A Cultural Psychological Reading of Dalit Literature: A Case Study of 'Joothan' By Om Prakash Valmiki

Aparna Vyas

doi:10.26812/caste.v1i2.188

Abstract

Dalit literature has been a major cultural artefact in struggles against caste based oppression and discrimination. It not only negotiates a collective identity for Dalits but also introduces variability in negotiations for the same. This paper focuses on the nuances of one such negotiation- the making of a Hindi Dalit writer. At the theoretical backdrop of cultural psychology, utilizing the conceptual machinery of Zittoun, the paper analyzes the autobiographical narrative of Om Prakash Valmiki. It identifies the ruptures and the transitional processes in Valmiki’s life. These processes of transitions include identity redefinition, knowledge and skills; and meaning making. These processes were facilitated by varied resources: social, cognitive and symbolic. Valmiki’s relocation to a city led to the change in his frame of activity. Thereafter, at each stage of his life, his social circle widened, his cognitive skills got enhanced and symbolic resources were used at progressively higher level of reflexivity. The major social resources were found to be the people with whom he came in contact after relocating to the city. The cognitive resources were found to be Hindi mainstream literature, Marathi Dalit literature, and theatrical devices. The symbolic resources were the works of Phule, Ambedkar and Marx. Accessibility and utilization of all these resources eased the reconfiguration of the semiotic prism reifying his identity as a Hindi Dalit writer enabling him transform the caste-based experiences on the plane of fiction challenging the power hierarchy embedded in social reality.

Highlights

The word Dalit captures the collective struggle against the caste based hierarchy and oppression associated with it
Dalit literature is the expression of the dissatisfaction that Dalit writers have had with the so-called upper caste writers who never took discriminatory practices into account as ‘rarely did a writer take up an untouchable character and treat him realistically, like an ordinary human being full of vitality, hope as well as despair’ (Kumar, 2010, p.129)
The present paper focuses on one of those excruciatingly painful account of experiences penned down by renowned Hindi Dalit writer, Om Prakash Valmiki

Summary

Introduction

The word Dalit captures the collective struggle against the caste based hierarchy and oppression associated with it. The present paper focuses on one of those excruciatingly painful account of experiences penned down by renowned Hindi Dalit writer, Om Prakash Valmiki His autobiographical account Joothan (Leftover) analyzed here is laden with the anguish as well as anger resulting from rampant caste based discrimination and exclusion. Writing in the same vein, Valmiki (2001) underlines Premchand’s incapability to capture the lived realities of Dalits as he constantly portrays them as hapless victims drawing extensively on the metaphors, phrases, and language representing the upper caste mind-set He puts to scrutiny the Sanskrit and western literary conventions which are considered the very origins of aesthetic tradition in Hindi literature, and further stresses the inability of these forced conventions in portraying the essence. The paper argues that a Dalit autobiography analyzed from the semiotic prism of cultural psychology unfolds a much nuanced account of the making of a Dalit writer embedded in specific socio-cultural and historical milieu

Reflexivity Statement

Theoretical Framework and Method

Symbolic Object Literature

Conclusion