When They Know Us: Do Dalit Lives Matter?

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of knowing in caste-ridden Dalit lives using the analogy of seeing in the context of the Black African-American racial society, where race is identified primarily through skin colour. Thus, the ‘Black body’ is marked by the act of seeing. A Dalit body, however, is usually discovered through knowing caste. Knowing is a complex mediated by caste, class, race, religion, occupation, spatiality, language and other forms of placement. Knowing is imperative in the context of a representative democracy to ensure social justice and the equitable distribution of government services. But does knowing someone’s identity lead to equal treatment and equal respect, which constitute the substantive measures of democracy? I argue that knowing is a mode used to perpetuate caste, based on everyday ways in which Hindus live their lives. Pursuing this question, I problematise the concept of knowing in the trajectory of Dalit lives. I then take Ambedkar’s ‘Waiting for a Visa’, situated in the genre of Dalit autobiographies, to illustrate the concept of knowing. Finally, I ask: given the politics of knowing, how do Dalit lives matter when practising caste?