LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 4 April 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

HOME PAGE


AN APPEAL FOR SUPPORT

  • We seek your support to meet the expenses relating to the formatting of articles and books, maintaining and running the journal through hosting, correspondences, etc. Please write to the Editor in his e-mail address languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com to find out how you can support this journal. Thank you. Thirumalai, Editor.


BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!


REFERENCE MATERIAL

BACK ISSUES


  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Contributors from South Asia may e-mail their articles to
    B. Mallikarjun,
    Central Institute of Indian Languages,
    Manasagangotri,
    Mysore 570006, India
    mallikarjun@ciil.stpmy.soft.net.
  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.
  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.
  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2010
M. S. Thirumalai


Custom Search

Dalits and Indian Literature

Prasanta Chakraborty, Ph.D.


Cover page of No Entry for the New Sun

Traditional Caste Hierarchy and Atrocities Committed Against the Dalits

Besides the four main castes, there is a fifth group - the Dalits treated as the untouchables in the society. Oppressed, downtrodden and exploited, the Dalits are hardly considered to be part of the human society even some time ago. When the Constitution of India assures everybody equal rights and opportunities, many among the Dalit community are yet to receive and exercise such natural rights. The Dalits were seen as polluting the society and were generally banned and segregated physically from participating in Hindu social life. While some change has taken place, the lot of the majority of this section of Indian society continues to be woeful, to say the least.

The Dalit Movements

Against these atrocities, the subalterns, especially the Dalits, initiated several movements in Indian history. Today, a majority of these discriminated subaltern communities identify themselves as Dalits, thereby acquiring a new identity by coming together with the perspective that "Dalit is dignified".

The Dalit movements, aimed at the liberation of Dalit folk from the oppressive structures in Indian society, are directly connected to subaltern movements. They reject the sub-human status imposed on them by the Hindu social order. Sathianathan Clark remarks that "the subordination and subjection that marks the life of Dalits in India bring them into the contours of a particularly contextual assembly of subalternity. (Dalits and Christianity, p.6)

Oliver Mendelshon and Marika Vieziany express similar opinion, 'Untouchables (Dalits) have retained their identity as a subordinated people within Indian society, and by this we mean to identify a condition that is far more severe than merely being bottom of an inevitable hierarchy.' (The Rights of Subordinated People, p.115)

Explaining the term 'subaltern' Homi Bhabha, a key postcolonial scholar, emphasizes the importance of social power relations in his working definition of 'subaltern' groups as "oppressed, minority groups whose presence was crucial to the self-definition of the majority group: subaltern social groups were also in a position to subvert the authority of those who have hegemonic power. (The Post-Colonial Question, p.210)

Questions Focused in This Article

Given these circumstances, a question may be naturally raised: How are the Dalits introduced and portrayed in Hindu upper caste dominated Indian literature? How do the Dalit litterateurs look at themselves in the post-independent India? How are Dalits observed by the non-Dalit Hindu, Muslim and Christian writers as well as by the Dalits themselves?

The Dalit issue has an added new dimension as well, in its close proximity to issues concerning the feminist literature, within Indian literature.


This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.


Prasanta Chakraborty, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of English
Women's College
Agartala 799 002
Tripura, India
prasantaread@yahoo.co.in


Custom Search


  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you either cited or used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian scholarship.