Towards the Signifying Buffalo: A Deconstructive Study of Casteism through the Dalit Lens in Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability

Abstract

From ancient times, Varna System (Caste System) is a pernicious feature of the Indian society in which a group of economically, socially and culturally low-graded people have been oppressed, suppressed and exploited in the Brahminical society. Casteism is an internalised hegemonic power structure that determines the sense of belonging, recognition and identity of the underprivileged and marginalised community of people in the caste-based identity politics of Indian society. It makes them feel that they are metaphorically imagined to be the signifying buffalo in the signification of the cow worshipping Brahminical society because the brahmins favourably worship the cow than the buffalo despite belonging likely to the same group of community. The term, “Dalit literature” was first introduced at the “Dalit Literature Conference” in Bombay of Maharashtra in 1958 and later on, a group of Marathi writers institutionalized themselves as the “Dalit Panthers” in 1972 to combat the caste system in their writings. Since then, Dalit literature aesthetically has emerged to shape the collective voice of the socially exploited people who desire to set the platform of Dalit revolution to register a strong protest against the stereotyped frames of caste, race and class to foreground Dalit values, rights and liberty. Besides that, it raises questions about the status and situation of the Dalits who struggle for freedom and recognition to attain society's social, cultural, political and national identity. It stimulates the revolutionary spirit of the Dalit’s “collective consciousness” in the power structure of the Brahminical society. However, Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability (2011) is a frame narrative that graphically interweaves and incorporates Ambedkar's experiences of untouchability, caste discrimination and resistance with the critical observation of a Dalit woman and a Hindu Brahmin about caste discrimination and violence in the contemporary discourse of the Indian society. This research paper aims to examine the deconstructive approach to the logocentric mythology of casteism to poignantly interpret its hollowness and meaninglessness on account of the caste discrimination, violence, oppression and resistance in the graphic novel, Bhimayana. It also attempts to introduce the identity politics of the Dalits to make resistance to caste stratification, inequality, dehumanization and violence, and to enlighten the social codification of the signifying buffalos, the Dalits in the signification of the cows, the brahmins of the Hindu community at the crossroad of the Hindutva ideology.