Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Shivangi Bhatt
21 November 2016
The caste system in India stratifies Hindu society into four castes on the basis of the
Varna, an occupation based class distinction. This has resulted in millennia of severe
discrimination against the hierarchically lowest social group that is excluded from the four
Varna, whose members are traditionally forced to perform jobs associated with impurity and
pollution. The Savarna, or Hindus that are included in the fold the four major castes, deny
them the most fundamental human rights. Under the influence of Jyotirao Phule and B.R.
Ambedkar, they have adopted the term Dalit to refer to themselves in the past century,
rejecting titles imposed upon them by the Savarna. The term’s association with the Dalit
Panthers Movement in the 1970s has turned it into a symbol of political identity. In the past
century, Dalit literature has flourished as a distinct literary genre in vernacular languages,
especially Marathi, and has spread to Hindi and English. The question of representation is a
major debate that has irrevocably rooted itself within the critique of Dalit literature, and can
the right to represent the Dalit. Many critics question the legitimacy and authenticity of Dalit
literary representation by Savarna intellectuals like Premchand and Mulk Raj Anand, as
opposed to Dalit writers like Omprakash Valmiki and G. Kalyan Rao. This paper will
highlight the elements that eminent critics consider essential to satisfactory Dalit
representation in a text, and use them to compare the portrayal of Dalit experience in Mulk
Raj Anand’s Untouchable and Om Prakash Valmiki’s autobiography Joothan: A Dalit’s Life,
to ascertain whether a Savarna writer can adequately represent the Dalit. This paper will then
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address the question of the right of privileged members of the upper castes to speak on behalf
of the perceived interests of the Dalit, an act that marginalises the voices of those they
presume to represent.
critics refuse to include works of Savarna intellectuals addressing the Dalit subject in this
genre. Even Toral Jatin Gajarawala’s definition of Dalit literature refuses to accommodate all
It isn’t enough to say that Dalit literature seems to be about Dalit peoples, in
Dalit spaces, doing “Dalit things.” Replacing a hegemonic space and time with
plot turn, dialogue, action. Following a tradition set by realist writers in many
places and times, Dalit writing creates new literary spaces (a Valmiki home,
for example) and new literary actions (the prototypical animal skinning), as
Major critics such as Omprakash Valmiki, Sharankumar Limbale and Laura Brueck
diverse Dalit communities” (Brueck). It also “makes slaves conscious of their slavery”
(Limbale, qtd. in Brueck). Brueck emphasises the link between Dalit chetna and Ambedkar’s
“ideology of emancipation”, as well as his “message of the human dignity of Dalits (sic)”,
aspect of Dalit chetna is the conscious opposition of casteism and the “traditional aesthetics
and hierarchies of language and privilege” (Valmiki, qtd. in Brueck). Dalit literature requires
(enter) the narrative space”, while Dalit characters “have legitimate narrative arcs”
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Ambedkar’s beliefs, rejection of traditional literary conventions, and the complete othering of
Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable and Valmiki’s autobiography Joothan must now be
evaluated using these principles. Untouchable was written in the 1930s in English. It was
influenced by Gandhi’s assimilative politics and reflects the contemporary interest of social
reformers in the upliftment of the untouchables. Set in India during the British colonial rule,
the novel depicts a single day in the life of the untouchable sweeper, Bakha. It attempts to
describe the constant humiliation and abuse experienced by the Dalit, as well as the hypocrisy
of the upper castes, through various incidents. For instance, Bakha is slapped for “polluting”
an upper caste man by accidentally running into him (Anand 41). In addition, both Bakha and
his sister Sohini are chased out of the temple for contaminating it with their presence
Valmiki’s autobiography Joothan was written in Hindi in 1999, and was translated
into English by Arun Prabha Mukherjee. It is set in Uttar Pradesh in the 1950s and describes
various phases of his life as a member of the Chuhra caste that is composed of sweepers. He
writes about his childhood, education, vocation and marriage, the narrative tracking his
movement from Barla village to urban spaces like Dehra Dun, Jabalpur, Bombay and
Chandrapur. The commonplace nature of the agonizing and degrading experiences of Dalit
life emerges through his detailing of mundane life. He meticulously catalogues the
humiliating incidents and the intellectual influences that shaped his Dalit chetna. On
comparing Bakha’s experiences with those of Valmiki, the condition of the Dalit appears to
have worsened after Independence, despite the laws designed to protect the Dalit, due to the
rigid beliefs of Hindu caste society. This becomes extremely evident in Valmiki’s depiction of
literature. Dalit writers often favour the autobiographical mode as they value the “authenticity
of experience” (Mukherjee xxxv). Valmiki asks, “How will those who have never suffered the
needle pricks of hatred and jealousy feel my pain? Who have never endured humiliation?
How will they know what it feels like?” (56). Anand’s incongruous portrayal of poverty
comes to mind, as Bakha, whose family relies on the charity of upper-castes for food and
water, liberally uses his wages to buy cigarettes and jalebis (33-38). His family does not
experience prolonged starvation on that one day which represents his daily lifestyle. Despite
their poverty, Bakha can afford to worry about “fashun”. Their concerns seem contrived in
certainties in terms of food and shelter. He writes, “This taste for mar [rice water] didn’t
come about because of some trend or fashion. It was due to want and starvation. The thing
that everyone discards was a means to quell our hunger” (Valmiki 26). Even the degree of
violence depicted by the two writers is extremely disparate, as the singular instance of
physical abuse directed at Bakha is limited to a slap (Anand 41), which is more humiliating
than painful, while the Dalit characters are repeatedly assaulted in Joothan, such as the
Joothan embodies Dalit chetna and displays an affinity for Ambedkar’s ideals.
Valmiki aptly writes: “We need an ongoing struggle and a consciousness of struggle, a
consciousness that brings revolutionary change both in the outside world and in our hearts, a
consciousness that leads the process of social change”(152). The characters even retain an
intrinsic dignity despite the degrading situations they are placed in, unlike the Dalit characters
of Untouchable, a text that is devoid of Dalit chetna. Bakha never becomes fully conscious of
his own enslavement, and as he is praised for his dutiful hard work, he comes to embody
Gandhi’s vision of an ideal Dalit: “one born a scavenger must earn his livelihood by being a
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scavenger, and then do whatever else he likes” (qtd. in Mukherjee xxviii). On the other hand,
Valmiki highlights the desire of the Dalit to escape from their ancestral roles, evident in his
sister-in-law’s words: “Don’t make him do that work. We can bear hunger. Don’t drag him in
this dirt” (42). This contrasts Bakha’s acceptance of his role after Gandhi’s speech as his
adulation of Gandhi is firmly established with the words: “He loved the man. He felt he could
put his life in his hands and ask him to do what he liked with it. For him he would do-
anything. He would like to go and be a scavenger at his ashram” (138). Through this speech,
dissent expressed by meek and docile Bakha. His anger at the discrimination he faces
constantly buckles under his internalised inferiority. He lacks self-pity, which Gajarawala
considers a “structural requisite” in Dalit literature (64). His dejected resignation morphs into
contentment after every episode of debasement, in anticipation of positive events such as the
hockey match. Thus his rage and hurt always dissipate before they can turn into rebellion.
This indicates the limits of Anand’s imagination: he does not know the “anguish of standing
outside the door” (Valmiki 19). In Joothan, Valmiki writes that even time cannot heal the
scars left on his psyche: “The wounds from the torment that I suffered with Uncle on that hot
afternoon are still fresh on my skin” (41), and these festering wounds form the foundation of
dissent. He describes many instances of Dalit rebellion against Savarna oppression, such as
his father’s protest against Valmiki being forced to sweep the school instead of attending
classes (6-7), his mother’s rejection of the joothan (12), the collective refusal to perform
unpaid labour (43-45), and Valmiki’s unabashed choice of last name that acts as a marker of
“literature of protest” (Gajarawala 1). Joothan rebels against Savarna hegemony even at a
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formal level. Rejecting the literary and aesthetic conventions of mainstream literature by
employing a non-linear narrative, Valmiki often disrupts the chronological flow of the text by
mentioning more recent events from his present-day life. He vividly describes violence, blood
and gore in some scenes that are “shocking to the reader”, as Limbale says in “Dalit
Literature and Dalit Writer”, such as the incident when Valmiki is forced to leave school to
skin a dead bullock (40-41). In contrast, Anand employs more conventional writing strategies
Valmiki’s autobiography gives the reader first-hand experience of the process of Dalit
identity formation through the internal othering of the Savarna. He expresses rage and
indignation towards the hypocritical and severely prejudiced Savarna characters. On the other
hand, in Untouchable, Bakha’s first interaction with an upper caste man sets the tone for the
gratefulness in Bakha:
Singh’s generous promise had called forth that trait of servility in Bakha which
he had inherited from his forefathers, the weakness, of the downtrodden, the
helplessness of the poor and the indigent, suddenly receiving help, the passive
A soft smile lingered on his lips, the smile of a slave overjoyed at the
This undignified perception and portrayal of the Dalit unquestionably springs from a
privileged mind-set and shows that despite his valiant attempts, Anand fails to identify the
upper caste as the other by mentally disconnecting himself from his social position. It is thus
evident that Savarna writers cannot represent the problems of the Dalit as well as a Dalit can,
especially as Anand believes that the change of occupation provided by the flush can erase
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casteism; only a Dalit understands that “One can somehow get past poverty and deprivation,
The next question that arises is whether the Savarna, from their position of power and
privilege should represent the Dalit. Savarna intellectuals argue that they certainly have the
right to do so, citing the Gandhian belief in the duty of the upper castes to uplift the
untouchables that lack political awareness and the intellectual ability of articulation due to
must also be admitted that they have played a role in raising awareness about the plight of the
Dalit in the past. In his preface to Anand’s Untouchable, E. M. Forster even writes:
from the outside. . . . And no Untouchable could have written the book,
Unfortunately, Forster’s words just serve to highlight the flawed presumptions of the
marginalizes the Dalit voices. Hatred in the Belly includes Arundhati Roy’s defence of her
“not every non-Dalit reading is ‘misleading’” and that it is the ultimate goal of “fighting
against Brahminism” that matters the most (84). In addition, critics such as Mohammad
Azhar Dherivala are wary of “defining Dalit literary reception along caste lines” (Brueck).
Even so, the idea of privileging the authenticity of Dalit writers does hold merit.
Dalit interests like Arundhati Roy’s “The Doctor and the Saint”, in the collection, Hatred in
the Belly. Gurinder Azad’s poem “Confronting Brahminical complacency” raises the
reasonable question:
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And tell us
How to walk?
How to think?
While some degree of bias does enter the arguments of Dalit critics as they blame Roy for
(Michael 156), their arguments are legitimate nonetheless. A “rescue project initiated by the
oppressors”, as Huma Dar phrases it, does indeed merit doubt (192). Furthermore, her
complaint about Roy’s introduction drawing attention away from Ambedkar is quite valid
(Dar 194). Careful observation intriguingly reveals that more than sixty percent of her essay
does not talk about Ambedkar at all, and while she devotes thirty pages to a detailed
biography of Gandhi, she spares only five for the life of Ambedkar. These facts are damning
regardless of her professed intentions and alleged Dalit sympathies. The issue of sympathy is
“confine (the Dalit) within a discourse marked by ‘sympathy’ and ‘compassion’”(67). This is
evident in Untouchable, where sympathy transforms any lingering sentiment of mutiny into
submission. Anand writes, “Bakha saw himself pitied by the Mahatma … and consoled by
him. It was such a balm, it was so comforting, the great man’s sympathy” (139). Therefore,
Savarna representation of the Dalit is objectionable on multiple fronts, although not all non-
Dalit thinkers are guilty of misrepresentation. Nevertheless, Dalit intellectuals, with full
awareness of the empowerment and autonomy that lies in defying Savarna hegemony, are
quite justified in considering themselves the rightful representatives of their social group.
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Valmiki’s autobiography Joothan: A Dalit’s Life, using the principles of Dalit chetna,
yardstick of legitimacy. Even if a Savarna writer does representative justice to the Dalit, the
act of being defended by the oppressor is disempowering for the subaltern. With the increase
in writings by Dalit intellectuals in the last five decades, the necessity for a privileged
intellectual to lend them a voice has almost disappeared. While Savarna intellectuals do have
the right to support the upliftment of the Dalit, they risk marginalising the Dalit voices by
appropriating their site of resistance (Shakyamuni 48). Hence the Savarna should not try to
claim the right to represent the Dalit; the portrayals of Dalit life by Dalit writers should
receive primacy, as they have the greatest right to speak for themselves.
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Works Cited
Brueck, Laura. “Dalit Chetna in Literary Criticism.” Seminar Web Edition 558. N.p.: n.p.,
laura%20r.%20brueck.htm>
Dar, Huma. “A Rescue Project Initiated by the Oppressors.” Hatred in the Belly: Politics
Forster, E.M. Preface. Untouchable. By Mulk Raj Anand. New York: Penguin, 1990. v-viii.
Print.
Gajarawala, Toral Jatin. “Modernism, Marxism, Metaphor: The Origins of a Literary Politics
---. “The Dalit Limit Point.” Untouchable Fictions: Literary Realism and the Crisis of Caste.
---. “Three Burnings: An Introduction.” Untouchable Fictions: Literary Realism and the
Limbale, Sharankumar. “Dalit Literature and Dalit Writer”. One World, One English, the
Many Languages of the Imagination, Toronto Festival of Literature and the Arts. N.p.:
05/dalit-literature-dalit-writer.html>
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Michael, James and Akshay Pathak. “The New Harijan Sewak Sangh.” Hatred in the Belly:
Roy, Arundhati. “Arundhati Roy Replies to Dalit Camera.” Hatred in the Belly: Politics
Shakyamuni. “The Brahmean Machine: Distorting Revolt into Surrender.” Hatred in the
Valmiki, Omprakash. Joothan: A Dalit’s Life. Trans. Arun Prabha Mukherjee. New York: