Abstract:
Urmila Pawar is one of the strongest voices of Dalit feminism who has made her own place in the history of Dalit women and their contribution to the movement against caste. She has won many prestigious awards and accolades for her sensitive exploration of the lives of Dalit women in India. Her works are often hailed as a critique of social discrimination and the savarna exploitation by commentators and media outlets. As a Dalit woman writer, Pawar wrote about her life experiences, dared to articulate them intimately and explicitly. That was the point of arrival from which Dalit narratives against caste based society became clearer to the world. Her works laid the groundwork for building a theory around Dalit women’s narratives. Through her writings she used fiction and facts as representational text to talk about the less apparent issues of the intersections of caste and gender. Pawar’s autobiographical work, The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs shows her dramatic and painful accounts of Dalit community in the caste based society of India with a particular reference to Dalit women. It also traces the conditions of the Indian social factors that surround the Dalits. The present research paper aims to explore the harsh life of Dalit women in India, who experience marginalization, caste discrimination and gender disparity, with reference to Urmila Pawar’s autobiography, The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs.
Key Words: Caste, Dalit feminism, Discrimination, Gender, Marginalization, Patriarchy
Introduction:
Award winning writer and activist Urmila Pawar consider herself as a feminist. Her Dalit identity forms a very important aspect of her feminist politics. Through her creative works she problematizes the major issues of class, caste and gender in the Indian context and permanently gives the portrayal of Dalit women. Many of her writings are based on the pain, agony and difficulties that the Dalits have to endure in their daily lives. Among the notable contributions made by Dalit women writers to the literary canon of Dalit studies in India, Urmila Pawar’s autobiography The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs stands distinguished. Aaydan, Pawar’s autobiography written in Marathi was published in the year 2003, and was translated by Dr. Maya Pandit as The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs. This work traces the journey of an untouchable woman in India. It is a story of three generations of Dalits, especially Dalit women. It also shows how Pawar made a transformation into a daring feminist Dalit writer. In this intimate memoir, Pawar unveils her personal life including personal and interpersonal social clashes and patience.
Dalits of India are farthest from power and hence belong to the lowest stratum of caste hierarchy. They constitute themselves as the underprivileged unfortunate victims of an inflexible social culture. Even in this scientific era, Dalits are surviving under uncongenial and hostile atmosphere of subjugation, oppression and discrimination. The Article 46 of the Indian Constitution states that, “The State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker section of the people, and in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.” But even after 68 years of Independence, political, rhetoric and constitutional protection have failed to end atrocities against Dalits. The word Dalit is derived from Sanskrit and etymologically it means, suppressed or broken to pieces. Hence, by connotation, the term Dalit is used as an adjective or noun to describe the people or communities that have remained down-trodden or at the margins of the society throughout India’s long social history. Dalit literature began to appear in early sixties as a part of the movement led by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the undisputed leader of untouchables. Dalit literature is a creative and intellectual literary expression which exposes the social realities or rather, the social evils through various literary genres. It was an offshoot of Indian Literature which represented an emerging trend in the global literary scene. The recent spirit in Dalit literature is an attempt to bring to the forefront the experiences of discrimination, violence and paucity of Dalits. Dalit writers are severely critical of the silence maintained by the mainstream literature about the surrounding social realities. They are also audacious enough to register their disapproval of the Indian literary tradition that celebrates excessive romanticism, straight patriarchism and strange hierarchies. By its very nature, Dalit literature remains at the margins, as it is explicitly out to challenge the mainstream.
The Predicament of Dalit Women in India
Urmila Pawar recounts the story of three generations of Dalits who struggled to overcome the burden of their caste through her autobiography, The Weave of My Life. She was born in the year 1945, in a Mahar family, at Adagon village of Ratnagri District. She was brought up in Konkan region of Maharashtra State. Pawar eventually left Konkan for Mumbai, where she fought for Dalit rights and became a major figure in Dalit literary movement. As a Dalit writer, she has established herself after Daya Pawar, Baby Kamble and Shantabai Gokhale as the prominent voice of Dalit Literature. Dalit writers are particularly obsessed with the genre of autobiography. It is called Dalit-auto narrative. The reasons for most Dalit writers to opt for writing autobiographies are necessarily two-fold. Primarily, they wanted to break open from the confines of the society and identify themselves as equal citizens. Secondly, they wanted to portray the social life of their societal counterparts through their autobiographies which unfortunately had no other media of exposure. Mostly all these narrate the evils of oppressions and exploitations. They filled their autobiographies with their innate individualistic feelings of subjugation and exploitation.
Urmila Pawar’s autobiography exhibits a daring socio-political commitment to challenge the status quo. It questions the iniquitous exclusion of Dalit flairs from the mainstreams of our society and culture. Its primary focus is on promoting equality and human dignity. Even as the term Dalit refers mainly to such caste groups, essentially, it is not a caste-indicative term. It only refers to such people and communities that are historically and structurally suppressed and excluded from the mainstream of the society. Dalits are designated in our traditional society as polluting other castes. Their physical contact, even their shadow was considered polluting. Urmila Pawar’s autobiography showcases numerous episodes which reveal how Dalits are considered as polluting the upper castes. One such incident is when Pawar goes to deliver the baskets made by her mother and had to stand outside of the upper caste houses. Pawar puts the baskets down and the customers sprinkle water on them to wash away the pollution. She also gives a clear picture on how Brahmin priests performed the rituals of marriage and ceremonial worship for the lower castes. The priest would never enter the Maharwada to perform these tasks. Instead he would climb a tree on the outskirts of the neighbourhood, muttering some chants. Even though Brahmins consider Dalit’s touch as polluting, Dalit women are being sexually abused by the upper castes in various forms. Pawar in her memoir shares the fate of a Dalit girl named Ulgawwa who was sexually exploited by a priest. Another example is the devadasi system. Girls as young as eleven were married to goddess Yellamma, a ceremony where a red and white beaded necklace was tied around their necks. This signified a life of bondage. They were not allowed to marry any man, and implicitly become sex slaves for upper caste men. When priests and other upper caste men used to share bed with a devadasi, they claimed that it was the goddess’ desire that they tried to appease.
Dalits inability to rise from poverty is well reflected in Pawar’s memoir. Weaving bamboo baskets is a central metaphor of her story which is her mother’s main profession. Weaving is symbolic of their low caste as well as their dire economic status. Her father died an untimely death, when she was a small kid. Her mother stayed away from all community functions and other programmes. She carried on with her work and brought up her children according to her capability. While in school, Urmila had only two sets of clothes, which she wore alternatively for three to four days. She got her first scholarship of twelve rupees when she was in the fourth standard. The teacher asked her to buy two new frocks for herself with the money. Even from a very tender age, her conscious mind was aware of the limitations of a person belonging to a lower caste and she had in fact understood the bitter truth and sufferings of poverty not from any books, but through straight experience. She writes:
The upper caste girls always used words like ladu, modak, karanjya, purampolya. They brought such novel items in their tiffin boxes as well as at times went on excursions. However, I never asked myself the stupid question, why we do not prepare such dishes at home? We were aware, without anybody telling us, that we were born in a particular caste and in poverty, and that we had to live accordingly. (79)
Memories of food, culinary skills and meal times draw a picture of the moral status of Dalit families in the Konkon region. When festival food for the upper castes consisted of sweet bread, Mahars only had rice and lentils for the special meal. Urmila Pawar devotes the third chapter for the description of food and eating habits in her family and community. This helps her to accomplish a number of objectives. First, the experience of extreme poverty, of living with a persistent lack of adequate nourishment, conveyed effectively through a child’s point of view. Secondly, she brings in a contrast between the food habits of upper caste and lower caste people.
Caste discrimination took deep roots even in the tender minds of children. Urmila Pawar’s experiences from her classmates stand proof to this. One day, her classmates at school decided to cook a meal. They discussed what everyone should bring. When Pawar asked them what she should bring, they said, she should bring nothing, but money. She recollects the painful incident thus, “They did not allow me to touch anything. However, we all ate together. I really enjoyed the meal. The next day I was horrified to hear that my eating had become the hottest topic for juicy gossip. Girls were whispering in groups about how much I had eaten” (85). Urmila felt a thousand deaths that day. This narration points to two cardinal issues in the cultural inheritance of our country. One is that even children’s attitudes are contaminated with caste distinctions and untouchability. And also, it is sad that poor people are humiliated for their hunger.
One of the most moving anecdotes recounted in this memoir is of the village celebrations of the spring festival, Holi. Mahar youths were made to do the hard work of cutting down branches and trunks of trees and they carried them to the field. But they were not given an opportunity to participate in the celebrations. If the Mahar boys tried to touch the palanquin, they were severely kicked and beaten for their transgression. Caste system is deeply rooted in the minds of the public. Urmila Pawar narrates her elder sister’s experience. Her sister got a job in a mental hospital. A mad woman in the hospital came to know that she was a Dalit. That mentally disturbed woman refused to take food from her. It is sad that caste prejudice is able to find its abode even in the dilapidated mind of a mad woman and in the innocent minds of children alike.
Since discrimination against Dalits in the educational system is a widespread problem in caste affected country like India, they lack confidence, hope and peace. Illiteracy and drop-out rates among Dalits are very high due to a number of social and physical factors. One of the main issues is the discriminatory practices conducted by teachers, which may include corporal punishment, denial of access to school water supplies, segregation in class rooms, and forcing Dalit children to perform manual scavenging on and around school premises, turning Ambedkar’s exhortation, to be educated, to mere dream. Pawar also shares her painful memories during school days when she was forced to do all menial work. She in her memoir narrates how education turns out to be a forbidden fruit for Dalits. She points out that for the knowledge seekers in her village there would be just one Pantoji (a conservative Brahmin teacher) who taught only Brahmin children in his own house. However, Urmila Pawar managed to secure a Master of Arts Degree in Marathi Literature. She retired as an employee of the Public Works Department in the State of Maharashtra. But education evidently hasn’t done much to eradicate the social evil called caste system. Young men quit their jobs because of being at the receiving end of sullen experiences based on caste. For instance Harishchandra, Urmila Pawar’s husband also had a bitter experience when he joined the office of District Superintendent. They treated him as untouchable. Such humiliation had directed the journey to the city for many like Harishchandra. In a city like Mumbai, Urmila Pawar and Harishchandra had to vacate two rooms as the landlady came to know about their caste. Pawar recalls that the Dalits sought to change their derogatory or godly names by adopting English initials for a name. She says there were many Dalit officers around her. But the name plates on their doors told different stories. Those were typical Brahmin names like Tambe, Kamat, Suhasrabudhdhe, Barve and so on. So it was quite difficult to make out their caste.
In Urmila Pawar’s memoir she never fails to give us a glimpse of their conversion to Buddhism. When she was a young school girl, waves of conversion reached her village too. After the conversion program, men took down the various figures, photo frames depicting Gods, set in the prayer space of the household, and women, who until Dharmantar had been in the forefront in worshipping the Gods, helped them fill the baskets with the figurines to be disposed of. Thus Statues of Buddha and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar occupied the place emptied in the prayer rooms. According to Urmila Pawar the conversion to Buddhism was a historic moment in the lives of Dalits in Maharashtra. Throwing away the pictures and idols of Hindu Gods was significant in two different perspectives. It meant renouncing domains of low status that were accorded to Dalits in the Hindu caste hierarchy and it also entailed giving up superstition and ritual in favour of a more enlightened view of the world. Buddhism gave the Dalits a new vision of life, the possibility of living in a totally new way, free of bondage and subjugation.
Urmila Pawar in her memoir, The Weave of My Life paints a realistic picture of Dalit women. The status of women in India has been subject to great changes over the past few decades. Women started realizing that they are equal players in the family and nation building. Dr. Radhakrishnan once said:
Women are human beings and have as much right to full development as men have. In regard to opportunities for intellectual and spiritual development, we should not emphasize the sex of men. The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than the psychological peculiarities which distinguish us from one another. In all human beings, irrespective of their sex, the same drama of the flesh and the spirit of finitude & transcendence take place. (122)
But in a highly hierarchical society like India, women have lesser access to public forces compounded by their gender. “The basic assumption is that girls are inferior physically and mentally weak, and above all sexually vulnerable” (Karlekar 308). Thus women do not enjoy an equal status with men. The situation of Dalit woman compared to other woman seems to be more tragic as they are subjugated twice, as a Dalit and as a woman. Dr. Ambedkar’s words remain as significant today, as they were in 1942, revealing his realization that the empowerment of Dalit women to enable them to realize their rights and eradicate caste and gender discrimination was intrinsic to the achievement of the wider goal of Dalit human rights. Dalit women are suppressed by upper caste men and even by Dalit men. Violence or atrocities against Dalit women occur at two levels: as an inherent part of the caste system, utilizing violence to reinforce caste norms, with Dalit women susceptible to all forms of violence, especially sexual violence; and when they transgress caste norms, such as those relating to caste endogamy or untouchability, or assert their rights over resources: public or cultural spaces. This results in their victimization, both within and outside the caste. The way a Dalit woman is crushed with the tools of caste and gender is very common. In other words, the process of Dalit women’s empowerment in itself is perceived as a challenge to caste and patriarchal structures, and provides fertile ground for punitive violence perpetrated by the dominant castes. Dalit women particularly are coerced to be victimized by the patriarchy. They are demeaned and degraded and their body becomes a free terrain of savagery and brutality, from within and outside their community. This is a complete violation of women’s Human Rights.
Since the late 1980’s, Dalit women have increasingly felt and articulated the need for a separate platform, created, developed and controlled by themselves, through which they could assert their own identity, fight for their rights and find solutions to their particular problems as a Dalit and as a woman. They assert that there is need for strong alliances between the Dalit movement, the women’s movement and the Dalit women’s movement if their common vision of social, economic and political equality and justice for all is to be realized. In spite of all these efforts Dalit women remains at the margins of society. According to Pawar, while those members of Dalit community have adopted Ambedkar’s way of life tend to be more progressive, but not much has changed for Dalit women. The male psyche exhibits a universal trait when it comes to patriarchy. Male domination can be seen irrespective of any caste or creed. From Pawar’s memoir it is clear that it was rather a pride of the Mahar men to keep their wives behind the threshold. At the very first chapter of the memoir, Urmila Pawar describes the hardships endured by Mahar women. They had to sell various things in the market of Ratnagiri for their livelihood. At the end of the day, these women-labourers have to suffer at the hands of their drunkard husbands. Pawar writes, “There would be at least one woman among them badly bashed up by her husband. She would walk painfully, somehow managing to drag her aching body along the way” (5). Pawar also portrays the hardships of women who went to collect clams, oysters and crabs in the middle of the creek at early dawn when the water had receded. They tried their level best to pick up good quality clams, with their nail bleeding, their backs aching and their feet numbed with arduous tasks.
Dalit woman remains an easy target for any sexual or physical abuse in the society. According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, more than four Dalit women are raped every day in India. Pawar gives us more serious examples of patriarchal oppression of women both within the Dalit community and along the lines of caste hierarchy, with upper caste men enjoying a license to exploit Dalit women sexually. She narrates the incident of a temple priest who abuses a young girl from the nomadic Komti community; young Pawar sees her coming out of the inner sanctum in tears. Furthermore, Dalit women had traditionally performed in the erotic song and dance form of the tamashas, patronized by upper caste men. Education is almost forbidden to Dalit girls. As Urmila Pawar says, “Our village had a school, but it was only till the fourth standard. Moreover girls were not allowed to enrol” (15). Even women were not in favour of educating girls. She writes, “All the women complained, ‘Bah! What do women have to do with education? Ultimately she would be blowing on the stove, would she not? Or is she going to be a teacher for a Brahmin lady that she goes to school with?’ ” (16). Society considers the kitchen as the only platform for a woman, the apt place for a woman to prove her skills. Pawar further says that her father has never taken care of Sushi, her elder sister after her marriage. She died with her own agony and pain. Pawar feels that for outsiders and society, her father was a reformist but for his own daughters he took a patriarchal approach.
Society places so many taboos on women. One among them is the menstrual taboo. When Urmila Pawar got her first period, she started to cry. Then her mother handed her a piece of cloth and asked her to sit in one corner, lest she make things in the house impure by touching them. This made her cry harder. She says, “As it were, people in the class kept me at a distance because of my caste. Now because of this even my own people in the house would keep me away” (104). Women mostly accept the system of patriarchy so unknowingly that they encourage the system in their own household and in society. Once, when Pawar started studying at the home of a person whom she regarded as her brother, one of her friends became very upset. She had a problem that Pawar visited a person with whom his wife was not living. She says, “How we women nurture and protect patriarchy like a baby in the cradle! A woman’s character is always on display! Always suspect!” (201). We also come across a terrible story of a widow who becomes pregnant and is kicked in the stomach by the women in the village till she aborts the foetus and later dies. Women thus emerge both as the sufferers and makers of patriarchy.
At any circumstances, women are always considered inferior to men. In 1970’s Urmila Pawar got promoted to the post of the Branch Manager through reservation policy. But she never received the due respect both, because of her caste and her gender. When Urmila gave birth to the baby son, all the family members became happy overlooking the pains she had gone through. For them giving birth to a baby son was like winning a great battle. The meaning of marriage is so deeply rooted in patriarchy and gender inequality. Pawar’s marital life was not an exception. When she received her first salary, she was dilemmatic in the sense that, on one hand she was very happy about getting the money but on the other hand, she was sad that she had to give the entire money to her husband Harishchandra. Financial independence becomes a distant dream for every Dalit woman. As she says, “When I got my first salary . . . I could spent it the way I liked. Before my marriage, I used to hand over my salary to my mother; now I started handing it over to my husband. If this is not like deliberately offering head for the butcher’s knife, what else is this?” (175). She also remembers the incident of her admission to M.A. course. Harischandra’s traditional patriarchal dictate started peeping in and straight away, he denied her and instructed her not to go ahead for M.A. course. It is very clear that Pawar’s position in marriage was not comfortable as Harishchandra constantly felt underestimated himself compared to her success. Urmila Pawar has also narrated the incident of her daughter Malavika’s interview taken by Vijay Khadpekar for A Woman’s Voice magazine. Malavika, in her interview talked very assertively. She also informed that with growing education her mother has changed drastically and she has concentrated more on Women's Lib movement and she has started neglecting them and the household works.
Nowadays, daring initiatives of Dalit movements and the implementation of welfare schemes by the Government have brought in a positive improvement in the social life of Dalit community. Dalit literature is also blooming at present and translations of regional literatures are increasingly making these works available to a wider audience. All these activities brought in a positive approach towards social equality in India. The memoir also traces Pawar’s modernity. Her inner transformation started with participation in drama at the school/college days and her strong faith in reading books, about Babasaheb Ambedkar and other Dalit writers. She got enough opportunities to develop her writing skills while doing a job at the Mumbai office. She says, “There are so many issues concerning the women in our community, such as ignorance, casteism, employment and others. That is why it is necessary for all of us to come forward and unite” (224). Thus, through her memoir, Urmila Pawar enables herself to map the Dalit modernity as a social experience in process. She describes her long journey from Konkan to Mumbai bringing to forefront the struggle of three generations of Dalit community and their first step towards modernity. There are frequent references to Ambedkarite movement that gave Dalit women a platform to participate in various emancipatory movements. It is a narrative of how Dalit women begin to walk towards modernity. The basic problem affecting the Dalit women’s position and opportunities for employment in this sector spring from their helpless, dependence caused by lack of adequate employment opportunities, limited skills, illiteracy, limited mobility and lack of autonomous status. There are several schemes for the upliftment of Dalit women by the State and the Central Governments. But, the benefits of such schemes and programmes rarely reach them.
Conclusion
Urmila Pawar has structured The Weave of My Life as a testimony that weaves a complex relationship between memory and identity. The dialectics of self and community in the Dalit testimony assumes further significance in a Dalit woman’s testimony, for, the testimony is for a Dalit woman a powerful medium to protest against adversaries within and without. Through her memoir, Urmila Pawar challenges the bourgeois genre of autobiography. Her memoir came to represent not the journey of an individual voice, emotion and consciousness but rather a social community and its chorus of voices. However read as testimony of caste based exploitation, everyday resistance and organized anti-caste struggles, this memoir brings new insight into caste based Indian society. Pawar not only shares the tragic lives of Dalits but also presents her excitement of an awakening consciousness that brings in a drastic change in their conditions and situations. She violates the parameters set by bourgeois autobiographies and creates a consciousness among Dalits to fight back the injustice. The weave of memories thus documents a detailed narrative of how Dalits took their first step towards modernity, bringing into focus new times and spaces of modernity.
Although India has made measurable progress in terms of the protection afforded to Dalits since Independence, they still suffer invidious discrimination and mistreatment at the hands of upper caste members and law enforcement officials. Today, because of education and job opportunities, many Dalits have made a transition from being below the poverty line to the middle class. This has blunted the edge of casteism or discrimination. But, like wild animals fast disappearing from the woods, caste seems to have disappeared. Yet, like a wild animal hiding behind a bush, it remains hidden, poised for attack. It is true that there are changes going on in India today, and certainly some of these have affected the social system. Statistics that talk about the number of high positions held by Dalits and their representation in jobs and status positions fail to mention the humiliation and constant peer rejection faced by a majority of them. Caste discrimination shows no sign of dying a quiet death. As activists and scholars have noted, the caste system is so deeply entrenched in the Indian psyche that drastic and decisive measures beyond the creation of legal equality must be taken. Fighting caste discrimination is about changing attitude, than law. Without a concerted and determined effort to end this practice, it will not fade away.
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