Caste, gender and the aesthetics of experience in dalit autobiographical narratives : a dalit literary perspective

Abstract

From the very inception of the term ‘Dalit literature’ in the first Dalit Literary Conference in 1958, its struggle to establish itself as a ‘literary’ genre begins. Dalit literature faces three major challenges: first, as an extension of the Ambedkarite legacy, it emerges as a body of writing in the latter half of the 20th century which entails the caste critique as its primary agenda and thus challenges the very establishment of Hindu social order and dismisses the Brahminical texts that are found to be main sources of casteist ideology. For this revolutionary approach, Dalit literature faces a strong resistance from the upper-caste Hindus who constitute the majority of Hindu society and enjoy their power of being in superior caste positions. Secondly, Dalit literature does not conform to the established mainstream aesthetic norms, because the realities of Dalit lives cannot be captured through such aesthetic norms for the very fact that Dalit life has hardly ever been a point of reference in conceptualizing these norms. Therefore, there is criticism in a large scale from the mainstream intelligentsia that Dalit literature should not be considered as literature because it does not have the aesthetic beauty. Thirdly, Dalit literature not only tries to establish itself as a literary genre but also demarcates its domain to restrict easy entry of the ‘upper- caste other’ to avoid the misrepresentations of Dalit lives and speak for themselves. Sharankumar Limbale’s Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and Considerations by (first published in Marathi in 1996 as Dalit Sahityache Saundaryashastra, translated into English in 2004) and The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory (2012) by Gopal Guru and Sundar Sarukkai are the two major texts in foregrounding theoretical standpoint of Dalit literature that stands apart as a counter literary culture to the Brahminical literary tradition. Limbale questions the Brahminical aesthetic concepts such as ‘satyam’ (the truth), ‘shivam’ (the sacred) and ‘sundaram’ of being casteist, exclusionist and exploitative and thus replaces them with ‘equality, liberty, justice and fraternity’ as the aesthetic essence of Dalit literature.