Differential citizenship: questioning the dalit claim to equal citizenship through a projection of difference

Abstract

ABSTRACTCitizenship for dalits has been historically defined with relation to the demand for equality. However, this demand has witnessed a change in the last few decades where the agency of the dalits has manifested itself in the demand for a differential citizenship, where differentiation, and not homogeneity, has become the basis for the demand for equality. The study with the help of the textual analysis of Aravind Malagatti’s Government Brahmana and Omprakash Valmiki’s Joothan argues that the demand for equal citizenship through the recognition of difference has created a paradoxical situation where the recognition of difference has not led to an equal treatment, but has opened up newer avenues for discrimination instead. The study proposes to accomplish this by providing an insight into the manner in which differential citizenship has become the reason for denial of performative citizenship to the dalits in rural and urban public spaces. Some of the key questions that the study addresses are: How is the performativity of differential citizenship in the public spaces foregrounded by the dalits? Why does this foregrounding evoke violent retribution from the upper caste? And does the continued violation of the imposition of dalit citizenship point to the dysfunctionality of the differential citizenship status accorded to the dalits?