admin Drishadwati Bargi
The rather long title could have been longer if it were to encapsulate the full range of the subjectivity of this scribe. It should have been “The dilemma of being an upwardly mobile, English speaking, Dalit Feminist and ideologue who is simultaneously a wannabe intellectual, a commodity fetishist and a person with ambivalent sexual orientation (I am deliberately choosing not to use the word “queer” since I am not sure what it means) and who is working in Kolkata, West Bengal.
Much as I sound so, this paper is not a narcissistic exercise in dissecting, identifying and cataloguing my subjectivities. Rather, my focus will be on the experience of working in a University and a city which boast of being the intellectual hotbed of the country. Of course, I will be talking as a student who has studied here for five years. I do not claim to speak for other Dalit students. Nor do I claim to represent the sum total of the experience of caste discrimination that is faced by other Dalit students. There might be Dalits who will deny facing any discrimination, there might be Dalits who have had to physically bear the burden of their caste in the University. I belong to neither camp. Rather this article is about my personal journey with my caste in the campus, how I have sought to negotiate with it and the way I perceive it. Not only is the personal nature of the gaze very important here so is the personal motive since I am also writing, thinking and theorizing about caste for academic purpose.
It is not uncommon for Bengali Bhadroloks and Bhadromahilas to claim that caste does not exist in West Bengal. Why, do we hear or read about caste riots or caste rapes? There are Brahmins who reject their threads, relish beef and do not mind sharing hash, fag or biri with a scheduled caste (not Dalit) friend or two. The radicals take their time out of their busyschedules to have long addas at humble roadside tea stalls, binge (read gobble) into street food prepared by scheduled castes (not Dalits) and occasionally sneer at a scheduled caste (not Dalit) colleague who is hesitating to sit on the dusty pavement for fear of dirtying the first Peter England trousers of his life and is being castigated for his snobbishness.
If one desires to know the real radical that rests and occasionally bursts out in flames in every Bhadrolok and Bhadromahila’s heart one must take into account what goes on in the addas. The addas are a gateway to the heart, mind and not to forget the stomach of Bengalis. One confronts the romantic, the intellectual and the splenetic or the bilious side of the Bengali Bhadrosamaj in its most unabashed nakedness in the adda sessions. The addas may include a heated discussion on the revolution in Cuba to the expression of anathema at having a Punjabi (i.e., non-Bengali) as an editor of a reputed literary journal in English, from the price of the newly purchased four bedroom apartment to Mayawati’s lavish bungalow.
Being a Bengali Dalit who has been extremely fortunate/unfortunate to enjoy and observe the company of the Bhadrosamaj for a long time, I have also caught some of the quirks of their nature. Perhaps you are thinking that I am simply beating about the bush by talking about bhadrosamaj and addas, but it is through these sessions that I have encountered the most obscene forms of casteism. It has come when classmates and professors have made fun of people with non-brahmanical surnames and then smiled at you in mock apology, when the academic failure of reserved category (not Dalit) students has been used to justify that reservation is an unmixed evil, when the ignorance of English language of reserved category (not Dalit) students is perceived as something that insults the intellect of the English speaking teacher.
Caste came to me when I ditched an upper caste guy for his sexism and was told in turn that he let me go easily because I was three notches lower than him in the caste ladder. It came from my Dalit friends who perceived my friendship with upper caste students as a form of betrayal. It invaded my mind and entered my bed when I was being caressed by a lover. The tenets of Manu that forbade Dalits from wearing gold and precious stones suddenly hit me when I was celebrating my first branded bag or reminiscing about my first experience of drinking a cup of hot chocolate at the age of twenty four in spite of living in a metropolis for the last ten years.
My recently acquired ‘commodity fetishism’ as pronounced by some Marxists has revealed that I am a hypocrite masquerading as Dalit emancipator. If the ignorance of the English language of scheduled caste students allegedly mocked the intelligence of our teachers my knowledge of the language (however incomplete and insufficient it is) is now seen as something that is making me a class enemy by otherwise anglophile Bengali Comrades.
The result is a dilemma, a kind of intellectual, emotional and psychological paralysis of sorts. Should I identify myself as a Dalit? Do I have the right to work on Dalit Literature? Do I have the right to do so, given my alleged hypocrisy and betrayal, which has been felt in some way or the other by Dalits as well as non-Dalits? This dilemma has been quite unnerving for me. It has led to mental and psychological alienation, anxiety and a sense of extreme loneliness.
Once, in an interview I was told, rather absurdly by a professor that there are no Dalits in West Bengal. I had responded with a wry smile and had nothing to say. It is my contention that there are no Dalits in West Bengal because of the simple fact that Dalits are not allowed to exist. You can be a casteless Brahmin, Baidya or Kayastha. On the other side of the equation, you can be an untouchable /achyut waiting to be emancipated (accultured) by upper caste casteless radicals or you can be a scheduled caste employee perpetually embarrassed for enjoying the “privilege” of affirmative action.
The word Dalit as I understand it refers to dignity of the person concerned without taking away the history of prejudice and discrimination that he or she still faces in forms that cannot be explained through Bhadrolok Marxism. It has gradually incorporated within itself the long history of resistance against caste system as well as our claim to an autonomous identity that cannot be equated with the predicament of being poor, working class or an untouchable but includes something more than that.
When I identify myself as a Dalit I am making a claim and seeking recognition for that discrimination, prejudice as well as that resistance. But inadvertently by identifying myself as a Dalit I am also doing something more. I am challenging a practice of “division of labourers” that is endemic to West Bengal. This is the division between emancipators (which includes writers, intellectuals, social activists, doctors, economists, trade union leaders, Naxalite leaders) and the to be emancipated (which includes peasants, workers in factories and homes, taxi drivers, rickshaw pullers etc).
Just browse at any book store or go through the names of the faculty of the famous universities or the list of authors in any random little magazine dedicated to social transformation in the state. You will find the Bhattacharjees, Mukherjees, Boses, and Dasguptas glittering on the pages. And then try to find out the surnames of the thousands of men and women who form the crowd at any political rally or gathering, the men who clean the streets every morning and take away our shit and waste the women who commute daily to keep the houses of Bhadrolok clean.
In this context a Brahmin taxi driver or a Dalit lecturer or activist (especially) is an eyesore, a cause of moral and political anathema. This is feudalism twisted to suit the needs of Bhadrolok Radicalism. Bhadrolok Marxism entailed that a caste of people /bhadrolok will be destined to emancipate another caste of people, the chotolok. If the chotolok suddenly claims to be a Dalit and emancipates himself or herself then he/she challenges the bhadrolok’s prerogative to liberate the chotolok thereby challenging a system of dependence, power and relationship of dominance and subordination. He/she is also laying a claim to a history of movement that has focused on the agency of Dalits and suspected the benevolence and the radicalism of the savarnas.
The identity Dalit challenges the hierarchy between the caste of emancipator and the caste of emancipated and renders the emancipator redundant and useless. As a result not a single opportunity is missed to target the person, intellectually as well as psychologically who attempts to challenge this division and decry his/her claim to the identity. The question then is not whether I should identify myself as a Dalit or whether I have the right to. The question is whether I can afford to identify myself as a Dalit and bear the resultant alienation, intellectual and emotional that will inevitably accompany it. The dilemma then stems from an angst and a very human fear of being left alone in the world. All said and done I will love to be proved false. I would really love it if any other Bengali Dalit opposes my thesis and presents a better picture.
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Drishadwati Bargi says:
I have done my M.A in English Literature from Jadavpur University and am currently doing my M.Phil at the School Of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. My interests include literature in Bengali, English and Hindi. I am also a theatre aficionado. I am particularly interested in caste, gender and sexuality studies. I am also with a group called “Bangla Beyond Bhadrolok” that is devoted to studying, discussing and translating literature from the margins. Finally, I am gradually training myself to be a perfect addabaj!!!
While congratulating this young writer, as an elderly Dalit, I didn’t really understand what she wanted to say, in plain language. I’d appreciate rather a simple language and lucid thought logically developed. I wish her success.
dear sir,
thank you for your comment, the young writers are forging their own paths in unknown terrains without much support to fall back on, your good wishes are much appreciated.
What a wonderful article. So well put! So much to learn from this. Many of these remarks can be corroborated by my experience of a self-identifying Indian queer in the West! Looks like oppression works in the same frame.
Wonder if the ludicrous bhadralok are listening. They should!
Thanks for writing this post. Such a great contribution.
Sandeep
This is a wonderful work of introspection. I can relate to it in many ways. Thanks for writing!
Witty and extremely apt and I know exactly what you mean, being a part of these addas. However,I wish you had developed the points more. It reads a little scattered and superficial at times. Keep at it and probe deeper, I think. Also, the grammar Nazi in me noted quite a few grammatical errors!
After reading this narrative my first reaction was- “Bang! you said it all.” But then, I stayed with some of your ideas elaborated in this piece. The most important insight that I derive out of it is that it describes the connotation of the term “Dalit” ( as you cleverly remind us how , in West Bengal, scheduled castes exist but Dalits don’t.) Many of my students keep arguing against what they consider as some kind of ” cultural and literary quota/ reservation” and thus question the very legitimacy of this canon of Dalit Studies or Dalit literature. Those elaborations of the term ‘dalit’ would help us to realize that Dalit , as a signifier, is not attempting to re inscribe caste ( here, we can easily identify that liberal symptom that tells us how caste is a socio-political anachronism that has been kept ‘alive’ either by political tokenism or by the regressive ‘identity politics'( with a pejorative connotation). This short narrative captures that inclusive, ideologically loaded meaning of the term. It shows how a dalit refuses to be what Fanon says ‘a victim of an essence, of an appearance for which he is not responsible.’Someday, I would expect Drishadwati to make a critique of Dipesh Chakravorty’s ideas on ‘adda’ culture of Bengal (in his book Provincializing Europe). Some of the adda characteristics invoked here help us think in different ways to make a critique of Chakravorty. Probably that will enrich a project like Dalit historiography that some of us have tried to talk about by looking at the limitations of Subaltern Studies ( even though that does not exclude the contributions of SS in terms of creating alternative models of historiography). Your focus on Dalits and English language remind me of Fanon’s “The Negro and Language”. It is interesting to see how you constitute your own politics of language not simply by following Fanon but also by challenging his ideas in the context of caste. Lastly,I think we are encountering a strong voice in the discourse of marginalization ( not just Dalit discourse). Keep it up and don’t bother about some relatively unimportant ‘flaws’
Many of the forms of discrimination that this writer points to were exactly those faced in our generation by the women who were born to displaced refugee families, including the Bong Brahmans, like mine and so were perforce ‘probashi’, spoke Urdu better than Bangla, did NOT fit into Kolkata addas, did NOT belong to any networks visible to the ruling CPM or Cong I lot… Then it was our ‘alien’ births, now it is the non-brahman ‘dalit’ who bears the brunt of what is essentially a provincialism devouring its young, forcing them to flee both homeland and samaj-turf. The frontiers of belonging change every generation, and as tougher passport laws are passed, more and more people find themselves outside the groups they were born in! At least this young writer appears to have found a group whose politics she shares. Otherwise, this critique would sound something too much like yearning to belong in a group she does not respect.
I identify so much with your feelings. As a similarly upwardly mobile Tamil Dalit woman I have felt much of the same.
Hi …read your article rather your thoughts..it’s wonderful know how you react and expect the society to reactt towards the marginalised.. probably if young people like you can feel and protest the differences,very soon there will be nothing called marginalised.. nothing called margin will also exist.