Kerala - Kochi
Dalit literature, an uprising against social injustice: Limbale
K.P.M. Basheer
Marathi writer regrets that Dalits are being harassed in literate Kerala
Says caste discrimination is taking new shape in modern India
'Caste violence is collective now'
KOCHI: "Who is a Dalit?"
"One who rebels against the caste system," snap comes the answer from
Sharankumar Limbale, Marathi writer and an icon of Dalit literature.
"And, how do you define Dalit literature?"
"Dalit literature uses the written word as a weapon against the
inhuman oppression of Dalits by the Brahminical social order that
denies them basic human rights and dignity."
Dalit literature, Dr. Limbale told The Hindu, is the uprising of the
written word against the millennia-old social injustice manifesting
itself as brutalities committed on Dalits all over the country.
"It expresses the pains and pangs of the Dalit existence; it is the
lived reality of crores of people living on the margins of life in
India; it verbalises the suppressed anger and wounded pride of those
existing outside the caste identities," says the soft-spoken author of
the autobiography classic Akkarmaashi, which unleashed a typhoon in
Marathi literature over a quarter century ago. "The so-called
mainstream literature is the product of the imagination of upper caste
writers about middle-class issues, but Dalit literature is based on
the lived experience of the writer." Mainstream literature is for
entertainment, but Dalit writing is aimed at removing social injustice
by reflecting the harsh realities of Dalit life.
Varkala incidents
Dr. Limbale, 53, who was in Kerala recently, found that even in
"progressive and literate Kerala," Dalits were being harassed,
discriminated against and denied opportunities.
Referring to the recent incidents at Varkala, he said that an incident
where a Dalit girl wearing a pair of jeans had incited upper caste
jealousies showed that caste intolerance was alive and well in 'every
mind' in a country where scientists are preparing to send human beings
to the moon.
He condemned the way the police and the "upper caste people" were
using the murder of an elderly man to target the entire Dalit
community in Varkala. "This should not have happened in a State which
is ruled by the Left," Dr. Limbale said.
Dr. Limbale, who has 44 books to his credit — novels, poetry, stories,
translations and literary and social criticisms — is no stranger to
Malayalam.
He got introduced to Malayalam readers when his book Akkarmaashi (The
'half-caste') was serialised by a Malayalam weekly.
Akkarmaashi, written when he was just 25, tells his life in a
Maharwada (the living space allotted to the untouchable Mahar
community) on the outskirts of a Maharashtra village near Solapur. He
was one of the 12 children of a Mahar woman, who was kept as a
concubine by the upper-caste village heads.
Those days, he recalls, Dalits could not enter a temple or a
restaurant, the village barber would not cut their hair. They were not
allowed to take a decent name; they could only take the names of
stones, trees or animals. At school, they had to sit in a separate
block outside the classroom; the teacher always insulted and tortured
them, said Dr. Limbale, who is now a regional director and professor
at the Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University.
Through unbelievable poverty and inhuman caste brutalities all around
him, he fought to get a decent education. On the way, he wrote poetry
and stories, actively took part in the Dalit Panthers movement and
worked at the grassroots for the uplift of Dalits. At age 22, he
married an illiterate girl.
Untouchability and caste discrimination are taking new shapes in
modern India, Dr. Limbale regrets. "In the past, one upper-caste
person would beat up one Dalit; but now the entire upper-caste
community boycotts the entire Dalit community in the village," he
points out. "Now the caste violence is collective; it is also
political as well as social." Dalits have now got powerful `chairs,'
but no power to go with them. "Dalit IAS officers, professors or even
Ministers are just second-class people in their respective
professions." Despite being a celebrated writer, he faced
discrimination and ill-treatment on a daily basis.
Dalit literature, which is fighting all the different forms of caste
discrimination, is set to become stronger. "It is going to become the
Dalits' gun to fight injustices." He hoped the Varkala incidents would
trigger the emergence of a strong Dalit literature in Malayalam.
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