Mapping the Poetics of Memory: A Critical Reading of Manoranjan Byapari’s Interrogating My Chandal Life as Cultural Archive

Abstract

The article analyses the idea of a text as a cultural archive by mapping the question of personal and collective or social memory with particular reference to the acclaimed Bengali Dalit writer Manoranjan Byapari’s Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit. The memoir is a chronicler of the collective history of the marginal Namashudra community/ties of Bengal, their saga of pain and excruciating experiences of peripherality of existence that is perceived through the lens of the author. Located in the historical centre of the Dalit worldview, the autobiography investigates how the trajectories of collective histories, memories and shared identity of the Dalit community result in the emergence of what Derrida calls an ‘archive’ or a ‘palimpsest.’ Drawing on theories with regard to the role of cultural memory in the formation of a cultural archive, this article addresses questions as to how a text becomes a cultural archive and testimonies to history through the excavation and circulation of knowledge of the collective historical past.