Towards Dalit Historiography: Imaging the Gandas through Various Narratives 9810566928, 9788192222356

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface vii-ix
Introduction 1-37
1. Dalit Discourse: Dalit History 38-77
2. Modern Dalit Literature 78-116
3. History and the Journey of the Ganda Caste 117-170
Conclusion 171-180
Bibliography 181-213
Index 214-219

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TOWARDS DALIT HISTORIOGRAPHY Imaging the Gandas through various Narratives

TOWARDS DALIT HISTORIOGRAPHY Imaging the Gandas through various Narratives

SAROJ KUMAR MAHANANDA

ARCHIVE PRESS (Publishers & Distributors) New Delhi - 110002

ARCHIVE PRESS (Publishers & Distributors) 4648/21, Ansari Road Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002 Phone: 9810566928 E-mail: [email protected] Branch office: H.No. 11, Baikunthapur, Lalmati Game Village, Guwahati-781029 (Assam)

Towards Dalit Historiography: Imaging the Gandas through various Narratives

© Author First Published 2017 ISBN 978-81-922223-5-6

[No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the Author/publisher].

PRINTED IN INDIA Published by Archive Press, New Delhi - 110 002 and Printed at Harmain Offset Press, Delhi.

Dedicated to Bharatratna Babasaheb Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Preface

If one reflects on the direction of twenty first century India in relation to its attempt to be a modern global power one cannot help shuddering at the dreadful specter of contradictions it presents. On the one hand, one finds India not only marching ahead on the wings of information revolution but also reveling in the sky through series of successful outer-space missions; on the other, one is appalled at the obdurate quagmire of caste conundrum corroding the very fabric of Indian democracy. There is not a single day in the everyday life of the country when one does not hear at least a dozen of media reports about the ill-treatment, rape or murder of people belonging to the lower castes, generally known as Dalits, of the society. Despite the legal protection in the form of an Act for the prevention of atrocities against the scheduled castes every single passing day brings the cruel stories of atrocities against the members of the scheduled castes (i.e. the Dalits). Even after sixty seven years of India being a democratic republic the Constitutional machinery of the country is yet to fully succeed in addressing the issue of caste based discrimination and violence.

(viii) Lofty constitutional goals and provisions notwithstanding, the Indian society has very obstinately resisted all attempts of democratization; it has cleverly reinvented itself to take the undemocratic structure of caste alongside the process of modernization. In such a situation many pertinent questions arise: What is this thing called caste? How does it affect the modernity of India? What are the forces which help it continue? Has it ever been interrogated? If yes, what is the nature of such interrogation? In fact, these are the questions which are fundamental to the understanding of Indian society and which define what we call Dalit discourse. In the recent times, writers, academics and researchers have engaged with the aforementioned questions with varying degrees of emphases. Just like other parts of the Globe, postcolonial and post-modernist understanding of the society has increasingly informed the academic and non-academic pursuits in India. Pan-Indian growth and acceptance (!) of Dalit writings is a significant marker in this direction. With their focus on what was so far the neglected and unspeakable, Dalit writings have been said to have started an alternative discourse about Indian society, polity and history. Acknowledging the role of literature, in the process of reflection, refraction, construction, constitution and ‘emplotment’ of certain narrative, has meant that Dalit writing presents a new site of history, which, in the absence of a better term, may be called Dalit history. While writing about Dalit life, debates about insider-outsider perspective

(ix) still exist. But it is a fact the outsider’s perspective is necessary and important as long as there is no insider’s perspective. In the presence of an insider’s perspective the monopoly of the outsider’s perspective is certainly challenged. It is in such a context, this book, which originally formed part of my Ph.D thesis “Works of Basudev Sunani: Odia Dalit Historiography” submitted to Jamia Millia Islamia, in 2016, attempts to study the history and culture of the Gandas, one of the Dalit caste groups from western part of Odisha, the eastern state of India. It is sincerely hoped that the sahridayas, the sympathetic readers, will find sense in such an exercise. Acknowledgements are due to Jamia Millia Islamia where I teach to make a living and where I earned my Ph.D degree under the supervision of Professor M. Asaduddin. I must also express my sincere gratitude to the publisher who saw merit in bringing out this book.

Buddha Purnima, 2017

Saroj Kumar Mahananda

Contents

Preface Introduction 1. Dalit Discourse: Dalit History 2. Modern Dalit Literature 3. History and the Journey of the Ganda Caste

vii-ix 1-37 38-77 78-116 117-170

Conclusion

171-180

Bibliography

181-213

Index

214-219

1

Introduction

History and Historiography A layman’s understanding that ‘history is whatever has already happened in the past’, no longer holds good because that is not what we learn in schools or universities. We learn about kings and queens and their monuments celebrating their exploits; we learn about various wars; we learn about the rise and fall of empires. Is the past only about these and nothing else? Do we ever get to know about the ordinary peasants who tilled the land and produced crops to feed the people of their time? Or do we ever get to know about the traders who were involved in the exchange of goods and materials and raised funds to construct those monuments? Do we ever get to know about the foot soldiers who died fighting those wars which built empires? No, certainly not. Does it mean that these people didn’t exist and that the monuments and empires were carved out of thin air? The fact that the answers to these questions are in the negative we know that someone chose to tell us only certain aspects of the past. It is in this choice lies the

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enterprise of historiography. When scholars like Arthur Marwick say, “History means not the past but the study of past” (cited in Gaur 1998:9) we are reminded that there are several questions to be answered before one can study the past. In this context one is reminded of philosophers like Hegel who acknowledge the element of ‘interpretation’ in historical narratives. Similarly, Levi-Strauss emphasizes the process of ‘constitution’ and ‘reconstitution’ of historical facts to ‘add’ meaning to them while Northrop Frye argues that ‘emplotment’ plays a crucial role in structuring a historical narrative. According to Levi-Strauss, “historical facts are in no sense ‘given’ to the historian but are rather ‘constituted’ by the historian himself by abstraction and as though under the threat of an infinite regress” (cited in White 1982: 55). Strauss also goes on to say that “if historical facts are constituted rather than given so too they are selected for an audience” (56). As historical writings involve ‘analysis’ and ‘interpretation’ mediated by a politically conscious being, history cannot just be “a directory of information” (Thapar 2014:6). It simply means that history is produced by someone not only with certain objectives in mind but for a certain audience; that it is just like a consumer product intended for consumption by the target population. Coming back to Marwick’s formulation, ‘the study of past’ involves careful selection to project and promote a certain kind of past as opposed to some other kind of past. It involves the subject position of the person who

Introduction

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chooses to study the past. It is in this position lies the question of historiography as ideology. (Myers 1988:185) Given the fact that different people in different cultures have interpreted and served human instinct ‘to know the past’ differently, one comes across various approaches and models of writing history: while some have considered history to be a faithful (?) recording of the past, others have viewed it to be the study of the past on the basis of the present need; while some have viewed it to be a matter of bare chronology, others have considered it in terms of living cultures; while some have waxed eloquent over the ‘stories’ behind history others have considered and questioned how those ‘stories’ have been told and to what effect. Now, time has come when ‘history’ is no longer considered the enchanting ‘story’ of the exploits of only the kings and queens; neither is it considered the exact replica of forgotten past and absolute Truth. Progression of ‘history’ is no longer considered in terms of linear motion; let alone marginal groups and societies, to extend Arthur Miller’s construction 1, now every ordinary person’s life can be the fit stuff of ‘history’. It has been established beyond doubt that the erstwhile ‘authentic’ histories had their base in less historical subjects like ‘literature’ and ‘mythology’ and have not only been the products of reconstructions but also that of subjective interpretation of the past; and that non-availability of archaeological sources to prove their historicity does not make the ‘history’ of any people less ‘historical’. Informed by new

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methods of knowledge, both history and literature collaborate to understand the past. Fundamental questions like ‘What is this thing called history?’, ‘Who writes history?’, ‘For whom is it written?’, ‘How is history written?’, ‘Can history exist outside the realm of the written?’ have been asked afresh. These questions have engaged the serious minds not only from history but from as varied fields as archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, philology, literature and culture studies. Consequently, one finds different models of historiographies informed and governed by different objectives and subject positions. Historiography in the West The word “History” seems to have been derived from the generic word “historia”, meaning “inquiry” and the specific meaning “research on past events” is said to be a later development. Herodotus is considered the ‘father of history’ because while producing an analytical description of the Persian War he was probably the first to use constitutional and ethnographical approach to explain the war and its consequences. Herodotus and Thucydides considered themselves as “recorder of changes” which in their judgments were “important enough to be transmitted to posterity” (Momigliano 1978:7). Donning this role they took into account the prevailing interests of the community to which they belonged. That is the reason why political and military events emerged as the main themes of Greek History where history had only a limited purpose to “preserve a reliable record of past events” —

Introduction

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like wars and political revolutions — which were believed to bring about “consequential changes” (7). But later on, during the medieval period, history came to serve a different purpose. Based as it was on theology, where the will of the Providence was supreme, the medieval ideology compartmentalized the society into social hierarchies of different types. In such a situation the concept of ‘destiny’ governed human life and no one was “permitted at one’s own accord to violate of the parameters of social institution and position one had been born in” (Stewart 1960:307). This ideology informed historiography of the time and expected it to discover the divine plan rather than human enterprise. The period which followed the medieval age is known as the age of Renaissance, which revived interest in the Greek knowledge system and which recognised the place of the individual in the universe, attempting to free him from the feudalist theology of the earlier era. It was marked by what is known as ‘scientific temper’ and ‘modern’ methods of investigation based on the principle of ‘causality’; this meant that “human actions were no longer [left] to be dwarfed into insignificance in comparison with the divine plan” (Collingwood 1973:57). In such a changed situation scholars like Francis Bacon (1561– 1626) could assign to “history the task of recalling and recording what actually happened in the past” (Gaur 1998:30). According to Bacon, truths could be attained only from empirically verified “facts” which applied to the “realm of the past and the realm of nature, both of which were best represented

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by histories” (Woolf 2011:xlvii). But despite a comparative change in the worldview, historiography as a discipline had to wait till the next age, the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason in 18 th century, to effectively break free from the Biblical view of social progress and till 19 th century German cultural Renaissance to actually approach history in terms of ‘uniqueness’ and ‘variety’. In the 19 th century the scope of historical understanding got widened and historians started to view the total history of mankind as a single process of development whereby man was considered an instrument to execute the plan of nature. Immanuel Kant, who explained the reality through the concepts of noumena (a priori things in themselves) and phenomena (‘means’ through which things reveal themselves in human experience) considered the plan of nature to be ‘unintelligible’ but ‘rational’. He influenced the subsequent ideas on history presented by Hegel who conceived the world in terms of evolutionary process of the civilizations and came out with the ideas of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis to explain the progress of history. Hegel defined history as the development of Spirit in Time and nature as the development of the Idea in Space. It was in response to such speculative and metaphysical explanations of history Positivism (pioneered by August Comte) as an approach to attain knowledge gained currency whereby the Positivist historians highlighted the authority of facts instead of opinion or thought. Leopold Von Ranke is the foremost name in the field whose

Introduction

7

obsession with empirical evidence and the notion of history as simply the ‘true record of what happened’ shaped the contour of a new historiography which religiously tried to follow the footsteps of science. It was suggested that just as a scientist, a historian should be diligent in uncovering the buried facts through the use of archaeology, philology etc. However, blind “imitation of the paradigm of sciences and its meta-narrative” could not be helpful in “exploring and explaining the phenomena related with human history and society, what Foucault calls, ruptures and discontinuities” (Gaur 1998: 48). It has been argued that since the “historical documents housed in the archives usually throw light on the mega events, constitution and great men”, the fashion for hunting for facts on the lines suggested by science can only “create and construct an elitist history”. History based on this model has been interpreted and criticized by successive historians “as the interaction between the elitist segment of a society and the institutions they create, change and resist” (48). History differs from science not only in its method but in the very nature of phenomenon it seeks to investigate. While Science can claim objectivity because it deals with relatively less dynamic concrete facts, History, as a discipline, cannot afford such objectivity (especially if it means absence of any kind of value judgement) because it deals with humans and their behaviours. In fact, history and the art of writing history have always been laced with value judgement and ideology. As

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mentioned earlier it is an act of projecting and promoting an ideology which cannot be done merely by documenting the bare facts. Different ideology has produced different models of historiography. For example, the imperial ideology influenced the Colonial Historiography which glorified western civilization at the cost of portraying the people of non-European countries as barbaric and uncivilized; the nationalist ideology prevailed upon the Nationalist Historiography to create nation states by brushing under carpet all the local, social and cultural differences; similarly, Marxist ideology with its focus on class struggle and revolution made a significant intervention in the way history of the working class in the world came to be interpreted. Marxist Historiography Karl Marx, who explained human history in terms of conflicts in the relations of production and aimed at grasping the hidden layers of social reality, pronounced in Communist Manifesto (1848) that “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (cited in Gaur 51; emphasis added). Thus, Marxism presented a new paradigm of explaining history on the basis of historical materialism and dialectics. It viewed the history of the world in the form of linear progression where each stage, dialectically associated as they are, is negated by the succeeding one. In the perpetual class struggles for the control over means of production and distribution of goods, the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat are said to form two rival social

Introduction

9

groups. But their antagonistic positions towards each other need not be construed as something which forecloses the possibility of any intercourse between them. On the contrary, the hegemony of the Bourgeoisie and the subordination of the Proletariat play out in a complex process of hegemonization and consent formation within a reciprocal and a dialectical structure-superstructure relationship (Gramsci 2014:366). However, due to the changing role of capital in the new world order, liquidation of empires in post World War II scenario, arrival of new Nation States in the third world, recognition of new markers like race, caste and gender to define social groups in the world scenario, the situations became too complex to be adequately explained by the economic baseideological superstructure model of Marxist historiography. Therefore, despite its wide reach and comprehensive approach it could not sustain its ideological juggernaut and has been questioned by the Post-Modernist historians for its universalistic reading of world history. Post-Modernist Historiography The Post-Modernist historiography differs from the Positivist or the Annals or the Modernist schools both in terms of the object and the methods of investigation. History, here, is no longer seen as reconstruction of what happened in the past but a continuous playing with the ‘memory’ of the past. “The memory has priority over what is remembered. The wild, greedy, and uncontrolled digging into the

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past, inspired by the desire to discover a past reality and reconstruct it scientifically, is no longer the historian’s unquestioned task” (Ankersmit 1989: 152). It rejects the idea of master narrative and metadiscourse to explain an event in its particular sociocultural ambience, while attending its heterogeneous ramifications and meanings to people. Foucault argues that “the historical past is a rhetorical construct for the present” (cited in Hutton 1991:101) and that the enterprise of “writing history requires an acknowledgement of the politics that makes it possible and that shapes its design” (100). It is interesting to see what has been the effect of all these on the history of a people whose local narrative has been suppressed by the master narrative and whose history had never been written (or if written, it has been written with so much of distortion). Worldwide, today, revisiting history has become means in a larger struggle to end oppression, as people—whose history had been systematically blacked out due to the extraneous considerations of race, caste, gender and ethnicity—have come to find voice and strength to not only salvage their history from the dark recess of the past but also, in the process, are coming face to face with the ‘truths’ about themselves and the world. History of Dalit Movement, Dalits’ struggle for democratic rights and dignity in India can also be seen in this context.

Introduction

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Historiography in India Although historians like A.K. Warder, A.D. Pusalker, R.C.Dutt, U.N.Ghoshal, R.C.Majumdar, Radha Kamal Mukherjee, Radha Kumud Mookherji and Romila Thapar have argued to the contrary, it is widely believed that history as a discipline was unknown to the Indians prior to the advent of the British. Scholars have widely quoted from Al Beruni’s Tehrik-e-Hind (1030 AD) to prove that the Hindus lacked interest in the ‘historical order of things’. It has been argued that given the predominance of other-worldly world view in India, life on earth was considered in terms of Maya (cosmic illusion). It was considered in terms of the cosmic cycle2 whereby the life-force or the universal soul (Brahman) is said to be un-manifest in the beginning, manifest in the middle as an individual soul and dissolving back into the primordial unity in the end (Gambhirananda 1984:76). That is the reason why hardly any attention has been paid, it has been argued, to record the temporal aspects of life. It has been said that the Indian word for history, Itihaas (i.e. thus it was told), points towards the existence of a narrative tradition rather than a chronological tradition in early India; and that the Puranas (ancient lore which relate to antiquity) are mainly in the nature of mythological literature which contains origin myths and genealogies of a few families (clans) like Bharata Vamsa, Surya Vamsa or Chandra Vamsa etc. The Vamsavali, (literally the path to succession) of the kings are also said to be lacking in historical sense as they have been

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used to mystify rather than clarify things. Barring a few exceptions like Kalhana’s Rajatarangini (c. 1148–1149) and Banabhatta’s Harshacharita (early seventh century), no other work has been recognised by historians as having historiographical significance. Later on, it is said, although the Muslim rule, in the mediaeval period, brought with it an already mature Islamic historiographical tradition from Persia and attempts were made to document the lives of the Kings and courtly life (e.g. Babarnaama, Akbarnaama etc) they cannot be said to have established ‘historiography’ as a discipline in India. Much of what is known as Indian history and historiography, therefore, are said to have been the products of post-Enlightenment-rationalist British knowledge system which heavily drew upon the western tradition of historiography and that “modernization of historical studies...owes a debt to the western historiography” (Gaur 1998:58). While recognising the general atmosphere where “...impact and imposition of Western historiographical models through English education and British Indian Scholarship had created a widespread sense of a tabula rasa” Sumit Sarkar critically observes that “Pre-colonial texts, since then, have always figured as ‘sources’ to be evaluated by modern western canons, not as methodological influences.” (Sarkar 1997:6) However, the arguments that India did not have a historiographical tradition of its own largely stem from the fact that there is the difference of opinion about what constitutes history. It is the basic

Introduction

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difference about the meaning and nature of history which leads to a difference in the nature of historiography which in turn makes one either accept or reject a tradition. The advocates of Indian historiographical tradition use the same Orientalist view to argue that while the western tradition (which started with the Greeks) is over-simplistic (as it gave primacy only to the political and military events) the Indian historiographical tradition is very complex (as it included all aspects of life i.e. social, cultural, economic, political and spiritual). It is this difference which explains the difference in the concept of Time prevalent in the two traditions. As opposed to a simple linear motion of Time in the west, it is argued, one finds in ancient India a complex concept of larger cyclic motion consisting of four Yugas (Satya, Tretaya, Dwapar and Kali) endlessly succeeding each other but each of which containing certain number of years running in linear motion. This Four-Yuga system reflects not just the movement in time but the change in moral standards of the society in a retrogressive way: Satya is considered to be the most perfect age followed by the lesser ones ending with the most corrupt Kali after which the cycle is supposed to begin again with the most perfect Satya. That is the reason why, it has been argued, Indian historiographical tradition (Itihaas-Puranic tradition) seemed to the western mind to be a confusing blend of facts and fictions lacking in historical sense. While the western way of looking has given us Mill’s version of Indian history, with three clean breaks based on religious

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criteria, which divides it into Ancient India (Hindu rule), Medieval India (Muslim rule) and Modern India (British rule) the Indian mode of reckoning Time gives a sense of continuity (albeit subject to controversy) of the Indian tradition (Sarkar 1997:69). As noted earlier, it has been a matter of ideological debate and with the process of increasing decolonization of the world and Nationalisation of History—in addition to the Nationalist movement against the British rule in India—the outcome seems to have tilted towards the acknowledgment of a historiographical tradition in India although the importance of western historiographical paradigms can never be understated. The Nationalist School Since the raison d’étre of the Nationalist Historiography was resistance against the foreign domination it rejected the social diversity and local histories to present a monolithic structure of the Nation State. The superimposition of European model of Nation State (largely a product of bloody wars and nationalist revolutions) on the decolonized states or third world (South Asian) countries have always been fraught with fear as it set in motion a process of homogenization in a society which is bewilderingly diverse. Despite Anderson’s powerful intervention and formulation—through his seminal work in Imagined Communities (1983)—to the contrary the basic problem of what constitutes a ‘nation’ still remains unsolved; and across the globe ‘nationality’ is both constructed and contested on the basis of

Introduction

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racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic, caste and territorial identities rather than only on political identities. In the case of India, riding the wave of a Nationalist Movement, India wrested independence from the British in 1947 to constitute itself into a democratic republic through a quasi-Federal quasiUnitarian Constitution in 1950. Thereafter, in addition to a series of unifying and integrationist measures by the Union Government to achieve a ‘congruence between Culture and Power’3 multiplicity of factors—border conflicts culminating in wars (one with China and three with Pakistan), success of Hindi Films across the length and breadth of the country, immensely successful serialization of Ramayana and Mahabharata in the state owned TV channel Doordarshan in the eighties and nineties, growing craze for Cricket—have contributed to the consolidation of Indian national identity in a highly pluralist and diverse country. But since the attempt to homogenize the subcontinent on nationalist line has actually relied on the British Colonial knowledge system about India (which itself was heavily dependent upon Brahmanical Itihaas-Puranic tradition) the end product was ipso facto an extension of Brahmanical historiography (Aloysius 1997:2; Dirks 2006:116-117). While nationalism was being constructed, the Nationalist Movement never really seriously introspected to set aside the privileges/ interests belonging to the dominant class/caste/ community to accommodate the aspirations of the large mass of the country. It was this fact which,

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apart from alienating the large section of lower castes and Dalits within the Hindu fold, pushed the other religions like Islam and Christianity to the margin; the picture it presented looked like, what Aloysius calls, “communal nationalism” where “nationalism [may have] succeeded but the nation failed to emerge” (Aloysius 1997:244). Therefore, in the recent years, the issues of religion, caste and regionalism, owing to their capacity—apart from their so called inherently divisive tendency—to influence electoral politics, have proved too strong to be homogenised; it has led to the beginning of an era which might as well sing the dirge of ‘nationalism’ to announce the birth of a post-nationalist (in the absence of a better phrase) period in Indian historiography. The Subaltern School As Moishe Postone observes, a new historical phase began in India, “sometime after 1973, apparently characterised by the weakening and partial dissolution of the institutions and centres of power that had been at the heart of the state-interventionist mode of capitalist development” (cited in Ludden 2001: 12). Failure of the Constitutional machinery in India to fully meet the expectations of Independence and to address the problems of exploitation, excessive bureaucratization of life, shameless red-tapism, rampant corruption, rising unemployment, growing cleavage between the rich and the poor—these are some of the pressing problems which have added to the already existing fissures in the Indian society, thereby leading to

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the growth of public unrest which have taken the form of peasant insurgencies and Maoist movements in the recent past. It was in the context of perceived failure of the Nation State, attributing these problems to the failure of the Nationalist historiography, a group of historians, led by Ranajit Guha, started the Subaltern School of historiography in the early eighties (1982 to be precise). The word ‘subaltern’ has a long history as it was used to refer to peasants and serfs in England during the medieval age. Later by 1700 it came to mean ‘foot soldier’ in the military ranks. It gained currency in the academic circle after Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), the Italian Marxist thinker, used it to mean ‘subordinate groups’ in a society who “by definition, are not united and cannot unite until they are able to become a ‘State’”(Gramsci 2014:52). According to Gramsci, since the history of the subaltern classes are “intertwined with that of civil society, and thereby with the history of the States and other groups of the States” it is necessary to study their “objective formation”, “their active and passive affiliation to the dominant political formation”, the process of their ‘consent formation’ and how they submit to the hegemony of the dominant groups (52-53). Since “[t]he history of the subaltern social groups is necessarily fragmented and episodic....[e]very trace of independent initiative on the part of subaltern groups should...be of incalculable value for the integral historian” (5455; emphasis added). Here, it may be noted that in the very beginning of his “Notes on Italian History”

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Gramsci was trying to draw the attention of the historians — through a six-point agenda of concrete actions — towards the importance of the ‘subaltern classes’ who despite forming a willing participant in their own subordination in the hand of the dominant classes (represented by the State) are of ‘incalculable value’. Ranajit Guha, the leader of the Subaltern Studies Group, however, takes pain to explain in the Preface of the very first volume of the Subaltern Studies Series that the Group did not really use the Gramscian concept of the ‘subaltern’. Guha says that the Subaltern Studies project intends to use ‘subaltern’ to mean “of inferior rank” and “as a name for the general attribute of subordination in South Asian Society whether [it is] expressed in terms of class, caste, age, gender and office or in any other way” (Guha 1982: vii). However, despite the initial express denial one finds an acknowledgement from him that no project to understand ‘subordination’ is possible without understanding its binary other, ‘dominance’, which has the unmistakable Gramscian connotation. Therefore, even while he criticized the Indian Nationalist Historiography (which he recognises as the ideological product of the elitist colonialist and neo-colonialist historiography) for being elitist, the Subaltern project seems to have begun with Gramscian model to explore the ‘independent initiative...of subaltern groups’ although later it might have veered towards ‘power-knowledge’ construction of Foucault.

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The Subaltern School ushered in a new way of studying and analysing the dynamics underlying Indian subalternity; as it “rejected nationalism and developed transnationally” the nation was “reconfigured, re-imagined [and] re-theorised” to write ‘history from below’ (Ludden 2001: 12). Since its very inception, this school has powerfully articulated and problematized the old concepts of Nation State, Civil Society, Power, Dominance, Hegemony and Subordination. In its analysis of historical facts and attempt to correct the Nationalist mistake it talks about ‘derivative discourse’, ‘indigenous community’ and ‘fragments’ and has constructed the binaries of material-spiritual, worldhome, rich-poor, man-woman, rural-urban etc to study the ‘nation’ and its ‘fragments’ (Chatterjee 1993:13). It strives to rewrite the ‘nation’ outside the state-centred ‘nationalist discourse’ which was nothing but a replication of the colonial epistemology. The new history configured by the Subaltern School consists of “dispersed moments and fragments which are found in the ethnographic present of colonialism” (Ludden 2001: 20). It also means that it uses ‘subversive cultural politics’ as tool to present ‘liberating alternatives’ by exposing the existing power-knowledge nexus (20). Although in its claim to ‘write history from below’ the Subaltern School seems to share kinship with the Marxists (Sarkar 1997:83; O’Hanlon 1988:22) and differs only in its substitution of ‘subaltern’ for ‘class’ it visualizes a project in which historians and post-colonial critics join hands against colonial modernity to secure a

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better future for the ‘subaltern’ (Mahananda 2014: 2). By visualizing a space where the subaltern can ‘speak’ 4 back to its oppressor it seeks to create a liberated ‘imagined community’ which can come into its own only in the ‘language and memory’ of the ‘subaltern’. As it aims to “restore the integrity of indigenous histories” which are said to be found “in non-linear, oral, symbolic and dramatic forms” it expects the historians to break free from the shackles of modernity’s master-narrative and chronological, linear time. While summing up the modus operandi of this school, David Ludden observes that it employed critical readings of colonial texts, oral histories and ethnographic techniques to reveal India’s cultural roots in subaltern subjectivity; that, in the process, it became “a postcolonial critique of modern, European, and Enlightenment epistemologies.” (Ludden 2001: 19-20) Thus, in the recent times Subaltern Studies has made a mark for itself in the academic circle and represents Indian brand of historiography in the universities of the West. However, it is not immune to criticism and has come under serious attack for over-stereotyping the ‘subaltern’. Faults have been found at the School’s over-simplification of Subaltern Consciousness through the study of violence and resistance. Critics like Rosalind O’Hanlon, Jim Maaselos and Sumit Sarkar have been at the forefront to point out the limitations of Subaltern School. Commenting on the “confused dialogue” of the Subaltern School in “a shared Marxist Heritage”,

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O’Hanlon observes in her article “Recovering the Subject: Subaltern Studies and Histories of Resistance in Colonial South Asia” (1988) that although it is a step in the direction of “post-Marxist studies of popular culture that take power and resistance seriously” (22) there is “no concerted attempt to construct a theory of domination as hegemony, as the invocation of Gramsci might have led us to expect” (170). Masselos, however, is less diplomatic, when he expresses his discomfort with the idea of power and resistance pervading all spheres of subaltern life. He finds problems with the “theoretical identification of subordinate social status with mentalities of resistance” and attributes it to the “literary penchant for dramatising class opposition” which, according to him, was fashionable in “the activist world of the late 1960s and 1970s” (23). In his essay “The Dis/appearance of Subalterns: A Reading of a Decade of Subaltern Studies” (1992) he questions the legitimacy of the project by drawing attention to the fact that while the Subaltern School cries foul against the nationalist historiography for having neglected the ‘subaltern history’ it never acknowledges the presence of many others – Eleanor Zelliot, Gail Omvedt and Rosalind O’Hanlon in the field of caste; Eric Stokes, Brenans and others for peasants; Ian Catanach, Ravinder Kumar, Anand Yang, Sandria Freitag and others with Crowd Studies and violence – who were already working for different categories of the subaltern. Further, focussing only on ‘resistance’ and ‘violence’ as the markers of an independent existence seems to be too simplistic

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and is a very bad idea. Subaltern consciousness need not be consisting of only ‘resistance’; rather it may have far more subtle and complex ways of coming to terms with the issues of dominance, hegemony and subordination. Carrying forward this argument in the essay “Situating the Subaltern: History and Anthropology in the Subaltern Studies Project” (1995) K Sivaramkrishnan observes, “History is here simplified by reified culture into oppositional dyads where idyllic past may be counterpoised to turbulent present or unified subaltern group lined up against monolithic elites” (Sivaramakrishna 2001:225). Sumit Sarkar too expresses his uneasiness at the Subaltern School’s obsession “with conflict, violence, and confrontation to the exclusion of both periods of collaboration and quite resistance in everyday forms” in his essay “The Decline of the Subaltern in Subaltern Studies” (Sarkar 1997:102). While presenting a thorough critique of the Subaltern project, Sarkar observes that “Subaltern Studies does happen to be evaluated primarily in terms of audience response in the west... [and] some eclectic borrowings or verbal similarities apart, the claim (or ascription) of being postmodern is largely spurious...” (103). In the name of theory the Subaltern Studies does attempt to ‘essentialize’ the categories of ‘subaltern’ and ‘autonomy’ in a fixed de-contextualized sense. Therefore, according to Sarkar, “Reification of subaltern or community identity is open to precisely the [same] kind of objections that Thompson had levelled... against much conventional Marxist handling of class” (88).

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While paying glowing tribute to Guha for attempting the ‘micro history’ 5 of the people in what he calls the “seldom-referred to-article “Chandra’s Death” 6", Sarkar laments that “there was no theorization on the basis of such ‘micro study’” sufficient enough to “develop ‘micro history’ into a cogent alternative to both positivism and post modernism” (95). If one goes by the criticisms cited above (and many more of the kind) one comes to believe that despite all the ‘sound and fury’ the Subaltern Studies has really signified very less on the ground and to quote Sumit Sarkar again “the inflated reputation of late Subaltern Studies has encouraged a virtual folding back of all [Indian] history into the single problematic of Western colonial cultural domination” (106) and it gives the impression that prior to the advent of the Subaltern School there was no worthwhile history in India, including that of the lower castes; given the long history of anti-caste movements in the country this kind of selective amnesia amounts to absolute falsification of Indian history and is in no way any less ‘elitist’ than its bête noire, the Nationalist School. Caste in Indian Historiography With the above discussions on the major models of Historiography (both in the West and India) we may now go back to the issue of caste in Indian Historiography/ies. Where does caste figure in the existing schools of historiography in India? What has been the nature of their engagement with caste? Sociological definitions apart, has there been any

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attempt to theorize the experience of Caste historically? It has been widely acknowledged that caste has been nourished and kept alive by the Itihaas-Puranic Tradition whereby the society was divided into four hierarchical categories (Four Varnas) and where a large chunk of population was denied human status in the society on the spurious logic of ‘purity and pollution’. While the Itihaas-Puranic Tradition narrated the stories of various royal dynasties with deliberate mystification with the help of religion, it actually consolidated the power in the hand of the Brahmans. The Shudras and the Avarnas (literally people outside the Varna system i.e. the untouchables) had the religious duty to serve the other three Varnas (Brahman, Kshatriya and Vaishya). Slightest violation of the so called ‘duty’ would bring the harshest punishment for the Shudras and the Avarnas, while the Brahman was free from any kind of restriction. In such a situation, certainly there must have been clashes and struggle for power and resistance against the Varna system But the Itihaas-Puranic Tradition chose to describe those clashes and legitimate struggle for power as war between the gods and demons (i.e. Deva and Asura respectively7) corresponding to good and evil, where the former is said to have won always 8. As the history of the Winners was written the vanquished Shudras and the Avarnas got painted in bad light and were invariably portrayed as Dasa, Dasyu, Rakshas and Asura in the dominant narrative. 9

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The Colonial Historiography of India which blindly relied on this Itihaas-Puranic Tradition for its ‘sources’ (Sarkar 1997; Dirks 2006) not only extended the same narrative but lent a stamp of legitimacy and justification of ‘modern’ historical writings. By following the policy of non-interference with the local culture and tradition they not only played safe but did “what the rulers in India had always done, actively upholding and supporting the caste order” (Galanter 1984: 19). The British hobnobbing with the Brahmans was so evident that it “earned them the epithet ‘wet nurse to Vishnu’ from the wrathful missionaries” (cited in Aloysius 2014:50). Compounding the problem was the work of the Orientalists who glorified the Sanskritic Hindu past and valorised the Aryan theory of race. The codification of the Hindu Laws on the basis of Brahmanical texts led to a large scale Sanskritization 10 of people who had so far been outside the ambit of Brahmanical tradition and had successfully resisted the Brahmanical ideology. Obviously, this strengthened the caste-basedhierarchical-structure in the society and M. N. Srinivas is right when he says, “it is my hunch, that the varna model became more popular during the British period as a result of a variety of forces....”(Srinivas 2014: 5) Thereafter came the nationalists who, as noted above, in their attempt to forge a ‘national’ identity for the purpose of nationalist movement against the British fell back upon the so called ‘glorious’ past of a Hindu India in which the ‘untouchables’

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had no place. In this context, one may do well to take note of the apparently contradictory but perfectly logical (in its Hindu sense) views of M K Gandhi (who was the undisputed leader of the Nationalist Movement) towards the problems of the ‘untouchables’. Gandhi held steadfastly to the view that caste system—which de-humanized the ‘untouchables’—was the strength of Indian society and that Varnashram Dharma was infallible. Yet, he claimed the moral authority to be the sole representative of the ‘untouchables’. He had not only vehemently opposed Ambedkar’s demand for ‘special protection for Depressed Classes’ 11 but went to the extent of blackmailing him and the ‘untouchables’ with his mischievous ‘fast unto death’. It was this mischief which led to the infamous Poona Pact of 1932 whereby Ambedkar was arm-twisted to withdraw his demand for ‘separate electorate’ for the ‘Depressed Classes’ and which sealed the fate of the lower castes and ‘untouchables’ of the country; it forced them to accept the State-sponsored plan for ‘affirmative action’ which is resented so much by the members of upper castes and has been the reason behind so much of bad blood among various castes in recent times. 12 He fought hard to deny any sharing of power with the Depressed Classes with whom he would never advocate social union. Nor would he allow them to leave the Hindu fold. According to Ambedkar, the Gandhian claim to protect the ‘untouchables’ was described by the Madras Adi Dravida Jan Sanga as a ‘Cobra seeking the guardianship of the young frogs’ (cited in Keer

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1962:33). Thus, in these historically significant behaviours of Gandhi one can read the attitude of the ‘nationalists’ towards the nation’s ‘untouchables’. The Marxist model too failed in India because it never tried to understand the dynamics of caste but tried to import and superimpose class in a society which is acutely caste ridden and is far more complex than that of Europe. Marxism in India has failed to address the problem of neo-capitalism which adjusted itself with the pre-capitalist institutions of caste and religion to use them for its benefit. With the process of modernization ushered in by the Colonial and Post-Colonial Indian State the feudal structure of the caste society has only partially changed: it has allowed the transfer of power from the Brahmans (who at any rate are not at all threatened by any change in the classical Varna structure because of the disappearance of the Kshatriyas and the fusion of the Vaishyas with the Shudras) to the Shudras; and the Shudras being the Savarnas (within the Varna fold) have now become the neo-Brahmans to uphold the baton of Brahmanism and are in bitter conflict with the ‘untouchables’ (Avarnas i.e. Dalits). The Indian Marxists have failed to note that despite Constitutional promise of an egalitarian society, India has failed to reap the benefit of socialism because lack of serious intent (to dismantle the caste structure) plagues the state machinery, whereby all the developmental policies are superficially conceived not to touch the economic base of the village system.

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The Subaltern School which thrived in its opposition to the Nationalists fares no better in terms of giving space to the history and struggle of the ‘untouchables’ (Dalits). Since its ideological sympathy lay mostly with an amorphous category of ‘peasants’, it conveniently forgot [or ignored!] the most germane category of ‘caste’ while analysing the ‘history from below’. That is the reason why, barring a few honourable exceptions like Guha’s “Chandra’s Death”, Partha Chatterjee’s “Caste and Subaltern Consciousness” 13 and Anupama Rao’s “Death of a Kotwal” 14 one does not find among Subaltern Scholars any significant engagement with the issue of caste. Looked from a Dalit perspective, it is disappointing that no less an authority than Partha Chatterjee limits himself to “develop, make explicit and unify the(se) fragmented oppositions in order to construct a critique of Indian tradition which is at the same time a critique of bourgeois equality”(emphasis added). As noted above, here one can easily notice the object of Chatterjee’s concern, i.e. class. By unapologetically expressing his concern for ‘class’ rather than ‘caste’, Chatterjee quite insensitively deflates the expectation that might have reasonably arisen when he promises to carry forward from Dipankar Gupta’s critique of Dumont’s synthetic theory of caste towards “an immanent critique of caste ideology”(Gupta 1984: 46-48). Instead of throwing any significant light on the role and nature of coercion in the caste structure Partha Chatterjee steers clear of the muddy water and contends himself with only the analysis of “the

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Dharma of the Minor Sects” and the “Genealogy of Subordination” among the lower castes of Bengal (Mahananda 2014:4). His preoccupation with the non-existent ‘nation’ and its unwieldy ‘fragments’ makes him close his eyes to the plethora of anticaste movements raising their heads across the country since ages and particularly on the ones which played out successfully in the recent past by Phule, Periyar and Ambedkar (Sarkar 1997:96). Although a recent work The Politics of the Governed (2004) by Partha Chatterjee tries to engage with leaders like Ambedkar it cannot really compensate the neglect as it does not engage critically with the issue of caste. In his article Kalyan Das refers to Chatterjee’s discussion of Ambedkar’s political insights and their significance in the construction of India’s postcolonial political space in the first chapter of the above mentioned book subtitled “The Nation in Heterogeneous Time” (Das 2015:62-63). Thus, from a survey of the corpus of Subaltern Studies it looks as if the issue of ‘caste’ has been academically as untouchable as the ‘untouchables’ themselves and every attempt has been made to generalize the history of caste and to push it under the carpet. Towards Dalit Historiography Since the long history of anti-caste movement has not been able to catch the fancy of either the Nationalists or the Marxists (and even the Subaltern School despite its sporadic engagement with the issue of caste) for the purpose of writing Indian

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history vis-a-vis Dalits, one looks towards the so called scattered, unorganised, un-theoretical materials found in the day to day experience of the lower caste ‘untouchables’ reflected and refracted in semi-successful, half-successful, unsuccessful attempts in literature. But the actual or perceived failure (or neglect) of the other historiographies to write Dalit history cannot be the sole reason for announcing the birth of Dalit historiography; nor can it hope to take off only on the basis of an adversarial position vis-a-vis the other historiographies. If it has to take off it will have to base itself concretely on a methodology which will articulate its sense of existence (ontology) by pushing the epistemological boundaries to new limits. It needs to decide whether it would go along with the post-Enlightenment rationalist ideology to define itself by the paradigms laid down by science and enter the quagmire of identity, ‘self’ and the ‘other’ or reiterate its faith in a ‘pre-modern’ exclusivist methodology. It needs to negotiate with the complex question of bewildering diversity and differences found among the lower castes themselves (as ‘Dalit’ is not a monolithic category by itself). Further, it needs have to articulate its position vis-a-vis the nation state and ‘statism’, i.e. the ideology of the state. Writing about something, where there is no predecessor to show the way, is easy, because there would not be any standard to judge the outcome; but writing something where there is already a certain model, either to emulate or reject, is very difficult. In the case of Dalit historiography there

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are already many models which will both facilitate and impede the path of writing history. As Dalit historiography would take a position against the elitism of Brahmanism, Nationalism, Marxism and Subalternism to produce an alternative narrative, it has to invariably go along the line of ‘cultural history’ in which context literature will have to play a crucial role to document the hitherto undocumented ‘micro histories’ of the ‘nation’. It has to not only correct the distortion of old image but also create new one where necessary. In the process, bits and pieces of Dalit life across the country can be put together in different regional languages to constitute the ‘micro history’ of the people. Consequently, what emerges is not only a documentation of simply ‘resistance’ and ‘violence’ but a celebration of neversay-die-spirit which finds its way through different local cultures. No doubt, it may not (and need not) produce the so-called ‘authentic’ history but certainly it will be a history which will be more ‘imaginative’15, more sympathetic and more human. Coming to the specific role of Dalit literature in the whole process, many Dalits have opted for spontaneous outpourings through poetry and some others have chosen autobiography to make the best use of the peculiarity of the genre to share their community’s life story. There are yet some others who have resorted to fictional writing in the form of short stories and novels. Writers are also engaged in making their points heard by thought-provoking non-fictional prose writings. Although nuances vary and are different

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across the genres, one finds a clamour for humanity in all of them. Given the above historiographical concerns in the backdrop, the present author proposes to study in the following pages the narratives around one of the Dalit caste groups, i.e. the Ganda caste. The Ganda, as we shall see later in detail, is the name of a caste which is one of the “scheduled castes” recognised by the Government of India Act 1935, was considered a low caste and ‘untouchable’. Although the Constitution of India abolished ‘untouchabilty’ in 1950 and has, since then, made its practice a punishable offence vide Article 17, the disease of practicing ‘untouchability’ still remains in the society and the Gandas, like any other “scheduled castes”, still suffer the stigma of ‘untouchability’. Being at the receiving end of the irrational inhuman social hierarchy, the Gandas form part of a self chosen (as we shall see later) identity called ‘Dalit’. That is the reason why, before we actually study the narratives about the Gandas it would be worth the efforts to put the caste identity in perspective. Towards this end, it is proposed to first critically engage with the raging issues of Dalit discourse and Dalit literature in the following pages. Endnotes 1 While arguing against the Aristotelian concept of ‘tragedy’ which defined it in terms of ‘the fall of a noble man’ and where the ‘noble’ meant aristocracy, Arthur Miller says that even the life of a common

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man can be the fit stuff of tragedy. His plays like All My Sons (1947) and Death of a Salesman (1949) are brilliant expositions on this concept. 2 The concept of cycle or circular motion is not just applied to the process of Birth and Death but to a host of other things like calculation of Time in terms of Four Ages (Satya, Tretaya, Dwapar and Kali) and calculation of planetary motion in Astrology (Jyotish Shastra). In Indian Astrology, all the planets are said to have a cyclical scheme of ‘entering’ the life-scape of the individual to influence and control his/her physical, mental and spiritual health, pursuit and engagements. 3 Ernest Gellner calls nationalism “the congruence between Culture and Power” (cited in Aloysius 1997:15). 4 Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak, in her powerful essay Can the Subaltern Speak? (1988), laments that the ‘subaltern’ cannot speak unless being mediated by the ‘dominant’ discourse. 5 Carlo Ginzburg and Natali Zamon Davis pioneered the genre of historical writing known as ‘micro history’ which attempted to understand the mentalities and decisions of individuals-mostly peasants- within their limited milieu using contracts, court documents and oral histories. According to Carlo Ginzburg, microhistory consists in “the minute analysis of a circumscribed documentation, tied to a person who was otherwise unknown” (Ginzburg 1993:22). It draws upon the “conviction that a

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historical phenomenon can become comprehensible only by reconstructing the activities of all the persons who participated in it.”(24) 6 In this moving study of death (through enforced abortion after an illicit affair) of a low caste woman, Guha not only unravels the ‘community’ but also the conflict, the brutal exploitation, the power relation which is situated at the heart of the indigenous society ‘well beyond the reach of the disciplinary arm of the state’. According to Guha, all these dimensions are often concealed through a blending of ‘indigenous feudal ideology...with colonial anthropology.’ (Guha 1997:42-55) 7 While comparing the Indo-Aryan with Iranian Avestan traditio n, Ro mila Thapar observes interesting ‘reversal’ of meaning: in the Avesta the Ahura meant ‘deities’ and the Daiva meant ‘demons’. (Thapar 2014: 47) 8 The Sanskrit phrase satyam eva jayate, meaning ‘truth always wins’, can be understood in the context of the victors’ (i.e. the Deva) narrative. 9 Although initially the Varna model was at the root of the social divisions putting into disadvantage both the Shudras and the ‘untouchables’ (Avarnas), the social dynamics has changed over the centuries and as we shall see later, it is not the Brahman who is in direct conflict with the ‘untouchables’ (Avarnas) but the Shudras (the nouveau riche, land owning peasant communities). In the modern Indian State parlance the Shudras are known as Other Backward Classes (OBC) or Backward Classes (BC)

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while the ‘untouchables’ (Avarnas) are known as the Scheduled Castes. 10 “Sanskritization is the process by which a “low” Hindu caste, or tribal or other group, changes its customs, ritual, ideology, and way of life in the direction of a high, and frequently, “twice-born” caste. Generally such changes are followed by a claim to a higher position in the caste hierarchy than that traditionally conceded to the claimant caste by the local community” (Srinivas 2014: 6). 11 Referring to the ruthless scheming conduct of Gandhi during the Round Table Conference in England in 1931, Ambedkar records that when Gandhi came to know that the untouchables’ cause was receiving support from the Minorities like Musalman and Sikhs, “he did not hesitate to approach the Musalmans and turn them against the untouchables by accepting their fourteen points which the Congress, the Hindu Mahasabha and even the Simon Commission had rejected.” -—from “What Congress and Gandhi have done to the untouchables.” (BAWS. Vol.9. p. 74) 12 Today in 2015, sixty eight years after independence, there have been some improvements in the life conditions of the Scheduled Castes (Dalits) population, thanks to the governmental policy of ‘affirmative action’ which gives 15% reservation in education in public funded educational institutions and jobs in Government offices. But their situation is far from satisfactory as they are still the victims of atrocities. Rather, it has been noticed that their

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victimization has only increased in recent years as the upper caste people resent the ‘reservation’ being given to them. In the recent years there has been a trend in demanding ‘reservation’ for various communities. Jats and Gujjars, who are the land owning affluent upper caste communities in North India, have been shamelessly agitating for ‘reservation’. The most recent anti-reservation uprising was in the form of a massive Patel Rally in Ahmadabad in Gujarat on 25th August 2015 where the most affluent, most enterprising, trading, Patel community of Gujarat assembled under the leadership of Hardik Patel (22 years old) to demand reservation for the Patel Community. In his speech Hardik Patel minced no words when he demanded “If you do not give our right (reservation), then we will snatch it...Either give reservation to Patels or do not give reservation to anybody.” This demand is just the tip of the iceberg as it reminds the earlier Patel agitation of the 1980s and reveals the increasing mistrust among the communities due to the perception that ‘the principle of affirmative action’ is unjust. Instead of solving their problems this makes the members of the Scheduled Castes increasingly vulnerable to Caste related violence and atrocities. Certainly the Scheduled Castes deserved better and could have been better placed but for the cunning machinations of Gandhi. 13 The same essay forms part of Partha Chatterjee’s book The Nation and Its Fragments (1993) as the ninth chapter and is subtitled “The Nation and its Outcastes”.

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14 In this exhaustive study of the politics and police records involving the murder of a Dalit kotwal (traditional village watchman)in Pimpri-Deshmukh in Parbhani district of Maharashtra, Anupama Rao argues that the social life of the juridical form, produces contradictory effects once it is used by the state to understand ‘untouchability’. She explores the transition in the society in the independent India where political awareness by the Dalits is met with increasing violence with tacit support from the State apparatus like police and the judiciary. 15 “While analysing the need for an alternative narrative of the Dalits, Tapan Basu stresses the importance of ‘imaginative’ rendering rather than of ‘authentic’ one, in his unpublished paper “In the cusp of History and Literature: Narratives of Conquest and Survival in the Writings of Phule and Ambedkar” presented in the International Conference on Dalit Literature and Historiography, 19-21, Dec, 2013 at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.” (Mahananda 2014:15)

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1 Dalit Discourse: Dalit History

Varna Vyavastha (The Varna System) There is difference of opinion among scholars about the origin of caste system in India. Some trace it to the earliest of time in the Rig Vedic age while others consider it to be the result of social corruption in the later Vedic, Puranic period. Many scholars consider the development of caste a later development even while conceding the fact that it has its root in the Varna Vyavastha which is said to have its earliest mention in the “mythical story of creation embodied in the Purusha-Sukta (the hymn of man) of the Rig Veda” (Sharma 1990: 32). In this hymn, there is the description of the primeval man from whom originated the different Varnas: Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra; the Brahman from the mouth, the Kshatriya from the arms, the Vaishya from the thighs and the Shudra from the feet. Thus the society was supposed to have been divided into four hierarchical groups where

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the Brahman was at the top, followed by the Kshatriya, the Vaishya and the Shudra in the descending order. Scholarship is united on the observation that originally the Purusha Sukta was not part of the Rig Veda but was inserted in its tenth book much later, probably during the Atharva Veda period, in order to give it an aura of antiquity and divine origin. (32-34) Scholars like H. H. Risley, R. V. Russell and A. L. Basham are also of the opinion that the concept of Varna was based on racial difference; since it did not refer to the institution of caste as it is understood today it cannot be used to explain fully the existence and proliferation of thousands of castes in modern India. The word Varna, literally ‘colour,’ originally referred to two classes only: Arya Varna and the Dasa Varna. In the Vedas the non-Aryan natives were also known as Dasyus and were referred with their black colour; Indra, the Rig Vedic chief of the gods, is lavished with praise for protecting the Aryan colour as the Krishna Varna (black race) was said to be hostile to the Aryans. Thus, in the beginning, the word Varna was not used to mean castes, but to refer to the mode of segregation necessitated by the existing hostility between the Aryans and the non-Aryans (Russell and Hira Lal 1: 8). Later on, however, the Varna came to mean specifically to the four aforementioned groups. Manu and the Position of the Shudra Manu is considered the law giver of the Hindus as he compiled and consolidated the laws relating to

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social, political, economic and religious aspects of life in precise terms in his infamous code Manusmriti. This book became a reference point for all the later writers, especially the Brahmans and their allies, who invoked the authority of Manu to justify all their undemocratic, selfish practices. While it was a boon for the Brahmans and the upper castes it sealed the fate of the Shudras, the lower castes and the ‘untouchables’ not just temporally but spiritually. It prescribed a rigid code of conduct, based on the fictitious logic of purity and pollution, which ensured perpetual slavery for the Shudras and the ‘untouchables’ through prohibition on interdining and inter-marriage. It seems, however, intermarriage between the four Varnas was not entirely prohibited in the beginning, and a man of any of the three higher ones, could marry others of the divisions beneath his own, on the condition that he took for his first wife a woman of his own community (Manu III:13). This was known as Anuloma –hypergamous- marriage, where the man was from an upper class and the woman from a lower one. Although Manu detested such inter-Varna marriages the children of Anuloma marriages were not necessarily considered illegitimate, and in many cases their descendants could become full members of the class of the first ancestor. However, hypogamous (Pratiloma) marriages (in the opposite direction: marriage of a woman from an upper class with a man of a lower one) were not allowed, and the offspring of Pratiloma marriages were relegated to the lowest position in society (Basham 2004:148).

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Various authorities cite the example of the Chandal, one of the prominent ‘untouchable’ castes, who were supposed to be the “descendants of a Sûdra father and Brâhman mother”, and were considered to be “of all men the most base” (Russell 1:32; Basham 2004:146); and that is how the ‘untouchable’ castes came to exist and were ordained by Manu to “live outside villages near famous trees and burial grounds on mountains and in groves” (Manu X: 49-50). The position of the ‘untouchables’ was far worse than that of the Shudras. The ‘untouchables’ were kept out of the Varna fold and were severely despised; instead of being called savarna 1 (with Varna) they were called avarna (without Varna). Although there were instances of the ‘untouchables’ being referred as Panchama or belonging to the fifth Varna (Basham 2004:145) Manu categorically denied the possibility of a fifth Varna which actually meant closing the boundary of the Hindu society for the preservation of privilege for the upper Varnas (Manu X: 4). The whole corpus of Hindu scriptures (Dharmashastras) were woven around these strictures so much so that in all the scriptures which followed later, let alone Manu and Yagnyavalka, the Brahman is said to be privileged by birth to have all the great qualities whereas the Shudras and the ‘untouchables’ are condemned as unfit even for minimum standard of humanity. Manu compares the Brahman to Agni (the god of fire) which is considered ‘ever pure’ and is worshipped, whether it is used for cremating the

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dead or for performing the Yagna (sacrifice); similarly a Brahman is said to be great irrespective of his knowledge or ignorance and should be worshipped like a god (IX: 317-319); even if he is ignorant he should have the right to advise the king on matters of religion and law (VIII:10); on the other hand the Shudra and the ‘untouchables’ are considered to be padaja (born from the feet) and of paap yoni (born of sin) and are prohibited from any kind of association with Vedic knowledge, rituals or sacrifices (I:31); serving the upper Varnas (Brahmans, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas) is said to be the only profession available to the Shudras (I:91); since the Shudras are not supposed to go through initiation ceremony (upanayana) they are said to be ekajaati (once born, not twice-born 2) and are not allowed to have any education (IV:80); if a Shudra attempts to listen or learn Veda he should be punished severely where the punishment could range from cutting his tongue to pouring boiled lead into his ears (IV:99); far from having any access to education the Shudras and the ‘untouchables’ are not allowed to have any name of their choice; Manu ordains that the name of a Brahman should inspire respect whereas the name of a Shudra should invoke nausea (II:32). The list of such negative injunctions against the Shudra and the ‘untouchables’ in contrast to the glorification of the Brahman is too long to be exhausted here. Therefore, it should suffice here to note that the Varna Vyavastha was a highly inhuman scheme which dehumanized the Shudras, the lower castes and the ‘untouchables’.

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Caste System and Brahmanism Coming to the question of caste, there are conflicting accounts about its origin. While scholars like Russell believe that the word ‘caste’ is not of Indian origin but is derived from the Portuguese word casta, which signifies “race, mould or quality” (Russell 1:8), Basham gives the meaning of the casta as “tribes, clans or families” (149). The Indian word for caste is jaat3 or jaati, which is related to the Sanskrit noun jaata (someone who is born) and is said to be free from any overtone of race, tribe or clan. Following this argument Basham considers the use of caste for jaati to be a false usage and notes that it was credulously accepted by authorities to “account for the remarkable proliferation of castes in 18 th and 19th century” (149). According to him, although it is difficult to show the origin of caste conclusively there should be no difficulty in assuming its development to be of later years because of the fact that its “first faint trace can be found in the later Vedic literature” (149-150). Similarly, Ambedkar too rejected the racial theory of caste. After a thorough analysis of the opinions of Senart (Idea of pollution), Nesfield (Prohibition on inter-marriage and inter-dining), Risley (Common descent and profession) and Ketkar (Prohibition of Inter-marriage and membership by Autogeny), Ambedkar observed: Caste in India means an artificial chopping off of the population into fixed and definite units, each prevented from fusing into another through the custom of endogamy. Thus the conclusion is

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inevitable that Endogamy is the only characteristic that is peculiar to caste, and if we succeed in showing how endogamy is maintained, we shall practically have proved the genesis and also the mechanism of caste. (Ambedkar 1:9) At this juncture, it is interesting to note that Ambedkar preferred to analyse the issue of caste primarily on the basis of exclusion which was effected by ‘endogamy’ and which is not wholly out-of-tune with the recent scholars. Romila Thapar, for instance, acknowledges that heiarchically organised hereditary groups consolidated into various castes with an objective to control the inheritance of property and particularly in relation to women. To quote Thapar, It is unlikely that a social system as complex as a caste society began with a simple, four fold division of society....Possibly the varna system, reflecting social stratification, was nevertheless an idealization of a stratification....Jatis evolve from the intermeshing of a variety of factors such as rules of endogamy, and exogamy, location, environment, technology, occupation, access to resources, differences in the patterns of social observances, and the ideology of ritual purity. (Thapar 2014: 187) However, social exclusion effected by any of the above factors is not the only reason for the growth of caste. It might have developed, proliferated and taken root due to entirely different reason like, what Ambedkar calls, “the counter-revolutionary period” 4 of Hinduism during the Gupta era, which was

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“marked by the [centrality of] Manusmriti, when Varna was transformed into caste largely in response to the rise of Buddhism” (cited in Omvedt 2011:54). Whatever might have been the origin of caste system, both the theory and the praxis suggest that it religiously followed the injunctions of Manu about the inbuilt hierarchy of the society, “segregating the castes (in matters of marriage, physical contact and food) by strict rules of purity and pollution. The birth based segregation was reinforced by rigorous endogamy and strict control of woman’s sexuality” (Mani 2005:15). Over the period of time it led to a large scale discrimination and oppression of the lower castes and ‘untouchables’ in the society. It became an institutionalized hegemonic system in which the upper caste minority is allowed to live off the labour of the lower caste majority. Since every individual is said to be born into a caste it was a virtual prison for the lower castes and ‘untouchables’ who could never aspire for a life of dignity; since the very accident of one’s birth determined the superiority or inferiority of a person it meant an automatic indoctrination of every individual who would learn and perpetuate the lesson of subjugation; he would try to find his inferior in every stage of life so that he can repeat the same cruelty which he himself suffers at the hand of his superior. This ensures that the society remains divided for all time to come as every non-Brahman in the hierarchy, although inferior to some, is superior to some other and enjoys some privileges, at the cost of its inferior, which it would never

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like to relinquish. It perpetuates a society of unequal where concepts like equality, fraternity, freedom and justice are absolute anathema and where the lower castes and ‘untouchables’ are at the receiving end. Gerald Berreman aptly describes it as “institutionalized inequality” that guarantees “differential access to valued things in life...inhuman hierarchy of caste implies the concentration of power, privilege, affluence and security at the top, and humiliation, deprivation, want, and anxiety at the bottom”(cited in Mani 2005: 16). It fosters a pseudospiritual elitist ideology, “sustained through a cleverly designed socio-religious structure” to permanently cripple the masses (16). According to Mani, it works “at several levels in a multiplicity of forms to empower” the upper castes and “disempower” the lower castes; it legitimises “gross inequalities, human rights abuse, gender discrimination, mass illiteracy, untouchability etc”; it is “propelled by the ruthless pursuit of selfaggrandisement based on caste, priest-craft and false philosophy—caste representing the scheme of domination, priest-craft the means of exploitation, and false philosophy a justification for both”(17). It uses ideology as an instrument of domination to ensure that common people think and behave as the ruling castes, i.e. Brahmans and their allies, want them to behave. Considering the leadership of the Brahmans in giving flesh and bone to such ideology of dominance, scholars have named it as Brahmanism. According to Dharma Teertha, it is the fatal exploiting system of traditional Indian

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society representing the “aggregate of the sacerdotal literature, social structure and religio-political institutions that have been masterminded by the elite with the primary aim of keeping the masses ignorant, servile and disunited.”(Cited in Mani 2005:15) Tradition of Resistance against the Caste System Given the fact that the caste system thrived on shameless pursuit of power by the Brahman and the allied castes it necessarily brought the privileged castes in conflict with the non-privileged ones. Although under-reported in the so called mainstream, but actually dominant, history of the country the tradition of resistance against the Brahmanical domination was a reality from the very beginning. Actually, the resistance to caste ideology seems to have begun as soon as the oppressive system started. Often, there is reference to and vilification of the tradition of Lokayata 5 which was said to have been opposed to the Vedic ideals. The Lokayatikas (people who believed in the tradition of Lokayata) are said to be Veda Ninduka (defamers of the Vedas) who rejected every Vedic restrictions (including the strictures on Varna and its ideological successor, the caste) and challenged the “Brahmanical orthodoxy” (Chattopadhyaya 1989:11). The oftridiculed materialism of the Lokayatikas was nothing but an ideological response to the discriminatory exploitative knowledge-system and world-view of the Brahmans. Similarly the emergence of Buddhism

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and Jainism are also seen in this tradition of resistance against the oppressive system of Brahmanism. Resistance in Ancient Period Although the fatal fangs of caste system were not as visible in Buddha’s time as they are today, Buddha’a opposition to the emergent forces of caste and Brahmanism, which he perceived as dangerous, was uncompromising and total. He emphasized time and again, through beautiful metaphors, that caste had no place in his religious order (Mani 2005:105). Worth, and not birth, was the Buddhist criterion to judge a person’s worth. In Buddhism, Nirvana— i.e. freedom from pain and misery—is not the monopoly of the chosen few but can be attained by all irrespective of caste or gender, provided the right type of means is employed. By acquiring character, compassion and wisdom every individual can secure his salvation. The Buddhist concept of Karma is not an escapist and other-worldly one like that of the Brahmans, but is about reaping what one sows in this life itself. It teaches that one cannot escape the consequences of one’s action by indulging in frivolous rites and worship of gods. It is a system which expects people to be responsible for their action and not leave things to the result of previous or later birth. Rhys Davids rightly observes that if the Buddha’s views had won the day, “the evolution of social grades and distinctions would have gone differently and the caste system would never have been built up in India” (cited in Mani 109). In terms

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of resistance in the realm of temporal power, the rise and fall of two Shudra dynasties—the Nandas and the Mauryas—during the 3rd-7th century BC are also significant indicators in the direction of conflict and contestations over land, resources and cultural practices in the country. Although it was a travesty that both these empires fell to the clever machinations of the Brahmans (the Nandas were destroyed by scheming Kautilya and the Mauryas were betrayed by their own Brahman general Pushymitra Shunga), before their fall, both these empires had done so much for the welfare of the masses that even the hostile Brahmanical literati was compelled, albeit reluctantly, to acknowledge their contribution in various fields. Medieval Mukti (Liberation) Movement Citing a suggestion made by G Aloysius in a personal conversation, Mani notes that the Medieval Bhakti (devotion) Movement should be named as Mukti (liberation) Movement because its prime objective was to liberate the masses from the oppressive socioreligious restrictions of Brahmanism. According to him, this movement represented a kind of Shramanic 6 heterodoxy as opposed to the Brahmanical orthodoxy. As opposed to the hierarchical order loving God of the Brahman, the God of the Bhakti Movement was to be found in the heart of every individual irrespective of caste, gender and social position. In the general backdrop of Muslim invasion, worsening economic condition and proliferation of Hindu gods and goddesses this

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movement produced a remarkable line of saint poets who advocated social justice and singularity of Godhead. Among the well known names in the field were Kabir, Ravidas, Dadu, Tukaram, Chokhamela, Namdev, Haralaya who, despite wide difference in their time, place and circumstances, opposed caste hierarchy and Brahmanic ascriptions. Moreover, these saint poets did not advocate detachment from normal worldly life as a pre-requisite for salvation. They were practical human beings who set examples by leading productive and balanced lives. Most of them were married and earned their living by doing some physical work or the other: for example, Kabir did weaving and Ravidas worked with leather. Unlike the Brahmanical Gurus, they recognised the dignity of labour. (Mani 2005:134-138) Then came the British period when, as discussed elsewhere, India and Indian culture were increasingly seen through the perspectives of the Brahmans. Since the British administration had decided to bank upon the priestly class of the Hindu and the Muslim communities for their understanding of the people and culture of the country, it once again brought caste into sharp focus. While analysing the re-discovery of caste during the colonial period Nicholas B Dirks is right in arguing that the British ‘produced’ knowledge, about the culture and people of India, by homogenizing the mind-boggling diversity of the country along the Brahmanical line. Riding on the wave of Orientalist reconstruction of Indian past, the so called Indian Renaissance of the 19 th century took shape. It was in the confusing backdrop

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of Orientalist valorisation of Brahmanical tradition and the socio-cultural renaissance—spearheaded by Ram Mohan Roy, Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda and others—the anti-caste movement kept itself alive in the person of Jotiba Phule and his Satya Shodhak Samaj. Jotiba Phule (1827-1890) and anti-Caste Movement Jotirao Phule or Mahatma Jotiba Phule, as he is popularly known, was undoubtedly one of the most significant personalities in the tradition of resistance against Brahmanism; although he was born in a well-to-do Mali (Shudra-gardener) family of Maharashtra he can be called the ideological founder of anti-caste movement in modern India who had clearly seen the “relationship between knowledge and power much before modern thinkers like Foucault and Edward Said did” (Mani 2005:251). His radicalism was aimed not only against caste atrocities perpetrated by Brahmanism it also encompassed a comprehensive programme for the education and empowerment of, the lower castes, the women and the oppressed; and hence, it was not surprising that the first use of the politically loaded term “Dalit” is attributed to him when he used the word Dalitoddhar (upliftment of the depressed) in connection with caste (Zelliot 2010: 271). It is for this reason many writers have considered him “to be a pioneer, who kindled the spirit of revolt among the Dalits” by making “the downtrodden people more conscious of their need

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for social and cultural freedom” (Murugkar 1991:2). He was the first in the history of the country to have established a school in Pune for the ‘untouchable’ women in 1848, the very year in which Communist Manifesto was published in the West. He envisioned a progressive egalitarian casteless society based on the natural rights, rationality and justice. Towards this goal, he, along with his colleagues, had founded the Satyashodhaka Samaj (Truth Seekers’ Society) whose membership was open to all castes and religions. (Keer 2000: 128) In exposing the Brahmanical self-interest in the glorification of Aryan India he led a campaign to debunk the myth of the golden era being valorised by the contemporary nationalist leadership. For Phule, the subversion of Brahamanical religion and culture was not an end in itself but a beginning point of an alternative reconstruction of Indian history (Mani 2005: 265). His controversial and hard hitting book Gulamgiri (1873), which is rightly called a “theoretical excursus on slavery” by G P Despande, was the manifesto of revolt against caste society of India and it laid bare the falsehood perpetrated by the Brahmans in their enterprise to ensure slavery for the lower caste toiling masses (Despande 2002:3). It attempted a deconstruction of Hindu history/ mythology while interpreting the various incarnations of Vishnu as different stages of Aryan onslaught on the original inhabitants of India. Discounting the Brahmanical historiography which construed the Muslims and the British as the colonizers of India it argues that the Aryans were

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the first colonizers in true sense of the term and that “the upper strata of the Indian society were descendents of the savage aliens who cruelly subordinated the peace-loving aborigines by usurping their land and property” (269). Indeed, it was a significant step in the direction of an alternative historiography which gave the anti-caste movement a solid base from which later revolutionaries like Ambedkar could take off. Anti-Caste Movement Across the Country The second half of 19th century and the first half of 20th century was a period of hectic socio-political activities in India. The nationalist historians choose to record only those aspects of the activities which were directly seen to be against the British rule and name the period as the period of freedom movement. However, as G Aloysius argues in his powerful analysis of growth and trajectory of nationalism in Nationalism without a Nation in India (1997), it was a period of freedom movement in a far more comprehensive sense: from the perspectives of the lower castes, who were branded as being apathetic to the call of nationalist movement against the British and thus scuttling the freedom struggle, it was a period of struggle against both the British rule and the age-long Brahmanical rule; since the British conquest of India was considered nothing but an extension of colonialism actually started by Brahmanism, the lower castes’ project – howsoever scattered and dissipated it might have been – for the emancipation from slavery had to address both

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the socio-cultural and the political concerns (134184). That is what explains the mushrooming of anti-caste consciousness and corollary socio-cultural movements in every nook and corner of the country prior to the advent of Ambedkar on the scene. In this context the contributions of many social activists and reformers—Narayan Guru (1854-1928) in Kerala, Iyothee Das (1845-1914) and Periyar (1879-1973) in Tamil Nadu, Bhagyareddy Varma (1888-1939) in Andhra Pradesh, Guru Ghasi Das and Balak Das in Chhattisgarh (erstwhile Madhya Pradesh), Guru Chanda in Bengal, Bhima Bhoi (1855-1895?) in Odisha, Swami Acchutanand (1879-1933) and Ram Charan (1888-1939) in Uttar Pradesh and Mangooram (1886-1986?) in Punjab—towards the growth of anti-caste consciousness cannot be overlooked. These activists and reformers were powerful sources of inspiration in their own right and painstakingly worked, sometimes at the cost of their personal life and security, in their respective regions for the socio-political emancipation and economic upliftment of the masses from the slavery of caste system. Gail Omvedt observes that the main figures of the “larger anti-caste movements attacked the system of exploitation at all levels - culturally, economically, and politically” (Omvedt 1994:12). They challenged the very concept of ‘Hindu India’ and asserted that Hinduism was never the religion and culture of the majority; it had been imposed on them by force and they required rejecting it in order to escape the exploitation and perpetual slavery. Although their methods and strategies differed,

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owing to their difference in terms of place, community, circumstances, intensity and spread, all these activists-reformers had one goal: the goal of achieving an egalitarian, rational and a just society where basic human rights are available to the individual. B R Ambedkar (1891-1956), burning of the Manusmiriti and the “Annihilation of Caste” The arrival of Ambedkar on the scene of anti-caste struggle was a watershed moment in the history of not just India but also of the world. He was a visionary, a powerful orator, a prolific writer and a political activist per excellence; he began his life in attempting to reform Hinduism and it was under his leadership a copy of the Manusmriti was burnt as a mark of protest against the Hindu Varna Vyavastha (caste system) on 25th December 1927 at Mahad in Maharashtra. When he said in the conclusion of the historic speech at Mahad that “we [the ‘untouchables’] must uproot the four-caste system and untouchability and set the society on the foundations of the two principles of one caste only and of equality” (cited in Dangle 2009: 268) he was only articulating the long-suppressed voice of the masses. However, by 1935 he had come to the realization that Hinduism was beyond redemption; so he exhorted his followers to search for dignity in some other religion; and ultimately to set an example and prove a point that he practised what he preached, he formally converted to

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Buddhism on 14th October 1956 along with lakhs of followers. Unlike Phule, Ambedkar did not write poetry or short stories but communicated mainly through speeches. Yet, his spirit of revolt, rationalism and modernism provided powerful impetus to the growth of a special kind all literature in Maharashtra. It was unsparing in its approach and carried with it a sense of identity and conviction which was never seen before. Earlier, despite their hard work and sincerity of purpose, the predecessors of Ambedkar across the country had not been able to solidify the anger of the lower castes into a unified movement; they worked within their respective geographical limitations and were too scattered to make common cause with their brethren in different parts of the country. For the first time in the history of anti-caste struggle there was someone who understood the issue of caste so thoroughly and who talked about the ‘lower castes’ of not one region but of the whole country. It is absolutely insignificant that in the northern India his influence was checkmated by Dalit leaders like Jagjivan Ram who were nothing but the puppets in the hand of a hypocritical Congress Party which was determined to stop the ideological juggernaut of Ambedkar at all cost. His undelivered speech titled “The Annihilation of Caste”7 was considered the most scathing attack ever made on Hinduism, as it called a spade a spade and argued that religion is the root cause of caste system in India and a cosmetic solutions provided by Gandhi by appealing to the

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so-called ‘conscience’ of the people is no solution at all. Advocating a drastic change in the social order of Hinduism it opined that no progress could be made without abolishing caste. It argued that if one wanted to address the problem of ‘untouchability’ and caste system one required throwing away the Brahmanical Hindu religion lock, stock and barrel. Further, contrary to popular perception, it was not the undue destruction of Hinduism that Ambedkar was interested in. When he advocated the annihilation of caste it was primarily to save Hinduism and the nation from dissipation. The text read: “You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole” (Ambedkar 1:66). But, unfortunately it was widely misunderstood and feared to the extent of being rejected. The following letter (dated 22.04.1936) written by Mr Har Bhagwan 8 to Ambedkar amply reflects the scare it had created even among the progressive upper caste Hindu reformers of the time: “You have unnecessarily attacked the morality of the Vedas and other religious books of the Hindus....The last portion which deals with the complete annihilation of Hindu religion and doubts the morality of the sacred books of the Hindus as well as a hint about your intention to leave the Hindu fold does not seem to me to be relevant....In case, you still

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insist upon the printing of the address in toto, we very much regret it would not be possible— rather advisable for us to hold the conference, and would prefer to postpone it sine die...” (Ambedkar 1:32) This clearly exhibits not only the extent of discomfort in the mind of upper caste reformers but also the potential influence of Ambedkar on the anti-caste movement which, later on, got to be known as Dalit Movement. This also shows why Arjun Dangle in his “Introduction” to the book Poisoned Bread (2009) considers Ambedkar the Father of Dalit Literature who is to be credited with “taking the brilliant, aggressive ideology of Mahatma Phule one step further and rendering it even more brilliant” (Dangle 2009: xxii). Ambedkar not only exposed the evils of Caste System in Hinduism to bring sense to the masses but also campaigned tirelessly for securing civil and political rights for ‘the Depressed Classes’ (it was the name by which the lower castes and the ‘untouchables’ had come to be known). After the Lahore Declaration of the Muslim League for a separate Pakistan in 1940 he was the first to grapple with the problems of identity politics and finding no alternative to forging an identity-based front for demanding a share in power he founded the Scheduled Caste Federation in July 1942 (Rodrigues 2004: 13). But, after the electoral debacle in 1945 in which the Scheduled Caste Federation fared very badly he had no option but to impress upon the

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British Government, that the fate of ‘the Depressed Classes’, in a Hindu India was worse than that of the slaves and they needed to have a number of political safeguards in the event of India being granted independence. Some of the most important conditions, for consenting to submit to the rule of the Hindu majority, he put before the British Government were equal citizenship, Fundamental Rights, protection against discrimination, adequate representation in Legislatures/Services and grievance redressal mechanism (369-381). Although owing to the determined hostility of the Congress Party and peculiarity of electoral politics Ambedkar did not succeed politically to get a separate electorate for the lower castes, he certainly did succeed, as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, in drafting a modern democratic constitution for independent India which is nothing but a translation of his vision of an egalitarian and just society; and by the time he died in 1956 he had already left a formidable legacy for the lovers of democracy to carry forward his mission. Transition from anti-Caste Movement to Dalit Movement Although the spirit of a modern Dalit movement was alive in various forms in a plethora of anticaste movements since the very beginning and as noted earlier, we have the first reference to the word Dalit in Phule’s program for Dalitoddhar (upliftment of the lower castes), strictly speaking, the seed of ‘Dalit’ as a political identity was sown

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with the establishment of the Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942; and it was later appropriated by the Maharastra Dalit Sahitya Sangha in the first Dalit Sahitya Sammelan (Dalit Literature Conference) held in 1958 in Bombay. Earlier, the lower castes, particularly the ‘untouchables’, were known by different nomenclatures like chandals, avarnas, achhuts, pariahas, namashudras, adiDravida, adi-Hindu, Harijan, Depressed Classes and Scheduled Castes etc. at different points of time, in different parts of the country. The phrase “Scheduled Castes” became their official identity in Independent India (after the Presidential Order of 1950). Most of the above mentioned names used for the lower castes/untouchables were pejorative terms imposed by others. The words chandals, avarnas, achhuts, pariahas, namashudras were used by the upper castes to describe the ‘impure’ and ‘untouchable’ status of the people and were meant to evoke disgust. Similarly the term ‘harijan’9 which was propagated by Gandhi evoked mixed response and was not much liked by Dalits as it literally meant ‘God’s children’ and had a remote but an unmistakable reference to those whose parentage is unknown and hence are known as ‘bastard’ in common parlance. According to Ambedkar, “Harijan is a bad word...in Hindi it means a boy whose father’s name is unknown; hence, children of God. In the Hindu temples there were, as you know, the devadasis, the girls who took part in worship ceremony and also

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served the priests sometimes they gave birth to children and those children were called Harijans. That is why we don’t like the name.” (Cited in Nath 1987:9) Similarly the phrases ‘Depressed Classes’ and ‘Scheduled Castes’ were too prosaic to reflect the centuries of misery and struggle of the ‘untouchables’ and did not carry with them the desired meaning of assertion. On the contrary, the word ‘Dalit’ being ‘self-chosen’ rather than ‘given’ has been widely accepted as a tool of assertion. Etymologically, the term ‘Dalit’ is derived from a Sanskrit root ‘dal’, which means to crack open, split, crush, grind, and so forth, and has generally been used as a verb to describe the process of grinding the food grains and lentils. Its metaphoric usage, still as a verb, can be seen in descriptions of warfare and vanquishing of enemies. But in the hands of the visionaries like Phule and Ambedkar, both as a noun and an adjective, it conveyed the meaning of upper caste oppression. As a marker of identity it came in prominence in 1972, with the emergence of Dalit Panther founded by Namdeo Dhasal, Raja Dhale and other writer-activists. The name Dalit Panther itself expressed the solidarity and kinship with the Black Panther which was struggling, militantly, for the rights of AfricanAmerican in America. The name ‘Dalit’ found a ready acceptability among ‘untouchable’ communities all over India and over the years it has been interpreted as referring to all oppressed communities irrespective of caste.

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Dalit Identity: Who is a Dalit? This question involves the life and identity of such a large section of Indian population that it has raised debates among the scholars—both activists and academic—about the nature of the identity invoked by the term Dalit. While some have tried to define it largely on the basis of a realization or consciousness of the injustice of caste system, a few have tried to answer it from the stand point of political exigencies to generate a kind of solidarity against the upper caste oppression. Phule and Ambedkar can be said to have started with the same position to inspire the majority of the later generation towards an all inclusive definition of the term. Sharan Kumar Limbale, the celebrated Marathi Dalit writer, for example, writes in his book Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature (2010), ...Harijans and neo-Buddhists are not the only Dalits, the term describes all the untouchable communities living outside the boundary of the village, as well as Adivasis, landless farmlabourers, workers, the suffering masses, and nomadic and criminal tribes. In explaining the word, it will not do to refer only to the untouchable castes. People who are lagging behind economically will also need to be included. (Limbale 2010: 30) However, as the following pages will reveal, there are many others who do not agree with such allinclusive definition of the term ‘Dalit’ but have tried to define it exclusively to address the changing socio-

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political dynamics of the country. Before we move to the others it would be better if we recollect the Dalit Panthers, in the state of Maharashtra, who were the first to have used the term for the purpose of a sustained political movement. Dalit Panther and the Inclusive Identity of Dalit Arjun Dangle, one of the leaders of Dalit Panther Movement and the editor of Poisoned Bread (2009), addressing the questions of ‘who is a Dalit’ writes in the introduction to the aforesaid book, 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 principle of negativity, rebellion and loyalty to science, thus finally ending as revolutionary. (Emphasis added; Dangle 2009: lii) Similarly Gangadhar Pantawane, the founder editor of Asmitadarsh, a journal of the Marathi Dalit movement, and a Professor of Marathi at the then Milind College, (now Marathawada University) echoes: ...Dalit is not a caste. He is a man exploited by the social and economic traditions of his country. He does not believe in God, Rebirth, Soul, Holy Books teaching separatism, Fate and Heaven because they have made him a

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slave. He does believe in humanism. Dalit is a symbol of change and revolution. (Emphasis added; cited in Zelliot 2001: 268) In both the above formulations about Dalit, one finds an identity of a rebel which springs from the injustices of caste system but certainly is different from any specific caste. At the crux is the realization, an experience, which condemns the very institution of caste and visualizes a change. It makes common cause with all the oppressed sections of the society, whether it is the women or the poor or people from other religions. Reflecting this sentiment Gail Omvedt quotes the Manifesto of the Dalit Panthers which includes within the term Dalit all the “Members of Scheduled Castes and tribes, neoBuddhists, the working people, the landless labourers and poor peasants, women and all those who are being exploited politically, economically and in the name of religion” (Omvedt 2010: 72). This inclusive definition of the word has been accepted by many people and it has yielded substantial electoral gains for a few Dalit leaders who cashed in on the concept of ‘Dalit-Bahujan unity’. As it sought to unite about 85% of the total Hindu (Shudra and ‘untouchables’) population, for some time, it looked as if Dalit revolution had completely engulfed the country—the Republican Party in Maharashtra and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh were the main beneficiaries of this sort of inclusive definition—but precisely at this stage of its utmost visibility Dalit movement

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has failed. Now, one finds a situation which can be described as ‘maximum visibility with minimum impact’; in their euphoria on new-found attention, the Dalit leaders and intelligentsia have forgotten to do the fundamental task of defining the term objectively. Considering the fact that Brahmanism does not operate from one caste alone but through all the castes in the hierarchy—and also the fact the Bahujan (literally the majority which comprises mainly of the erstwhile Shudras of the Varna system), which was supposed by the untouchables to be with the Dalit movement, was, in reality, never against Brahmanism—the ideological bond between the Dalits and the Bahujans could never be cemented. The concepts of Bahujan (majority) and Moolnivasi (original inhabitant- invoking the Aryan invasion theory) started by Phule and attempted-political-encashment by the Backward and Minority Community Employees’ Federation (BAMCEF) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) seem to have failed, as in their lust for power the Dalit political leaders made strange bed-fellows in Politics and forgot to consolidate the Dalit movement ideologically. History seemed to repeat itself, when, similar to the Brahmanical resurgence of Gupta era after an upbeat period of Buddhism in ancient India, hardliner Hindutwa10 has consolidated itself and has risen in the form of Bharatiya Janata Party11 (BJP) to challenge the democratic aspiration of the ‘untouchables’.

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Case for an Exclusive Identity of Dalit It is in the context of a resurgent Brahmanism in the twenty first century, when the Shudras are no longer with the ‘untouchables’ Dalit identity calls for a serious re-thinking. While attempting a sociological definition of the term Dalit, Vivek Kumar12 for example, observes that there is no clear position accorded to Dalits vis-a-vis the Hindu social order. He laments that at best the sociologists have given a literary and cultural meaning of the term or followed the political definition propounded by the Dalit Panthers, both of which have woefully fallen short of defining the term correctly. He defines Dalits “as a group of people” which is constituted on the characteristics of “unique structural location in the Hindu Social Order”, “cumulative social exclusion”, “long history of Social Exclusion”, “unalterable social status based on caste” and consequent “consciousness anchored in the historicity such social exclusion” (Kumar 2014:21). Elaborating on the parameters of ‘exclusion’ to define Dalits, Vivek Kumar takes a clinical departure from his predecessors in the field and observes that if the aforementioned characteristics are taken together they will make the Dalit identity substantially different from that of the tribals and the women. Seen from this point of view the poor from neither the other lower castes nor the other minority communities can be included within the definition of the term Dalit (21). It simply means that, according to scholars like Vivek Kumar, only those

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people can be called Dalits who have been the victims of the caste system and have been the untouchables since ages; not even the erstwhile Shudras, the Other Backward Classes13 (OBCs) in current terminology, who are just one step higher than the untouchables in the caste hierarchy, can be brought under the term ‘Dalit’. This line of argument seems to have been anticipated by other Dalit scholars as well. Anand Teltumbde, a human rights activist, writer and analyst of contemporary Dalit and Left Movements, in his powerful book The Persistence of Caste: the Khairlanji Murders and India’s Hidden Apartheid (2010). While analysing the increasing trend of caste atrocities on Dalits in the country, Teltumbde, points out that it is the Shudras (OBCs) who are the worse perpetrators of atrocities against the Dalits in the independent India, particularly since the 1960s, and that the much hyped concept of Dalit-Bahujan (‘Untouchable’- Shudra) unity is a myth. According to him, There may not be much to differentiate the caste consciousness of the vast majority of shudra castes on the one side and of dalits on the other, but to imagine that these two social groups, placed at contradictory positions in the traditional and rural production system, would come together as ‘bahujan’ is grossly erroneous. It betrays ignorance of the primordial divide between Dalits and nondalits, repeatedly demonstrated through

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history, which, as corroborated by empirical evidence, has been caste’s dominant existential feature. (Emphasis added; Teltumbde 2010: 185) So, while doing the plain-speak against the concept of Bahujanwad i.e. the unity of Shudra (OBCs) and the ‘untouchables’ (Dalits), Teltumbde feels that it is ‘theoretically infeasible’ as in the classical caste hierarchy the Brahmans are positioned at the upper end and Dalits at the lowest and where the structure is “hopelessly and visibly kinked at the point of division between the two segments: avarna and savarna, dalits and nondalits, outcastes and castes” (sic; 185). Here, Teltumbde is premising his thesis not just on the basis of the Khairlanji Massacre of 2006 but on the pan India phenomena since the 1960s whereby caste atrocities have been overwhelmingly committed by the Shudras (OBCs) whose new found wealth and arrogance can be traced to flawed state land-reform policies which have created a neo-rich, landowning, neo-Brahmans in the erstwhile Shudras in the rural India. In South India too—where unlike the North India, there is no distinct Kshatriya Varna—in their struggle for power, although the non-Brahmans successfully consolidated against the numerically inferior Brahmans, there was no place for the ‘untouchables’ in this ‘anti-Brahman success story’ as they are/were placed outside the pale of Hinduism as ‘Others’. In the case of Tamil Nadu, for example, there was the rise of Justice Party

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during the British period, and which formed the first non-Brahman-led ministry in the 1920 and which is alleged to have brought out ‘communal’ government order for reservation of seats in favour of the non-Brahmans. But, as noted by Ravi Kumar in the “General Introduction” to The Oxford India Anthology of Tamil Dalit Writing (2012), “the Justice Party ministry’s idea of non-Brahmin welfare did not include all non-Brahmin castes. This category [non-Brahman] practically excluded Dalits and other religious minorities” (Ravikumar 2012: xxvii). Later, in Independent India, this caste-configuration has only deteriorated against the ‘untouchables’ as all the conflicting non-Brahman-non-Dalit castes, in their pursuit of power, have forged alliance with the Brahmans along the line of ‘touchability’. Drawing upon the analysis of historian Burton Stein regarding the Brahman and Non-Brahman alliance contributing to the demise of Buddhism in South India, Ravi Kumar refers to the complex nature of caste configuration in Tamil Nadu in the following words: “... the ‘Brahman-high non-Brahman’ alliance remained intact...and played a crucial role in the institutionalization of untouchability and the caste system in Tamil Nadu” (xxiv). It is the persistence of this kind of Shudra‘untouchable’ difference which prompts scholars like Teltumbde to observe that even in Phule’s days “the combination of Shudras and Ati-Sudras...did not work” and it was precisely because of this reason “a separate Dalit movement had to spring up.” 14

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However, considered from the stand point of the Dalit Panthers (who wanted to wrest political power by putting a united front), the humanists (who want to see all the poor, downtrodden and marginalized to be united under one banner), the pseudohumanists (who want to exploit the dissatisfaction of people to further their own academic career) and the self-serving politicians, the above line of thought may seem uncomfortably narrow. Nonetheless, it is interestingly strange that it turns out to be rather the most correct factual position upon which a sociological definition may be advanced; while it acknowledges the ‘social’ side of the ‘political’ and vice-versa in the caste conundrum, it also seems to reflect the wisdom of the Supreme Court of India which, in the landmark judgement in Indra Sawhney vs Union of India case (AIR 1993 SC 477), had opined that the Scheduled Castes, i.e. the Dalits, cannot be equated with any other social groups in the country as the stigma of caste suffered by a scheduled caste person sets him apart from the Other Backward Classes (i.e. Shudras). In an aside, one may recollect that the above mentioned case and the series of events which led to the build up of the case are quite significant from the perspective of Dalit Identity and Movement. This case is also popularly known as the Mandal Agitation case as the above mentioned appeal in the Supreme Court was preferred against the implementation of Mandal Commission’s Report (1980) by the Viswanath Pratap Singh Government (1989-1990) on giving reservations to the members

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of Other Backward Classes (OBCs), in matters of Government jobs and admission in State-runeducational institutions. There was a huge backlash from the upper castes who resented the reservations being given to the OBCs. The whole episode is quite significant in the history of the Dalit Movement because from this time onwards there started a trend in which the upper caste people became increasingly hostile not just against reservations being given to OBCs but against the very ‘concept of reservation’ 15; agitation against the very ‘concept of reservation’ in actual practice meant that the real victim of the anti-Mandal agitation were not the OBCs (Shudra), who suffered no stigma of untouchability, but the scheduled castes (the ‘untouchables’). In later years, the spirit of hostility against the scheduled castes has only increased and in this unfortunate environment of hostility one would have expected the OBCs (Shudras) to align with the scheduled castes (Dalits) as they are just one step higher in the caste hierarchy; but as it has been repeatedly proven, the OBCs have not only aligned with the upper castes but also proved to be the main perpetrators of caste-atrocities on the scheduled castes; in this context Teltumbde’s telling observations provide one a clear picture of the changing dynamics in caste politics: BC/OBCs that interface Dalits in villages matter more than the so-called upper castes like Brahmans.... During the postindependence decades, the political-economic

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changes that befell the agrarian sector aggravated this divide and brought Shudras in material contradiction vis-a-vis Dalits. (Bavadam 2015: n.p.) Trying to understand the class angle in caste conflict in modern India, Teltumbde particularly mentions the case of the land reforms, which to him, were implemented to carve out a class of rich farmers in villages as an ally of the central ruling class. Teltumbde is right when he says that the class contradictions between Dalits and the Shudracaste rich farmers begin manifesting through the ‘familiar fault lines of castes’. The above discussion shows that the dwivarniya (two varnas- Brahman and Shudra) structure of the society, envisaged by Phule as a strategy to unite the three non-Brahmans (i.e. Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra) against the Brahmans, in order to challenge and defeat the Brahmanical hegemony, has failed miserably; and that the Brahmanical strategy to ‘divide and rule’ the society has been the clear winner. Since the majority of the contemporary Dalit leadership/intelligentsia lacks the intellectual depth of Phule and Ambedkar it has not been able to diagnose the root of the problem afresh but has rather stuck to the old outdated concept of Dalit-Bahujan unity (unity of the ‘untouchables’ and the Shudras). The contemporary Dalit leadership and intelligentsia cannot understand the fact that the strength of a movement depends on the strength of an identity and that over a period

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of time the strength of the Dalit identity has weakened substantially because of the changing dynamics of modern India where the OBCs, women and tribals, except as a selfish motive to get a share in the ‘reservation’ pie, do not really question the caste system as to identify themselves with the Dalit cause. Dalit Identity: At a Cross Road? In the ultimate analysis, however, both the above approaches to Dalit identity, one may surmise, seem to be lacking something or the other and do not take into account the complexity of Indian society. While the inclusive definition of Dalit fails to take account of the basic contradiction and oppression of the Dalits in the hands of the Shudras and diverts attention away from the actual issue, the exclusive definition tends to take, what Marc Galanter calls, “a sacral view of caste” (cited in Webster 1996: 199). While the former approach dilutes and serves to weaken the Dalit identity, the latter compartmentalizes the issue of caste which is resistant to the powers of religion (existence or rather infection of caste system in the so called egalitarian religions like Christianity and Islam is a case in point). That is the reason why, although one would like to go along with the ‘inclusive view’ one becomes circumspect about blurring the distinctions of caste, religion and gender to formulate an inclusive definition of the word ‘Dalit’. Unless one is governed by any of the earlier mentioned reasons (both partisan and humanitarian) one cannot be convinced

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of an inclusive identity of ‘Dalit’ because there is nothing on the ground to transcend the barriers of caste: a definition of ‘Dalit’ which includes all actually includes none and hence is no definition at all. Endnotes 1 Despite their lowest status in the Varna system even the Shudras were considered savarna and thus were higher in the social hierarchy than the avarna ‘untouchables’. 2 Brahmans, Kshatriya and the Vaishyas are considered twice born (dwija) where their first birth refers to the actual biological birth and the second one is the symbolical ritualistic one on the performance of initiation ceremony or thread ceremony (upanayana). 3 The term jaat in colloquial uses, in the North Indian Hindi belt, is also meant for ‘categorizing’; for instance, an animal is said to belong to ‘bidal jaat’(cat family) or sarisrupa jaat (reptile family); there are also uses like ‘purush jaat’ (male) as opposed to ‘stri jaat’(female). Although one is not sure of the beginning period of such usage, one is amply clear of the fact that these uses of jaat are never derogatory. 4 Here the counter-revolutionary period refers to the Gupta period which is said to be the golden period of In dian H ist ory fro m t he perspe ctive of Brahmanical tradition because it effectively suppressed all traces of Buddhism in the country;

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During this period all the Puranas were said to have been written, extrapolations made in the Vedas and Manusmriti to deliberately construct a Brahmanical Hinduism. 5 In Sanskrit, Lokayata is made from lokeshu ayata, which means ‘prevalent among the people’. 6 The word Shramanic is derived from shram, which means physical labour, and refers to the popular tradition as opposed to the elite tradition of the Brahman. That is the reason why Buddhism and Jainism are said to be the Shramanic traditions in ancient India. 7 It was originally a speech prepared by Ambedkar to be delivered at the Annual Conference of the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal, Lahore, which was proposed to be held in the middle of May 1936. The Mandal was an organization of the upper caste Hindu reformers, and was understood to be a sister organization of the Arya Samaj, which could not accept the fact that Ambedkar wanted to attack the Vedas in his proposed speech. 8 Mr Bhagwan was one of the organizers of the proposed Conference at Lahore and it was he who communicated the discomfort of the organizers about Ambedkar’s criticism of Hinduism. 9 Gandhi had unwittingly borrowed the term from the bhajans of Gujurati saint poet Narsingh Mehta who, along with other religious figures prior to him, used the word harijan (God’s people, meaning good people) as opposed to the word durjan (bad people). Thus, it was an unwitting mistake on the part of

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Gandhi to have used a term, which was used in the closed saintly circle of Gujarat, for public consumptions on such a sensitive issue as ‘untouchability’. 10 Literally means Hinduness and is much in vogue in Indian and international media as it is a term used by the critics of the right wing RSS/BJP combine to evoke the fundamentalist position of the Hindu hardliners. 11 The political debacle of Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party in the General Election of 2014 where it could not win a single LokSabha seat took place at the backdrop of a thumping majority by the BJP. 12 Vivek Kumar is the Ambedkar Chair Professor at JawaharLal Nehru University, New Delhi. 13 Article 15(4) of the Constitution of India defines the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) for the purpose of affirmative action as ‘Socially and Educationally Backward Classes of citizens’ and Article 16(4) adds the element of under-representation in services of the State for them to be eligible for State-sponsored affirmative action. Unlike the original ‘Scheduled Castes’, the ‘Other Backward Classes’ as a category, however, was not exclusive to the Hindus; rather it included (and includes) all those section of the Indian citizens who meet the aforementioned criteria and hence extends to other religions like Christianity and Islam which are theoretically said to be free from caste system. The word ‘original’ for ‘Scheduled Castes’ in the preceding line is intended to mean

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the series of Amendments in The Presidential Orders which have subsequently included members from Sikhs and Christians also. 14 In an interview to Lyla Bavadam (2015). 15 The term ‘reservation’ is a misnomer; the right term would be ‘representation’ because it is aimed at correcting three thousand years’ of suppression and ostracization in Hindu society; one may remember that the concept of giving reservation to Scheduled Castes or untouchables in government jobs was only an humble policy of affirmative action started by the British Government in all India level to give representation to people from what they called ‘Depressed Classes’ since the Government of India Act of 1935. Prior to that, however, the Indian Kings of the Southern States (Kolhapur in 1902, Mysore in 1921, Travancore in 1935, Madras Presidency in 1921, Bombay Presidency in 1931) had already started the practice of reserving some public space to ameliorate the centuries of injustice done to the untouchables in this country. Further, the practice of giving reservation in independent India should not be construed as a favour being done to the ‘Scheduled Castes’ as it was also the product of bargain between Ambedkar and Gandhi in the infamous Poona Pact of 1932.

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2 Modern Dalit Literature

Modern Dalit Literature Now that we have come to the section on Modern Dalit Literature, the natural question, that arises at the very outset, is ‘what is Dalit literature?’. Does ‘Dalit literature’ mean literature ‘written by Dalits’ or ‘written about Dalits’? What is the governing criterion to answer this question: the ‘agent’ of the writing or the ‘theme’ of the writing? It has not been easy for Dalit writers, critics and intelligentsia to answer this question. The issue is similar to the question ‘who is a Dalit?’ and there have been wide divisions among the stakeholders on this question. While some view it only as literature written by those who are born Dalits, others view it in terms of the sensitive sympathetic portrayal of Dalit life and predicament. Before we proceed further, it will be helpful to have a cursory glance at some of the opinions expressed by the Dalit writers themselves. Sharan Kumar Limbale,

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the celebrated Marathi Dalit writer, defines it as follows: “Dalit literature is precisely that literature which artistically portrays the sorrows, tribulations, slavery, degradation, ridicule and poverty endured by Dalits. This literature is but a lofty image of grief” (Limbale 2010: 30). The Kannada Dalit writer, B M Puttaiah, considers it as “the literature that captures the desire, dreams, belief, agony, suffering, violence, humiliation, impatience, dissatisfaction, rage and resistance of Dalits” (Puttaiah 2013:355). Rameshchandra Parmar, President of Gujarat Dalit Panther and editor of Panther and Akrosh magazines, defines Dalit literature as “that which provides a platform for the formation of casteless and classless society. It is also necessary that it should also give expression to the exploitation and injustice of the world” (cited in Patel 2011:4). In all the above formulations about Dalit literature, the writers are in agreement about what Dalit literature should write, i.e. the predicament of the Dalit. But, none of them have addressed the issue of ‘agency’ in Dalit literature. Can we, then, say that everyone can write about Dalits and ‘writings’ even by a Brahman on ‘Dalit issues’ should be called Dalit literature? But, the issue is not as simple as it may sound. Gone are the days when Dalits could not speak for themselves and when Gayatri C Spivak’s formulation about the capacity (or incapacity) of the subaltern to speak, could be extended to Dalits. But now, things have changed and everyone knows that Dalits can speak, howsoever imperfectly, for themselves. Therefore,

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the issue assumes far greater significance if one asks ‘who can speak for Dalits?’ or ‘who has the rightful authority to speak for the Dalits’. On the one hand, following the proverbial wisdom, ‘the wearer knows where the shoe pinches’, it has often been argued that if a born Dalit writer speaks about Dalit it becomes swaanubhuti (experience of oneself) as against the sahanubhuti (sympathy) of a nonDalit writer; it is anubhav (experience) rather than anuman (guesswork/imagination). On the other, there is no dearth of examples in human history where the so called ‘outsiders’ have contributed far more effectively to a particular cause than the ‘insiders’. So, being caught in the dilemma of whether to restrict the scope of Dalit literature to the writings by the Dalits only or to open it for any sensitive portrayal of Dalit life, the debate keeps going. Compounding the problem, is the issue of ‘translation’, whereby the upper caste translators have almost air-lifted the Dalit writings in regional languages to give them national and international audience, and without which most of the popular Dalit writers like Limbale, Valmiki, Bama, Sivakami, Navaria et al. would not have received the world exposure. All this means that it is not easy to define Dalit literature in essentialist term. Nonetheless, the present study follows the so called ‘essentialist’ or ‘exclusivist’ approach, just as it does with the issue of Dalit identity, to include only writings by born-Dalit or the ‘untouchable’ writers within the scope of Dalit Literature. The reason why it follows the essentialist approach can be suitably explained

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by the analogy of the Black literature which is not the same as African Literature or Caribbean Literature due to the simple reason that the ‘sense of urgency’ or the ‘element of militancy’ that is evinced through the former could never be found in the latter: the sense of identity, urgency and militancy that is required for the annihilation of caste and its allied structure, cannot easily be found in a non-Dalit’s writing and hence, if Dalit literature hopes to be the flag-bearer of a revolution it cannot afford to dilute its stand on exclusivity. Based on this premise, as the following pages attempt to briefly surf through the world of Dalit writings across the country in different regional languages, one is acutely aware of the limitation caused by collateral factors like language, politics of publication and paucity of materials on Dalit writings. Just as Dalit movement is considered a relatively modern, post-independent India phenomenon despite a long history of anti-caste movement in the country, so is the case with Dalit literature. In fact, one can assume that modern Dalit literature is and was both the product and the vehicle of the Dalit movement. It grew out of the same realization or consciousness which was at the root of the Dalit movement and just like its rebellious twin, i.e. the movement, it can be said to have started in throwing up a sustained challenge to the caste system with the emergence of Marathi Dalit literature. This assumption, however, is a nuanced one, as it is accompanied by a sufficient awareness of the objection, raised by the Dalit writers from North

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India, about the credit being given to Marathi Dalit literature for being the pioneer in the field. According to the North Indian Dalit critics, Dalit writings in India did not begin with Marathi Dalit literature but can be traced to Hira Dom’s poem “Acchut ki Shikayat” (1914), meaning “Complaint of the untouchable”, in Bhojpuri (one of the dialects of Hindi) published in Saraswati, an influential Hindi literary magazine edited by Mahabir Prasad Dwivedi, more than a century ago (Manjhi and Kumar 2014:66). In this poem, the poetic persona, an ‘untouchable’ himself, places his compliant before the Hindu God; he refers to the stories of incarnations of the Hindu God, Lord Vishnu, who is glorified to have saved the poor, miserable and the oppressed, in all the ages, but who is deaf to the prayers of the ‘untouchable’. The poet wanders whether this neglect from God is a deliberate one and whether God does not come to the rescue of the ‘untouchables’ because he himself is scared of being polluted by the touch of the ‘untouchable’. No doubt, it is a powerful poem with subtle satire on the very concept of Hindu Godhead who is either scared of being polluted or being partisan; by making the godhead the object of satire the poet has questioned the very structure of Hindu religious tradition and its faithful ally, the inhuman caste system. According to Toral Jatin Gajarawala, in this poem Hira Dom not only “wields a two-pronged critique against both the upper castes and their colonial rulers” but also “concludes with a plea for mutual fraternity among castes, drawing on the

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language of national republicanism” (Gajarawala 2013:33). But, after Hira Dom’s praiseworthy beginning, it seems there was an absolute void, and not enough of a sustained writing to be called Dalit literary tradition in North India despite the 1920s—which saw the rise of Swami Acchutanand and the Adi-Hindu Movement that “argued for a unique and politicized caste identity for untouchable caste”, which can be said to have produced “the first literary articulations of Dalit identity in the Hindi-speaking belt of North India”—and in the words of Gajarawala, it took “another sixty-five years of caste radicalism and the bureaucratic engines of independence, constitutional protection and education to produce what we recognise as Dalit Literature” (33). It is precisely because of this reason, Marathi Dalit literature becomes the rightful literary tradition to be called the pioneer of Modern Dalit literature. Given the limited scope of the present research and paucity of materials on Dalit literature in regional languages we may not be able to undertake a thorough study of pan-Indian Dalit literature here; but certainly it will be worth the effort to acquaint ourselves with the major trends and contributions in Dalit literature in different parts of the country before we take up a study of Odia Dalit literature in the next chapter. Marathi Dalit Literature As noted earlier, Marathi Dalit literature coincided with the Dalit movement in Maharashtra, particularly the one led by Ambedkar. Although

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he was not a creative writer himself, it was he who inspired a generation of writers who started with composing songs, ballads and jalsas (street theatre) and later tried their hands in other forms of writings. Around 1950, Dalit youths, most of whom had graduated from Siddharth College set up a literary body, the Siddharth Sahitya Sangh which later gave birth to Maharashtra Dalit Sahitya Sangh. In the sixties, which is said to be characterised by “the Little Magazine” movement and the emergence of the Angry Young Men in Marathi literature, Dalit writers like Anna Bhau Sathe, Shankarrao Kharat, Baburao Bagul, Yashwant Manohar, Namdeo Dhasal and Narayan Surve gave directions and wings to Dalit writings. In 1967, Akar, the first representative collection of poems by the Dalits, published in a literary meet organised by the Maharashtra Bauddha Sahitya Sabha, included poems by Baburao Bagul, Daya Pawar, Arjun Dangle, Professor Yadavrao Gangurde, Bandhumadhav, Chokha Kamble, Hira Bonsode et al. Periodicals like Asmitadarsha and Marathawada published and encouraged the young Dalit writers who rejected the mainstream Marathi literary traditions, and by the late 1960s, to use the expression of Baburao Bagul “the trickle of Dalit writing became a flood” (cited in Dharwadker 1994: 321). In the history of Dalit literature in general and Marathi Dalit literature in particular the year 1972 has a special place because it not only saw the birth of the militant Dalit Panther in Bombay on the 9th of July 1972 but also the publication of Namdeo Dhasal’s Golpitha, which took the Marathi

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literary world by storm (Dangle 2009: xxv-liv). Dalit literature had set for itself a goal which rejected the Hindu past, and often violently, to create a more human society. It didn’t shirk from appearing political; and as admitted by Namdeo Dhasal, a Dalit poet considered poetry as a political act and politics was part of his poetry (cited in Dharwadker1994: 324). The rejection of the past — that flowed through the heart of Dalit politics and identity — constituted the Dalit literary and poetic bloodstream. According to Dharwadker, “several examples of such a rejection occur in the poems of Namdeo Dhasal [and others] which achieve a great deal of density, verbal polish and playfulness, and even wilful obscurity of the Western highmodernist and surreal kind.”(321) During the period that followed, Marathi Dalit literature found itself expanding to various other genres like Dalit autobiography which became the most sought after and powerful medium in the 1980s to realistically portray the Dalit life. Literally flooding the scene of Marathi Dalit autobiography are the following names: Daya Pawar (Baluta, 1978), P. E. Sonkamble (Athvaninche Pakshi, 1979), Laxman Mane (Upara, 1980), Sharankumar Limbale (Akkarmashi, 1984), Baby Kamble (Jina Amucha, 1985), Laxman Gaekwad (Uchalya, 1987), Urmila Pawar (Aaydan, 2003), Janabai Girhe (Marankala), Vimal More (Teen Dagadaanchi Chuul), Narender Jhadhav (Amcha Baap aan Amhi, 2003). The list is very long and still counting as Dalit autobiography becomes an easier method to recount the real-life

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experience of the Dalits. Dalit autobiographies are the testimonies of protest and anger from within and outside wherein both the individual and the community get represented. While Daya Pawar’s Baluta presents the plight of a migrant and lonely person trying to protect himself from the tyranny of caste and the dogma of protest Laxman Mane’s Upara depicts the perennial poverty of the Kaikadi community, its conflict with the upper castes and the consequent growth of political consciousness among Dalits. Laxman Gaikaward’s Uchalya follows the footsteps of Mane in the fact that it is an account of an activist belonging to Bhamta community. While Mane’s narrative hits hard at the caste discrimination, Gaikaward’s excels in depicting a greater ethnographic range. Limbale’s Akkarmashi is an agonizing story of a fatherless child whose father was an upper caste person and mother was an untouchable. In this account, Limbale raises some disturbing questions about the standard of morality to be followed by a person whose very birth is branded immoral by the society. Compounding the problem of being branded ‘bastard’ is also the overpowering feeling of physical hunger for food. Destitution, humiliation and hunger are combined together to make the lot of a Dalit child almost dehumanized. Baby Kamble’s autobiography Jina Amucha 1 (translated as The Prisons We Broke) is a story not of an individual but that of the Mahar community. In this socio-biography of the community, Kamble writes with a sense of pride, the struggle of the community, experienced during the Ambedkar

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movement. On the other hand, Urmila Pawar’s autobiography, Aaydan, is more of an individual diatribe against the society in general and the men in particular. It is a true example of Dalit feminism which is far more modern and ferocious in its attack than upper caste feminism in India. According to Maya Pandit, who translates it into The Wave of My Life, it represents a significant departure from the path trodden by other Dalit autobiographies. “It is a complex narrative of a gendered individual who looks at the world initially from her location within the caste but who also goes on to transcend the caste identity from a feminist perspective.” (Emphases added; Pandit 2008: xvii) Discussing the difference between other Marathi literature and Dalit autobiographies G. N Devy, in the “Introduction” to Santosh Kumar Bhumkar’s English translation of Sharan Kumar Limbale’s Akkarmashi (The Outcaste, 2003), observes that the world of experience described in the autobiographies was entirely new to the readers of Marathi: Earlier too, poverty and suffering had been depicted in Marathi Literature, but the Dalit autobiography was not interested in depicting poverty as a generalized subject per se. It spoke of poverty as a social issue a result of caste exclusion and in need of major social reforms. This depiction was done by those who had themselves suffered from the exclusion and had thought about it as a larger collective problem. (Limbale 2003: xxi)

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According to Devy, while Dalit poetry had a role model in the modern Marathi poetry written under the influence of the modernist poetry of the West, Dalit autobiography had no such model available to them. Dalit autobiographies are not the autobiographies of persons at the end of their lives, looking back on life with cool composure. It is rightly observed that except Daya Pawar and Shankarrao Kharat most of them were not even professional writers and that it was the very act of writing down their life accounts which made them so. In such a situation, Devy feels, They [the Dalit autobiographies] can at best be described as ‘social epiphanies’, expressions of a never before mentioned intensity....Their inwardness with these [socio-cultural-political] processes [of marginalization] and the authenticity of their experiences created in Marathi literature a new space and claimed it with an assertive energy.” (Devy 2003: xxiii) Over the years, however, Marathi Dalit autobiography seems to have undergone a great deal of change; it has come to produce writers like Narendra Jadhav who no more present the story of a pleading, miserable, helpless Dalit but that of the ‘de-caste’ ones who consider themselves sufficiently empowered to take on the system head on. Inspired by Ambedkar’s triple-message ‘Educate, Unite and Agitate’ they stand as the symbol of new generation of Dalit, with its chin up, who looks at everyone in the eye. (Mahananda 2014: 95)

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Hindi Dalit Literature As noted earlier Hindi Dalit literature, despite its claim to the lineage of Swami Acchutanand and Adi Hindu Movement of 1920s, is largely a product of awareness brought about by State efforts to educate and uplift the masses through various Constitutional provisions in the post-independence India; unlike Marathi Dalit literature it was deprived, in the beginning, of the influence of Ambedkar during his life time because of the ‘divide and rule’ policy of the Congress Party; north Indian Dalit leaders like Jagjivan Ram had neither vision nor courage to challenge the institution of caste as Ambedkar did. Born of (and confused by) these dynamics, Hindi Dalit literature had to wait for the liberating effect of education and public jobs ensured by the principle of reservation, so painstakingly worked for by Ambedkar and enshrined in the Constitution of India. However, albeit a latecomer in the field, when Hindi Dalit literature came, it came with much richness and vivacity which is the envy of other literature. It has produced a galaxy of writers and poets who have not only expressed their rejection and revolt against the institution of caste but also experimented with various modes of expression. Writers like Om Prakash Valmiki, Mohan Das Naimishraray, Suraj Pal Chauhan, Sheoraj Singh Bechain, Dr Tulsiram, Dr Dharamveer, Roop Narayan Sonkar, Kusum Meghwal, Sushila Thakbhaure, Ajay Navaria, and Kailash C Chauhan are some of the well known

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names in the field. Mohan Das Naimishray’s Apne Apne Pinjre (1995), Om Prakash Valmiki’s Joothan (1997), Suraj Pal Chauhan’s Tiraskrit (2000), Sheoraj Singh Bechain’s Mera Bachpan Mere Kandhon Par (2009), Dr DharamVeer’s Meri Patni aur Bhedia (2009), Dr Tulsi Ram’s Murdahiya (2010) and Mani Karnika (2014), Sushila Takbhaure’s Shikanje ka Dard (2011) are some of best titles in the field of Dalit autobiography. Although autobiography still remains the favourite genre among the Hindi Dalit writers other genres like poetry and short stories are not far behind. Encouraged by the celebrated Hindi literary magazines like Hans (edited by Rajendra Yadav) and Yudhrat Aam Admi (edited by Ramnika Gupta) and Apeksha (edited by Tej Singh), Dalit poetry and short fiction have walked hand in hand with Dalit autobiography to give expression to the so far muffled voices against caste atrocities. In the realm of poetry, Om Prakash Valmiki’s Bahut ho Gaya and Sadiyon ke Santap, Sheoraj Singh Bechain’s Nai Fasal aur Anya Kavitayen (2014), Suraj Pal Chauhan’s Wah Din Jarur Ayega (2014), Vimal Thorat and Suraj Badtya edited Dalit Dastabej are some of the most powerful poetry collections. Among the Dalit fiction writers the names of Kailash C Chauhan (novel Subah ke Liye), Mohan Das Naimishray’s (novel Aaj Bajar Band), Roop Narayan Sonkar’s Shuar Daan, Ajay Navaria (novel Us Paar ke Log and a collection of Short Stories translated by Laura Brueck as Unclaimed Terrain, 2013), Jay Prakash Kardam (novel Kharonch) are quite celebrated owing to their

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powerful interventions towards the making of an egalitarian society. Considering the wide variety and vibrancy of Hindi Dalit literature, Laura R. Brueck rightly argues in Writing Resistance; the Rhetorical Imagination of Hindi Dalit Literature (2014) that it would be a travesty to brand Dalit writings emanating from Hindi and other Indian languages as “merely reactionary and propagandist”; rather, as she continues, “one should be prepared for a highly rewarding close reading of various literary styles and strategies employed by Dalit writers as they offer resistance not just in the choice of their themes but through deliberate choice of their innovative narrative styles.” (Brueck 2014: 6-7) Tamil Dalit Literature As noted earlier, caste in Tamil Nadu does not have the same contour as it has in North India. Considering the focus on Dravidian (and Sangam) lineage in Tamil land, caste and the consequent ‘untouchability’ are not traced directly to Manu but understood to have been the fall out of conflict between Hinduism and Buddhism. Untouchability as a phenomenon is said to have a rather “belated entry” in Tamil Nadu as compared to other parts of the country because of the comparative continuance of Buddhism in the Tamil land up to 15th century AD; and that despite broad similarities in the trends as regards “the defeated Buddhists being stigmatized as ‘untouchables’, it was only several centuries after untouchability became

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institutionalized in northern India where the VedicBrahmin religion acquired dominance that the practice entered the Tamil country.” (Ravikumar 2012: xix) Whatever might have been the reason behind the origin of caste in South India it is a fact that, just like the state of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu has a long history of anti-caste movement. But the specific movement can be said to have started only in the second half of the nineteenth century when sporadic but determined attempts were made by the lower castes to raise their voice against Brahmanical oppressions. They adopted the indigenous Tamil literary traditions to assert a preAryan, Dravidian identity as opposed to the Sanskritic-Brahmanical-Aryan tradition. According to Mani, The Ramayana was turned on its head by glorifying Ravana and depicting Rama as the villain; the murder of Shambuk, the untouchable boy, by Rama was mourned and roundly condemned.... at the turn of the new century, the stage was set for emergence of a powerful non-Brahman movement in the region. (Mani 2005: 313) Iyothe Thass, a powerful Dalit Buddhist leader, was the pioneer of not only Dalit movement but also Dalit literature in Tamil land. He ran a popular Tamil weekly, Tamizhan, which took up the issues of caste hegemony and untouchability along with a wide range of socio-cultural issues to present a sharp

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critique of upper caste dominance. Through his hard work he had prepared the ground for the later-day revolutionary like E.V.R.Naicker (Periyar) who spread the anti-Brahmanical consciousness and was instrumental in conceptualizing a separate homeland for the Dravidians as an alternative to the casteridden society of the north Indian Brahmanical Hindus, the direct ideological descendents of the Aryans. It is in such a context of struggle for a distinct socio-political identity Tamil Dalit literature gets its inspiration. But according to Meena Kandasamy, the Tamil Dalit literature actually “blossomed in the early 1990s when the birth centenary of Ambedkar was celebrated. This period saw political awakening of the Dalits and the creation of Tamil Dalit Literature” (Kandasamy 2006: n.p.). Both P Sivakami (author of The Grip of Change, 1989) and Bama Faustina (the author of Karukku, 1992) were published during this time. Apart from Bama and Sivakami some of the well known writers who have served the cause of Dalit literature are Rev. John Ratnam (editor of Dravida Pandian), Rettamalai Srinivasan (editor of Parayan), K Appadurai (editor of Tamilan), Periasami Pulavar (poet). Like in all other Dalit Literature, autobiography is a favourite genre among the Tamil Dalit writers although poetry and short story are also written to expose the hypocrisy and injustice of the society. Call for self-identity and assertion characterizes Tamil Dalit literature as it presents a scathing critique of the caste system through intensely personal expression; seeming to concur

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with the methodology of its pan-Indian counterparts, in their conviction that brutal social reality requires brutal treatment in literature, Tamil Dalit literature does not shirk away from its responsibility. P. Sivakami, one of the earliest Tamil Dalit writers to raise the issue of dual oppression of Dalit women on account of gender and caste, critiques Dalit patriarchy just as Urmila Pawar does it in Marathi. A poet, essayist and a prolific short story writer, she is also the founder of the Dalit literary magazine Pudhiya Kodangi (named after a musical instrument that is used to drive away evil spirits). The Grip of Change is the English translation of her full length novel in Tamil Pazhaiyana Kazhithalum through which she explores the process of transformation that gripped the lives of Dalits during the trade union era; she also records the struggle of the marginalized and exploited people who fought for their rights. This novel is divided into two sections. While the first section presents Kathamuthu’s charismatic career, his sexual exploitation of women whose case he fights, the second section attempts to deconstruct her novel through the depiction of Gowri (the author herself) as a critic. The novel explores significant gender issues such as the notion of the Dalit woman’s body and her vulnerability to different forms of exploitation, as is evinced through Thangam’s character. The differential sexual norms are reflected through the women being made to shoulder the gender blame. In her second novel, Anandayi (1992), however, she focuses on the violent exploitation of

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a woman’s body and points out how family as an institution is embedded in patriarchal, oppressive system, that are blatantly unjust to women. In this novel she clearly brings out how Dalit women’s sexuality (whether as a daughter, wife or beloved) is severely contained and repressed in the society. Bama Faustina is another Dalit feminist writer who draws her inspiration from the Dalit movement in Tamil Nadu. In Karukku (1992), which is an autobiographical work, she narrates her predicament of being a Dalit Christian where even Christianity in India is not free from caste syndrome. Her other novel, Sangati (Events) (1994), is a cultural biography of a community and a powerful feminist narrative which brings together the experiences of Dalit women. Her works also portray the strategies of resistance used by Dalit women and her collection of short stories, “Kisumbukkaran” (1991), translated as “Harum-scarum saar and other Stories” (2006), focus on vignettes of the lives of Dalit men and women. Her use of non-standardized language of the lower castes makes her writing highly subversive. She explores in her works how the Dalit men and women exhibit their triumph over the upper castes through rebuttal, witty remarks and usage of abusive language. Using confessional, conversational mode of narration Bama’s writings celebrate Dalit women’s lives, their wit, humour, resilience and their creativity. The community bonding and the solidarity among neighbours in a ‘cheri’ (Dalit colony) are also valorised.

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Among the younger Tamil Dalit poets the name of the fiery Meena Kandasamy is taken with respect although strictly speaking she cannot be included in Tamil Dalit Literature; she writes in English and she should be treated as an English poet in her own right rather than as a Tamil poet. She is known for her poetry collections Touch (2006), Mrs Militancy (2010) and the novel The Gypsy Goddess (2014). In Touch she uses the metaphor of touch to lay bare the hypocrisy of the society where she invokes and analyses the very act of touching, which is the first and foremost of human encounter but is abused by the hegemonic tradition to condemn a section of the society. Telugu Dalit Literature Just like other protest literatures, the origin of Telugu Dalit literature is also traced to the Bhakti period when Siva Kavulu and Vemana are said to have laid the foundation of Dalit poetry while rejecting the four fold Varna system in their preaching. By condemning the caste system and upholding equality of individuals Vemana is said to have been the first of the revolutionaries in Telugu literary tradition. During the colonial period Joshua, who is hailed as the first Dalit poet, was born in a Dalit family and used a Dalit as the central figure in his poetry for the first in his poem “Gabbilam” (the Bat). Through his verse Joshua launched scathing attack against “the serpent-like grip that caste had on Dalits condemning them to a life of humiliation and deprivation” (Rani 1998:WS21). He

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had inspired a host of other Dalit poets like Nakka Chinnavenkayya, Jala Rangakavi, Kusuma Dharmanna, Nutakki Abraham, who followed the trend set by him and wrote condemning the caste system during the pre-independent era (WS21). Dalit movement in Andhra Pradesh not only took shape due to Ambedkar’s revolutionary ideas but also drew inspiration from the Dalit Panther movement. Gaddar (Gumadi Vitthal Rao), the balladeer, has emerged as the people’s poet and prior to the creation of Telengana state his activities were under the scanner from the state machinery and now his song “Amma Telenganama Akali kekala gaanama” has been selected as the state song of Telengana. In recent times, caste related atrocities and massacres like Karamchedu (1985), Neerukonda (1987) and Chunduru (1991) have further helped the consolidation of Dalit Movement; and Telugu Dalit literature has taken the responsibility to voice the anger of the oppressed. Discussing the significance of Karamchedu massacre (whereby the Madiga hamlets were attacked by the Kamma caste people and in which six Madiga men were killed and three women raped) in consolidating Dalit identity, K Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu consider it to be “a historic turning point and the beginning of a self-conscious dalit movement” in Andhra Pradesh (Satyanarayana and Tharu 2013: 19). It is said to have motivated the Dalits to from an organization, namely, AndhraPradesh Dalit Mahasabha (DMS) in 1985, “to defend their dignity, life and property” (19). According to Dalit woman poet Challapalli

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Swaroopa Rani, “There was literature portraying the theme of caste before Karamchedu happened in 1985. But this literature is reformist both in its form and content. The Karamchedu struggle gave us a series of “resistance poets” (cited in Satyanarayana and Tharu 2013: 23). Although the DMS manifesto had a broad definition of the term Dalit, “in practice, the category remained a specific identity of the caste groups that had experienced untouchability and are listed as ‘scheduled castes’ in the Constitution” (22) and there was a selfconscious ‘we’ versus ‘they’ positioning which was so strong that, “...it was decided that only dalits would occupy the dais at meetings or address audiences. No upper-caste person, even from the Left and progressive sections known to be sympathetic to the dalits, was allowed to occupy this public space” (21). Thus, the creative scene in Telugu Dalit literature is known for its vibrancy with the emergence of many writers and poets in the recent times: Kusuma Dharmanna, Boyi Bhimana, Kolakaluri Enoch, K G Satyamurthy, Gaddar, Boya Jangaiah, Chilukuri Devaputra, Kathi Padmarao, Bojja Tharakam, Endluri Sudhakar, Vemula Yellaiah, Satish Chander, GR Kurme, Madduri Nagesh Babu, Kalekuri Prasad, Gogu Shyamala, Jupaka Subhadra, Jojula Gowri, MM Vinodini, Sujatha Gidla, Thulimali Wilson Sudhakar, Challapali Swarupa Rani, SikhaMani, Dr Darla Venkateswar Rao, Ganumal Gnaneswar, Ealy Vadapalli, Vuli Dhanaraj, GV Ratnaker, G Kalyan Rao et al. In the 1990s two influential

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anthologies—Chikkanautunnna Pata (1995), edited by Lakshmi Narasaiah and Tripuraneni Srinivas, and Padunnekkina Pata (1996), edited by G Lakshmi Narasaiah—brought together many voices which not only sympathised with the Dalit cause but also reflected the Dalit reaction to the ‘Left’ movement. Dalit Manifesto (1995) edited by Keshav Kumar and K Satyanarayana combines both Left and Dalit consciousness. In the realm of Telugu Dalit autobiography G Mohan Rao’s Khaki Batukulu (1996), Chilukuri Devaputra’s Panchamam (1998), Yelluri Sudhakar’s Mallemoggala Godugu: Madigakathulu (1999), Vemula Yellaiah’s Kakka (2000) are significant names. Gogu Syamala’s Nalla Poddu: Dalita Streela Sahityam 1921-2002 (2003), a compilation of autobiographical writings, Short Stories, Poems and Prose writings is also an important contribution particularly from the perspective of Dalit women’s writings. Gogu Syamala also collaborated with Jupaka Subhadra to bring out Madiga Upakulala Streela Kathala Samputi (2006) which reveals the life and culture of the Dalits. Antarani Basantam (2000) by G Kalyan Rao, which is translated by Alladi Uma and M. Sridhar as untouchable Spring (2010) is a memory text presenting the family saga in a novel form. It uses the oral story-telling form to bring to the fore the socio-cultural life of the community along with its art form. It is a journey to the heart of both the oppressor and the oppressed. By digging on the Church records to re-write the family history of

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the Ruth, Ruben and Jessy it experiments with an alternative historiography which is popularized by the likes of Carlo Ginzburg and Natali Zamon Davis as ‘micro history’. Bengali Dalit Literature According to Meenakshi Mukherjee, although Dalit writing in Bangla is not as old as Marathi Dalit literature it “took root in the 1930s and 40s”, and had its precursor in the Matua Sahitya of 19 th century, which emerged under the influence of Vaishnava Movement; Matua Sahitya had its pioneer in Harichand Biswas (his followers called him Harichand Thakur) and his son Guruchand Thakur who opened school for the education of the lower castes; all this education and awareness led to creative expressions in the form of story-telling, folk-plays and rhymed couplets (Byapari and Mukherjee 2007: 4116). The next phase is said to have come during the 1940s when Jogendra Nath Mandal, an associate of Ambedkar started journals like Pataka and Jagaran. Later, after the partition of Bengal when Jogendra Nath Mandal became the Law Minister in Bangla Desh (East Pakistan) Jagaran shifted its base to Dhaka. During this period many more Dalit journals like Namashudras, Sadhak and Prachar also came from East Bengal. Later, during the sixties and seventies Raju Das, himself a poet, short-story writer and author of plays, brought out Nabaarun and Nabarup. According to Manohar Mauli Biswas (2014), in Bengal, an active forum for asserting self-identity

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through Dalit literature began under the aegis of the Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha (BDSS) which also started a literary magazine Chaturtha Dunia. But it does not mean that there were no activities prior to BDSS. Nabayug Sahitya O Sanskriti Parishad (1976) under the leadership of Professor Naresh Chandra Das brought out a magazine Ataeb which is currently being edited by Nanigopal Sikdar. Similarly, the contributions of Bangiya Dalit Lekhak Parishad (1987) and Writing Academy of Letters (2003) are quite noteworthy. While the former is led by Nakul Mallick and others to bring out a magazine called Dalit Kantha, the latter is led by Dr Anil Ranjan Biswas to bring out the magazine Poetimatrics. Popularity of journals like Dalit Mirror2, Ekhan Takhan 3 , Chaturtha Duniya are also significant pointers in the direction of a vibrant Bangla Dalit literature. Writing in the genre of fiction are Mohitesh Biswas (Maati Ek Maya Jaane, Paye Paye Path), Sudhir Ranjan Haldar (Aranyer Andhakar), Mani Mandal (Murmu), Brajen Mallick (Rakte Ranga Rupasi Bangla), Advaita Mallabarman (Titash Ekti Nadir Naam). Among the short story writers Kapil Krishna Thakur (Anya Yehudi, Madhumati Onek Door), Bimalendu Haldar (Bratya Janer Golpo and Akash Mati, Mon), Dhirendra Nath Mallik (Biplaber Maa). The short story collection Chaturtha Duniyar Golpo Sankalan (Stories from the Fourth World) includes Dalit writings from Bangladesh, West Bengal and Tripura. (Biswas 2014: 103-109)

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Although Bangla Dalit literature started with poetry (Mahananda Haldar, Bicharan Pagal, Tarak Sarkar) now it has expanded into various other genres. The detailed portrayal of the farmer, fisherman and forester, of the Dalits belonging to the so-called lower forms of livelihoods found in Dalit literature is entirely based on real life experiences. Anil Gharai’s Mukuler Gandha (1993) or Mahitosh Biswas’s Mati Ek Maya Jane (1974) or Kapilkrishna Thakur’s Ujantalir Upakatha (2000) or Samarendra Baidya’s Pitrigon (1998) are all novels remarkably effective in using real-life experiences to penetrate life’s emotions and to hold up a picture of a new life to readers. In the genre of short fictions, Jatin Bala, Sunil Kumar Das, Gautam Ali, Bimalendu Haldar and Gobindo Das have used their pen to expose the blindness and superstitions of Dalit communities through the sensitive rendering of real life experience and use of local dialects (109). But the most famous among the fiction-writers seems to be Manoranjan Byapari who had a very interesting career as a small time criminal, rickshaw-puller before his transition to be a writer. His collections of Short Stories include Britter Shesh Parba (Last Section of the Circle, 2001), Jijibishar Golpo (Stories about the Desire to Live, 2005), Anya Bhuban (Another World, 2006). Among his novels Chandal Jivan (Chandal’s Life), Chhanna-Chhara (Rootless), Batase Buruder Gandho (The Air Smells of Gun Powder) and Amanushik (Inhuman) stand out as documents of realistic portrayal of Dalit life. (Mukherjee and Byapari 2007: 4117)

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In the field of autobiography Rai Charan Sardar (Deener Atmakathaba Satya Pareeksha), Anil Ranjan Biswas (Rang-Beranger Din Guli), Professor Sripada Das (Professor Sripada Das: Son of a Street Cobbler), Manoranjan Sarkar (Ekjan Daliter Atmakatha), Benamali Goswami (Abar Belay Pari), Baby Halder (Aalo Andhari), Jatin Bala (Shikar Chhera Jiban), Manoranjan Byapari (Itibritte Chandal Jiban, 2012) and Manohar Mauli Biswas (Amar Bhubane Ami Beche Thaki, 2013) seem to be the foremost names. According to Angana Dutta, Bengali Dalit literary movement has not only brought about rich literary productions in all genres of prose, poetry, novels, autobiographies etc but also created a database of such an immense variety that it has got tremendous emancipatory potential. (Dutta 2014:143) Gujarati Dalit Literature Although Gujarat is known as the land of the Mahatma (MK Gandhi) this western state of the country is not immune to caste atrocity. During Gandhi’s time there was the rise of sympathisers in Gujarat who wanted to ‘assimilate’ the ‘untouchables’ to the so called mainstream of the Hindu society by what they called the change of ‘Hindu heart’. But Dalit writings have turned towards Ambedkar and his ideas to reject the shallow Gandhian sympathy. Therefore, just like the situation in other states there is anger, protest and struggle for identity in Gujarati Dalit literature where demand for justice, equality and human dignity is accompanied by cultural assertion. Gujarati Dalit

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literature is said to have heralded a new era with the publication of Akrosh (1978) under the aegis of Dalit Panther, the Gujarati counterpart of the Dalit Panther of Maharashtra. It provided the Dalits a long-desired opportunity to, what Neerav Patel calls, “condemn, to indict, to protest, to attack, to appeal, to argue, to persuade, to expose, to explain, to destroy and to reconstruct without fear and shame [whereby] the saga of suffering began to be written verse by verse” (Patel 2011:30). By the beginning of the eighties Gugarati Dalit literature had already established itself as a viable alternative to the so called ‘mainstream’ Gujarati literature. As the initial negation gave way to reluctant acceptance a vast number of writers have emerged, both with the ‘panther’ spirit and without it. According to Mohan Parmar, the writer of the novel Daya Pashani Vadi, the large variety Dalit writings, can be categorised in four groups. First, fully committed Dalit activistwriters who envisage total change in the situation of the Dalits, create their own aesthetics and who are least bothered about criticism from the mainstream: Joseph Macwan, Neerav Patel, Chandu Maheria, Shankar Painter, Sahil Parmar et al. Second, committed to Dalit cause but are conscious of the mainstream standards of aesthetics: Dalpat Chauhan, Harish Mangalam, Raju Solanki, Purushottam Jadhav et al. Third, the ones who exhibit artistic pursuit rather than any commitment to Dalit cause: Mangal Rathor, Pathik Parmar, Madhukant Kalpit et al. Fourth, those born as nonDalits but writing about Dalits due to their sympathy

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for Dalit cause: Raghuvir Chaudhari, Jayant Gadit, Pravin Gadhvi, Harshad Trivedi et al. However, Neerav Patel, who is an outstanding Dalit writer and poet, and who has also penned his autobiography What Did I do-To be So Black and Blue, does not agree with this categorization and feels that there are only two camps in Gujarati Dalit literature: One, those who are committed to Dalit cause seriously and want to bring about social change through Dalit literature; the other, those who want to make a career out of the Dalit issue (31-32). According to K.M. Sherrif, “A redeeming feature is that in spite of differences of opinion, Gujarati Dalit literature has not been enmeshed in polemics of the more unsavoury kind, which sap the vitality of the creative writer. The literary scene is as lively as ever. Poems, stories and novels continue to be written, street plays are still written and performed, and the war with the ‘elite’ literary establishment goes on.” (Sherrif 1994: 11) Malayalam Dalit Literature When it comes to the question of caste system, the southernmost Indian state, Kerala, is said to be exhibiting a peculiar picture which cannot be understood by a strict application of the Chaturvana system (four Varnas). According to Professor M Dasan, the rise and prominence of the Nair community (which, he says, does not fall under any of the classical four Varnas) in Kerala provides the key to the understanding of socio-cultural structure of this southernmost Indian state. The Nairs are

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the neo-Brahmans in Kerala whose way of life and culture is trumpeted as the mainstream culture and the late appearance of the term ‘Dalit’ in Kerala, in the 1970s, is attributed to the peculiar trajectory of ‘Kerala-Renaissance’ in the state which which “succeeded in camouflaging and silencing many discourses besides the marginalized”(Dasan 2012: xiii). The consolidation and modernization of the Ezhavas, one of the OBCs, too was along the expected lines as it did not have any trickling effect on the position of the ‘untouchables’. Wearing the mask of ‘class-based-progressive-discourse’, the ‘touchable’ castes made sure that “the cultural, symbolical and social capitals which their caste status had conferred upon them was not visible” (xv). However, this does not mean that there was no anti-caste movement in Kerala prior to 1970s. Ayyankali’s struggle against caste-discrimination, the Kallumala 4 stuggle, the formation of Sadhujana Pratipalana Sangam (Organization for the Welfare of the Marginalized) by Ayyankali in 1907, Temple Entry Proclamation of 19365, were some of the significant milestones in the history of Dalit struggle in Kerala. Writings of Poykayii Sree Kumara Guru Devan, popularly known as Poykayii Apachan 6, in the early decades of the 20th century paved way for serious engagement with Dalit issue. The translated line “I see no alphabet about my race” from Appachan’s song “Poikayil Appachante Paattukal”, inspires the title of the Sushi Tharu and K Sattyanarayana edited and celebrated anthology of Dalit writings from the South, No Alphabet in Sight (2011). Despite it being

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a predominantly-Marxism-infected Malyali society, well known names like C Ayyappan, Paul Chirakkarode, KK Govindan, Kaviyoor Murali, K Pokkudan, Kallara Sukumaran, TKC Vaduthala, Vettiyar Premnath, KKS Das, S Joseph, M B Manoj, M R Renukumar, Vijila Chirappadu et al have managed to raise the issue of caste in their writings to contribute to a growing body of Malayalam Dalit writing. Just as Dalit cosmogony in Kerala rejects the Hindu idea of a powerful Godhead, Dalit literature emerging from this region too rejects the ‘mainstream’ strictures to be followed in terms of theme and form of literature. Breaking away from the ornate tradition of ‘mainstream’ writing, Dalit writing in Malayalam has resorted to the oral tradition, known as ‘Kotha’, which, to use Dasan’s words, “metonymically and metaphorically captures the Dalit life experience” (Dasan 2012: xxx). This shows that Malayalam Dalit writing has not only managed to carve a niche for itself in Kerala society but also come to stay for good. Analysing the growing success of Malayalam Dalit writing, Dasan observes, “Any new movement has to pass through three phases: ridicule, resistance, and acceptance. Dalit literature in Kerala has fast-forwarded to the third phase and is beginning to provide colour and power that only people who live close to the earth can express.” (xxxiii) Kannada Dalit Literature Although Dalit movement in Karnataka is said to be as old as Veerashaiva movement of 12 th century,

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modern Dalit movement and literature is said to have started with the Bhoosa agitation of 1973 which challenged the upper caste authority over Kannada literature and culture that had so far remained unchallenged (Yadav 1998:107; Satyanarayana and Tharu 2013:3). The rise of the non-Brahman, Lingayat and Vokkaliga castes, in the social hierarchy was no solace for the cause of the ‘untouchables’. It was just like the rise of the Nair caste in Kerala, which was the real flag-bearer of Brahmanism. Even during the British period there was not much to talk of Dalit movement in Karnataka (the then state of Mysore). Since the Raja of Mysore had banned the entry of Ambedkar into the state, Karnataka largely remained insulated from the Dalit movement which was spreading so successfully in the neighbouring state of Maharashtra. Although news of Ambedkar’s struggle at various national and international forums was appreciated, his ideas could effectively reach Karnataka only after the Independence. It is said that Dalit Movement in Karnataka truly began with the formation of Bheem Sena by Shyam Sunder7, after Ambedkar’s first name Bhimrao, in April 1968. With four point agenda – 25% of the village in every taluk, a separate electorate, a separate Scheduled Caste university in every state, a strong political organization for the untouchables – outlined in Shyam Sunder’s book The Four Immediate Needs, the Dalit movement had started in right earnest in Karnataka but had to wait till Bhoosa agitation for an effective flare up. At a seminar organized

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by the Dr Ambedkar School of Thought in Mysore on 19 November 1973, B Basavalingappa, a hardcore Ambedkerite and a Dalit minister in the then Devraj Urs government, was said to have made a provocative comment to the effect that there was a great deal of bhoosa (Kannada word for chaff/husk which form part of cattle feed) in Kannada literature. By describing Kannada literature in such disrespectful terms Basalingappa had not only dared to ‘judge’ the upper caste literature but also challenged the age-old cultural tradition which had given birth to such literature. Practically, this meant that there were large scale protests and consolidations both against and in favour of Basalingappa. As the protests grew in strength on both sides, the Dalita Lekhaka Kalavidhara Balaga (Daleka) was formed in 1974 which later expanded to become Dalit Sangharsh Samiti (DSS). Being a rare combination of scholars, writers, poets, singers and dramatists, the DSS provided the much needed strength, voice and vigour to the Dalit movement which spread to each and every part of the state and, to use Gail Omvedt’s words, “the DSS went on to become organisationally the strongest and long lasting Dalit Movement in the country” (cited in Yadav 1998: 116). The close relation between the world of activism and literature, embodied in the DSS is reflected in the comment of Manohar Yadav when he writes, “If B. Krishnappa was the Commander-in-Chief in the organisation, Siddalingaiah was its poet and Devanoor Mahadev its thinker” (Yadav 1998: 116). Following the

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footsteps of the above leaders the second generation writers like Deviah Harave, Aravind Malagatti, MN Javaraiah, Govindaiah, Chenanna Valikar, Satyanaada Patrota, V Munivenkatappa, Mulluru Nagaraja, Mogali Ganesha have not only shaped a new form of protest but also a new way of looking at society and history. Odia Dalit Literature Although Odisha had a tradition of protest literature which is traced back to the 6th-7th century AD and which is followed by a rich creative output in the medieval period, much of that tradition can at best attributed to a generalized subaltern consciousness prevalent in Odisha. Dalit literature in Odisha, in the true sense of the term, is only a recent phenomenon and is hardly two decades old. Since the state was insulated from many of the pan-Indian anti-caste movements for a long time, not even the anti-caste movement generated by Ambedkar’s ideology during the freedom struggle, could really touch the soil of Odisha due to various reasons. But, unlike trends in other states, Dalit literature in Odisha has not started with autobiography—in fact, till date, there has not been a single recognisable 8 Dalit autobiography in Odisha—rather it is the poetry, followed by fiction, which has been opted as the most potent medium of expression. According to Raj Kumar, “On an analysis of Odia Dalit literature of the current century it is found that almost all the torch-bearers of this literature are poets....it is a fact that it has been easier for

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these writers to pour out the long suppressed pain and misery through poetry” (Trans. S K Mahananda; Kumar 2013:16). Growth of Odia Dalit poetry (poetry being the universally accepted first medium for creative expression) is no surprise at all; what is pleasantly surprising is the growth and acceptance of fiction. Again, within the broad genre of fiction, although short story has clearly dominated the scene, it is heartening to see that novel and novella are also catching up. Similarly, there have also been significant attempts at writing plays and most of the plays9, meant as they are for performance, have not felt the need for publication. Growth, albeit slow, of non-fictional prose or essays to provide critical support to the still nascent Odia Dalit literature is also a heartening thing to happen. In the realm of Odia Dalit Poetry, although three major names—Basudev Sunani, Pitambar Tarai and Akhil Nayak—frequently come up for discussion, there are many poets who have been silently raising battles against the caste system. Most of them are published locally and are difficult to be found. Since the mainstream media ignores them completely, the only way to know about them is through personal acquaintances and friends. In such a situation, where there is dearth of primary material, not to talk of the secondary ones, one attempts to do justice to study whatever one gets and is, in the process, amply rewarded by a rich treasure of humanity. Dalit wrings by women in Odisha is as visible and well informed as the writings by their male counterparts. However, most of the women’s writing

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is in the realm of poetry. Some of the most important names in the field are Anjubala Jena, Jyotshnarani Bhoi and Pratibha Bhoi. Although Short Story does not have as much a penetration as the poetry enjoys among Odia Dalit writers, it is certainly the next most popular genre where one comes across names like Sanjay Bag, Basudev Sunani, Sameer Ranjan and Ramachandra Sethi. As already noted, in the realm of novel Odia Dalit Literature has only two titles to boast of. One is Akhil Nayak’s Bheda (2010) and the other is Basudev Sunani’s Padaa Poddi (2014). In the field of Drama, names like Dolamani Kandher, Shankar Mahananda, Nibedita Jena are quite well known. Born in a poor Dalit family in Nuapada district of Odisha Shankar Mahananda has uses his urge for action and creativity in sociopolitical activism. Some of his popular plays are Bagdhara, Hatira chal, Abolkara, etc. The most noteworthy signature in the elite club of Dalit playwrights is, however, Nibedita Jena, who has the distinction of writing in Hindi and Odia in the past decade. She has made significant advancements both as a playwright and also in terms of staging her plays in Hindi in different parts of northern and western India, winning accolades and appreciations. As noted earlier she was given the Odisha Sahitya Akademi Playwright Award for the year 2011 for her plays Chaitu and Hata. The play, Chaitu, brings out quite poignantly brings out the evils of caste system in India and the anguish and helplessness faced by the Dalits.

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As in any other literatures, the importance of essays in Odia Dalit Literature cannot be overstated. The essays not only present the critical appreciation of the poems and stories through constant assessment and comparisons with other literatures in and outside the country but also trace the origin and development of Odia Dalit Literature; they also outline the scope and challenges facing the Dalit literature. Some of them deal with the issues of cultural history of the Dalits while others trace the trajectories of protest movement and literature. Some of the most prominent figures in the field are Basudev Sunani, Raj Kumar, Basant Kumar Mallick, Abhiram Mallick, Khetrabasi Manseth, Sameer Ranjan and Gopinath Bag. Conclusion: Challenges and Critical Churning Thus, a cursory glance at Dalit literature across the country reveals that it has gained public space and respectability over the last decades. But this acceptability has not come so easily. Dalit writers like Sharan Kumar Limbale, Om Prakash Valmiki and Basudev Sunani have had a tough time fighting a plethora of negative criticism levelled against Dalit literature. By way of criticism it has been argued by the mainstream critics that in its attempt to project the scorching social realities Dalit literature has responded with bitterness and aggression and that it is nothing short of propagandist literature. Dalit poems are said to be lacking in aesthetics; the very literariness of the Dalit autobiographical narrative is questioned and it is accused of being

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repetitive, unstructured, artless outpourings of Dalit writers’ unmediated experience. On the face of such adverse reception Dalit writers have been quick to rebut such unfavourable criticisms. Writing in the context of Marathi Dalit literature Sharan Kumar Limbale, for example, asserts, If pleasure is the basis of the aesthetics of Marathi savarna literature, pain or suffering is the basis of the aesthetics of Dalit literature….It is a literature that is intended to make readers restless and angry. How can the aestheticism in discussions of beauty be reconciled with the ‘Dalit consciousness’ in Dalit literature?...Dalit literature is a new literary stream of the post-independence period. Not only is it new, its form and purpose too are different from those of savarna Marathi literature. Therefore, it cannot be apprised using traditional aesthetics. (Limbale 2010: 115) The argument put forth by Limbale has found resonance everywhere in India and Dalit writers across the length and breadth of the country find themselves standing shoulder to shoulder with their Dalit brethrens in their creative endeavours. Let us consider, for example, the assertion of the Kannada Dalit writer, B Krishnappa: Dalit literature has a different stand on creativity and literary excellence. It is inappropriate to look for refinement in a

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movement’s revolutionary literature. That kind of art can only be found in a literature written in luxury. Refinement cannot be the mainstay of a literature that has revolution as its goals. (Krishnappa 2013:63) Considering the fact that Dalit literature is born of a ‘consciousness’, which wants to break free from the slavery of the caste system, it gives voice to the cry for freedom, equality and justice; and hence it is unique by itself. The Dalit writer puts pertinent questions: can’t the values like freedom, equality and justice be the criteria of a new aesthetic? Can’t the materially tangible humanity be substituted for the abstract concept of beauty? Can’t we worship the real, flesh and blood, man rather than look for an abstract, invisible God? These are the questions which animate Dalit literature in different languages across the country to inform and vitalize the Dalit discourse which in turn influences and scripts a new way of writing Dalit history in particular and Indian history in general. Endnotes 1 It has been wrongly translated into English as The Prisons We Broke by an upper caste translator, Maya Pandit, (who in her attempt to bring out the feminist side of the subject, force-reads meanings into the text). Elsewhere, the author has argued that reading feminism into Dalit texts is done deliberately by the upper caste writers and critics with the sole purpose of diluting and thereby weakening the Dalit identity, movement and cause.

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2 Dalit Mirror is being edited by Manohar Mouli Biswas since 1997. 3 Being edited by Manjubala since 1996. 4 It refers to the humiliating practice whereby Dalit women in Kerala were not permitted to cover their upper body. Instead, they were forced to wear several chains of shells and stones; the number of beads/stones in the chains was a sign of the woman’s age. (Dasan 2012:xvi) 5 The contemporary Dalit reading of the Temple Entry Movement, however, considers this event as an upper caste ploy to prevent mass conversion of Dalits to Christianity. 6 After his conversion into Christianity, Appachan has changed his name to Yohannan. 7 According to Manohar Yadav, “Shyam Sunder...can be rightly hailed as the Father of Dalit Movement in Karnataka, though he himself owed this to Babasaheb Ambedkar” (Yadav 1998: 114) 8 Nishakar Das’s autobiography From Kharasuan to Kulabiri: A Journey through life (2006) is an autobiography for just name-sake. It has neither the thrust nor the impact to be called one. 9 In fact, while talking about the situation regarding plays one can’t help reflecting that Odisha is known for the GanaNatya (locally known as Opera but is different from the western notions of opera and is in the nature of mobile theatre group/company) which is so popular that it eclipses not only the Odia cinema but even the Hindi cinema during th e winte r mo nth s. The plays writt en for performance in Gana Natya, although mostly social in nature, do not have explicit Dalit themes and hence, so far, have not been considered as part of Odia Dalit Literature.

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3 History and the Journey of the Ganda Caste

After the three longish preludes (in the form of an introduction and two chapters) we now come to the core issue of this book: the history and journey of the Ganda caste. As promised earlier we shall study in this section three different narratives surrounding the Gandas. The first one, which informed the knowledge production and administrative policies of the British rulers of colonial India, gets the nomenclatures ‘colonial narrative’. The second one was prepared and followed by the Anthropological Survey of India long after India got its Independence from the British rule in 1947 and hence, it can be safely described as the official narrative of the Government of India in the postcolonial time. The third one is by a Dalit author Basudev Sunani who is not only a by-product of the Constitutional provisions of affirmative actions by the Government of India but also a first generation literate who

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takes up pen to write the cultural history of the caste in which he is born. Since the current discussion on the narratives about the Gandas would be steered from the contemporary perspectives with the benefit of hindsight it is better to start with the context of the Ganda caste, its position in the social and constitutional scheme of India and then go to the nature of its portrayal in colonial and nationalist narratives of the country. Who are the Gandas? As noted earlier, the Gandas are found inhabiting the undivided districts of Western Odisha (Sambalpur, Balangir, Kalahandi, Koraput) and in some parts of the neighbouring states like Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. Currently, the Gandas are one of the Scheduled Castes recognised by the Government of India in exercise of the powers conferred on it by clause (1) of Article 341 of the Constitution of India.1 The Government of India (Scheduled Castes) Order 2 of 1936 which was the predecessor to the current provisions on Scheduled Castes, had for the first time come out with the list of Scheduled Castes of India as it existed on the 1 st July, 1936. In this document the Ganda caste is listed only in two sections: one, in Part VII, on the section on “Central Provinces and Berar” and is commented as being found “Throughout the Province”; two, in Part IX, on the section on “Orissa” and is commented as found “Throughout the Province”.

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Later, in independent India, when the states are restructured significantly along linguistic line, the caste Ganda is listed four times in the Constitution (Scheduled Caste) Order, 1950: 1. At number 25 on page 156 under the state of Madhya Pradesh along with the caste Gandi. 2. At number 21 on page 157 under the state of Maharashtra along with the caste Gandi. 3. At number 29 on page 158 under the state of Odisha (Orissa). 4. At number 24 of page 164 under the state of Chhattisgarh along with the caste Gandi. From the above listings one gets a rough idea of the fact that currently the Ganda caste is officially found in only the above listed States- Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. But at the same time, one cannot help noting that while the Ganda is listed along with Gandi in three out of four places (i.e. except in ‘Orissa’ where it is listed alone). The Colonial Confusion? If one visits the pages of colonial ethnology in India one gets a very conflicting picture about the Ganda caste. Sometimes the Gandas are entered alone and some other times they are spoken in relation to another caste group, i.e. the Dom or Domb. Although there have been a number of exhaustive studies on the castes and tribes of India during the colonial period and different authorities have presented the

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Ganda caste differently, among the writers who figure prominently are H.H. Risley, E.T. Dalton and R.V. Russell. In their works one gets a reference to, and a consolidation of, all the earlier works about this caste. Notwithstanding wide variations and contradictions in their accounts, all these ethnographers are more or less in concurrence on the low status of the Ganda in the Indian society and as it will be clear in the following passages it is not difficult to understand their positions. One may start with Russell and Hira Lal, who despite and because of being late comers in the field are the most exhaustive of all the earlier accounts. Having minor disagreements/deviations with their predecessors they discuss about the Ganda caste in the fourth volume of their encyclopaedic work, The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India (1916), as follows: Ganda.—A servile and impure caste of Chota Nagpur and the Uriya Districts. They numbered 278,000 persons in 1901, resident largely in Sambalpur and the Uriya States, but since the transfer of this territory to Bengal, only about 150,000 Gandas remain in the Central Provinces in Raipur, Bilaspur and Raigarh. In this Province the Gandas have become a servile caste of village drudges, acting as watchmen, weavers of coarse cloth and musicians. They are looked on as an impure caste, and are practically in the same position as the Mehras and Chamars of other Districts. (sic) (Russell and Hira Lal 3:14)

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Here, although the writers talk about the geographical distribution, profession and inferior social positions of the Ganda caste, they do not betray any reference to the Dom caste. However, somewhere else, one gets an insight into the relation between these two castes, as also other sub castes, in Russell and Hira Lal, when they refer to an earlier authority: Sir H. M. Elliot considered the Doms to be one of the original tribes of India. Again, there is no doubt that the impure Ganda caste, who are weavers, labourers and Village musicians in the Uriya 3 [sic] country and Chhattisgarh Districts of the Central Provinces, are derived from the Pan tribe of Chota Nagpur. The Pans or Pabs are a regular forest tribe, and are sometimes called Ganda, while the Gandas may be alternatively known as Pan. (Russell and Hira Lal 1:77) Also, elsewhere, in the Glossary of the aforementioned book, Russell and Hira Lal list the Ganda as follows: “A messenger. A low caste of village watchmen. In the Uriya country the Gandas are known as Dom.” (sic) (362) From the above discussions one might start assuming that probably the Ganda and Dom were related. But as we will realize soon, this is not the final picture. It needs to be noted that although in the preceding paragraphs these two terms may have been used to refer to the same caste in Western Odisha, referred to as the Uriya country or Uriya districts, the term Ganda is mainly used for the

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‘village weaver and musician’ caste specifically in relation to this region, whereas, the term Dom was more of a generic one and was listed by the same authors in the second volume of their book, not independently but as part of the Mehtar (the scavenger) caste and was said to be found almost throughout the country in different names (Russell and Hira Lal 4: 215). Besides, it may also be noted that, in the region under consideration there is a caste named Ghasi or Ghasia which actually performs the scavenger’s job but which is listed by Russell and Hira Lal as a ‘Grass-cutter caste’; and perhaps etymological connection to the word ghas (grass in English) must have inspired the writers for arriving at such listing (27). To add to the confusion, one finds K S Singh 4 , the official ethnographer of the Government of India, listing all these and many more Scheduled Castes independently although their professions and life styles overlap with one another. So, the point to be made here is that considering the bewildering size, diversity and variety of the Indian population it is very difficult to be absolutely accurate in one’s study; at best one can come out with some amount of approximation and try to see how much one can understand of the riddles of Indian society. Keeping these difficulties in mind we can start by analysing the position of the Gandas – and not that of the Dom 5 — in the colonial narratives, followed by a study of the nationalist narrative represented in K. S Singh’s The Scheduled Caste (1993). With these narratives as points of

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reference we shall, then, attempt to study Basudev Sunani’s History to register both points of convergence and departure. An Appraisal of the Colonial Narratives Sir H. H. Risley was the pioneering authority to be credited with the first formal application of the caste system to the entire Hindu population of the country. He was instrumental in the revival of the Varna system as a structure for social order in India. In Lloyd Rudolph’s words, “Risley believed that Varna, however ancient, could be applied to all the modern castes found in India and he meant to identify and place several hundred million Indians within it” (Rudolph 1984: 116-117). Despite his claim to being different from the Orientalists like William James and Max Muller, owing to his use of anthropometric method rather than a reliance on the myths and literature to understand the people of the country, Risley was no different from the Orientalists. Being true to his theory of race he depended heavily on the Brahmans (the priestly class of the time) to produce ‘a body of knowledge’ of the subject population to aid the colonial Government. The colonial dependency on the priestly class was so acute that the whole colonial ethnographic project seemed to have begun with the Brahman and ended with the Brahman. While recounting one of the many episodes where the Brahman correspondents of H. H. Risley literally drowned him with pure fictional accounts, Nicolas

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B Dirks writes in Castes of Mind; Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (2006): Babu Tara Prasad Chatterjee submitted his report on the castes of Bengal based on the “Bramha Vaivarta Purana”. This Purana followed the authority of Manu as regards the four original castes, and placed the Brahmans at the top of the caste hierarchy in clear fashion... Babu Tara Prasad Chatterjee gave a long list of “mixed castes” and noted the reasons for why certain castes had fallen in status. The carpenters, for example, had been degraded for unpunctuality in supplying wood implements for the Vedic sacrifice, the painters had been degraded by a Brahmanical curse for neglecting orders to paint, and the goldsmiths had been degraded for stealing gold from Brahmans.(Dirks 2006: 216-217) It is pertinent to note that no less an authority than H. H. Risley who was to become the Commissioner for the 1901 Census and Director of Ethnography for India in 1901, “depended almost entirely on Brahmans and other higher castes for his materials on caste” (218). For scholars like him, the position of any caste in the societal hierarchy of the country was to be determined on the basis of its affinity or distance from the Brahmans: whether the Brahman accepted water from a caste or not was the most important question which determined the social and ritual status of any caste.

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In this context, referring to Risley’s absolute reliance on Brahmanical sociology of knowledge Dirks elaborates, ...he organized his entire understanding of caste structure and rank according to Brahmanical indices such as the acceptance of food and water, the use of priests, and origin stories concerning duties and obligations, and ritual proximity to and functions relating to Brahmans. Because of his single minded obsession with the racial origins of caste, he married his own late 19th century version of scientific empiricism with the powerful combination of early 19th century Orientalist knowledge and the clerical Brahmanical opinion that permeated the middle echelons of colonial administration in the localities. (218) This clearly shows that, despite his iconic status, Risley’s ethnography was not at all free from prejudice but actually was the fatal continuation of the Bramhanical fiction in the guise of European empiricism; that it is an unfortunate tragedy that the whole of Indian history and ethnography was based on the accounts given by Risley and his ilk; and that a truly modern research cannot really take Risley’s accounts on its face value. Being governed by the caste-prejudice of the upper caste Brahmans he passed on the harshest of judgements on the illiterate masses in his book Tribes and Castes of

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Bengal (1891), as is evident on the following account, which discusses one of the sub castes of the Ganda: …those pans who live in the villages of the Kandh tribes, work as weavers and perform for the kandhs a varieties of servile functions…these pans who serve Hindus and live in villages of their own and then come to be ranked as a separate sub-caste as regards those slave class alleged to be included in the group. We know that an extensive traffic in children destined to human sacrifice used to go on in the Kandh Country, and that the Pans were the agents….(Risley 1891: 157) In a different context, while taking about the “mixed and the impure tribes”, E.T. Dalton, Risley’s predecessor in this field, writes in his Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (1872) that the agents employed for human trafficking were usually people of the Pan or Panwa class. According to Dalton, “the Pan or Panwa... were a low tribe of bastard hindus [sic] who are found diffused amongst the population of all Tributary mahals, under different denominations, as Pan or Panwas, Chiks, Gandas and Panikas.” (Dalton 1872: 286) Although human sacrifice was prevalent among the Kandh 6 tribe in some parts of Odisha, particularly in the central Odisha, and some individuals might have helped in such sacrifices there was no proof that the Pan or Ganda caste en masse was involved in child trafficking or acted as

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‘agents’ to supply children for human sacrifice. In fact, it is noteworthy that the later authorities like RV Russell and R B Hira Lal, despite having their share of prejudice, set aside Russell’s account by saying that it was “merely...an interesting historical reminiscence of the Pans or Gandas”(Russell and Hira Lal 3:15). But when a colonial authority of the stature of Risley mentions anything, it has not only the effect of stereotyping the whole community as criminal but also assigning an undesirable colour and direction to the production of knowledge in the field. While discussing the primitive nature of the Ganda caste, Russell and Hira Lal feel that although in some places of Chota Nagpur area they are still “recognised as a primitive tribe” they might not be related to the Gond Tribe. Disagreeing with Risley they opine, “Sir H. Risley suggests that the name of Ganda may be derived from Gond, and that the Pans may originally have been an offshoot of that tribe, but no connection between the Gandas and Gonds has been established in the Central Provinces” (14). While Russell and Hira Lal argue against the Ganda being the same as the Gonds they also contradict themselves as they had earlier cited H M Eliot in the first volume of their book to agree with him that the Ganda were certainly one of the “regular forest tribes” of Chota Nagpur (Russell and Hira Lal 1: 77). It is also to be noted that the Gonds are registered by the Government of India as “Scheduled Tribe” rather than as “Scheduled Caste”.

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As an aside, however, one cannot help reflecting that although the tribal population ate beef and skinned animals just like the other so called ‘polluted castes’, they were not considered polluted or untouchable. It is worth mentioning that in the section on “The non-Aryan Tribes” in the “Introductory Essay on Caste” in the first volume of the book, Russell and Hira Lal clearly recognise this fact. According to Russell and Hira Lal, the fourth group in the scheme of precedence comprised the non-Aryan or indigenous tribes, who were actually outside the caste system. The tribes enjoyed independent status and respect as long as they continued to worship their own tribal deities and showed no respect for Brahmans or for the cow. On the other hand, the tribes which accepted the superiority of the Brahmans were reduced to servile status. The tribes, which still retained their distinctive existence and were not enslaved in any manner, ranked somewhat higher than the impure castes, even though they may utterly defile themselves as far as the Hindu ideas of eating beef was concerned; and that explains why the Gond labourers in Hindu villages in the plains were more despised than the Gonds who lived in their own villages in the hill country. (60-70) The preceding observations simply tries to reiterate a point that in a Brahmanical scheme of things the forest dwelling Gonds, who could not be subjugated by the Brahmans, enjoyed better social status and this attitude percolated down to the latterday colonial historians/ethnographers and which led

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to glaring contradictions in their postulations. The victims of such negative postulations were the lower castes like the Ganda who are portrayed in confusing terms: “the Ganda of Sambalpur have strong criminal tendencies which have recently called for special repressive measures. Nevertheless, they are usually employed as village watchmen in accordance with long standing custom” (Russell and Hira Lal 3:17). After making observation about the “strong criminal tendency” among the Ganda of Sambalpur, the writers also record the false and untenable perceptions created by the Brahmans which is visible in the following contradictions: On the one hand, it is recorded “although not compelled actually to live apart from the village they used to live in separate quarters”, on the other hand it is said, “they were not permitted to draw water from the village well or to enter Hindu temples” (17). It is difficult to understand how a particular community which maintains its separate identity of its own accord by living in ‘separate quarters’, without any compulsion from ‘others’, and yet is looked down upon by the same ‘others’ to the extent of not being ‘permitted to draw water’ or ‘enter Hindu temples’. Logic would have it that either ‘someone is compelled to stay away and hence not permitted’ or ‘someone is not compelled to stay away and hence permitted’. In case of the former, there is the element of ‘restriction’, whereas in case of the latter, there is the element of ‘volition’. Considering the element of power involved in the realm of social intercourse, it is not difficult to understand which of these

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elements would be the indicator of servitude or freedom. In such a situation, the Ganda caste, which can be assumed to have wielded certain amount of ‘volition’ in its relation with the Hindu population, could not have been in a position of inferiority as suggested by the following description: “their touch defiles, and a Hindu will not give anything into the hands of one of the caste while holding it himself, but will throw it down in front of the Ganda, and will take anything from him in the same manner” (sic) (17). It meant that there was contradiction in the above ‘narrative’ about the Ganda which was not only ‘maintained’ in the past but got retained and consolidated through future consumption. Further, the observations about the caste having ‘criminal tendency’ and being employed as the ‘village watchmen’ and having a low status in the society, ‘refract’ far many important things about the observation than ‘reflect’ anything about the factual situation. It doesn’t require more than commonsense to understand the fact that the test of physical bravery of a people has always been reflected in its capacity to kill others. Across the civilizations, the more ruthless a killer is the braver he is considered to be; in fact, all the legendary kings and emperors of history have always been, first and foremost, the legendary killers. The act of killing being a criminal act, if we start branding all of them as ruthless criminals then the very shape of human history will be different. But, that is not how the history of human civilization has been viewed. One dare not call the winners as criminals:

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Alexander the great, is not called criminal; Ashok the great, is also not called criminal! It is always the losers or the vanquished that are branded as criminals. Coming to the specifics of the criminal castes and tribes: from the perspectives of the Dravidians, the Aryans were nomadic, criminal tribe who invaded the planes of North India; later the Scythians, the nomadic, criminal tribe of Iran, invaded North India and who later came to be known as the Rajputs in India; during the pre-Mughal period the Jaths and Gujjars of North India were said to be plunderers operating along the “great silk route” or the “Grand Trunk Road.” But historians do not talk about the criminal tendencies of these tribes because these people have been the winners and have been part of the power structure at some point of time or other. On the other hand, a caste like the Ganda has to suffer the stereotyped negative images whether it is with reference to being ‘servile and impure’ or to being ‘products of mixed relationship’ or that of being ‘criminals’. Such vilification by the colonial narrative does not end with this alone. The Ganda are also portrayed as a faceless, cultureless people having no particular custom of their own and who should not be studied independently. Take for example the comments of E. T. Dalton who had tried hard to prove that the Ganda were invisible members of the Aryan or Hindu: “In features these people are Aryan or Hindu rather than Kolarian or Dravidian. Their habits are much alike; repudiating the Hindu restrictions on food, but worshipping Hindu gods and goddesses,

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and having no peculiar custom which stamp them as other races” (Dalton 1960: 325). Even Russell and Hira Lal, who were far more exhaustive in their accounts could not resist this tendency to generalize when, despite their interesting record of the cultural life of the Ganda, they cryptically referred to the fact that “the Gandas principally worship Dulha Deo, the young bridegroom who was carried off by a tiger, and they offer a goat to him at their weddings” (Russell and Hira Lal 3:16). After this short reference to their local deity the writers painstakingly add that the Gandas “observe the Hindu fasts and festivals, and at Dasahra [sic] worship their musical instruments and the weaver’s loom. Being impure, they do not revere the tulsi plant nor the banyan tree or pippal trees.”(16) At this juncture, it is also pertinent to note the above ethnographers mention a god, Ghansiam Deo, being worshipped by the Gonds which is much similar to the Gandas’ Dulha Deo and also that the Gonds worship Bhimsen 7 which indicates the effect of Hinduism on the Gonds8 (97). But while describing the faith and belief system of the Gonds the colonial writers go into the details of the myths, in the case of the Gandas they cut it short within a few lines. Furthermore, while none of the above reference to ‘Bhimsen’ and his legacy makes the colonial writers consider the Gonds as Hindu, the Gandas’ alleged observation of Duserah festival seems enough for the colonial writers to conclude them to be Hindus.

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What do these narratives suggest? To a discerning mind, it will be crystal clear that these narratives work as a bridge between the Manusmriti (a document of slavery) and the Constitution of India (a document of liberation); influenced as they were by the effects of Brahmanism and Brahmanical texts, and contrary to the popular perception of being impartial, these narratives have been highly prejudiced in documenting the history of the people. Referring to the all pervasive effect of the Brahman informers and interpreters on the colonial ethnographers, Nicholas B Dirks observes that Risley, Dalton or Russell were not the only ones to rely on the prejudicial priestly caste of India for information on the natives but even the earliest of the British Surveyors like Buchannan and Mackenzie had the same predicament. According to Dirks, Francis Buchanan’s journal frequently mentioned the Brahmans, mostly because they “were contacted on a regular basis for information regarding the histories and customs of particular places” (Dirks 2006: 116). So was the case with Colin Mackenzie, who blindly depended on the priestly class and widely accepted it as the “local literati”; and even when the priestly class was not the specific objects of inquiry, it was “referred to by others as those who could provide reliable accounts of matters ranging from local history to sociology, from revenue systems to the existence of local texts and records.”(116) From the entire discussion, it becomes amply clear that the colonial ethnography was closely following the hegemonic ideology of actively

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marginalizing and criminalizing any caste which didn’t find favour with the Brahmans. However, despite a host of negative postulations about the Ganda in the colonial narratives one can’t afford to ignore them because they are the only ones which can give any, howsoever distorted it may be, insight into the hoary dusty past of Indian life. It is in this context, as one digs deep into the colonial records, one finds to find some remnants of the cultural life of the Ganda caste in Russell and Hira Lal, who have contributed significantly to the British colonial knowledge system by recording it, albeit in a passing reference, for posterity. Glimpses of Cultural Life in Colonial Narratives a. Marriage

In the colonial documents, the Gandas are said to have exogamous groups or septs named after plants, animals or other inanimate objects. Marriage is said to be prohibited within the sept, and between the children of two sisters, though the children of brothers and sisters may marry; and if a girl attains puberty without a husband having been found for her, “she is wedded to a spear stuck up in the courtyard of the house, and then given away to anybody who wishes to take her” (Russell and Hira Lal 3:15). Recording the restrictions and rituals around the celebration of marriage the Russell and Hira Lal note that the Ganda marriages were not to be held during “the three rainy months of Shrawan, Bhadon or Kunwar” (approximately the months of July, August and September in English

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Calendar) nor “during the dark fortnight of the month, nor on a Saturday or Tuesday” (15). Here, although the writers do not elaborate upon the reasons behind such restriction it betrays an understanding that the marriages were held during the dry seasons and on moonlit fortnights of the months for absolutely practical reasons compelled by forest dwellings. Describing the marriage post the writers elaborate that it was “of the wood of the mahua tree, and beneath it are placed seven cowries and seven pieces of turmeric” (15). During the marriage an elderly male member of the caste was appointed as the Sethia; and it was the Sethia who worked as a sort of temporary priest to conduct the ceremony; and unlike the Saptapadi9 of the Hindus, the Ganda couple was made to go five times round the sacred pole in the morning and thrice in the evening. After the wedding was over the bride and bridegroom returned home where a mock-play waited them; the mock-play involved a mock-test for the bride-groom; an image of a deer was made with grass and placed behind the ear of the bride; the bridegroom was then expected to shoot it with a tiny toy-arrow made of grass or thin bamboo. He was allowed only seven shots and if he failed to knock it out of her ear even after seven attempts, the bride’s brother was supposed to take it and run away, in which situation the bridegroom must follow and catch him. Russell and Hira Lal observe that this was “clearly a symbolic process representing the chase, of the sort practised by the Khonds and other primitive tribes, and may be taken as a

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reminiscence among the Gandas of their former life in the forests.” (15) b. Divorce and Widow Remarriage

Coming to the question of divorce among the Ganda, Russell and Hira Lal record that there were Caste Committees to decide the matter and in the event of adultery by a wife the husband could divorce her before the caste committee; in the case of her decision to marry her lover, the lover was required to repay to the husband the expenses incurred by the latter on his wedding. Here, the writers simply report the bare outline of the process and make the situation look like highly patriarchal where only the husband had the right to divorce; but the situation seems to be far different, as will be seen later in Sunani’s History, and the right to divorce was vested in both the parties and the Caste Committee acted merely as a facilitator of peaceful resolution of the disputes between the parties. Similar was the situation in case of remarriage of widows where the writers observe that it was permitted among the Ganda and “the younger brother of the deceased husband took his widow if he wished to do so. Otherwise she may marry whom she pleases” [emphasis added; 15). Here, the last line is very significant as it is completely against the Hindu tradition whereby the widow was considered a living corpse without any right to toiletry, not to talk of her choice for remarriage, and who was considered to bring ill omen if she happened to pass by any person.

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c. Birth and Death

On the issue of birth among the Ganda Russell and Hira Lal have only one line to say: “Children are named on the sixth day after birth without any special ceremony” (15). As one can see this single-liner comment speaks nothing about the opinion, beliefs and rituals surrounding pregnancy and child birth which necessitates the likes of Sunani to come forward and make the record straight. About the rituals involving death, Russell and Hira Lal observe that the Ganda bury their dead due to financial concerns, “as with most families the fuel required for cremation would be a serious item of expenditure.” But, this observation cannot hold any logic because of the simple fact that during the early 19th century most part of the country (or at least the western part of Odisha where the Ganda lived) was still covered with dense jungle and there was no dearth of woods to cremate a dead body if a community wishes it to; and as will be evident later in Sunani, the Ganda believed in an altogether different system of rituals which permitted burial rather than cremation. Similarly, when Russell and Hira Lal observe that “a man is laid on his face in the grave and a woman on her back” and do not say why such a ritual was being followed, one gets only the half truth. Perhaps, that is the reason why Sunani’s History refutes this claim. While referring to the mourning period the writers say, Mourning is observed for three days, except in the case of children under three years old,

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whose deaths entail no special observances. On the fourth day a feast is given, and when all have been served, the chief mourner takes a little food from the plate of each guest and puts it in a leaf-cup. He takes another leafcup full of water and places the two outside the house, saying ‘Here is food for you’ to the spirit of the departed. (16) One finds here, as in other places in the colonial narratives, only half of the picture as it does not tell why the concerned people did such things; by not giving a clearer picture of the most sacrosanct of the rituals like birth and death, the narrative sadly turns out to have a trivializing effect. d. Profession

According to the aforementioned writers the Gandas are generally employed either in weaving coarse cloth or as village musicians. They are also said to sing and dance to the accompaniment of their instruments. The writers observe that generally young boys, dressed as women, performed. Referring to their attire, Russell and Hira Lal observe that they had long hair, skirts, half-sleeved jackets and tinkling anklets in addition to colourful cloths and peacock feathers attached to their shoulder. About their musical instruments the writers record the following: ...sing-baja, a single drum made of iron with ox-hide leather stretched over it; two horns project from the sides for purposes of

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decoration and give the instrument its name, and it is beaten with thick leather thongs. The dafla is a wooden drum open on one side and covered with a goat-skin on the other, beaten with a cane and a bamboo stick. The timki is a single hemispherical drum of earthenware; and the sahnai is a sort of bamboo flute. (16) As usual, the above description of the musical instruments of the Ganda lacks knowledge and oversimplifies a complex set of instruments which have quite a good deal of technicalities involved in them; also, the observation about the sahnai being a sort of bamboo flute is a gross distortion of fact because, as will be seen in Sunani’s History, it is actually not a bamboo product at all but a complex piped instrument half of which is made of an alloy metal called brass and another half made of bamboo. Further, one needs to contrast the above observations of the colonial writers with that of other studies on the subject to see the difference. For instance, there is a recent study on the music of the Ganda caste by Lidia Guzy who describes what she calls the Ganda baja as ‘the village orchestra’: Ganda baja may be the most prominent musical and ritual feature of the Bora Sambar region. It is an instrumental orchestral music [emphasis added], performed exclusively by musicians originating from the marginalised Harijan caste Ganda (also called Pano). (Guzy 2013: 126)

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Here, it may be noted that Guzy is referring to the very same Ganda caste present study and about which Russell and Hira Lal have mentioned in so casual terms. The Bora Sambar region refers roughly to Padampur sub-division in the present Bargarh (part of undivided Sambalpur, known as one of the Uriya districts in the colonial document) district of western Odisha where the Ganda caste is said to be concentrated. While the colonial documents brush aside the musical instruments of the Gandas in simplistic terms, what one finds in Guzy is a detailed study of each of the instrument. Due to limited scope of the present study we might not go into the detail of Guzy’s engagement with the music of the Ganda caste, but surely we will be benefited by a glimpse of the value she attaches to the object of her study through the following lines, which form part of her introduction to the music of the Gandas: The instruments forming the Ganda baja village orchestra can be divided into three categories: membranophones (dhol, nissan, tasa, also called timkiri), an aerophone (mohuri) and idiophones (kastal/jhang or jumka). Membranophones are musical instruments that produce sound by a stretched membrane (animal skin). Aerophones are musical instruments which produce sound only by using air without any string or membrane and idiophones are musical instruments which resound in themselves, without any strings, air or membranes. (126)

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Undoubtedly, here, Guzy’s knowledge of the music of the Gandas seems far more professional than that of the colonial writers. But, when one compares Guzy’s rich description with that of the colonial under-statement about the Ganda caste it is not to negate the significance of the earlier studies but just to remind oneself what dependency on wrong source could do a research. On the one hand, Russell and Hira Lal, being constrained by their time (early twentieth century) and language, like all other colonial ethnographers, had no knowledge of the native language and culture of India and therefore banked exclusively on the priestly class (who presented the picture of the Indian society from their own skewed, prejudiced, Brahmanical perspective) to collect information on Indian society. On the other hand, Lidia Guzy did not need to go to the Brahman interpreter for information about the life, rituals and music of the Gandas. While studying the music and culture of the marginalised people of western Odisha in the twenty first century, she had the advantage of visiting the Ganda localities for field studies, meeting and interviewing the very people about whom she wanted to collect information. Since she could see for herself what her object of study stood for, her study not only scores much ahead of the colonial ethnology but also that of the nationalist narrative presented by “The People of India Project”.

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The People of India Project (2nd October 1985 - 31st March 1992) According to K S Singh, the Director General of the Anthropological Survey of India (1984-93), the objective of the project was to generate a brief, descriptive anthropological profile of all the communities of India. It was in accordance with the objectives of the A.S.I. to pursue “bio-cultural research” among different population groups and it culminated in multi-volume National Series based on a comprehensive anthropological survey of the country (Singh 1993: xi). The volume The Scheduled Castes (1993) provides abstracts (write-ups) on 633 Scheduled Caste communities in alphabetical order along with a list of 178 communities who could not be studied because their population in the state of their residence was less than 10,000 or because they have been studied under different names. The abstract on the Ganda caste begins as follows: “GANDA Concentrated [sic] in the western districts of Orissa, their population, according to the 1981 census, is 418,956. A number of them, i.e. 43,110 persons (10.29 per cent of the total population), are returned from urban areas...” (Singh 1993: 516). It is to be noted here that although the abstract starts with a mention of the concentration of the Ganda caste in western Orissa it also includes information on the Ganda found in Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh) and Maharashtra. Referring to their food habit, Singh records that these people “are non-vegetarians who eat fish, egg, mutton, pork

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and beef”. Rice is said to be their staple food which is supplemented with pulses, vegetables, roots and tubers. They are also said to be fond of liquor (516). Most of the Gandas of Orissa are said to be speaking Odia, both at home and outside although some use the local dialects while others use the Laria 10 . Depending on various factors like the dialect they use at home or their place of residence, they are known as either Odia Ganda (speaking Odia), Laria Ganda (speaking Laria), Kandria Ganda (living in the Kondh country), Kabria Ganda (influenced by Kabir) and Sahria Ganda (returned from town) and each of these are further divided into a number of totemic clans. Citing Senapati and Kuanr, Singh mentions that marriage between the Oriya Ganda and the Laria Ganda is permissible. Marriages are said to be arranged through mutual negotiations and mutual consent; cross-cousin marriage, junior sororate and junior levirate are said to be prevalent; residence after marriage is reported as patrilocal; divorce, remarriage after divorce and widow remarriages are reported as permissible. It is interesting to note that while reporting about marriage in this caste Singh appears far more prosaic and superficial than his sources Russell and Hira Lal. Even while parroting the ritual of marrying to a post made of mahua tree he misquotes it as “the girl is married to a bow or an arrow tied to a post made of matua wood”(517). Similarly, while reporting the profession of the caste, Singh substitutes the phrase “traditionally (sic) drumbeaters” to Russell’s “musician”. Citing census report

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he adds that at present agricultural labour is the “single largest occupation” of the community. Speaking about the faith of the community Singh settles the confusion found in the colonial documents and declares once for all that these people “profess Hinduism and worship deities of the Hindu pantheon.” It is significant to note that the main sources of K S Singh’s The Scheduled Castes were the already existing reference found in Sanskrit texts and colonial ethnographers; and as he has admitted himself in the “Note on the Series” the identification of the communities and “their listing have [had] a long genealogy starting from the early period of Indian history, with Manu”. In the compilation of the list of the communities “The People of India Project” heavily drew upon “the ethnographic surveys, the list of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes drawn up by the Government of India” (1993: xi). That is the reason why whatever pictures that emerge from these documents are always the continuation of the earlier image found in the hierarchical Brahmanical knowledge system. Gandas in Basudev Sunani’s Dalit Sanskrutir Itihaas (History of Dalit Culture) Considering the fact that Basudev Sunani himself belongs to the Ganda caste and also the fact that apart from the aforementioned colonial and Indian ethnologists, Sunani himself conducted survey on the life and the culture of the people, his History of Dalit Culture seems to be the more of an ‘insider’s

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account’ than that of an ‘outsider’. It is well known that an ‘insider’s account’ has both advantages as well as disadvantages. In terms of advantages it brings forth the neglected side of the truth while by way of disadvantages it may suffer from excessive self-indulgence to the extent of an absence of critical appraisal. As some critics have pointed out Sunani’s account is not free from such disadvantages. However, despite complains and shortcomings Sunani’s History is one document which needs to be studied as it attempts to present the life of his people and their own idea of themselves in the following nine chapters: a. Original Inhabitants b. Life Cycle c. Agriculture, Economy and Social Structure d. Profession of Weaving Clothes e. Ancient Identity f. Religion and Faith g. Duma and Festivities h. Language, Literature and Folklore i. Four Brothers: Gang, Gagarang, Yadu and Kadam The first chapter, which is subtitled as “Original Inhabitant”, starts with the history of the Ganda community which is said to be one of the original inhabitants of the landmass on the bank of the river Mahanadi and which roughly spread across, Chhattisgarh and Western Odisha. Citing examples

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from historian Nabin Kumar Sahu the writer argues that the practice of erecting Megaliths at the burial grounds proves the antiquity of this community whose origin can be traced to the Austro-Asiatic Group (Sunani 2009:13). He also quotes another historian, Satyanarayan Rajguru, to argue that the lineage of the Gandas can be traced to pre-historic times. (19) Before going to the myths of the community Sunani makes a brief but incisive survey of the historical writings concerning the Gandas; he refers to the accounts of the Greek traveller Megasthenes, Chinese travellers Hiuen Tsang and Fahiyaan and the Arab scholar Al Beruni to make a case for the social history of the Ganda community. He also pre-empts the questions about the authenticity of his History and argues that all along history writing has depended heavily upon both written as well as unwritten sources to document the forgotten past of a given society and that no writing can be negated as ‘unhistorical’ simply because it has relied upon myths and folktales to reconstruct the past 11 (2122). According to him, Due to lack of literacy the Birtias, Ghogia or Parghanias12 have not been able to write about their lives but have many things transmitted through orality. Therefore, it would be incorrect to think that their accounts are completely unhistorical. Branding them simply as myth or folk would deprive the history of such a huge population from being unearthed. Historians would certainly do better to consider this fact. (Trans. S K Mahananda; 22)

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In fact, taking a cue from him, Anand Mahanand, in his paper on “The Gandas of Western Odisha”, makes a case for the use of myths and folktales in writing the history of a community in the following words: “many historians including Romila Thapar have argued for including mythological narratives as history.” (Mahanand 2014:18) Based on the premise that every society/ community has its ‘origin myth’, Basudev Sunani feels that there are specific narratives about the origin of every society/community in the world. One can speculate upon the socio-cultural traditions and genealogies of the respective communities on the basis of those narratives. Although people of this community are visible almost everywhere in India their ‘origin myth’ can be traced to the valleys along the long coast line of Mahanadi in Orissa (Sunani 2009: 22). Origin Myths It is a fact that every ‘origin myth’ is shrouded in mystery and imagination is used to retrieve the lost world of human evolution. In the process, narratives overlap and draw freely from one another to reconstruct various versions of the same story. The origin myth of the Ganda is no different and this leads to the cultural historians like Basudev Sunani listing two myths related to the origin of the Ganda community: the first one is traced to king Chhatarpati and his son Dhanubinkar while the second is traced to the Nagvansi king Dungi Chuhan and his son Kolbhoj. Here one may note

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that the name Chhatarpati resembles the Sanskrit word Chhatrapati which literally means a great king or the Lord of the warriors and that the word in Sambalpuri dialect might simply be an apabhramsa (distortion) of the much dignified Sanskrit word for a king. In the first myth, it is said that Dhanubinkar had two wives: Raimuni and Katni; he had eleven sons from Raimani, the elder wife, and six sons from Katni, the younger one. Children of Raimani were known to form Chuhan 13 clan - another name of the Gandas - while the children of Katni formed the Gond tribe. The eleven sons of Raimani, who were said to have formed the Chuhan clan were as follows: 1. Gajpati 2. Debhog 3. Shabal Shai 4. Kol Bhoj 5. Man Bhoj 6. Jhaanke 7. Maanke 8. Deogan 9. Kol Bhed 10. Pitashri 11. Edia. On the other hand, the six sons of Katni who were said to have formed the Gond tribe were: 1. Raj Gond 2. Maharaj 3. Thukal 4. Baadi 5. Aadi Gond 6. Jaati Gond (23). According to the second myth King Kolbhoj had four sons Ganga, Gagaranga, Yadu and Kadam from whom came the Gonds, the Gandas, the Gouds and the Kondhs respectively (32). Although both these myths begin differently later they converge and go on to tell the story of the Lakhe Ghar Samaj, which literally means the community of One Lakh Family, which is an exaggeration of sorts, but actually hints at a community which has ‘many’ clans and sub-clans. Sunani lists 135 clans among the Gandas with different surnames, which are named on the basis

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of various metals, animals, birds and reptiles (4042). Since Sunani devotes quite a bit of space for detail description of 26 clans with specific stories about their birth, faiths and cultural practices it is not within the scope of this thesis to go to each one of them. Practicality demands that we may study what is common to all of the Ganda community rather than each one of the clans separately. But before we proceed to the next stage it is to be noted that the origin myths of the Gandas do not go to any Brahman Rishi or Gotra rather it goes back to a King. Again, almost with a reminiscence of the Pashupati and mother Goddess of the Indus Valley Civilization, both these myths have reference to Shiva and Parvati who are said to have gifted the Trishul (the trident) and Dambru14 to the children of the Gagrang, i.e. Gandas. Cultural Practices Since cultural history of the Gandas is the main thrust of Sunani’s History by presenting various aspects of the cultural life it tells us about the unique human side of the community which has been through the process of socio-culturalpsychological evolution typical to all the people in the world. Birth Under the broad title “Life Cycle” Sunani discusses various practices related to birth and death in the Ganda community. According to him, the Gandas believe in the fact that continuation of species

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through procreation is the prime objective behind the union of man and woman. Probably, that is the reason why during the time of marriage there is a ritual of mock-play whereby the elders shower affection on a behen15 which symbolizes a baby and also that after a couple of months of marriage the elders start looking for signs of pregnancy in the married woman. In the local parlance, pregnancy is known as dehen dharba (holding a body) or dehen heba (being in body) and is not only a matter of celebration in the family but also brings lot of restriction on the expectant mother. (121-122) Since medical facility was not available earlier, the community had to resort to many beliefs/ practices, most of which verged on superstitions, which were meant to ensure a safe child birth. Attaching a piece of the root of bel tree or Jasmine plant or Arakh plant on the woman’s hair is one such practice which is based on the belief that it will induce safe delivery. There is also the practice of digging a pit behind the house to safely dump the post-natal waste products and creating a temporary shelter which acts as a bathroom for the new-born and its mother. The duty of digging the pit and building the temporary bathroom strictly lies with the father of the new-born and in his absence with its paternal uncle only. During the post-natal days both the mother and the baby are taken full care of and the mother is given a special cereal, known as Kolath, which has been proved to be full of minerals (especially iron); before being given the mother’s milk the baby is given a spoonful

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of honey. This act of providing iron-rich cereal to the mother and giving honey to the new-born proves that like other ancient tribes the Gandas, despite illiteracy, were aware of the nutritional and hygienic value of various food materials and used them for the best of their health. (124-125) Ainkh Phuka (Name Giving Ceremony) While describing the purification rituals surrounding child-birth Sunani says that it is observed on the completion of exactly one month of the birth of the baby on which day the baby is also named. This ritual is known as ainkh phuka, in which the whole household is cleaned, cloths washed and a small feast is organized, prior to which anyone touching the baby or the mother has to have a ritual bath and after the ritual of ainkh phuka the pollution is said to be over (131-132). But from some other sources16 it is known that the Gandas follow the purification rite on the sixth or the seventh day of the birth as the case may be, but only after the piece of umbilical cord attached to the baby falls off by itself; all other formalities are reported to be the same. Marriage Unlike the Saptapadi system of the Aryan/ Bramhanical tradition, the Gandas have a unique tradition of marriage whereby prior to their actual marriage with their human partner every adolescent girl is married off to the post of a Mahua tree (this celebration is known as Kanabara). Thereafter they

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are free to marry anyone of their choice. It may be remembered that both Russell as well as K. S. Singh had reported it differently. According to them, a girl is married to a Mahua post only in the event of attaining puberty prior to a bride-groom having been found for her, which assumed that there was a practice of child marriage prevalent among the Gandas. But going by Sunani’s account, the situation is entirely different whereby marrying to a Mahua tree is a symbolical act which simply makes the girls symbolically eligible for marrying on a suitable date after attaining puberty. This symbolical marriage to the tree is more of a liberating act rather than binding one because among the Gandas there are many types of marriages available to a person. According to Sunani, there are at least seven types of marriage: a. By parental consent whereby parents fix the marriage: Maangen biha. b. Without the consent of the girl’s parents but with the consent of the boy’s parents: Ghicha biha. c. Without the consent of parents of both boy and girl whereby the boy and girl elope: Udhulia biha. d. Where the girl goes on her own to a man who already has a wife: Paisamudi. e. Where the boy goes to the girl’s house and stays there (sort of matrilocal marriage): Ghar jia, similar to Ghar jamai in north India.

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f. Widow remarriage applicable both for man and woman: Randla biha. g. Marriage after divorce applicable both for man and woman: Chharra biha. Unlike the Kanyadaan of the Brahmanical tradition which incidentally considers the woman as the property of the father to be transferred (from one owner to another, i.e. from father to husband) or gifted to the Bridegroom necessarily involving the practice of giving dowry (which has degenerated to the horrific dowry system of present time), the woman is not gifted away among the Gandas; although it is only in the case of the aforementioned first kind of marriage elaborate rituals are observed. All the other kinds of marriage are treated with equal societal approval. (146-162) Death Rituals In this community, death is considered an inevitable aspect of life. After the death of a person all the relatives assemble to offer the deceased a decent burial. Contrary to the colonial account, the ritual of burial, and not cremation, is practised among the Gandas, not due to financial constraints but because it is considered a pious act to be part of someone’s burial. That is the reason why people usually ask “will you offer me a handful of earth?” as the test of their loyalty or respect for each other (169). There are a lot of rituals involving the last rites. Usually, the dead body is first to be painted and serviced with turmeric paste by the relatives belonging to a different clan, after which people

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from the dead person’s family can touch it; similarly while taking it to the graveyard (where the ancestors of the deceased would have been buried) it is the relative of a different clan who should initiate it being taken on an inverted charpoy (made of jute) shouldered by four people. The women folk are allowed to accompany the death procession only till the village end, where an earthen pot is broken and some rituals are observed for paying the last respect to the deceased. Then the women folk are supposed to go straight for a ritual bath, before returning to their home. While returning, they are not supposed to look back at the men’s procession which moves ahead towards the burial ground which is invariably somewhere in the jungle. On reaching the burial ground, in case of the deceased being a man, it is the duty of his eldest son to initiate the digging of grave on the north-south direction, by paying obeisance to mother Earth and hitting the ground only once with a spade, after which other relatives take over the work. In case of the deceased being a woman it is the duty of her husband to initiate the digging in a similar fashion; after the grave is dug, all the cloths, ornaments belonging to the deceased are taken out to be gifted either to the Birtia or to the people from Ghasi caste. Before being slowly lowered into the grave the deceased is covered with new white cloths and taken seven rounds of the grave, then initiated by the eldest son or the husband, as the case may be, each of the relatives slowly offers a handful of earth. (Sunani 2009:168-171)

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It may be recollected that while referring to the death-rituals among the Gandas, Russell and Hira Lal record different manners of laying the dead inside the grave: “a man is laid on his face in the grave and a woman on her back” (Russell and Hira Lal 3: 16). Sunani, however, refutes this view and opines that currently no such practice is prevalent among the Gandas. After offering earth to the deceased, apart from covering the grave with stones, the relatives erect a single memorial head-stone towards the north of the grave; at the end, all of them go straight to a river or a pond for a ritual bath, where the castebarber symbolically cuts a piece of hair from each one of the participants; in the absence of a castebarber, it is the duty of a relative from a different clan to perform the rites before the men can take bath and return home without ever looking back. (Sunani 2009:171) Megaliths The Gandas are some of the few people in the country who bury their dead and erect a megalith (single burial stone towards the head, in the north of the burial) as head-stone. Sunani considers this practice of erecting megaliths to be the proof of the antiquity of the indigenous people of the land. Duma Since the Gandas believe in the continuity of life even after death, it is reflected in their having a unique concept of Duma, which cannot be translated

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exactly into English as it means neither spirit nor soul nor a ghost. They believe that when a person dies he or she remains in the form of a spirit for a few days; thereafter on the third day or the tenth day, as the case may be, after the purifying rituals he or she is invited and escorted home with a special technique involving a thread-way and drum beat, from the outskirt of the village, to be anointed and enthroned in the Pidar (the sanctum sanctorum within the house). That means a dead person’s spirit becomes Duma only when it is anointed and enthroned in the Pidar and not otherwise. As long as the spirit is not brought home it remains a spirit or depending on his/her nature, a ghost. Through the belief in Duma system, it is believed that the family remains intact as all the forefathers are worshipped as Dumas in each household. Sunani records that there are at least two ways of inviting Duma and three ways of recognising the arrival of Duma. According to him, a Duma’s arrival can be recognised either as a cat’s paw or as an elephant’s foot or as an image of ripened paddy on the rice flour kept inside the Pidar. (174-177) Music As already noted earlier, contrary to the established perception of being the prosaic drum-beaters of K.S Singh’s description, the Gandas are a community with not just an elaborate system of rituals but an equally elaborate system of music and dance. If anything defines the Gandas it is their passionate engagement with music. According to Sunani, there

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are special ways of performing with various musical instruments- dhol (two sided drum made of wood on which one side is covered with cow hide and the other with goat hide), nisaan (a single sided drum made of iron plates covered with buffalo hide), tasa/timkidi (one sided relatively flater drum which is covered with goat hide) and the Muhuri (a piping instrument similar to sahnai but mostly made up of brass); the instrumentalists need to have utmost coordination with one another. Depending on the occasion of performance the scale and rhythm of music differs. For example, there are the chaghen (rising rhythm), the utren (falling rhythm), the kaaten (changed rhythm), the chhiden (closing rhythm) etc which are judiciously mixed to get the desired effect. The scale and rhythm used in the music accompanying the worship of various gods and goddesses differ from the ones used in marriage rituals or the ones used for various specialized dances (300-305). Although it is difficult for a layman to comprehend the technicalities and richness of the composition we may have a couple of examples from Sunani to get a glimpse of the music: Bharni (A tune to be played while welcoming the deities) Sound of the music {gadi gin gadi gin} {gadi gin gadin} Total strikes Left hand (4 strokes) Right hand(7 strokes) (4+7=11) Chaul Tiken (A tune to be played during marriage) Sound of the music {ja na gin ja na ja na} {ja na gin ja na gin ja na ja na} {ja na gin ja na ja na} {gad na ga den} Total strikes Left hand Right hand(10+4 strokes) (14+14=28) (7+7 strokes)

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In the above table one gets a glimpse of the first line of the scales used in two different tunes. Depending on the situation these scales are to be modulated through either the chaghen (rising rhythm) or utren (falling rhythm) or any of the earlier mentioned rhythms. (310-320) Dance Just as the music the dance forms practised by the community has also rich complexity as each occasion has its specific dance form. The famous Sambalpuri music and dance of Odisha are nothing but the expression of the joyful energy of the Gandas. Further, erotic and semi-erotic lyrical songs like Dalkhai, Maailazada, Jaiphula, Rasarkeli are sung to celebrate the jubilant spirit of the community where both man and woman dance together. Language and Literature According to Sunani, the Ganda community attaches tremendous significance to story-telling. Although the practice of story-telling is mostly inter-personal in nature, sometimes it may take place inter-groups also. Mostly in the realm of the oral literature, the Gandas have a huge treasure of anecdotes in their local dialects which tell a lot about their life in proximity with nature. The anecdotes are usually available in the form of short stories and riddles. Sunani compiles in his book a few of the short stories which are based on simple folk life. Sunani observes that the story-telling among the Gandas follow a particular structure whereby most of the

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stories, irrespective of their themes, have similar kind of introductions and conclusions. He gives the example of a story which is actually a kind of riddle, full of apparent contradictions but pregnant with meaning: There was a city. The wheel was of the size of a Musri daal—as tall as the wheat seed. Twelve kosh this side, twelve kosh the other side—all total, twenty four kosh. There lived a king. The king dug three ponds: two ponds came out dry, no water in the third one. Three fishermen went to the pond in which there was no water: two fishermen were handicapped, the third was invisible. The fisherman, who was invisible, caught three balia fish: two balia fish were slippery and the third does not get caught. He sold the fish, which did not get caught, in three rupees: two rupees were torn out, the third one is not acceptable to people. He bought three kilograms of rice and three lamps with the rupees which was not acceptable. Three guests joined the feast: two guests were hard to please, and the third one does not eat anything. There was a king in that city. (Trans. S K Mahananda; 508) From the above story one can see that the practice of story-telling among the Gandas was not just a mode of entertainment but an exercise of one’s mind. Similar stories end with one of the following concluding remarks which are in

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Sambalpuri, one of the local dialects of western Odisha: a. Mor kathani sarla, Kia phul phul basla. (My story ends here; it smells of Kia 17 flower.) b. Mor kathani hetki, Kadam phul jetki. (This is all about my story, as much as the Kadam flower.) c. Bujhle tor, ni bujhle mor. (If understood it is yours; if not, it is mine. (508) In these examples it is hard to miss the rhyming of the local Odia words which make the expression quite rich: “sarla-basla”, “hetki-jetki” and “tor-mor”. Dalkhai Song Although this song can be sung throughout the year it is usually sung during the Duserah time when the young maidens keep a fast to worship the mother Goddess. But these songs have nothing to do with religion, rather they are expressions of erotic, semierotic, playful teasing among young maidens. The song starts with an address to the Dal khai (literally, the leaf eater), who is usually a friend (either male or female) or a competitor of the singer. Dal khai re... Nai tene paare kire Tiki tiki geru Suru suru pila mane kisa kari paru Pahanri jima kula dhangri pila ga Bhangi demun meru, kei dal khai re. (498) O eater of leaves...

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On the other bank of the river Lie tiny coloured things What can those little ones do We the young ones will cross the river And break their spines O eater of leaves... (Trans. S K Mahananda) This song has hidden erotic meaning which says that the young men on the other side of the river are no match to the young women of this side of the river; that the young women can cross through the river to indulge in love-making which will break the bones of the young men. Dal khai re... Paai gani raja khata pakaini seja Prabhu gale bijnaa haata Daal kai Chahun thimi baata, kei Dal khai re.(498) O eater of leaves... Having got a royal bed I’ve put mattress on it My husband gone to market, O eater of leaves, I keep waiting for his return, O eater of leaves. (Trans. S K Mahananda) In this song also the element of eroticism cannot be missed as the young woman says that she has got a royal bed ready at home and she is waiting for her husband, who has gone to the market to come back and join her in bed. The song is meant to tease and titillate the prospective lover of the singing woman.

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Rasarkeli Songs Just like the Dal khai songs these songs also start and end with the addressing phrase “Rasar keli re”, which literally means, “O juicy fruit”; but at the same time there is some fundamental difference in the fact that these songs frequently use “jaa chali jaa re” (go away) within the lines to add some rhythmic and dramatic effect. Sunani says that although the Rasarkeli songs are predominantly erotic they also reflect the social realities as exemplified in the poem quoted below. Rasar keli re... Bate bate jau thili Maadi deli haada Tate aane pali jara Mote laage dara Chhadi dia dhaba ghara, naagara, Chhadaibi jara, jaa chali jaa re, Jaa chali ja Salebhata naagara, Panjara dhurkuta, rasa jaa chali jaa re. (465467) O Juicy fruit... While going on my way I stepped on the bones You suffer from frequent fever and I get scared; Leave your big house, O dear, I will get you cured, go away go away, Go away to Salebhata, O dear, Your heart is broken, O Juicy fruit. (Trans. S K Mahananda)

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In this poem the woman is saying that because her lover is rich and lives in a big house he has no way to meet her frequently; that is the reason why he suffers from fever which makes her fear for his health; so she asks him to leave the big house to come and stay near her in her humble hut and she will be able to cure him immediately. This poem is a perfect example of a semi-erotic poem with a social meaning. Divinities and Festivities Barring a few male gods like Babu Rai, Guru Budha and Kana Bhainra, almost all the divinities worshipped by the Gandas are the female deities, be it Duar Sani or Kaalka or Jeth Behni or Kandhen Budhi or Bastaren or many others. This reinforces the idea that unlike the Aryan pantheons there is more of matriarchy rather than patriarchy among the Gandas. In fact, as Sunani records, this community addresses even the male gods as ‘mother’ as it considers all the universe to be the manifestation of the mother goddess. Sunani divides the gods of the Gandas into three categories: the ones who are worshipped inside the Pidar, the ones who are worshipped in a Gudi (exclusive temple like shelters but different ones) and the ones who are worshipped in the village along with other caste members. As mentioned earlier, a Pidar is a sanctum sanctorum inside the house where usually the Dumas are invited and anointed. The Dumas being mostly the predecessors, it is interesting to note that the word Pidar has resonance in Indo-Aryan language

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like Sanskrit (pitar means father), English (father) (325). With the change of time the Gandas are said to have not only internalized some of the tenets of Hinduism like Shivism and Tantra but also embraced Buddhism, Mahima cult of Bhima Bhoi, Kabir’s path and Christianity. (331-343) Profession Sunani agrees with the earlier writers on the point of the profession of the Gandas. These people were primarily the weavers of indigenous fabric, which are referred by Russell and Hira Lal to be “coarse cloths”. But, anyone who has seen Sambalpuri Saree will immediately recognise the fallacy of Russell’s comments. Although, today, another caste named Bhulia has started weaving Sambalpuri Saree, it was the Gandas who were the pioneers in this field. Their relation with the handloom is established from the fact that one of the apparatus of the loom, which is known as Dungi, finds place in the myth of the community whereby the Gandas believe themselves to be the descendents of the king KolBhoj who is also alternatively known as Dungi Chuhan (32). Sunani describes different types of cloths woven by this community as follows: Chandan Kura, Ganda Kapta 18, Danti, Angchhi, Bahr Gadia, Baul Malia, Ganda Karia, Biri Phulia Kapta, Di Pantia Kapta, Dhaadi kam Kapta and Khandua Kapta. Each of these cloths has special design and is meant for different occasions. (269-270) Apart from weaving, the Gandas are also engaged in agriculture and farming. Since, due to land

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reforms in Odisha most of them have attained ownership of the lands they were cultivating as tenants, they also do animal husbandry, cattlerearing and goat rearing along with farming. (181) Further, Sunani also carries forward the observations made by the earlier authorities and comments that owing to their courageous and hardworking nature the Gandas are also appointed as the Choukidaar/Gramarakshi of the village. It is almost a government job, although very ill-paid, attached with the police stations and it is the duty of the Choukidaar to report at the police station about any suspicious or anti-social activities in the village. Any stranger coming to the village needs to report to the Choukidaar who, in turn, has a duty to report to the police. But the position of the Choukidaar is not available to everyone since traditionally it is only the eldest son of a Choukidaar who holds the position. However, despite the illpaid nature of the job, the Choukidaar helps in the maintenance of peace and security in the rural society. (220-221) Conclusion As we know from scholars like Nicholas B. Dirks (2006) the colonization of India was not a singular effort by the British but a product of the joint venture by the Brahmanical supremacy and the British colonizing mission. It is also a well known fact that the mainstream Bramhanical Hindu culture, which was instrumental in not only shaping the colonial historiography of India but also in building up a

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nationalist historiography of the country, did not have any place for the untouchable castes like the Gandas. For the Gandas their “identity” as an ‘untouchable’ caste was first ascribed to them by the hegemonic Hindu system and later consolidated by the colonial ethnography. But the community has shown utmost resilience in not giving in to the coercive strategies of the dominant tradition. Rather it has stood ground silently, working on its symbolic oral and cultural wealth. Now with the growth of awareness among the people about their unique life style and culture, the Gandas of the 21st century have started not only celebrating their identity but also asserting it in various ways. After a long phase of casting and de-casting of identity, probably a process of recasting the identities has begun. In this context, although one may partially agree with the critics of Basudev Sunani that he errs in making a sweeping generalization when he codifies the cultural experience of one single caste, i.e. Ganda, in his book and claims it to be the history of Dalit culture, one knows for a fact that this book is a path-breaking work. It is a compendium of information which undertakes the mammoth task of writing the cultural history of one of the Dalit or the ‘untouchable’ castes of western Odisha. One agrees with the critics because of the understanding that Dalit is not a homogenous, monolithic identity or a single caste; rather, as already discussed earlier, it refers to a whole bunch of disparate people, cutting across many castes, who are found at the margins of the Hindu society due to the spurious logic of

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caste system. But at the same time, one considers it to be a path-breaking work because through this book, through the presentation of an exhaustive account of the myths, cultural practices/ manifestations, faiths and beliefs, economy and profession, in about six hundred pages, the writer attempts to present an alternative culture of a people, who may not be exactly the same as their counterparts in other geographical locations within or outside Odisha, but certainly occupy and share the same existential space with a large majority of Dalits, whose life, culture and history has hitherto been systematically neglected, negated and erased by both the colonial or nationalist narratives. Sunani’s History may not be, and need not be, the last word on the subject but certainly it is an admirable attempt to salvage the so far unspoken word. It not only provides a face to a so far faceless people but also challenges the established historiography and ethnography and attempts to present, howsoever faulty it may be, a model for an alternative historiography. Endnotes 1 For the purpose of administration and affirmative action the British Government in India had specified the erstwhile depressed classes, disadvantaged lower castes and the untouchables as ‘Scheduled Castes’ for the purpose of First, Fifth and Sixth Schedules to the Government of India Act, 1935. The Constitution of the independent India continued with the practice vide The Constitution (Scheduled

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Castes) Order, 1950 (C.O.19), published with the Ministry of Law, Notification No. S.R.O. 385, dated th e 10th A ugust , 1950, Gazet te o f In dia, Extraordinary, 1950, Part II, Section 3, Page 163 Th e 1950 o rder h as un de rgon e su ccessive amendments, the latest being The Constitution (Scheduled Castes)Orders (Amendment) Act No 34 of 2014, to include many other castes which had not been included earlier in the list of Scheduled Castes. 2 Signed at The Court AT Buckingham Palace on the 30th day of April, 1936 and Published in The Gazette of India, June 6, 1936. 3 The Uriya country and Uriya districts refer to the western part of Odisha, roughly covering the undivided Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Balangir, Kalahandi and Koraput, which was part of the Central Provinces of India during the Colonial period before being transferred to the Province of Bengal in 1905 and later to the newly created Province of Bihar and Orissa. 4 K S Singh (1935-2006), formerly with the Indian Administrative Service, as the Director-General of the Anthropological Survey of India (1984-93), spearheaded, authored and edited “The People of India Project”, the first pan-Indian ethnographic study of all the communities in India. “The People of India Project” was a massive exercise carried out by the Anthropological Survey of India and it has generated a wealth of information on hundreds of communities existing in the country.

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5 Considering its overlapping nature with other castes such an exercise would increase the scope of the present study beyond control. 6 The human sacrifices of the Khonds were suppressed about 1860. Russell and Hira Lal have a special article on it. 7 Bhimsen refers to Bhim, the second of the Pandav brothers, in Mahabharata. 8 As will be evident later from Sunani’s accounts, there is much commonality in the rituals and methods of the Gandas and the Gonds. 9 Saptapadi literally means ‘seven steps’ but actually refers to the Hindu ritual of walking seven times around the marriage fire. Even if there is one step or round lacking in the ritual, that is said to be making the marriage incomplete. 10 Laria refers to one of the local dialects of Hindi used in Chhattisgarh. Of late, there have been much work on Chhattisgarhi dialect and there is a demand for its inclusion in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution of India. 11 He cites Nabin Kumar Sahu’s Utkal University History of Orissa (1964), Satyanarayan Rajguru’s History Of Orissa (1985) and Shiv Prasad Dash’s History of Sambalpur (2002) and argues that if these writings can be considered authentic despite having based their narratives on various Puranas and literatures, then certainly his own writing. 12 It may be mentioned that the Birtias, Ghogias and Parghanias are the bards of Ganda (the drummers),

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Goud (the waterman) and Gond (the tribal) communities respectively. 13 Again an apabhramsa of and a remote reference to the famous Chauhan dynasty of North India cannot be ruled out because of the penetration of the Chauhans in the mainland. 14 Dambru refers to a small drum, with a narrow middle part and having playing surfaces at both ends; its narrow middle part can be held in hand. 15 Behen or theka refers to a bundle of cloth used by womenfolk for carrying weight on head. 16 Interview with Chhabilal Pandey, Village-Salebhata, P.O./District-Nuapada, Odisha, dated 25.03.2014 17 A night flower which is known for its fragrance. 18 Kapta refers to a thick saree which was earlier in vogue in the rural areas of western Odisha as it did not require the petticoat to be worn underneath, and was probably the object of reference when Russell and Hira Lal spoke about the thick coarse cloths woven by the Gandas. However, with the change in clothing habits these days the Kapta has also undergone transformation and is not as thick as it used be.

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In the preceding pages, we have discussed the concepts of history and historiography. Starting with a brief survey of different models of historiography the study has reflected on the relation between the methodological congruence in history and literature in their basic function as ‘narrative’ and how both have, in the course of time, come out of their elitist closets to embrace the masses. In the context of India, while the dominant, so-called ‘mainstream’ historiography attempted to explain the Indian society and history to suit its ideology, the ‘story’ of a large section of the population, known as Dalits (erstwhile ‘untouchables’), got neglected, distorted and blacked out for various reasons; this neglect or distortion, as the case may be, has been so allpervasive that not even Subaltern Historiography (the ideological kin of Marxist model which claims to correct the ‘elitist’ bias of the Nationalists and to ‘write history from below’) could really do any significant difference to the existing trend. In a situation where the principle that “the history of hunting will always glorify the lion until the dears write about their predicaments” applies, an urgent

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need is felt by Dalit intelligentsia to write the history of Dalits from the Dalits’ perspective. But, when the question of Dalit historiography comes, it does not make itself available for discussion so easily: in the absence of ‘Social-Sciences-approved’ hard data and archival materials for various reasons—institutional and non-institutional—Dalit historiography1 has to fall back on literature (both oral and written), myths, reminiscences, folkmemories, testimonies etc to recover the unsaid, less-said, neglected, distorted past/reality concerning the large section of Dalit population. In such a context, Dalit literature, which influences and is influenced by anti-caste resistance-movements to document (howsoever imperfectly) Dalit life, and which, to use Raj Kumar’s observation, “aims at creating a counter-culture and a separate identity for the Dalits in the society” (Kumar 2010:148) turns out to be one of the significant sites for Dalit history. In its attempt to document the hitherto undocumented life of the Dalits, among many other things, it has to grapple with the fundamental issue of ‘identity’ which is far more difficult and slippery to comprehend than it may appear. While discussing the issue of Dalit identity, the author, at the risk of being labelled conservative, is constrained to note that the long history of ‘anticaste-movements’ in the Indian sub-continent—which actually was the history of Shudra movement and to which much of Dalit history and literature owes its ideological lineage—is of no help in defining Dalit identity in 21st century because of the simple

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fact that the erstwhile Shudras (current OBCs), being the fourth Varna, were and are very much the integral2 part of the Hindus, whereas the Dalits were never considered part of the Hindu fold. There is an unmistakably significant line, today more than ever, which divides the ‘touchable’ Shudra and the ‘untouchable’ Dalits; and that, even by a conservative standard, one finds the diversity presented by the Dalit population—which cannot afford to exclude the large mass of heterogeneous group comprising of more than three thousand ‘untouchable’ castes— almost staggering and fraught with conceptual inconsistency. Other than being ‘untouchable’ and being subjected to ‘discrimination’ by the so-called ‘pure’ and ‘touchable’ upper castes, most of these ‘untouchable’ caste groups may have nothing in common: they are spread over the length and breadth of the country with different dialects/languages, foodhabits, professions and local cultures. Yet, they are united: the differences in language, places and culture do not preclude the possibility of concord among the Dalits. Probably, the most important thing that unites and lends identity to the large variety of the disparate Dalit population is their predicament as the ‘untouchables’ of the Indian society. But, their identity on the basis of ‘exclusion’—either thrust upon them or accepted by them—is not as simple as it may seem. As they seek salvation in the very rejection of Hindu scriptures and strictures, their position as the perpetual ‘other’ of Hindu society largely defines them. Although they reject the erstwhile ‘other-

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imposed’ pejorative markers of identity—like Rakshas, Asura, Chandal, Pancham etc—and have accepted in the recent past a ‘self-chosen’ term ‘Dalit’ for themselves, their point of reference (and departure) always remains the Hindu caste system. Given the failure on the part of Dalit movements to “reorganise and re-conceptualize the Dalits with an alternative mode of living” Dalits have been kept “bound to their old cultural patterns which ultimately mean[s] nothing but the Hindu caste system, ‘untouchability’ and everything that is associated with them” (Yadav 1998:122). Therefore, the presence of a long tradition of anti-caste movement in the country—in addition to the already existing Marxist and Subaltern models which vouch for alternatives (albeit on different premises like ‘class’ and ‘subaltern’) to the ‘dominant narrative’—does not make it any easier for Dalit historiography to formulate its objectives and methods; on the contrary, probably, it is the very existence of parallel models which provides the toughest challenge for Dalit historiography. In terms of methodology, the principle of ‘exclusion’—which is so fundamental to the understanding of a Dalit vis-a-vis an upper caste Hindu and which is so powerfully articulated by scholars like Vivek Kumar—ipso facto looks like, what Gayatri C Spivak says, a “strategic” adherence “to the essentialist notion of [Dalit] consciousness” (Spivak 1985:344). Risking criticism for not being able to “explain the domineering presence of antiDalit structures in the culture of the untouchables’

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notions of ‘hegemony’ and consent by coercion” (Nagaraj 1994:20), this approach seeks to find in it, both sociologically and philosophically, an ‘inversion’ of the Hindu ‘other’. That is probably the reason why the narrative—be it literary or historical—about Dalits has to be far more nuanced and complex. It ought to be viewed in the backdrop of ‘resistance’ against the Hindu ‘self’ rather than simply against the caste system; and it is in this positioning and recovery of a ‘non-Hindu-yet-HinduDalit-self’ lies the crucial matrix of power that is required to be mapped by Dalit historiography if it seeks to effect any substantial theoretical intervention in the concept of Dalit identity. The next significant component of Dalit historiography would be its articulation of the relation of Dalits to the idea of nation-state. It has been widely perceived and argued by the Dalit intelligentsia that the nation-state in the context of modern India is nothing but the extension of Brahmanism. The fact that despite more than six decades of implementation of a ConstitutionalParliamentary-Democracy, India still witnesses castebased violence and atrocities on the Dalits, it reflects the sophisticated permeation and continuation of caste ideology/hierarchy in the Indian polity. Whether it is in the legislature, the executive, the judiciary or the bureaucracy, caste finds its ways of reinventing itself to stay relevant—when measures of ‘affirmative actions’ like reservations in government jobs and public-funded educational institutions are given mere lip service and are played

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up more for electoral gains than for real benefits to the Dalit population; when atrocities on Dalits occur and the state machinery in the form of police and district administration, instead of doing its simple routine duty, either maintain an uncanny apathy towards the incidents or pro-actively protect the upper-caste accused by not filing FIR or botching up the case by various means—to show the nationstate in a partisan light. There is no doubt in the mind of the Dalit-public (and Dalit-scholarship) about this fact; yet, it looks upon the Nation-State as the saviour. It may make some noise to blame the coercive power of the state but in actual practice it is really to invoke the benevolent power of the statemachinery rather than to challenge it. Thus, the position of the Dalits vis-a-vis the nation-state has been one of ambivalence rather than that of clarity. Further, since the idea of the modern nation-state envisaged in the Indian Constitution, is an outcome of “a new historical experience” requiring “a new identity” based on equality “before the law with the same rights and obligations” (Thapar 2014:41) and which, at least theoretically, proposes to go beyond the individual identities of caste, religion and gender, the exclusive identity of Dalits can never be antithetical to the nation. Related to the aforesaid ambivalence is the Dalits’ encounter with modernity which not only reflects in their rejection of the pre-modern institution of caste but also in their acceptance of Ambedkar— who, apart from his proverbial well-dressed image with a copy of the Constitution of India and pointed

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finger towards the Parliament—as their inspiration and icon. While they do reject Brahmanism to look forward to the liberating effects of modernity, they also hang on to their individual caste identity— which, as noted earlier, is the remnant of a premodern apparatus that ensures their ignominy— as a mode of assertion and to celebrate ‘their own culture’. Coming back to the role of Dalit literature as one of the sites of Dalit historiography, one is reminded of the fact that the immediate impetus to modern Dalit movement (and literature) is provided by two factors: one, the Phule-Ambedkar movement in Maharashtra; and two, the constitutional provisions for ‘affirmative action’ which produced a generation of educated Dalit-writeractivists in the independent India. After the meteoric rise of Dalit Panthers in Maharashtra in the 1980s, Dalit movement and literature spread like wild fire in the country, and hence today, barring a few NorthEastern states and the state of Jammu and Kashmir, every part of the country is more or less familiar with the revolutionary spirit of Dalit literature (it is a different matter that despite its utmost visibility the atrocity against the Dalits is still on the rise). Although there are local variations due to the difference and uniqueness of local factors there is the common element of ‘resistance’ against ‘caste’ and caste-based atrocities which unites Dalit literature from across the country. Given the prevalence of variety in caste configuration in different parts of the country one might not see

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same caste being either the perpetrator of injustice or the flag-bearer of Dalit movement. For instance, not everywhere the Brahman is the only perpetrator of atrocity or not everywhere the Chamar is the only victim. Although the Brahman is there on the top to give direction to the caste structure it is not the only caste to get involved with direct conflict with the ‘untouchable’ castes. There are other ‘neoBrahman’ Shudra castes who take forward the cause of Brahmanism to, what they say, ‘show’ the ‘untouchables’ their place in the social ladder. Similarly, even in terms of ‘resistance’ it is not the Chamar alone who is at the forefront to take the fight against caste system: in the North India it may be the Chamar or the Bhangi, in Andhra Pradesh it may be the Mala or the Madiga, in South India it may be the Pariah or the Chakliar, in Odisha it may be the Ganda or the Kandara, in Bengal it may be the Namashudra. So the leadership in terms of the ‘anti-caste-movement’ and the corollary ‘resistance-literature’ might come from any of the caste among the ‘untouchables’ but the nature of ‘resistance’ remains the same across the country. That is how, pan-Indian Dalit literature exhibits a common thread despite regional variations. While rejecting the so-called ‘mainstream’ Brahmanical methods, styles and aesthetics of writing, Dalit literature follows its own logic to declare that objective of literature cannot be ‘pleasure’ alone; it proudly announces that the centre of literature should not be ‘beauty’ but ‘humanity’. Thus, being grounded in the harsh reality of life, Dalit literature

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seeks to achieve the centrality of ‘human’ rather than the centrality of ‘God’. In the process of rejection of an exploitative structure of the society it looks forward to having an egalitarian society and thus has nothing less than revolution at its heart. It is in such a context, one discusses the role of various narratives in making or marring the identity of particular social (caste) group. In the instance case, the history of the Gandas of western Odisha has been taken up for exhaustive study. In the process it has been noted that the prejudice which governed the Brahmanical narrative of the ancient India not just informed and constrained the colonial narrative of British India but also shaped the classification in the official narrative of the independent India. The consequent image of the Gandas, like that of all other Scheduled Caste groups, was that of a dehumanized one. It is only in the pages of Dalit writings that there is any sense of emancipation: the Gandas get some respectable place in the history written by Basudev Sunani, the Ganda writer himself. Sunani breaks away from the traditional notion of history, as repository of bare facts, to attempt documenting the life and culture of the so far neglected Dalit community. Notwithstanding the debate surrounding outsider-insider issue, Basudev Sunani’s narrative scores much higher as compared to the earlier narratives and hence presents a model for Dalit historiography to work with.

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Endnotes 1 The arguments advanced about Dalit historiography extends to Odia Dalit historiography as well. 2 With the rise of ‘Hindutwa’ in the recent past the OBCs have out-Brahmaned the Brahman to become the new flag-bearer of Brahmanism.

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214

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Index

A

apartheid 67

a priori 6

Apeksha 90

A. L. Basham 39

archaeology 4, 7

Acchut Ki Shikayat 82,

Arthur Marwick 2

aesthetics 104, 113, 114, 178,

Arya Varna 39,

Akar 84,

Aryan 39, 52, 65, 92, 93, 131, 151, 163

Akhil Nayak 111, 112 Akkarmashi 85, 86, 87 Akrosh 79, 104, Al Beruni 11, 146, Aloysius 15, 16, 25, 33, 49, 53 Ambedkar 26, 29, 35, 37, 43, 44, 53, 54, 55, 56 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 72, 75, 76, 77, 83, 86, 88, 89, 93, 97, 100, 103, 108, 109, 110, 116, 176, 177

Asmitadarsh 63, 84 astrology 33 autogeny 43 avarna 24, 34, 35, 41, 60, 68, 74 Ayyankali 106

B B M Puttaiah 79 Baby Kamble 85, 86

Anthropological Survey of India 117, 142, 168

bahujan 64, 65, 67

anti-thesis 6,

Bahujan Samaj Party 64, 65, 76

Antonio Gramsci 17, anubhav 80, anuman 80, Anupama Rao 28, 37,

Bama Faustina 93, 95 BAMCEF 65 Banabhatta 12 Bangiya Da lit Parishad 101

Lekhak

215

Index Basudev Sunani 111, 112, 113, 117, 123, 144, 147, 166, 179

Dalit Panther 61, 63, 64, 66, 70, 79, 84, 97, 104

Bhagyareddy Varma 54

Dalit Sahitya Sammelan 60

Bhakti Movement 49

Dalit Sangharsh Samiti 109

Bhangi 160, 178

dalitoddhar 51, 59

Bhima Bhoi 54, 164

Dalkhai 158, 160

Bhojpuri 82

Dambru 149, 170

Bhoosa Agitation 108,

Dasa Varna 39

Birtia 146, 154, 169

Dasyus 39

Black Panther 61

David Ludden 20

bourgeoisie 8, 9

Dayananda Saraswati 51

Buddha 48,

Depressed Classes 58, 59, 60, 61, 77

Buddhism 45, 47, 48, 56, 65, 69, 74, 75, 91, 164,

C

Dipankar Gupta 28 discontinuities 7 Dominant Narrative 24, 174

Carlo Ginzburg 33, 100

Dravidian 91, 92, 93, 131

casta 43

Duma 145, 155, 156, 163

Census 124, 142, 143

Dumont 28

Chamar 120, 178

Dwija 74

Chandal 41, 60, 102, 103, 174

E

Colonial Narrative 117, 122, 123, 131, 134, 138, 179

E.T. Dalton 120, 126, 131

Communist Manifesto 8, 52

Edward Said 51

Constitution of India 32, 76, 89, 118, 133, 169, 176

Eleanor Zelliot 21

Cosmic 11

emplotment 2 endogamy 43, 44, 45

D Dalit autobiography 85, 87, 88, 90, 99, 110,

enlightenment 6, 12, 20, 30 Ernest Gellner 33

Dalit historiography 29, 30, 31

ethnography 124, 125, 133, 166, 167,

Dalit Identity 62, 66, 70, 73, 80, 83, 87, 115,

exclusion 22, 44, 66, 87, 173, 174

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I

Foucault 7, 10, 18 fragments 19, 29, 36 Francis Bacon 5

G

Ideology 7, 8, 28, 30 34, 35, 44, 46, 47, 58, 110, 133, 171, 175 Imagined Communities 14

Gaddar 97, 98

interpretation 2, 3

Gail Omvedt 21, 54, 64, 109

Itihaas 11, 13, 15, 24, 25, 144,

Gandhi 26, 27, 35, 36, 56, 60, 75, 76, 77, 103,

Iyothe Thass 92

J

Gayatri C Spivak 79, 174 genealogy 29, 144

Jaati 43, 148

Ghasi 54, 122

Jagaran 100

Golpitha 84

Jogendra Nath Mandal 100

Gond 127, 128, 132

Jotiba Phule 51

Gujjar 36, 131

K

Gulamgiri 52

Kabir 50, 143, 164

H

Kalhana 12

H.H. Risley 39, 120, 123

Kanabara 151

Hans 90

Kandh 126

Harichand Thakur 100

Karamchedu 97, 98,

Harijan 60, 61, 62, 75, 139

Karl Marx 8

Harshacharita 12

Karma 48

Hegel 2, 6

Kautilya 49

hegemonization 9

Ketkar 43

hegemony 9, 17, 19, 21, 22, 72, 92, 175

Khairlanji 67, 68 Krishna Varna 39

Herodotus 4 Hindu Mahasabha 35

L

Hindutwa 65

Lakhe Ghar Samaj 148

Hira Dom 82, 83

Laura R Brueck 91

historia 4

Laxman Gaikaward 86

History of Dalit Culture 144, 166

Leopold Von Ranke 6

217

Index Levi-Strauss 2 Limbale 113, 114

Nation State 8, 9, 14, 17, 19, 30

Lokayata 47, 75

Nationalism 15, 16, 19, 31, 33, 53

M

Nationalist Historiography 8, 14, 17, 18, 21, 166

M. N. Srinivas 25 Mahabharata 15, 169 Mahabir Prasad Dwivedi 82 Mandal Agitation 70, 71 Mandal commission 70 Mangooram 54 Manusmriti 55, 75, 133 Marathawada 63, 84 Marxism 8, 27, 31, 107 Marxist 8, 9, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 29, 171, 174 Marxist historiography 8, 9 Master Narrative 10, 20 Matua Sahitya 100

Neerav Patel 104, 105, Neo-Buddhist 62, 64 Nesfield 43 Nibedita Jena 112 Nicholas B Dirks 50, 133, 165 Nissan 140 Northrop Frye 2 NOUMENA 6

O Om Prakash Valmiki 89, 90, 113 Orientalist 13, 25, 50, 51, 123, 125

Maurya 49

P

Media 111 Meena Kandasamy 93, 96 Micro History 23, 31, 33, 100 Modern Dalit Literature 78, 81, 83

paap yoni 42 Panchama 41, 99 Paradigm 7, 8, 14, 30 Partha Chatterjee 28, 29, 36

Moishe Postone 16

Periyar 29, 54, 93

Moolnivasi 65

phenomena 6, 7, 68

Mythology 3, 52

Philology 4, 7

N

Pidar 156, 163 Pitambar Tarai 111

Namdeo Dhasal 61, 84, 85

Poisoned Bread 58, 63

Narayan Guru 54

Poona Pact 26, 77

Natali Zamon Davis 33, 100

Positivism 6, 23

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proletariat 8, 9

social exclusion 44, 66

Puranas 11, 75, 169

statism 30

Purusha Sukta 38, 39

structure 46, 47, 68, 72, 81, 82, 105, 123, 125, 131, 145, 158, 174, 178, 179,

R R. V. Russell 39, 120

Subaltern historiography 171

Rajatarangini 12

Sumit Sarkar 12, 20, 22, 23

Ram Mohan Roy 51

superstructure 9

Ramayana 15, 92

Supreme Court 70

Ranajit Guha 17, 18

swaanubhuti 80

Rasarkeli 158, 162

Swami Vivekananda 51

Renaissance 5, 6, 50, 51, 106

synthesis 6

resistance 172, 175, 177, 178 Rhys Davids 48 Romila Thapar 11, 34, 44, 147

T tabula rasa 12

Rosalind O’Hanlon 20, 21

The Annihilation of Caste 56, 57, 81

rupture 7

The Gypsy Goddess 96

S sahanubhuti 80

The Little Magazine 84 The Persistence of Caste 67

Sanskritization 25, 35

The Scheduled Castes 35, 36, 60, 70, 71, 118, 142, 144

saptapadi 135, 151, 169

thesis 6, 68, 149

Satya Shodhak Samaj 51

Thucydides 4

Savarna 27, 41, 68, 74, 114

Timki 139

Scheduled Castes Federation 60

Toral Jatin Gajarawala 82

Senart

43

sexuality 45, 95 Siddharth Sahitya Sangh 84 sing baja 138

totemic clans 143 Tragedy 32, 33, 125 Trishul 149

U

Sivakami 93, 94

upanayana 42, 74

social epiphanies 88

Urmila Pawar 85, 87, 94

219

Index

V

W

vamsavali 11

William James 123

Varna Vyavastha 42, 48, 55

World War 9

Veda ninduka 47

Y

Vemana 96 Vivek Kumar 66, 76, 174

Yagnyavalka

41

Yugas 13

•••

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