. Because of their illiteracy they have to work in factories, farms or workhouses. They live in bastis and own pigs, donkeys and dogs. They eat partake of food only in the clay utensils and wear torn clothes. At the workplaces they are exploited, tortured by their landlords or masters. The position of Dalit women is worse than the Dalit men. They are sexually harassed and raped by their landlords or masters. In spite of equal work in the factory Dalit women are paid less than the Dalit men. Their masters neither feel pity when they are pregnant nor have little babies with them. They are beaten mercilessly if they do not work properly. At the school they are ordered to sit in the last row of the class and the co-students misbehave with them. In this way they bore daily insults which made their mental strength weak. Their divisions into caste and sub castes push them back to get man power. Darkness is seen everywhere in their life. They are all around chained in the Indian caste system.
The Internal Colonization of Dalits in Joseph Macwan’s The Stepchild
The Stepchild is the most acclaimed novel by Gujarati Dalit writer Joseph Macwan who won several state and national awards for his contribution to dalit literature. He wrote many articles, Short stories and novels to represent the injustice, the inequality and the exploitation of Dalits. His literary works represent the pain and suffering of the Dalits in the most realistic manner. He expressed what he has experienced in his life.
The novel The Stepchild (2004) was originally written in Gujarati language by the author who titled it as Angaliyat (1986). The author has made the novel very rich by using local dialects in it. The novel represents the gripping tale of pure love and heroism of Dalit couples who are the victim of the caste system. They suffer because of upper caste wickedness and their own caste’s faults and weaknesses. The novelist has exposed the strength and weaknesses of the Dalits in the novel in the most vivid narrations. It became so famous among the readers that it won the Sahitya Academy Award in 1989. Later it was Rita Kothari, the professor of Humanities at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar who translated the novel into English and titled it as The Stepchild. This novel gave the pride to the Gujaratis that it was the first novel in Gujarati literature which was translated into English and published in Oxford University Press.
Macwan’s The Stepchild is set in rural Gujarat of the 1930s. The author has taken the Charotar region to represents the humiliation of Dalit communities especially the Vankars of Gujarat. The two villages named Shilapaar and Ratnapaar of Anand district are mentioned in the novel. In Shilapaar there live the upper castes like the Patels or Patidars, the Thakors and other eighteen castes including the lower caste. The Patels or Patidars are the owners of most of the land of Shilapaar. Even the Thakors have to depend upon the Patels in economic terms. They distributed free food and clothes to the flood affected victims but in reply they made the Dalits clean the whole village. Beside Shilapaar, there is a village named Ratnapaar where there lived the Vankars who are either the field workers or weavers of handloom clothes. Some Vankars weave clothes and sell them either in the nearby villages and towns or in the bazaar and the others work in the mill to earn their livelihood. In The Stepchild the author has very vividly exposed the internal colonization of Dalit community especially the Vankar community of Charotar region in particular and the lower castes in general of the1930s. The Patels or Patidars of Charotar are the rulers of that region. Economically, they are more powerful than the Thakors, though their families are less in numbers. They exploit, humiliate and harass the members of Dalit community. They sexually harass the Dalit women in public places whether they are married or single. Methi is one of the victims of this evil. One day she was carrying a pot of water on her head, Megha Patel’s Nanio threw a stone at the pot, and the pot was broken. Nanio with her fellow friends were gazing lasciviously at the girl. The author highlights,
The woman herself, wet from head to foot, stood rooted to the ground……. A man from the opposite parapet got up and the rest guffawed. Their eyes roved over the woman’s nipples visible through her wet blouse. (Macwan, 15)
This is an age old misery of Dalit women. Not only their pots are broken but also their wrists had been held publicly by the upper caste men. They are raped even on the eve of their wedding day. And the helpless Vankars cannot do anything against them. They have been enduring it all for years. To save their single girls, they marry their girls at an early age.
Teehalal Parmar or Teeho, the protagonist of the novel The Stepchild, is a man of twenty two or twenty three is made up of other soil who cannot endure the sexual exploitation of Dalit women. He belongs to the Ratnapaar village. He and his close friend Valji are weavers by profession. They usually sell their handloom cloth in the nearby villages or towns or in the local bazaars. One day they were selling their cloth at the village of Shilapaar, where he saw the sexual harassment of Methi; he cannot bear it and stood beside her. He fought with the Patel youths very bravely, and hit them. Dhoolsingh Thakore, the headman of Shilapaar rushed there and disentangled the man from Teeha’s grasp. When the headman asked Teeha what had happened, he asked the scoundrel to admit the truth and told the headman to ask the women of their own village. When he saw the shattered pot, a charming young woman, drenched and abased, and around her feet the broken pot shards, he understood what had happened there. He rebuked Nanio and his companions. But they did not seem humble to him and in arrogance told Mukhi that they wanted to file a police complaint against the low caste Teeha. Dhoolsingh asked them to remain present at the village square because he wanted to file a complaint against the harassment of poor girls of the village. When all went from there Dhoolsingh Thakore advised Teeha that that type of incident happen every day in the village and he should not unnecessarily pick a fight and warned him that the Patels wouldn’t let him live there.
On the next day, the village square of Shilapaar was jam packed. Dhoolsingh Thakore who was known for both his kindness and cunning nature was crowded with the older men. He did not know much about law but his instincts and common sense prevented anything unlawful in the village. The Patels argued that the law caste man and an outsider had publicly beaten up the Patel’s son so he must be taught a lesson for life. They insisted the Mukhi to penalize Teeha and feel him with such fear that he would never enter their village till the day of his death.
As there was a call from the village headman of Shilapaar, Teeha came to the village square and asked the headman why he was called. He was told to put his bundle down by the headman. He told Teeha to pay 125 rupees as a penalty. When he asked the headman for what he should pay the penalty, he was told that he had no power to ask them and further told him that he had violated the law by beating the higher caste man. Moreover he was warned to never step into Shilapaar again. But the Patels were not satisfied with the punishment; the Patel youths attacked Teeha when he was returning to Ratnapaar. He fought with them bravely but they were eight in numbers. He got an injury on his head.
The Patels were enraged with Teeha who had badly beaten the eight Patel youths. They showed their anger by damaging the fields of Moti, Heera, Methi’s father and that of many other farmers. They burnt Moti’s storeroom and mutilated Heera Khana’s mango trees overnight. They stole heavy baval tree trunks. They destroyed three fourth sources of livelihood in a single night and hung a threatening note,
If you have anything to do with any of your community members in Ratnapaar or let any of them enter here, that will be your end. You will be thrown out of the village, without even a drop of water from the lake. If you wish to live in this village harmoniously, then let Moti Dhula and Heera Khana be ostracized and made to answer for their conduct. (Macwan, 30)
The Patels were not stopped there; they met the headman of their village and tried to manipulate him. When he told them to accept their offence, they threatened him that after independence he would have to bow down before them. The village headman knew the truth but he could not go against them because the Thakors were Patels’ tenants and tilled their land. They were completely dependent upon them in economic terms.
The Patels of Shilapaar were so evil minded that they made a plan to disturb the internal relationships of Vankars. They used Britishers’ policy of ‘break and rule’ upon Vankars. To take revenge with Teeha they stopped him not only entering their village but also disturbed his possible marriage with Methi, his lover. They manipulated social relations set up among the Vankars. Methi had a child marriage with Chunthia who was a drunkard, a rogue and a gambler. Her father Heera himself was not ready to send his daughter with Chunthia. But the cunning Patels made a trick and wrote a fake letter addressing her parents in which it was mentioned that to honour Valjibhai’s last wish, Teeha was going to marry Valjibhai’s sister-in –law Monghi. When Methi came to know about Teeha’s refusal to marry her, she was shocked and in desperation she decided to live his life with drunkard Chunthia.In this way the Patels manipulated Teeha and Methi’s marriage. They also set up Vankars against one another.
The Vankars of Ratnapaar were either weavers or farm labourers who had to completely depend upon the Patels for their livelihood. The Patels misused their power and money and humiliated them. To save their daughters from the harassment of the Patels, they had to marry their daughters at an early age. But after their marriage they were not secure. Ramlo works for Dehlavala but his wife was sexually harassed by Dehlavala. It is the harsh reality of the Patels, on one side they avoid the shadow and touch of the Vankars considering them as impure or untouchables while on the other side they sexually harass the Vankar girls or women.
Conclusion
To conclude, it can be said that exploitation and humiliation of Dalits by non Dalits have been going on for years in the name of caste or religion. They have been oppressed, harassed, exploited. Independence of the country was a little hope for him but it also proved meaningless for them. India got independence but the social condition of Dalits has not changed yet. They are still under the rule of the upper castes. No doubt they are trying to get rid of this slavery but the social orders do not allow them to do so. Joseph Macwan, the writer of the novel himself was Dalit who has tried his best to reveal this reality through the novel The Stepchild. As a dalit writer he has very beautifully exposed the social evil of caste system which is prevailed in India. The novelist is successful in presenting the pitiable condition of Vankars through his characters. Through the novel, the novelist has presented the internal colonization of Vankar community of Gujarat in particular and the Dalit community of India in general.
References:
- Limbale, Sharankumar. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature. Orient Black Swan, 2016.
- Macwan, Joseph. The Stepchild. Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Sadangi, Himansu Charan. Dalit: the Downtrodden of India. Isha Books, 2008.