Aditi Sharif:

“My Mother used to weave aaydans. I find that her act of weaving and my act of writing are organically linked. The weave is similar. It is the weave of pain, suffering, and agony that links us.” (Pawar, 2009)

While reading the preface of “The Weave of Life”, I read the quotation for the first time that expresses the immense grief related to the writer’s Dalit and gender identity.  

Whenever we hear the term ‘Dalits’, we think about some words-oppressed, caste-based inequality,  marginalized, etc. The term ‘Dalit’ is denoted to describe a group of people, victims of social marginalization and economic marginalization, due to their religious, and ethnic identities. Two types of Dalit people can be found in Bangladesh. They are; Bengali and non-Bengali Dalits. Among them,  the non-Bengali Dalit groups migrated to East Bengal in the British colonial period from other parts of the Indian continent (Banglapedia, 2021 ).

Historically, Dalits have been the victims of different forms of discrimination. In the past, they were treated as untouchables. At present, untouchability as a custom has been abolished. However, Dalits are still fighting against socio-economic marginalization. The situation of Dalit women is worse than their male counterparts (Roy, 2014). The exploitation of Dalits has its roots in the Hindu caste system. The Hindu religious scriptures -such as Manu Smriti- have contributed a lot to the misperceptions and stereotypes regarding Dalits. Dalits are represented as impure, polluted, and sub-human beings (Roy, 2014). On the other hand, Dalit women were the worst victims of these types of misrepresentation. They are perceived as unholy, untouchables, and yet sexual objects. Surprisingly, literary texts were no exception (Roy, 2014).  

In the 1990s, this conventional trend was challenged by some assertive Indian Dalit women. It’s the time when voices against the class and caste biases of Indian mainstream Feminism. At that time, some courageous Dalit women decided to raise their voices against the injustices they faced in their communities and the wider society. To do so, they chose autobiography as the weapon for expressing themselves. To many feminists, who deal with intersectionality, these writings are expressions of the agency of women belonging to the lowest strata in our society, who are considered voiceless, and silent. In this regard, I find the arguments of the Subaltern Studies relevant.                    

In academia, the term ‘Dalit’ is often associated with another term –‘Subaltern’. The term ‘Subaltern’ is popularized by the writings of Ranjit Guha. In his article named ‘On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India’, Ranjit Guha utilized the concept of ‘Subaltern’ to describe people belonging to the lowest ladder of society (Guha, 1988).  While Guha called for a distinctive historiography that can trace the agency of subalterns, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak argued that subalterns can’t communicate properly with the rest of society for their rights (Spivak, 1988). It’s not like they don’t have sufficient agency or well-articulated voices to express themselves. Rather, she considered speaking as an active and participatory process while talking is a passive and intrapersonal one. According to Spivak, due to racial, and socio-cultural factors, the subalterns can’t speak to other people, and their voice can be impeded. The situation of subaltern women is worse than their male counterparts because of their gender identity. Their voices have become vague because of their weaker positions in society (Spivak, 1988).

In this context, it can be claimed that the autobiography of Dalit women can discard the theory of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak by creating an autonomous space in literature. However, it will be an overgeneralized assertion for two specific reasons. 

• Firstly, though the women, who wrote these autobiographies, belonged to the Dalit community, had some privileges over the other women that invalidated their representation to certain extents.
• Secondly, the audiences of these autobiographies are a limited number of elite academicians. 

Therefore, uncertainty can emerge about how impactful their articulation would be. Nevertheless, simple-minded people like me will always regard these writings as the manifestations of their resistance, identity, and freedom!       

References

Banglapedia. (2021 , June 17). Dalit Community . Retrieved from Banglapedia : https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Dalit_Community

Guha, R. (1988). On Some Aspects of British Colonial India. In R. Guha, & G. C. Spivak (Eds.), Selected Subaltern Studies (pp. 1-8). New York: Oxford University Press.

Pawar, U. (2009). The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memorior. New York: Columbia University Press.

Roy, A. (2014). The Doctor and the Saint; The Ambedkar-Gandhi Debate, Race, and Annihilation of Caste. New Delhi: Navanna.

Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can The Subalterns Speak? Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture.

Author’s Biography:

Aditi Sharif is an Anthropologist, currently working as a Young Professional at a2i (Aspire to Innovate ) program. She is also a volunteer writer for Women Chapter.