Table Of ContentHindi Dalit Literature and the
Politics of Representation
This page intentionally left blank
Hindi Dalit Literature and the
Politics of Representation
Sarah Beth Hunt
LONDON NEW YORK NEW DELHI
First published 2014 in India
by Routledge
912 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi 110 001
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Sarah Beth Hunt
Typeset by
Solution Graphics
A–14, Indira Puri, Loni Road
Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201 102
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage
and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-415-73629-9
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1. The Beginnings of Dalit Literature in Hindi:
The Field of Dalit Pamphlets 25
2. Writing Dalit History 83
3. The Rise of the Autobiographic Field of Hindi Dalit
Literature 132
4. Dalit Autobiography: Personal Pain as Political Assertion 176
5. The Meaning of Dalit Literature 209
Conclusion 245
Bibliography 247
About the Author 260
Index 261
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgements
I
would first like to thank my PhD supervisor, Dr Francesca Orsini,
for her incredible support and insight throughout the many years of
this project. She truly invests her heart and soul into her students,
and I only hope I can pass along the kindness and inspiration she
has imparted. She also taught me my very first Hindi words. I would
like to express my gratitude to the Smuts Fund, Rapson Fund and
Trinity Hall for their financial support over my years at Cambridge
and during several visits to India for fieldwork. The Faculty of
Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and the Centre of South Asian
Studies were havens at Cambridge, particularly thanks to Dr Eivind
Kahrs and Dr Sudeshna Guha, who are more than colleagues or
mentors, but family as well. I certainly could never have completed
this project without the unfailing help and guidance of Professor
Purushottam Agrawal at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and my bril-
liant research assistant Kavitendra Indu. I cannot qualify the extent
to which he has helped in along the way.
Thanks to my many friends, especially Rachel, Justin and Ben
from the University of Cambridge, who helped me keep my humour
and made the fieldwork trips for this project real adventures. I would
particularly like to thank my great friend Dr Rachel Berger. In the
solitary work of research projects and the long process of writing
everyone needs at least one intellectual soulmate who reminds them
why their work is interesting and keeps them not only sane but ins-
pired to keep working. Rachel is that person for me. And, of course,
thank you to my partner Steven and my parents for their unwavering
support over the years.
These acknowledgements would be far from complete without
my expressed thanks to all the Hindi Dalit writers who invited me
into their homes and shared their thoughts and dreams about their
writing. Their work can never be reduced to simple words on a
page to be read and analysed by academics and literary critics. It is
the result of years of resilience in the face of real oppression and the
expression of hope that change is indeed possible. I hope that this
book does them justice.
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction
O
n 14 April 2004, the broad street of Sansad Marg in Central
Delhi was filled to its capacity with smartly-dressed families laugh-
ing, eating, meeting friends, visiting booths and buying festival
paraphernalia. It was Ambedkar Jayanti — the most important
contemporary festival of the Dalit community. From every angle,
one’s vision collided with the colourful portrait of the most beloved
Dalit leader, Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, smiling from framed
pictures, small T-shirt buttons and banners rippling atop decorated
trucks. As one of the most marginalised and oppressed communities
in India, it has taken decades of struggle for Dalits to celebrate their
identity in such a public way. The continual marginalisation of
Dalits is perhaps no more apparent than on the occasion of Ambedkar
Jayanti, as Dr Ambedkar, Father of the Indian Constitution, contin-
ues to be commemorated only by members of the Dalit community.
Celebrated next to the Indian Parliament at the heart of the nation’s
capital, Ambedkar Jayanti symbolically represents the community’s
fight to claim a central place in the nation. Over the past several
decades, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has made similar efforts to
defend the position of Dalits at the centre of political power and has
increasingly politicised Dalit identity across both urban and rural
north India.
In the cultural arena across India, Dalit writers have presented
an equally important challenge to the dominant representations of
the lower castes in Indian society. In the north, Hindi Dalit litera-
ture has gained widespread recognition as a powerful new literary
movement, with mainstream Hindi commercial presses publishing
Dalit autobiographies, short stories and literary criticism written
by some well-established Hindi Dalit writers. Hindi Dalit literature
is also gradually being incorporated into the curriculum of a few
north Indian universities and is beginning to gain international rec-
ognition through several recent English translations of Hindi Dalit
autobiographies and short stories.1
