Dalit Culture and Ethos in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance

Abstract

Rohinton Mistry (1952- ) is a South Asian Canadian writer. He was born in Mumbai on July 03, 1952. A Fine Balance (1996), Mistry’s second novel, is set in India of mid seventies and focuses especially on the period during Emergency and afterwards i.e. post- Emergency. The setting of the novel is from 1945 to 1984. In this novel Mistry delineates the predicaments of the Chamaars (leather-workers) who are considered untouchables. Mistry is seen to draw abundantly from Indian history, but more purposely to rewrite the history of the marginalized and the oppressed. A Fine Balance is one of the very few Indian English novels which present reader the very essence of Dalit culture. Many other novels confine to portraying Dalit characters by neglecting to include their very life style, culture due to which the characters are too apart from their roots. Dalitness which is the soul of the character itself is not seen in the characterization. That is the reason many works cannot be a part of Dalit Literature in which projecting the Dalit culture is an essential part of it. But A Fine Balance is an exception to it. The novel A Fine Balance is effective in presenting Dalit culture realistically to some extent