Jerry Pinto, a writer and translator of such classics as Daya Pawar바카라s Baluta, has just published a compelling English translation of another explosively powerful work of Marathi Dalit literature, Baburao Bagul바카라s Jevha Mi Jaat Chorli Hoti (When I Hid My Caste).
Unlike Baluta, Bagul바카라s book is not an autobiography, but a collection of ten short stories, each of which is eruptive, disruptive, cathartically poignant.
Originally published in 1963 when Bagul was a feisty 32 years old (that is, a decade before the launch of the revolutionary Dalit Panthers, in which he played an inspirational role), Jevha Mi Jaat Chorli Hoti shocked the Marathi literary community, which had been dominated by the formalist style of 바카라high-caste바카라 authors. It shocked because of the explicit, anti-romantic representation of violence, of penury, rape, caste humiliation, and because its protagonists were a motley cast of pimps, prostitutes, gangsters and outcastes. Decades on, all of these are the hackneyed staples of contemporary fiction, but Baburao Bagul바카라s work continues to move the reader in other, even more reflective ways.
One such way is the light that Bagul바카라s fiction throws upon the appropriation of Dalit literature in our own day. We must remain vigilant of our complicity within a system that exploits Dalit creativity to the advantage of 바카라high caste바카라 beneficiaries (say, commercial publishers who charge far too much for a slim volume, or privileged, parasitic reviewers gloating upon the intellectual labour of struggling authors). Fascinatingly, Bagul바카라s stories lay out backdrops of systemic exploitation바카라whether it be in terms of the reliance of 바카라upper-caste바카라 people living in the centre of villages upon the crucial, multifaceted services of destitute residents of the Maharwadas, the reliance of townships upon the dehumanising sanitation system imposed on methars and bhangis, the stifling patriarchal system, a pillar of which rests upon Dalit prostitutes바카라within which the contemporary appropriation of Dalit literature does not seem like either a new or an independent phenomenon, but just one more among many manifestations of an ages-old system.
Another is about the light that Bagul바카라s stories throw upon the contemporary political-sociological puzzle of whether we should continue to locate the authentic identity of India within its ubiquitous villages. Here, the Gandhi- Ambedkar debate is often evoked. Gandhi had romantically projected the village republic as independent India바카라s ideal. For Ambedkar, however, the Indian village was 바카라a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and communalism바카라. Ambedkar went further: 바카라Indian villages represent a kind of colonialism of the Hindus designed to exploit the untouchables바카라. They are there only to wait, serve and submit. They are there to do or to die.바카라
In total contrast to Gandhi, Ambedkar viewed the village as paradigmatic of the lack of social, political and economic mobility of Dalits. While Gandhi portrayed the village in utopian terms, Ambedkar portrayed it as a prison: 바카라The Hindu will not live in the quarters of the untouchables and will not allow the untouchables to live inside the Hindu quarters바카라. Every Hindu village has a ghetto. The Hindus live in the village and the untouchables live in the ghetto.바카라
It is precisely this ghetto that serves as the setting for Bagul바카라s short stories, stories that puncture the myth of the romantic village ideal, plainly revealing that such an ideal could only be envisioned by myopic eyes engaged in privileged seeing. But Bagul바카라s fiction is not only free of a romanticising tradition; it is equally free of romanticising dissent. Of course, many of Bagul바카라s characters are engaged in defying the social roles thrust upon them, and some of them are triumphant (the story Bohada바카라about 바카라the village Mahar바카라 who irrepressibly asserts himself and ends up dominating a village festival, to the awe and astonishment of everyone바카라is probably the best example). But, for the most part, such revolutions end tragically (Revolt, about a brilliant boy forced to give up his studies to inherit his father바카라s job of cleaning dry toilets with his bare hands, may be the most agonising example). Bagul바카라s stories thereby dramatise the lesson of all social reform movements: it takes more than a solitary individual, no matter how gifted, to overturn a hydra-headed system of oppression.
But as important as all of these insights may be, they are not ultimately the most important thing about Bagul바카라s short stories. The most important thing, beyond doubt, is that Baburao Bagul바카라s When I Hid My Caste is, by any standards, a riveting read and바카라irrespective of caste바카라a moving testament of art from a profoundly talented writer.
