research topics in dalit literature

The Rise of Dalit Studies and Its Impact on the Study of India: An Interview with Historian Ramnarayan Rawat

Kritika Agarwal | Jun 6, 2016

Last month, controversy erupted again in California over the portrayal of the South Asian subcontinent in history textbooks. Among the disputed points was whether schools in California should teach Dalit history and the history of the caste system to students. While the word “Dalit” may ring unfamiliar to most outside the subcontinent, Dalit history is a burgeoning field of study in academia, both in the United States and India alike. We caught up with historian Ramnarayan Rawat (Univ. of Delaware), co-editor of the recently released Dalit Studies (2016), to ask him what Dalit studies is and what the future of the field looks like.

Dalits constitute nearly 17 percent of India’s population—210 million people as per the 2011 census. They are considered untouchable by orthodox Hindus and Hindu theology because of their association in rural areas with impure occupations such as leather work, sanitary work, removing dead animals, and midwifery. In addition, because Dalit communities have been historically segregated, the practice of untouchability has a distinctive spatial dimension. The practice has moral and religious sanction in Hindu theology.

What are the major goals of the field of Dalit history or Dalit studies? What are some of the reasons behind the emergence of Dalit studies as a field of inquiry? The major objective of Dalit studies is to offer new perspectives for the study of India. First, to foreground dignity and humiliation as key ethical categories that have shaped political struggles and ideological agendas in India. Second, Dalit studies historicizes the persistence of caste inequality and discrimination that have acquired new forms in a modern and democratic India. Given these objectives, a key aim of Dalit studies is to recover histories of struggles for human dignity and caste discrimination by highlighting Dalit intellectual and political activism.

There has been a general absence of research into and engagement with the perspectives of 20th-century Dalit intellectuals such as Swami Achhutanand, Bhagya Reddy Varma, Kusuma Dharmanna, and Iyothee Thass. The rise of Dalit studies as a discipline can be located in the transformational political events of the 1990s in India: The greater visibility of Dalit political movements, especially the Bahujan Samaj Party ’s rise to political power in the 1990s and 2000s in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh; the rise of new and visible Dalit movements in southern Indian states such as Tamil Nadu; renewed discussions around caste inequalities and discrimination following the Indian government’s decision to implement recommendations from the Mandal commission report to extend affirmative action to lower caste groups; and the emergence of a new group of Dalit activist/intellectuals in universities across India.

What are the challenges of doing Dalit history, both from theoretical and methodological standpoints? The challenge is to make Dalit agendas and actors visible. This requires innovative approaches and combining anthropological, historical, and literary fields. In my research I have found politically and culturally informed discussions in spatially secluded Dalit neighborhoods to be the most productive. I have found their viewpoints and agendas rarely acknowledged in mainstream academic contexts, and have followed up on them in historical, archival, and literary sources.

For example, many Dalits, considered impure because of their association with occupations such as leather working in their neighborhoods in northern India, told me that historically they have always held land and been peasants. I was able to corroborate these claims in historical registers, which equipped me to think anew about Dalit agendas in the early 20th century. Likewise, Dalit activists and groups have always claimed that they have an ethical commitment to ideas of equality and democratic politics. Dalit owned printing presses in the 1920s published books that addressed these questions and related them to heterodox religious practices in their neighborhoods.

Why should scholars outside of South Asian history pay attention to Dalit history? What sorts of courses do you think would benefit from readings and discussions on Dalit history? Dalit history illustrates and enables connections with global histories of racism and social exclusion. Scholars (and students) will find remarkable parallels on policies and practices that sustain exclusion of Dalits (similar to black people and Burakumins in Japan), and their struggles to seek access to public spaces. For these reasons, courses on race and ethnic studies, Africana studies, black studies, history, anthropology, English/postcolonial studies, literary studies, and area studies can benefit from Dalit histories. Courses that emphasize innovative methodological and theoretical approaches will find Dalit histories useful, especially for graduate students.

In the introduction to your book, Reconsidering Untouchability , you argue that “Dalit perspectives on Indian history have little respect for the framework of colonialism versus nationalism mapped by Hindu-dominated mainstream Indian historiography.” Can you explain what you mean by this and also elaborate on your critique of Indian historiography? In mainstream Indian historiography the framework of colonialism versus nationalism highlights the major contradiction that has shaped the making of modern Indian society. In this conceptual framework, colonialism is regarded as the homogenous and primary form of oppression and exploitation of all Indians. The framework has helped the Hindu nationalist elite to appropriate both history and power in modern India. The historiography centers anti-colonial struggles of the Hindu nationalist elite at the expense of other forms of activism or social concerns. Dalits, tribal groups, and women’s organizations, for example, often responded very differently to the presence of colonial rule in India.

Dalit history demonstrates that the colonial legal regime provided Dalits with mechanisms to claim political and constitutional rights previously denied to them. The colonial state’s legal apparatus, consisting of judicial courts and the police system, allowed Dalit activists and groups to demand access to public spaces and gain employment in new professions, such as the army and state bureaucracy. Dalit activists also considered the practice of untouchability and the persistence of caste hierarchies as crucial questions central to decolonization. Led by B.R. Ambedkar, Dalits urged the British and the Indian National Congress to give them adequate representation in constitutional discussions regarding the transfer of power to Indian representatives and the establishment of a new constitution.

What does the future of Dalit studies look like? What are some of the new trends in the field? Dalit studies has the potential to fundamentally alter the historiographical map of India/South Asia studies. The recent recognition by Indian academia of Ambedkar as a philosopher and social scientist who made important contributions to the study of Indian society and history, the surge in Dalit histories in the last decade all around the academia, especially in the United States, all seem to suggest that a new set of questions are informing research and the study of India.

A key trend in the field is to recover histories of leading Dalit activists or leaders in different regions of India and to explore the nature of activism that emerged there. A second prominent trend, which I have not mentioned so far, is to recognize the distinctive agendas of Dalit feminism. A third emerging trend has been to engage with Dalit literature, in both prose and verse forms, as well as political and autobiographical writings, to understand the cultural and social motivations that have shaped their political activities. A fourth prominent theme is to study Dalit groups’ religious and cultural formations. These four trends draw from, and build on, the work done by scholars prior to the 1990s and foreground the role of Dalit activism.

Can you provide some suggestions for further readings? I provide below a very select reading list, covering a range of topics:

Aloysius, G. Religion as Emancipatory Identity: A Buddhist Movement among the Tamils under Colonialism . New Delhi: New Age International Publishers, 1998.

Ambedkar, B.R. What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables ? Bombay: Thacker & Co., Ltd., 1945.

Brueck, Laura. Writing Resistance . New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.

Guru, Gopal, ed. Humiliation: Claims and Context . New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Juergensmeyer, Mark. Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in Twentieth-Century Punjab . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

Mohan, P. Sanal. Modernity of Slavery: Struggles against Caste Inequality in Colonial Kerala . New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Moon, Vasant. Growing Up Untouchable in India: A Dalit Autobiography . New York: Rowman &Littlefield Publishers, 2000. First published in Marathi as Vasti , 1995. Translated from the Marathi by Gail Omvedt.

Paik, Shailaja, Dalit Women’s Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination . Routledge, 2014.

Nagaraj, D. R. The Flaming Feet and Other Essays: The Dalit Movement in India . Prithvi Shobhi, ed. Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2011.

Rao, Anupama, ed. Gender and Caste . New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2003.

Rawat, Ramnarayan and Satyanarayana, K., eds. Dalit Studies . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.

Rawat, Ramnarayan. Reconsidering Untouchability: Chamars and Dalit History in North India . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011.

Rege, Sharmila. Writing Caste/ Writing Gender: Reading Dalit Women’s Testimonios . New Delhi: Zubaan, 2006.

Satyanarayana, K. and Tharu, Susie, eds. Steel Nibs are Sprouting: New Dalit Writing from South India (Dossier II) . New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2013.

Ramnarayan Rawat teaches at the University of Delaware. He is currently completing a second book, “Parallel Publics: A History of Indian Democracy.” His recent co-edited book, Dalit Studies (2016) , was published by Duke University Press.

This post first appeared on AHA Today .

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Dalit Literature

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• B. R. Ambedkar, Jotirao Phule, and Dalit Iconography
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Dalit Literature by Pramod K. Nayar LAST REVIEWED: 12 January 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 12 January 2021 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190221911-0101

Dalit Literature is at once the expression of a “Dalit consciousness” about identity (both individual and communal), human rights and human dignity, and the community, as well as the discursive supplement to a ground-level sociopolitical movement that seeks redress for historically persistent oppression and social justice in the present. While its origins are often deemed to be coterminous with the movement dating back to the reformist campaigns in several parts of India during the 19th century, contemporary researchers have found precursors to both the Dalit consciousness and literary expressions in poets and thinkers of earlier eras, such as the saint-poets in the Punjab. Dalit literature’s later development has also run alongside political movements such as the Indian freedom struggle, even as B. R. Ambedkar’s campaign on behalf of what were then called the “depressed classes” intersected, sometimes fractiously, with the Indian National Congress, Mahatma Gandhi, and others in the struggle. Ambedkar’s own voluminous writings and speeches, tracts of various social and reformer organizations, debates, and letters also stimulated the literary. This bibliography includes primary texts in terms of foundational writings by B. R. Ambedkar, Jotirao Phule. and Periyar, followed by select examples of Dalit life writing, fiction, poetry, and anthologies that have brought together some of these texts. Later sections include critical-academic texts that cover some of the contexts, history, and development of Dalit literature. With more poetry, autobiographies, commentaries, anthologies, and compilations of Dalit texts appearing through the 20th century, the foundation for academic studies of the field of Dalit literature were also laid. Contextualizing Dalit texts in many cases, the essays and books listed here represent a wide variety of approaches. The contexts invariably involve the Dalit movement; the campaigns from the late 19th century; the various social, cultural, and political associations; the rise of Ambedkar and his influence; and other subjects. Many link Dalit narratives to other cultural productions, iconography, and practices. Others focus on the intersection of caste and class/political economy and capitalist modernity in the postcolonial state, or caste and patriarchy. And some others, working with Dalit literature from particular languages, offer a history of Dalit literature in that language. The role of this literature in shaping not only political mobilization but also the social imaginary of the Dalit communities and the public sphere are also key components of the protocols of reading and receiving Dalit texts engendered in the academic and cultural discussions around the domain. Aesthetics, politics, genre conventions, influences and the “voice” of resistance, anger, and despair are part of the discussion in many essays. Others offer comparative studies of Dalit texts. Read variously as the literature of protest, sympathy, solidarity, and resistance, Dalit literature thrives in Indian languages, and in multiple forms, although oral narratives and stories that are popular in gatherings and meetings remain largely uncollected. New forms such as the graphic novel have energized the field in recent years.

Dalit Literature: Select Primary Texts

The texts in this section open with the writings of B. R. Ambedkar, Jotirao Phule, and Periyar. These constitute the foundational texts, if one could call them that, of both Dalit sociopolitical movements and Dalit literary productions. The first significant anti-caste critiques are to be found in the work of the 19th-century reformer-educationist Jotirao Phule, and are brought together in Phule 2002 . Ambedkar 2014b includes his key writings on the caste system; the mythography of religion; and political issues such as the question of suffrage, education, and the organization of states. What is extant as autobiography may be found in Ambedkar 2005 , and his most famous critique of the caste system is Ambedkar 2014a . Periyar 2019 is a reprint of Periyar’s major tract on women and caste. Later subsections list important anthologies, fiction, life writing, poetry, and graphic novels.

Ambedkar, B. R. Annihilation of Caste . New annotated ed. New Delhi: Navayana, 2014a.

Ambedkar here presents a refutation of the caste system, drawing on political, economic, and social reasoning. From Hindu myths to Marx and economic relations, Ambedkar unpacks the iniquities and logical inconsistencies in the caste system. He also argues that Hindu reformers may seek political freedom from the British, but they would not allow a reform of religious beliefs or social practices that emerge from those beliefs. Political freedom without social reform, he proposes, is ineffectual.

Ambedkar, B. R. Writings and Speeches . Compiled by Vasant Moon. 17 vols. New Delhi: Ambedkar Foundation, 2014b.

This is the standard reference material for understanding the background to the Dalit movement. Included here are the speeches, books, essays, and journalism on the caste system, the mythography of religion, suffrage and electoral reforms, education, Gandhi-Marxism-Buddhism, the Indian National Congress, the English Constitution, and the Hindu Code Bill, among others. Key texts such as Annihilation of Caste are a part of this set.

Ambedkar, B. R. Autobiographical Notes . New Delhi: Navayana, 2005.

The only autobiography Ambedkar left behind was in the form of these “notes.” This slim volume gives us vignettes and episodes rather than a sustained narrative. It includes the famous visa story, the account of his school life in which he faced sustained discrimination, his return to India from the United States and the caste-based social antagonism that he met on return, among others. Poignant in parts, the Notes offers us glimpses into the contexts of the making of Ambedkar.

Periyar (E. V. Ramaswamy). Why Were Women Enslaved ? Translated by Meena Kandaswamy. Chennai, India: Periyar Self-Respect Propaganda Foundation, 2019.

First published in 1942, Periyar’s tract links caste/religion and gender inequality in India. Remarriage and widowhood are social conditions that contribute to the subjugated status of women. Ancient literary texts such as those of Thiruvalluvar glorified “chastity” and other “slavish concepts” (p. 3). He argues that “there is provision in nature for both sexes to be equal . . . but it has been changed artificially because of men’s selfishness and conspiracy” (p. 11). Later essays examine widowhood, prostitution, and remarriage within exploitative patriarchy.

Phule, Jotirao. Selected Writings . Edited by G. R. Deshpande. New Delhi: Leftword Books, 2002.

This brings together Phule’s key texts: Slavery, The Cultivator’s Whipcord , and the deposition before the Education Commission. In Slavery Phule claims the Brahmins were a race that invaded the subcontinent and enslaved, through the caste system, the aborigine natives, while exploiting the latter’s labor “to sustain . . . their own luxurious lifestyle” (p. 45). Phule argues that Hindu myths compound social differentiation and hierarchization. He discusses caste-based agricultural labor, the British government’s Brahmin employees, and compares the labor of women across castes in The Cultivator’s Whipcord .

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View from here – english in india: the rise of dalit and ne literature.

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Nandana Dutta, View from Here – English in India: The Rise of Dalit and NE Literature, English: Journal of the English Association , Volume 67, Issue 258, Autumn 2018, Pages 201–208, https://doi.org/10.1093/english/efy025

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This article argues that transactions between the English text and local conditions are an important aspect of developments in English in India determining interpretations in teaching and research. Texts emerging from contemporary conditions feature in courses, with one of the most significant of these transactions resulting in the incorporation of Dalit and minority literatures into English Studies. Perceived as an instrument of empowerment by Indians almost from the time it was introduced, English has never quite lost this aspect of its role – and even as the discipline has taken note of global expansions in the field through theory and the incorporation of new areas, it has gradually acquired a strong national/regional flavour through the incorporation of texts that have emerged out of struggles for visibility and voice by marginal groups. The rise of Dalit and Northeast Indian English literature and their incorporation into English syllabi are two examples of this trend.

While trying to capture a sense of the current status of the discipline of English as it is taught at college and university level in India, and brought up short by the impossible task of pulling together the many ways in which the discipline exists here, I realized that perhaps the only common thread that runs through its multiple practices is the growing interest in Dalit writing from all over the country and writings (mostly in English) from the north eastern states of India (or NE as it is commonly known). The bird’s eye view would reveal literatures from these two sites – the Dalit and the NE – making the most significant impact on the discipline by their hospitality to current developments in theory, their strong ideological moorings in otherness of caste and tribe respectively, and, perhaps most importantly, their accessibility as areas of study.

‘English in India’ as a meta-issue has been the subject of study ever since Gauri Viswanathan’s Masks of Conquest demonstrated how English Literature was used by the British as a tool of subject construction and governance. While the goals and influence of English (language and literary study) changed with Independence in 1947, interest in what can be achieved through it has continued to grow and change. A Google search would show many essays and books that describe and analyse ‘English in India’ with varying degrees of success and most often with an emphasis on the language. English is taught in schools across the country, functions as the language of communication among the educated, is the language of higher education, and is often used as an official language in administration and in the courts. Simultaneously, Indian Writing in English (IWE) has become an exciting new addition to the global English Literature corpus. And English continues to be part of subject construction and empowerment exercises. But what is the nature of the discipline in contemporary India? An overview would show the presence of English in the above-mentioned ways as a significant context for developments in the discipline, while transactions between the English text and local conditions appear to affect interpretations in teaching and research. Texts emerging from contemporary conditions feature in courses, with one of the most significant of these transactions resulting in the incorporation of Dalit and minority literatures into English Studies. Perceived as an instrument of empowerment by Indians almost from the time it was introduced, English has never quite lost this aspect of its role – and even as the discipline has taken note of global expansions in the field through theory and the incorporation of new areas, it has gradually acquired a strong national/regional flavour that has helped turn the very real disadvantages of practising the discipline outside of its primary Anglo-American sites of production into a source of strength. And since higher education is administered from the University Grants Commission (UGC) through a combination of suggestion and direction, model curricula periodically issued by it are often a barometer of change with Dalit, regional, minority, Indian English, and classical literature being highlighted in such advisories at different times.

Over the last seven or eight decades the primarily British-English syllabus inherited from colonial education has expanded to include literatures in English from other parts of the world and India, and has come to terms with offering a percentage of translated texts from European and Latin American literatures and from some of the major Indian literary traditions. Today it is a combination of a historically inherited core British literature component supplemented in different universities with American, African, Australian, Canadian, South Asian, and Caribbean texts and elective courses (these national literatures do not always feature as full courses but individual texts often appear in courses on Women’s Writing, literature and environment, post-humanism and literature, graphic novels, etc.). Besides, newer texts and areas emerging in the wake of India’s national and regional politics, social concerns, and discourses about public events have gradually begun to appear.

Such new texts from socio-economic and political conditions and events stemming from churning amongst the many racial, class, and caste components in India’s tradition-bound social fabric have helped to evolve reading strategies that are directed at critiquing the domains from which they have emerged even as they have contributed to the formation of new critical terminologies and themes. The UGC’s curricular suggestions have facilitated incorporation of region and language specific content. So the English syllabus at a university in the north east of India would have English and translated texts from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Tripura (available from reputed publishers at local booksellers). A university in West Bengal might have courses on Bengali Dalit writing (both Jadavpur University and West Bengal State University have individual faculty offering such courses). A central university (like Hyderabad, Delhi, or Jawaharlal Nehru University [JNU]) with a different kind of ethnic composition and cultural politics might have courses on both Dalit and writing from the NE states on offer or encourage research in these areas. This scene, with obvious regional modifications, is repeated in universities all over the country.

Many dimensions of English are apparent in various parts of the country (regional variations emerging from racial, ethnic, linguistic and cultural conditions), and English is made to bear the weight of different expectations. Debates over whether students should study Indian writing in English or continue to read the British and American writers were common at one time and, we continue to argue whether Shakespeare (and other early writers) should be taught in general courses in English and whether science students in their compulsory English paper should read literary classics or science writings, or should be prescribed Indian short stories and poems in original English or in English translation from Indian languages. Many of these concerns come out of an interpretation/understanding of contemporary India, especially about disparities in education and wealth, about social class, caste and gender discriminations, and the need to provide education that will help ameliorate such problems.

The ‘politics of English literature as a colonial phenomenon’ has long been displaced as a way of thinking about the discipline and the language even as newer strategic uses have been regularly reinvented. That earlier view is usually taken for granted as part of the history of English in India but to think of current practice is to acknowledge how deeply immersed English has become in the Indian everyday, which includes the socio-political changes going on in post-Independence India, the tone and rhetoric of public discourse, and everyday events that catch news headlines – acts of corruption, violence, multi-ethnic Indian classrooms, gender and ethnic discrimination – all of which quickens English language usage and sharpens interpretation of literary representation. In fact, one eminent English teacher narrates his own experience of teaching Hemingway’s ‘Hills like White Elephants’ through processes of translation in a multi-ethnic classroom and discovers what students might learn: ‘readers of “Hills” in languages other than English open up other worlds where their selves are relocated and discovered. No one is perfectly at home or elsewhere in reading such stories as “Hills,” a discovery only a translation, however imperfect, can teach them’. 1 Chandran’s essay, one of many others that he has written on the experience of teaching English in India, suggests that young readers bring to the classroom and to the specific texts cultural experiences drawn from the reality of their lives in contemporary India that determine how they are likely to respond to the English text.

The complex reception and strategic hospitality accorded to the English text are the result of the urgency in students and researchers to make their discipline more responsive and relevant. This urgency has gradually begun to appear as the profile of the English classroom, determined by a combination of merit and social welfare schemes of reservation (the reservation of seats for constitutionally defined disadvantaged groups at all levels and going up to recruitment of faculty), has become more and more complex, and has begun to influence text selection and modes of classroom practice. The ideal of social upliftment through English is not new. 2 It has been a part of the expectations attendant upon knowledge of the English language and has been one of the tacit goals of English literary study at the university during its long history in India. But the growing self-consciousness, protests, and demands for visibility and justice on the part of India’s variously disadvantaged communities have ensured a path-breaking shift in Indian society and English has frequently been the engine driving this movement even as it has itself felt the impact of the upheaval.

For the discipline the shift was initially visible in MPhil and PhD research and in projects funded by the UGC 3 and has been the result of a number of negative and positive factors. The negatives include the impossibly large numbers coming into higher education institutions to study for BA and MA degrees and often going onto research degrees (with that nth PhD dissertation based on a superficial reading of a chosen author); uncertain competence in core English literature; and problems of access to primary materials on British and other English language authors. Among the positives are the alternative and local language histories of the canonical English text (as it came to be translated and circulated in one or other of the many literary cultures); theoretical engagement in the global culture of the discipline with issues of trauma, violence, otherness, and the body facilitating the incorporation of texts from Dalit and tribal experience and from Indian experiences of Partition, the Emergency, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, etc.; and contemporary events that have made it impossible to insulate the English text from its moment of reception (for example, frequent events of rape and honour killings occurring in the still heavily feudal societies in many parts of India have often served as prisms to refract the representation of interpersonal violence in the English text). Literatures representing and making visible these experiences are also invested with the goal of empowerment and social development that runs through Indian higher education policy, even as they speak to ideological associations (and identity issues) of communities. It is possible to identify two kinds of responses in this situation – one in the inclusion of actual new texts and fields of study drawn from India’s current socio-political and economic conditions/crises; and a second in readings of the canonical English text alongside radical new texts (the English text now seems closer even as it allows the event to be seen more sharply and critically).

So, from being a tool in British colonial hands it has now metamorphosed into a strategic tool in the hands of Indian students and researchers of the discipline. It has been progressively Indianized – through the admission of new texts from hitherto ignored and invisible areas of culture, through comparative work, and in a turn to Indian aesthetics and classic Indian texts. The most recent (2015) UGC model curriculum for the BA course starts off with a paper on Indian Classical Literature that includes Kalidasa’s Shakuntala, Sudraka’s Mrcchakatika, ‘The Book of Banci’ from Adigal’s Cilappatikaram: The Tale of an Anklet and several sections from the Mahabharata while among suggested readings is Bharata’s Natyashastra – all of which would earlier only have been referred to in passing in the classroom, if at all. 4

The interest in politically charged work has accompanied the protest movement of the Dalit Panthers and has created serious readership for Dalit autobiographies and poetry and fiction on Dalit experience. Autobiographical novels like Karukku by Bama and Ittibritte Chandal Jibon by Manoranjan Byapari, autobiographies by Baby Kamble ( Jina Amucha ) and Daya Pawar ( Baluta ), and the powerful poetry of Namdeo Dhasal (to name a random handful of representative Dalit texts in Tamil, Marathi, and Bangla, all available in English translation) now feature in syllabi across the country. The emergence of Dalit consciousness is a pan-Indian phenomenon and its powerful discourse of otherness has led to discovery of similar literatures in regions earlier thought to be devoid of Dalit groups. 5

Dalit literature finding a place in English curricula has been the result of much of this literature being either written in English or being quickly translated into English. The role of Katha and Sahitya Akademi in supporting translations from the literary traditions of other languages, the rise of new publishers and local presses, as well as the changed policy on translations of big publishing houses like OUP and Penguin, has been largely responsible for the availability of this literature. Publishing houses that have begun to specialize in Dalit writing are identified by Jaya Bhattacharji Rose as Macmillan India ( Karukku was brought out by them), Orient Longman/OBS, OUP India, Zubaan, Navayana, Adivaani, Speaking Tiger, and Penguin Random House. 6 Besides these there are smaller presses throughout India publishing minority and Dalit literature. The case of literature in English from the ‘North East’ is similar, with visibility and circulation being achieved because of the interest shown by the same publishers.

Recently, I was at a workshop on Translation organized by the English Department of West Bengal State University (WBSC). The focus was on translations of Bangla Dalit writings. The overall ambience of the workshop was distinctly Bengali with workshop participants (comprising of translators who were expected to use the three days of the workshop to fine tune their translations through interactions with the writers present and with one another) and invited Resource Persons (mainly senior academics who were expected to use their own experience of translation to comment on the problems brought up by the participant-translators and set them against current positions in the field of translation studies) being asked to use English, Bangla, and Hindi in their presentations and interventions. Several of the writers whose works had been or were being translated were present along with their translators, even as the workshop identified new writings under this category. Since there was no Dalit literature in my region (comprised of the eight states of India’s northeast), the example I gave was of a similar translation context. This was a project that the English Department of my university had carried out in 2000–2001 which involved the collection of folk tales from several tribal languages of Assam and their translation into English. The project was titled ‘Representation of Women in the Folk Narratives of Assam’ and the process of collection from oral sources and already existing published versions in Assamese translation revealed two interesting features: one was a desire for visibility on the part of communities/groups marginalized by a dominant literary culture – and hence the willingness to be translated into English; the second was the mediatory role played by departments of English in this politics of visibility, a role that has elements of social responsibility, genuine desire to make a rich vernacular literature available to a larger readership, and perhaps most crucially the need to reinvent or at least reenergize the discipline and redefine the place of the Indian academic within this discipline.

The other significant surge of interest has been in literature produced in the eight states of the region known collectively as ‘the North East’ (much of it in English, though literature in the Assamese language has a long history and powerful presence). This literature has successfully articulated the region’s historical marginalization, its cultural and ethnic distinctiveness, its contemporary politics of identity, and accompanying insurgencies and violence, even as the conditions that produced this literature have provided insight into issues of power and powerlessness, and of processes of othering in social and political sites. The experience of alienation, misrepresentation, and political neglect of the NE has been long drawn out and persistent and its perceived and real marginalization has been frequently represented in its literature; and since much of it has been in English or is available in English translation this literature has entered syllabuses without too much resistance.

These two areas of experience have led to hitherto unimaginable representations of cruelties; of bodily oppression and mental agonies; of disgust, shame and revulsion, strong resistance, and critiques of historical persecution. The struggle to find voice and expression has helped refurbish the critical apparatus of writers and critics. Questions of space, body, and otherness have become the stuff of critical language, and students and teachers of English literature have been quick to make the connection between English texts and Dalit and NE literature and allow the insights gained to influence approaches to otherness, and social oppression in the English text.

An example of the kind of thing that happens in the contemporary classroom in India should give a sense of these shifts. The classroom at my university has students coming from different ethnic groups, from rural and urban backgrounds, often with little or no previous exposure to English literature before they enter the BA programme. The challenge is to find a point where we can converse and use the familiar to introduce the strange. The entry point for them is often life in the region, and their access to the discourse about the region made up of identity, neglect, invisibility, and marginalization has both colonial and contemporary resonances. When faced with a text like The Merchant of Venice (one of the most popular and featuring frequently in syllabi), the student’s sympathy for Shylock is immediate. While they enjoy the twists and turns of the plot and readily mouth critical platitudes derived usually these days from online notes, their response to Shylock is experiential and therefore more engaged. With a little steering into the social dynamics of the play they quickly see the way the majority Christian community treats the minority Jewish community – drawing on their own sensitivity to the treatment NE students receive when they go to study or work in metropolises like Delhi and face discrimination and violence from landlords and neighbours or randomly on streets because of different food habits, dress, and supposedly bohemian lifestyles.

Contextual elements as part of literary-critical concerns decide themes of research, setting up evaluative schema that address and critique existing frames for reading that have their origin in other contexts (for example, Partition violence or Indian representations of violence and trauma might help to critique migration writing as well as the literature of the Holocaust or 9/11). The need to speak to the specific classroom – and this varies across India – the importance of taking note of current events and social concerns and registering these as relevant to the English classroom, are also part of keeping the discipline relevant.

While it is impossible to generalize, the blend of canonical and local elements found in the university English classroom today points to a dual urge at work in the way English is developing – one that looks both outward and inward. This is the empowerment that the discipline’s practitioners have perhaps been seeking ever since it was introduced and it looks forward to what might very well be an enabling indigenous strand in English Studies in India alongside developments in keeping with its global status.

K. Narayana Chandran, ‘Being Elsewhere: “Hills Like White Elephants,” Translation, and an Indian Classroom’, Pedagogy, 16.3 (2016), 381–92 (p. 391).

Gyanendra Pandey writes of the Dalit relationship to English in ‘Dreaming in English: Challenges of Nationhood and Democracy’, Economic and Political Weekly , LI.16 (2016), 56–62.

See the present author’s essay on ‘The Politics of English in India’, Australian Literary Studies , 28.1–2 (2013), 84–97.

See < https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/5430486_B.A.-Hons-English.pdf > [accessed 20 March 2018].

A brief overview of Dalit history and marginalization may be had at Palak Mathur and Jessica Singh, ‘Minorities in India: Dalits’ < https://palakmathur.wordpress.com > [accessed 14 February 2018, 11:30].

Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, ‘Dalit Literature in English’ (4 May 2016) < www.jayabhattacharjirose.com > [accessed 14 February 2018, 11:23].

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Understanding dalit literature: An alternative Research methodology

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

Bi-Monthly, Peer-reviewed and Indexed Open Access eJournal ISSN: 0976-8165

The Dalit Vision and Voice: A Study of Sharan Kumar Limbale’s Akkarmarshi

Assistant Professor of English Govt. College for Women Thiruvanathapuram.

Kerala, India.

Writing is a form of therapy: sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation. (Graham Greene 9)

Sharan Kumar Limbale is an illustrious Dalit writer in India who has authored extensively up to forty books including his autobiography Akkarmashi ( The Outcaste ) and is currently Professor and Regional Director of Yashavantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University and his creative interest rests on the Dalit struggle and identity.

Dalit Literature is a new literary canon with an evident disregard for form, content and style, and a vibrant expression of the newly awakened sensibilities which distinguishes it from the mainstream literary traditions. It is a Literature of protest against all forms of exploitation based on class, race, caste or occupation. It rejects both the Western and Eastern theoretical conceptions like Freud’s Psychoanalysis, Barthe’s Structuralism and Derrida’s Deconstruction together with the Indian theories of Rasa and Dhawni. The very foundations of Indian Mythology are questioned and de-constructed by the Dalit writers. They consider the legendary figure Ekalavya as their forefather and Shambooka – another Dalit in Ramayana who was killed by Rama at the behest of Vasishta, is worshipped by the Dalits. These writers express their experiences in stark realistic manner by using their native speech. Their language as well as images comes from their experiences instead of their observation of life. Dr. C.B. Bharti claims:

The aim of Dalit Literature is to protest against the established system which is based on injustice and to expose the evil and hypocrisy of the higher castes. There is an urgent need to create a separate aesthetics for Dalit literature, an aesthetics based on the real experiences of life. ( The Aesthetics of Dalit Literature )

This unique branch of aesthetics is most expressive in autobiographies as the experiences they portray are peculiar only to the communities in which they are born into. Autobiographies are generally written by eminent personalities towards the end of their lives and who have got much to evidence before the world, while Dalit autobiographies are penned at an early age when the author is neither distinguished nor eminent but noted for its depiction of a poignant past that has affected the history of a community. These autobiographies deal not only with the caste system as oppressive but also depict how economic deprivation and poverty are handmaids with caste discrimination.

Sharan Kumar Limbale’s Akkarmashi penned at an age of twenty five depicts the meta-realistic accounts of his life as a Dalit in particular and which can be extended to the life of any individual of Mahar community in general. In the text, the narrator moves back

and forth between the individual ‘I’ and the collective ‘We’. The experiences of exclusions and ostracizations of both the self and the community are the creative and critical sources used to “create testimonies of caste-based oppression, anti-caste struggles and resistance” (Rege 14) offering a distinct world view. Limbale in an interview notes:

The span of my autobiography is my childhood. . . I want write about my pain and pangs. I want write about the suffering of my community. So I cannot give importance to my personal life. I am writing for social cause. .

. . My autobiography is a statement of my war against injustice. (The Criterion)

This paper centres on the depictions of the “self”; the split identification; untouchability; poverty; education and language as evidenced in Akkarmashi and would argue that Limbale’s suffering is intensified on the account of he being an akkarmashi or illegitimate. To be a Dalit in a caste-ridden society is a curse and to be an illegitimate within the Dalit community is to be doubly cursed. Dalits are “outcasts” to the society but a “half-cast” of an “outcast” is much less than being a human. It is the record of “the woes of the son of a whore” (ix).

The paper also makes an attempt to understand the vision and voice of the Dalits as the texts speak for the “outcasts” and are therefore rendered from voiceless and passive objects of history to self-conscious subjects who procreate alternative modes of knowledge and knowing. Limbale projects before the readers an objective and disinterested account of his life from birth to adulthood, carefully creating the image of his community in conflict with the contemporary social and cultural conditions. The narrator’s self reflects his life in particular and the life of the community in general. Toni Morrison observes:

Autobiographical form is classic in Black American or Afro-American Literature because it provided an instance in which a writer could be representative, could say, ‘my single solitary and individual life is like the lives of the tribe; it differs in these specific ways, but it is a balanced life because it is both solitary and representative’. (327)

A Dalit has no personal life of his own but is dissolved in the engulfing whirlpool of his community. Akkarmashi works as the mouthpiece of the community, it depicts their togetherness in triumphs and tribulations as “the self belongs to the people and people find a voice in the self” (Butterfield 3).

As a Dalit Intellectual, the narrator experiences split identification at various levels

– as an illegitimate; as a Mahar and even as an educated Dalit who has advanced in social order than his community but at the same time forbidden to step up the established social order by the caste Hindus. Limbale talks about his birth:

My first breath must have threatened the morality of the world. With my first cry, milk must have splashed from the breasts of every Kunti.

Why did my mother say yes to the rape which brought me into the world? Why did she put up with the fruit of this illegitimate intercourse for nine months and nine days and allow me to grow in the foetus? Why did she allow this bitter embryo to grow? How many eyes must have humiliated her because they considered her a whore? Did anyone distribute sweets to celebrate my birth? Did anyone admire  me affectionately? Did anyone

celebrate my naming ceremony? Which family would claim me as its descendants? Whose son am I, really? (36-7)

In another account, Limbale relates how he owns his name to a sympathetic teacher:

The teacher decided to enroll my name in the register after I attended school regularly for four to five days. When he was convinced that I was serious about my schooling he asked me my father’s name. I did not know my father’s name. Strange that I too could have a father!

. . . . The teacher Bhosale by name would sarcastically call me the Patil of Baslegaon. I felt good as well as bad to be called Patil. The name of Hanmanta Limbale, the Patil of Baslegaon, was added to my name in the school record. When Hanmanta came to know this he arrived with four or five rowdies. . . . But Bhosale, the headmaster, was an upright man. . . Hanmanta tried all his tricks desperately. He even pleaded. Finally he had to go away unsuccessful. I owe my father’s name to Bhosale, the headmaster. (45)

Born of a high caste father – a Patil and an untouchable mother – a Mahar, Limbale became an “akkarmashi”, as his parentage was unacknowledged through the legitimacy of marriage. This curse of being “fatherless” followed Limbale all throughout his life. It became the most heinous of obstructions, a hopeless situation – being tortured for being an akkarmashi within his family and extended to the most decisive moments in his life as seeking an admission in school or college and the prospect of getting married. More than the general shocking life of Dalits, where one suffers in groups, what affects Limbale is his isolated stigma of being an akkarmashi. Limbale is reminded now and then by the society – his position within the position less group of outcasts. He laments, “. . . a man is recognized in this world by his religion, caste, or his father. I had neither a father’s name, nor any religion, nor a caste. I had no inherited identity at all.” (59). Is not this lack of inherited identity, his real identity? The stigma of “akkarmashi” hurls around it intolerable humiliations.

The narrator-protagonist is someone more inferior to a Dalit. It is surprising to note that he is an untouchable among the untouchables. His identity is that of an “Akkarmashi” and this is what the narrator tries to present through the many episodes of his life. “Akkarmashi” in Marathi means eleven it needs another one to complete itself, to become twelve, a dozen which signifies completeness. With a government job and education to cushion him, Limbale still finds it difficult to get a wife. Limbale never enjoyed the prospect of selecting a wife of his choice. A single attempt at bride-viewing ends in disaster. At one point the reader suspects Limbale to be satisfied with any woman for a wife. He does not make a choice. He gets a wife out of sympathy and his occasional bribing his would-be father-in-law with alcohol. He notes, “The girl I married needed to be a hybrid like me to ensure a proper match. A bastard must always be matched with another bastard. No one else will marry their daughters to a bastard like me” (98). The text becomes the eye witness account of the horrors of the lives of a particular subaltern community.

However, Limbale does not succumb to the pitiable existence but acquires liberation and freedom from his purgatory of caste through education. The knowledge he had acquired from books, had taught him to think differently. He understood that the sufferings of their lives were based on the false concept of superiority. He has imbibed a

“Dalit Consciousness”, a consciousness of their own slavery (TADL 71), an understanding of their experiences of exclusion, subjugation, dispossession and oppression down the ages. It is this knowledge that liberates him. Limbale notes in his critical work, Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature , “The conditions that I have written about, the environment that I have written about, no longer exist in my house, because of the position that I happened to hold today” (156). He further explains:

Now, after twenty-five years, my past has been so destroyed that I have been cut off from it, I’ve been completely separated from it. Neither have I gone home, nor does my mother see me as I was before. ‘Some big officer has come, some VIP guest has come’: thus will she offer me water. I no longer have the same attachment to my colony, my relatives, my language. Everything has changed. And because of that change, I am done writing about the history that I had to write about. (155)

The past does not lure him with its wonders of nostalgia as there is nothing to be nostalgic about. Limbale’s social protests and the subsequent redemption serve as inspiration for other members in the community to use education to overcome their economic and social conditions.

Dalit Literature abounds in genuine descriptions of untouchability and poverty in an uncouth day-to-day spoken language. The insurmountable challenge faced by Limbale and other Dalits as young children is hunger. The writer has dwelt on this basic need of man over and again all throughout the book, philosophizing on the evident need of food:

God endowed man with a stomach. . . . Since then man has been striving to satisfy his stomach. Filling even one stomach proved difficult for him. He began to live with a half-filled one. He survived by swallowing his own saliva. He went for days without eating anything. He started selling himself for his stomach. A woman becomes a whore and a man a thief. The stomach makes you clean shit; it even makes you eat shit. ( Akkarmashi 8)

The Caste Hindus in Indian society used to exploit the Dalits by making them do the most menial jobs the whole day just for a piece of bread. The text is replete with incidents of hunger which is projected before a class of readers who are blissfully unaware of such undercurrents. The Dalits are treated worse than animals. Their presence is usually banned from upper-class localities. They were made to hang pots from their necks to avoid polluting the streets by their spittle and had to carry brooms tied to themselves to wipe away their footprints from the “upper caste” streets. In P.I. Sonkamble’s Athavaninche Pakshi , the narrator Pralhad, an orphaned boy relates an incident of throwing away a dead dog:

Somehow I controlled my mind and held the tail of the dead dog. As it was completely decomposed, that part of the tail gave way and came into my hand. Though it had a stinking smell, I continued with the job as I had a craving for a small piece of bread which I hoped to get after finishing it. (87)

Daya Pawar in Baluta evokes a similar feeling, the narrator reflects:

What a coward I am? Who made me such a coward? My life was similar to that of any crawling object in the street which even cannot hiss at the children who poke at it with a stick. Sometimes I used to feel that I have lost all my self-respect just for a morsel of food. (72)

The Dalits ousted to the village outskirts lead an inhuman life. Eternally deprived with no money, no land, no work and no education these people falter in darkness with no realisation of human worth. What is evident from the text is that, they never think; rather accept this suffering as their lot. They depend on the Savarnas in the village for work and food. They do not think beyond these basic needs. Men are drunkards and women are exploited by the villagers. From this perspective it is a collective past, Limbale is each and every Dalit deemed untouchable.

Dalits are being exploited physically, mentally and socially in the caste ridden society. Though India is politically free with her own Constitution proclaiming liberty, equality and fraternity spearheaded by a Dalit himself, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, it is still difficult for backward classes to lead their lives peacefully. Dalit Intellectuals operate their modes of resistance creatively in Dalit literature, the most powerful being Dalit autobiographies. Dalit Literature is an arduous endeavour from the canonical to the marginal, from mega-narratives to micro-narratives, from the virtual to the real, and from self- emulation to self-affirmation.

Works Cited:

Bharti, C.B., “The Aesthetics of Dalit literature,” Trans. Darshana Trivedi. Hyati, June 1999.

Butterfield, Stephen. Black Autobiography in America . Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1974.

Greene, Graham. Ways of Life: An Autobiography . London: Vintage Books, 1999. Limbale, SharanKumar. The Outcaste: Akkarmashi . Trans. Santosh Bhoomkar.

New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.

– – – . Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and Considerations. Trans. Alok Mukherjee. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2007.

Morrison, Tony. “Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation”, Literature in Modern World . Ed. Dennis Walder. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Pawar, daya. Baluta . Mumbai: Granthali Prakashan, 1982.

Rege, Sharmila. Writing Caste/ Writing Gender: Reading Dalit Women’s Testimonies. New Delhi: Zubaan, 2006.

Sonkamble, P.I. Athavaninche Pakshi . Aurangabad: Chetana Prakashan, 1993. http://www.the Criterion.com

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A Critical Discourse on Aesthetics in Contemporary Indian Dalit Literature

Limbad girishkumar nagjibhai.

Ph.D Research Scholar, Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University ([email protected])

This paper is an attempt to study Aesthetics in contemporary Indian Dalit literature. Dalit literature is prominently a literature of social reform and awareness. In the second half of the 20 th  century, Dalit literature has emerged as a new literary current to address the prevalent regional issues of modern India especially the caste system. With the rise of Dalit literature, Dalit critics have demanded a separate aesthetic yardstick to interpret and evaluate Dalit literature. Since ages, canons of literary aesthetics have been shaped by the mainstream literature. However, Modern and Postmodern movement has brought a paradigm shift in the very nature of Aesthetics. Across the world, literature from the marginalized and subaltern class is gaining instant recognition. Unlike mainstream literature, Dalit literature not only attacks the established caste-based social stratification but also rejects established literary canons. Taking impetus from the thoughts of Dr. Ambedkar and Jyotirao Phule, Dalit literature has surfaced with a new zeal and confidence to assert liberty, equality and fraternity in society. Dalit writers’ resentment and revolt is clearly reflected in subverting the classical notions of Aesthetics. The beauty (Aesthetics) of Dalit literature lies in its aspiration for the inalienable human rights – life, liberty, equality, justice and dignity. With the emergence of Dalit consciousness, Dalit writers have developed their own literary style, form and tradition that is challenging, revolting and rebellious in nature. This subversive and aberrant literary approach is reshaping the very concept of Aesthetics in Dalit literature.

Keywords : Aesthetics, Dalit and Dalit literature, Postmodern Literature, Dalit Aesthetics.

Art, one of the most distinctive and universal aspects of the humans, embodies human’s innate desire to imitate reality. In Aristotle’s words “art is representational”. However, it is not mere imitation that determines art but it is the artistic skills that recreate and redesign reality. From the Classical antiquity to modernity, art practices have developed various theories to appreciate different forms of art. Today, these theories have developed a separate branch of philosophy known as Aesthetics. It is widely acknowledged that we appreciate art because it gives us pleasure and appeals to our emotions. Since the classical age, there has been a ceaseless debate over whether beauty is subjective; lies ‘in the eyes of beholder’ or objective; an inherent part of an artwork itself. In the classical age, beauty was thought to be objective i.e. eternally governed by some immutable high laws. On the contrary, in the Age of Reason beauty was regarded ‘no other than subjective’. Later in Postmodern age, this subjective notion became a catalyst to bring a radical transformation in the very concept of beauty. In the Postmodern age, beauty does not ‘lies in the eyes of beholder’ but lies in the culturally conditioned mind of the beholder. In other words the concept of Aesthetic is not transcendental, absolute, arbitrary and eternal. It changes over the passing of time and more importantly it is subject to conditioning. What was once considered low, rough, repugnant, inelegant, bizarre, offending is now creative, meaningful and artistic. Ellen Dissanayake, in her famous work Homo Aestheticus (2010), writes:

What seemed at the time a shocking (or amusing)…, can now be recognized as a crack in the dike of high art that in the past two or three decades has released an ever increasing flood of antiestablishment theory and realization-of-theory (i.e., works of art). (Dissanayake 200)

In the light of Aesthetics, Indian Dalit literature finds beauty in human emancipation. It is the literature of those people who were socially and culturally exploited for thousands of years. For dalit writers literature is a tool to create consciousness among people about their exploitation. The function of Dalit aesthetics is to stir the reader’s emotions about the gruesome treatment they receive from the very society they live in. The root of Dalit literature actually lies in social inequality which has been prevalent in India since ancient times. Due to the age-old caste system, people are divided into different castes and sub-castes. This stratification is strictly hierarchical in which people, who form the hegemonic class, control all kinds of power and resources whereas people at the bottom of the hierarchy have a very limited excess to power and resources. After the independence, the Constitution of India outlawed the caste system but in practice it still exists in various forms.

Unlike mainstream literature in India, Dalit literature not only attacks the established social norms mainly caste system but also rejects established literary norms. With the emergence of Dalit consciousness, Dalit writers have developed their own literary style, form and tradition that is challenging, revolting and rebellious in nature. Nevertheless, the mainstream literary critics such as P. S. Rege and Balkrishnana Kawthekar are of the opinion that Indian literary tradition is rich enough to appreciate and evaluate Dalit literature. It does not need any separate and distinct yardstick to evaluate its artistic expression. If Dalit literature is great, it will withstand any test and any time. Artistic values cannot be destroyed only because they have been rejected by Dalit writers. In P.S. Rege’s words:

When measuring the significance of any artistic creation, only artistic values should be employed, all others are irrelevant- they are meaningless. If they were to have a place, it would be minor. (Rege 29)

On the other hand, Dalit critics present their arguments to defend Dalit literature and its separate identity. Sharankumar Limbale, a renowned Marathi Dalit writer and critic, argues that Dalit literature is novel form in the area of literature and it puts an emphasis on fresh experiences, a new sensitivity with new words, and a new way of expressing Dalit’s suffering and revolt. Sharankumar Limbale presents a systematic understanding and analysis of Dalit aesthetics in his book Dalit Sahityache Saundaryashastra (2004) which was later translated into English by Alok Kumar Mukherjee as Towards An Aesthetic of Dalit Literature. This work is considered to be the first critical work that investigates aesthetics in Dalit literature. It has been assumed that Dalits, being a low-caste and uncivilized, cannot produce a sense of beauty in their works. According to Limbale, this claim is shallow and narrow. One should look at Dalit writings from a broader perspective. In the following words Sharankumar Limbale clearly draws a demarcating line between Dalit aesthetics and traditional aesthetics.

Ambedkarite thought is the aesthetics of Dalit literature….this literature cannot be evaluated on the basis of either Sanskrit aesthetics or western aesthetics. The aesthetics of this (Dalit) literature can only be based on the thinking of Ambedkar and Phule. (Limbale 147-48)

This disengagement has also raised a significant question on the aesthetic aspect of Dalit literature. How can a literature generate aesthetic taste for its readers which is full of anger, resentment, abusing and offending words, abhorrent and repugnant images? For instant in the following lines from Under Dadar Bridge , a dalit poet Prakash Jadhav narrates the mental state of a protagonist who is a son of a prostitute and he is in search of his identity.

‘Hey, Ma, tell me my religion. Who am I?

What am I?’

‘You are not a Hindu or a Muslim!

You are an abandoned spark of the

World’s lusty fires.

Religion? This is where I stuff religion!

Whores have only one religion…

‘Who was he? Who’s my father?’

Scraping and scratching at the VD sores…

She would answer: ‘He was some swine or other!’

‘Whore! Tell me the truth, or else…’

‘Why? Was there only one who mounted

And then abandoned my body?

How many names shall I mention?

Many came and many went.’(Dangle 65-66)

Since ages, conventional aesthetic standards have been employed to evaluate and appreciate mainstream literature. Dalit critics argue that these standards are basically designed to suit and justify the socio-economic output of the hegemonic class. Since Dalit literature is the result of the very different socio-economic condition of the marginalized people, it obviously needs different aesthetic consideration to suit and justify its literary works. Sharankumar Limbale aptly says:

To assert that someone’s writing will be called literature only when ‘our’ literary standards can be imposed on. It is a sign of cultural dictatorship. The yardsticks of literature do not remain standstill for all time. With changing times, literature changes, and there remains the possibility of change in its criticism too. New literary trends cannot be evaluated with traditional literary yardsticks. (Limbale 07)

In linguistic aspect, Dalit literature is originally found in regional, dialectal and clumsy languages. Visual images and symbols used in the poems are rough, asymmetrical, comfortless and disturbing. Such literary behavior of Dalit literature poses an important question on the aesthetics of Dalit literature: Can Dalit literature be beautiful? The style and nature of Dalit literature is aberrant and subversive. It deconstructs the prevailing linguistic conventions for literature which is set by the hegemonic class. Today, this against-the-stream attitude is a conspicuous characteristic of the postmodern literature. Dalit writers use crude language and disturbing graphical descriptions because the language used by dalit people in their community gives more authentic impression while narrating their social conditions. In the following words from a short story titled The Cull , Dalit writer Amitabh presents a lifelike graphical description of a moment when a dead animal is being skinned and people are waiting to get their share of meat.

On the scrub under the gum trees were gathered all the Mahars from shanty town. Each carried a knife and some kind of container. Some made do with a broken piece of a mud pot or a rag. Some didn’t have even that, so they would have to carry the meat in the folds of the dhoti or sari they were wearing. He (Pandya) and his son Somya started skinning the carcass with their knives… As soon as Pandya and Somya were out, others, like sanguine Rajput warriors, pounced upon the prey, raising a full-throated battle cry…Tens of knives were sawing at the chest at once. Whatever piece, small or big, they could manage, they cut and put into their containers. The knives slashed and sliced, chunks and chunks of meat were piled into the hampers and basket. It was a free-for-all. (Dangle 221-222)

The beauty of the Dalit literature lies in its appeal through disturbing words. For example, in Jasumati, My Black Jasmine , Neerav Patel, a renowned Gujarati poet and critic, narrates how a dalit woman is molested in public. In the title of the poem, the poet has deliberately used ‘black’ adjective for Jasmine. This is very suggestive because for dalit people ‘black’ is close to their reality. In the following words the poet gives a horrific picture of how a young dalit girl’s chastity is violated in public.

Instantly you become feast for the zooming vultures.

A nasty joke,

A quick and sudden hug

A slap upon your heavy buttocks.

You are cornered like an easy prey.

They enjoy the delicious

Most touchable flesh of an untouchable girl.

You moan and become mother-

Mother of a bastard.

They button up the trousers

And take a plunge in the ganges

They defile you, dear Jasumati

Like a crow defiles with his dirty bill. (Patel 113)

For the Dalit writers, real beauty of literature lies in its action. If literature is unable to bring change in the world, in such literature lies a real ugliness. Neerav Patel, in the following words, nicely explains the pragmatic approach of aesthetics in Dalit literature.

The sword that is strong enough to strike and sharp enough to cut the target into two is beautiful and not the one that has a blunt blade but has a well-carved, gilded handle. And that helped develop his aesthetic sense. He (Dalit poet) sharpened his poetic talent so that he can strike, and strike at the very root of the evil. (Patel 116)

The major literary genres used by Dalit writers are autobiography, poem, short story and essay. These genres are mainly employed to depict the painful and inhuman treatment to the people of dalit community which is firmly rooted in almost all the regional communities. In Dalit shorts stories, poems and autobiographies, story does not move as per Aristotelian rule i.e. beginning-climax-end but story ends where it starts i.e. no change in the life of character. Characters are born with pains, they suffer and they are left by the writer with eternal torment.

Since ancient time, Indian literature is highly influenced by aesthetics and literary theories which were developed by Sanskrit scholars. In the medieval period, the renowned Sanskrit poets and literary critics enriched this tradition. However, modern Indian literature has adapted the western literary theories and European knowledge and methodology of reading and writing. Eventually, this resulted in a new hybrid literary culture in India in which the contemporary Dalit literature bears a significant contribution to the development of new aesthetic theory. However, the mainstream critics argue that “Dalit literature must be assessed on the basis of traditional critical theories. There are universal values embedded in literature, which never change” (Limbale 106). To answer this Sharankumar Limbale argues that:

The act of imagination called art is impermanent and ever-changing. Literature changes with changing culture. Unless the yardsticks change, the relationship between literature and criticism will be fractured. Like literature, criticism, too, is apt to change. Just as the course of literature has changed from one period to another, so has the mode of criticism. (Limbale 107)

Instead of following the age-old notions developed by the hegemonic class, the marginalized literature, especially the Black literature in the West, has adapted postmodern norms of literature. Sharankumar Limbale says that in the earlier literature the chief focus was on the life of kings and noblemen. There was no space for the slaves, peasants, serfs, downtrodden people and oppressed classes in literature. Back then, the society could not accept a hero from the oppressed class but today marginalized literature is chiefly about those who are voiceless and this is the reason why Dalit literature is accepted and well acclaimed across the world.

In Dalit literature, behind the anger and resentment there lies an aesthetic that is life-affirming and realistic. It harshly revolts and attacks to eradicate the evil and inhuman practices prevalent in different forms in society especially the caste system. Dalit literature does not believe in romanticizing the day-to-day life incidents. It holds mirror up to society so that people can see their own evil reflection. Thus, aesthetics in Dalit literature lies in its vision of social reform, freedom, justice, equality, brotherhood and above all humanism. Since Dalit literature is deeply inspired by the revolutionary Ambedkarite thoughts, its major concern is to protect and promote the inherent dignity, self respect and inalienable rights of humans. This is aptly seen in the following poem by Anna Bahu Sathe, a renowned dalit poet from Maharashtra.

The rich have exploited us without end,

The priests have tortured us,

As if stones had eaten jewels

And thieves had become great.

Sitting on the chariot of unity

Let us go forward

To break the chains of class and caste

Hold to the name of Bhim! (Dangle 05)

This humanistic approach and emphasis on human values are the real aesthetic standards of Dalit literature. Therefore, the real beauty of Dalit literature lies in its vision of social reform, emancipation, freedom, justice, equality, brotherhood and above all humanism. The classical notions of aesthetics judge literature based on the concept of ‘Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’. Dalit literature rejects this spiritualistic and abstract approach of aesthetics which often makes literature vague and unrealistic. This kind of literature cannot function as didactic literature to bring change in society. As a critic, Sharankumar Limbale presents the following aesthetic standards to judge Dalit literature:

• Artists must be motivated by their experience.
• Artists must socialize their experiences.
• Artists’ experiences must have the strength to cross provincial boundaries.
• Artists’ experiences must seem relevant to all time. (Limbale 120)

The pragmatic approach of Dalit aesthetics bears some limitations. In order to raise the social and cultural issues, dalit writers have reduced aesthetics to focus on a specific group of people. This intense reductionist approach has lost its universal appeal. Literature always transcends time, place and culture. Moreover, Dalit literature does not accept non-dalit writer’s work who writes on the socio-economic conditions of the dalit people. “By Dalit literature,” Limbale defines “I mean writing about Dalits by Dalit writers with a dalit consciousness” (Limbale 19). If the aim of Dalit literature is to produce “an aesthetic that is life-affirming and realistic” (19) then the exclusion of non-dalit writers makes no sense. Non-dalits writers such as Premchand and Mulk Raj Anand have envisioned the sufferings of the dalits through literary expression which serve aesthetic that is life-affirming and realistic. Dalit aesthetics which rests on humanitarian grounds should have an appeal to all the people of marginal classes who has been persecuted and oppressed. The demand of separate aesthetic standards to evaluate Dalit literature is apt. However, for the proper assessment of the many dimensions of a work of art, it would be inappropriate to employ fixed aesthetic yardsticks.

Dalit literature, which has begun its journey as a protest literature and whose chief function is to portray the true picture of Dalit’s life, has now occupied a significant place in the contemporary Indian literature. With the development of Dalit consciousness in the post-independence era, Dalit literature has succeeded to earn a significant identity which is epitomized in the capitalized ‘D’ in Dalit literature. Subverting the traditional notions of aesthetics, Dalit literature has introduced a new yardstick to judge the artistic taste of literature, which has firmly secured a space in the literary tradition of Aesthetics.

References :

Dangle, Arjun, ed. Poisoned bread: translations from modern Marathi dalit literature. Orient Blackswan, 2009.

Dissanayake, Ellen.  Homo Aestheticus Where Art Comes from and Why . Univ. of Washington Press, 2010.

Limbale, Sharankumar.  Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit literature: History, Controversies and Considerations . Translated by Alok Mukherjee, Orient Blackswan, 2004.

Parmar, Pathik. ‘Gujarati Dalit Poetry’. Dalit literature: A Critical Exploration. Ed. Amar Nath Prasad and M. B. Gaijan. Sarup & Sons, 2007.

Patel, Nirav. Gujarati Dalit Poetry (1978-2003)- A Study. 2008. Sardar Patel U, PhD Disseration. shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/7303/9/09_cha pter%205.pdf

Rege, P S. Chandsi . 2nd ed. Mauj Prakashan, 1968.

ajnun-as-a-sufi-allegory-of-mystical-love/.

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Comparative Literature as Alternative Humanities Ethics, Affect and the Everyday Social

In the last few decades, scholars in the Humanities have found it necessary to examine the fundamental underpinnings upon which their disciplines are built. One of the primary questions that animated this re-examination has been regarding the very terms of our engagement with countries and communities that inhabit radically  different  social  and moral life-worlds, living as they do outside the orbit of European Enlightenment values that still regulate both organization and practice within and outside the academy, across the world. Instead of accepting difference as a defining feature of the human condition, the grand narratives of the Enlightenment were used as colonial and imperial tools to homogenize the diversity of experience, emotion and expression as the high tide of colonial modernity swept the world. The consequent otherness and alienation that characterised human society have deeply impacted literary and cultural production. We witness a disjunction between the objective, scientific discourse with its claim to truth and  the everyday social experience of the human subject which Humanities seek to understand. These asymmetries compel us to rethink the Humanities from alternative positions and perspectives to embody and address the plural orders of reality and the differences between them. How can the collection of disciplines we call the Humanities recover the capacity of self-reflection and self-criticism? Much has been written about how stereotypes invade our imagination to contaminate our experience and knowledge.

Comparative Literature’s commitment to alterity and plurality gives it a foundational interest in the non-stereotypical, non-canonized, un-heard narratives of “others” that constitute a radical sense of the literary. Such articulations can only emerge from the confluence of different locations, experiences, and identities, demonstrating how   our vision of “others” projects our own versions of ourselves onto the outside world.

An alternative view of the Humanities will have to come to terms with the ideas of relationality, plurality and cultural mobility as the defining features of all epochs including that of the pre-modern. Texts, ideas, images, metaphors, themes,  modes, genres, tales are all human endeavours and like humans  themselves  these  have  the capacity to travel across constructed, eternally  given  or  pre-fixed  borders,  thereby defying the exclusivist, essentialist ideas of culture and literature.  The  prevailing inclination towards connected sociologies and connected histories, while  a  step  in  the right direction, often reflects the dominant discourses which impose homogeneity and hierarchy, evincing a lack of empathy for  the  precarious  endeavor  of  encountering alterity and a lack of understanding of the transient and the contingent.

Thus, we propose plurality as a conceptual framework to address this eco-system of interconnectedness and relationality in terms of their manifestations in the languages and literatures of all nations, regions and communities, regardless of their location in the hierarchy of political and economic regimes, or of their internal stratifications. We would like to recover  the  mutuality  of  interconnections  and  interdependence  between literatures and cultures across the world. The assertion that  we  live  in  a  post-human world prompts us, as humans to consider our experience in terms of relationality and plurality. These emerge as conceptual tools for recasting our relations with the other - be it humans, animals or the non- living.

Texts are actualised through their immersion in the shared ideological  and  affective worlds that constitute the everyday world. From orality to print  to  the  visual  media, modes of intersubjective engagement are implicated in  structures  of  power  relations within society and our response to them. The very practice of Comparative Literature is an acknowledgement of plurality and a willingness to engage with difference. The discipline emphasises upon relationality,  heterogeneity,  multivocal  perspectives,  and direct engagement with alterity that translation offers as a process and a product. Built into the discipline is the  interaction  between  literatures  in  multiple  languages  both within the nation and in other countries of the world. Furthermore, it takes orality and performance in its ambit. It reaches out to all other disciplines by asking the existential question : can we open ourselves to the location of the other and view the world from the vantage point of difference that we encounter outside ourselves? Can we frame a dialogic mode of interaction that reading teaches us to our relations with the world, to expand our view of the world outside our own limited subjectivity ? Hence, we propose Comparative Literature as an alternate paradigm - and invite reflections upon the possibilities inherent in the conceptual frame structured by the reciprocal, the relational and the plural. It is our hope that it will help to grasp and address the nature of the crisis that afflicts the Humanities today both in intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary framework.

S u b - t h e m e s :

Some of the sub-themes in the context of the main theme that can be taken up for discussion are as follows:

Interrogating categorial binaries (tradition/ modernity/ nature culture / regional/national/ east/west, etc.)/ Literary Studies and Social Sciences/ The Posthuman as a paradigm in literary studies.

Worlding literature / Historicising canons / Global and local as reading contexts. The idea of the classic in modernity: circulation or creativity? Translation and the encounter with difference.

Translating “dialects”/ The oral texts/ Archaic texts.

The plural nation: stratification and resistance/ Literary historiography and geopolitics/ Intertextuality and chronotopes.

Polyphony/ Polysemy in  literature/  Poetry  and  cosmopolitanism. Interrogating “Minor” literature as a category/ Identity theories as critiques of the Humanities/ Life-writings from the margins.

The performativity of literature/ Screenplay as literature/ Intermediality in literature. South Asian literatures and cultures: relations, reciprocity and ruptures/ Population movements and literature.

Papers are invited from the scholars of Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies , Theatre Studies, Gender Studies, Black Studies, Dalit Studies, etc., or any aspect of litearture and culture that will help us understand and practice the Humanities in accordance with the ethical perspectives outlined above.

Abstracts of about 250 words along with a short bio-note of about 100 words may be submitted to c lai2024 @ admin.du.ac.in

Upon acceptance, participants will be provided with registration details through mail. The Registration Fee will include workshop kit, certificate, lunch, and refreshments during the three days of the conference. Participants would need to become members of CLAI on receiving their acceptance letters in order to present papers, if they are not already members of CLAI.

For further information please visit: htt ps://www.clai.in/upcoming-event/

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  Last date of abstract submission: 15th May, 2024 Selected participants will be notified by: 30th May, 2024 Last date of registration: 15th July, 2024

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AI-assisted writing is quietly booming in academic journals—here's why that's OK

by Julian Koplin, The Conversation

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"As an AI language model, I don't have direct access to current research articles or studies. However, I can provide you with an overview of some recent trends and advancements …"

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The aforementioned study also looks at preliminary data from 2024, which indicates that AI writing assistance is only becoming more common. Is this a crisis for modern scholarship, or a boon for academic productivity?

Who should take credit for AI writing?

Many people are worried by the use of AI in academic papers. Indeed, the practice has been described as " contaminating " scholarly literature.

Some argue that using AI output amounts to plagiarism. If your ideas are copy-pasted from ChatGPT, it is questionable whether you really deserve credit for them.

But there are important differences between "plagiarizing" text authored by humans and text authored by AI. Those who plagiarize humans' work receive credit for ideas that ought to have gone to the original author.

By contrast, it is debatable whether AI systems like ChatGPT can have ideas, let alone deserve credit for them. An AI tool is more like your phone's autocomplete function than a human researcher.

The question of bias

Another worry is that AI outputs might be biased in ways that could seep into the scholarly record. Infamously, older language models tended to portray people who are female, black and/or gay in distinctly unflattering ways, compared with people who are male, white and/or straight.

This kind of bias is less pronounced in the current version of ChatGPT.

However, other studies have found a different kind of bias in ChatGPT and other large language models : a tendency to reflect a left-liberal political ideology.

Any such bias could subtly distort scholarly writing produced using these tools.

The hallucination problem

The most serious worry relates to a well-known limitation of generative AI systems: that they often make serious mistakes.

For example, when I asked ChatGPT-4 to generate an ASCII image of a mushroom, it provided me with the following output.

It then confidently told me I could use this image of a "mushroom" for my own purposes.

These kinds of overconfident mistakes have been referred to as "AI hallucinations" and " AI bullshit ." While it is easy to spot that the above ASCII image looks nothing like a mushroom (and quite a bit like a snail), it may be much harder to identify any mistakes ChatGPT makes when surveying scientific literature or describing the state of a philosophical debate.

Unlike (most) humans, AI systems are fundamentally unconcerned with the truth of what they say. If used carelessly, their hallucinations could corrupt the scholarly record.

Should AI-produced text be banned?

One response to the rise of text generators has been to ban them outright. For example, Science—one of the world's most influential academic journals—disallows any use of AI-generated text .

I see two problems with this approach.

The first problem is a practical one: current tools for detecting AI-generated text are highly unreliable. This includes the detector created by ChatGPT's own developers, which was taken offline after it was found to have only a 26% accuracy rate (and a 9% false positive rate ). Humans also make mistakes when assessing whether something was written by AI.

It is also possible to circumvent AI text detectors. Online communities are actively exploring how to prompt ChatGPT in ways that allow the user to evade detection. Human users can also superficially rewrite AI outputs, effectively scrubbing away the traces of AI (like its overuse of the words "commendable," "meticulously" and "intricate").

The second problem is that banning generative AI outright prevents us from realizing these technologies' benefits. Used well, generative AI can boost academic productivity by streamlining the writing process. In this way, it could help further human knowledge. Ideally, we should try to reap these benefits while avoiding the problems.

The problem is poor quality control, not AI

The most serious problem with AI is the risk of introducing unnoticed errors, leading to sloppy scholarship. Instead of banning AI, we should try to ensure that mistaken, implausible or biased claims cannot make it onto the academic record.

After all, humans can also produce writing with serious errors, and mechanisms such as peer review often fail to prevent its publication.

We need to get better at ensuring academic papers are free from serious mistakes, regardless of whether these mistakes are caused by careless use of AI or sloppy human scholarship. Not only is this more achievable than policing AI usage, it will improve the standards of academic research as a whole.

This would be (as ChatGPT might say) a commendable and meticulously intricate solution.

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MINI REVIEW article

This article is part of the research topic.

Reviews in Veterinary Neurology and Neurosurgery

Systematic minireview of the craniocervical junction in dogs with and without brachycephaly Provisionally Accepted

• 1 University of Veterinary Medicine, Austria

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Objective: To identify, quantify and compare clinical and concurrent imaging findings of occipital hypoplasia (OH), syringomyelia (SM) and atlanto-occipital overlapping (AO) in dogs with or without brachycephaly.A focused systematic search for literature was performed in the Web of Science™, PubMed and Google Scholar databases. Both authors screened and classified the identified articles using EndNote and appraised the articles using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program checklists. The main clinical and concurrent imaging features were extracted and evaluated for coexistence of OH, SM, AO, and other imaging findings.Results: Thirty-one articles were included in this minireview. For articles focusing on descriptions of OH, SM and AO, 249 dogs had at least one of these conditions, and 3 of these 249 dogs (1%) had coexistence of all three conditions. For articles focusing on descriptions of the dogs, OH, SM, and AO were identified in 552/19/11/11, 574/2/0/6, and 100/0/0/0 small brachycephalic, small nonbrachycephalic, large brachycephalic, and large non-brachycephalic breeds, respectively. For all . small brachycephalic dogs, the percentages of affected animals were 40% for OH (p=0.01), 42% for SM (p<0.01) and 7% for AO (p=0.033). The number of dogs having AO and clinical symptoms is low (n=5).Conclusions: OH, SM and AO are more likely to affect small dogs. AO might be limited to small brachycephalic breeds owing to the geometry of the craniocervical junction. Hence, AO alone might not lead to SM. In individual dogs, readers should carefully interpret the clinical relevance of OH or AO in the absence of SM.

Keywords: Craniocervical junction, Occipital hypoplasia, atlantoaxial overlapping, Syringohydromyelia, Brachycephalic, Toy breed dog

Received: 12 Apr 2024; Accepted: 16 May 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Wess and Kneissl. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Prof. Sibylle M. Kneissl, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria

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