Reading Dalit Autobiographies in English: A Top Ten List

Christopher Queen

doi:10.26812/caste.v2i2.338

Abstract

Dalit autobiography has joined protest poetry as a leading genre of Dalit Literature since the nineteen seventies. Finding their inspiration in the social and political activism of B. R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), leader of the India’s anti-caste movement and a founding father of the Republic, low caste men and women have documented their struggles and victories in the face of ongoing violence and deprivation. Surveying ten life narratives translated into English from Marathi, Hindi, and Kannada, the essay treats works by Ambedkar, Daya Pawar, Sharankumar Limbale, Baby Kamble, Laxman Gaikwad, Siddhalingaiah, Omprakash Valmiki, Urmila Pawar, Vasant Moon and Namdeo Nimgade. Tracing the origins of Dalit autobiography in the writings of Siddharth College and Milind College students in the 1950s, protest writers in the 1960s, and the Dalit Panthers and their followers in the 1970s, the survey identifies recurring themes of social exclusion, poverty, patriarchy, survival and assertion in the realms of politics, employment, education, and religion. These intimate testimonials share a radical vision of social transformation across caste, class, gender, linguistic and geographic boundaries and provide a needed corrective to mainstream portraits of modern Indian social history.

Highlights

In 1987 I slept on the sofa in Vasant and Meenakshi Moon’s apartment in Government Colony, Bandra East, Mumbai
CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion Vol 2, No 2 kind to host a first-time visitor to India who was eager to learn about the movement and its leaders
Years later the memories of this and subsequent visits to Mumbai, Nagpur, and other centers of Dalit protest, religious conversion, and literary activity were still vivid in my mind as I read Vasant Moon’s new memoir, Growing Up Untouchable in India: A Dalit Autobiography (2001)1 and the book of reflections and interviews of female Dalit activists that Meenakshi Moon collected with Urmila Pawar, We Made History: Women in the Ambedkarite Movement (2008)

Summary

Introduction

In 1987 I slept on the sofa in Vasant and Meenakshi Moon’s apartment in Government Colony, Bandra East, Mumbai. Years later the memories of this and subsequent visits to Mumbai, Nagpur, and other centers of Dalit protest, religious conversion, and literary activity were still vivid in my mind as I read Vasant Moon’s new memoir, Growing Up Untouchable in India: A Dalit Autobiography (2001)1 and the book of reflections and interviews of female Dalit activists that Meenakshi Moon collected with Urmila Pawar, We Made History: Women in the Ambedkarite Movement (2008).2 Reading these volumes reminded me of the friendships I had made over the years in my deepening engagement with the movement.

Results

Conclusion