Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Autobiography has been an important form through which authors from marginalized communities have spoken about their personal and communitarian experiences. It has been a versatile genre through which Dalit writers in India have expressed their experiences of belonging to lower caste communities. This paper addresses the ways in which lower caste communities encounter casteism in their everyday lives in both rural as well as urban contexts. Unlike mainstream accounts that tend to objectify the “sufferings” and “humiliations” of Dalit individuals and communities, these accounts are significant precisely because they narrativize the assertions and agencies of people who are on the receiving end of caste-based norms and practices. Such autobiographical accounts belong to the domain of Dalit literature, not only because they engage with the Dalit subjectivity in contemporary India, but the genre itself activates the Dalit agency through the act of writing and speaking. Such texts have also been important for the ways in which they create an autonomous space for a Dalit readership to be able to identify themselves and their lives. This paper will attempt to map the various issues of the Dalit literature, life and experience in India that have been addressed through these autobiographical stories. It will also study the way in which the narratives are self-generated and contest many mainstream understandings and stereotypes.