January 2017
When I Concealed My Caste: The reflection of Neglected India.
Taru Pallavi Ishwarrao,
School of Language, Literature
and Culture Studies,
S.R.T.M. University, Nanded.
The Indian constitution abolished untouchability yet it is only for namesake; the
dominant castes still force Dalits to perform the traditional occupation. Migration
and the anonymity of urban environment have in some cases resulted in upward
occupational mobility among Dalits. The majority of them still continue to perform
their traditional practices. Still the practice of untouchability is prevalent in most of
the rural areas and the Dalit faces discrimination at the hands of dominant castes.
Today Dalits have tried to come in the mainstream of Indian society and the Dalit
struggles and Dalit Movements in realities were glorious and have a great history.
But Dalits are still marginalized and despite many movements and ongoing
struggles, the ruling upper caste does not consider the Dalits as people. The present
paper tries to depict this reality portrayed by Baburao Bagul, a pioneer of Marathi
Dalit Literature, in his collection of short stories: when I Concealed My Caste.
When I concealed my caste is a collection of short stories published by Akshar
Publication in 1963 by a Dalit writer Baburao Bagul, who contributed himself in
studying the micro and macro shades of castisim of India. It is a precise history as
well as present situation of most of the Indian people.It created a storm in Marathi
Literary World. His short stories were published earlier in various magazines and
they had already attracted the attention of Marathi readers. The powerful projection
of the crude, hideous and dreadful society which had not been hitherto been
presented in Marathi literature, stirred up the sensitive readers. The collection
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contains ten short stories centered on the life of murali, thief, prostitute, helpless
women, banana seller, educated bhangi young boy and the person who have to
conceal his caste to live respectfully.
Baburao Bagul generally depicts men and women who are uneducated and lacking
in any kind of sophistication. It is not surprising if they deal with violence and sex
predominantly in his literature but this not to stimulate the baser instinct of the
readers. This is the stark reality of the life he portrays.He brings out very
powerfully the woes and miseries and economic inequalities which have at the
base of his experiences. His perverted, violent and imbalanced individuals are the
victims of the social system in which castisim is a dominant factor. In words of Dr.
Ambedkar, caste system is like a building with many floors but no stairs. A person
in one caste has to die in the same caste. Also a person from one caste cannot go to
the other caste. The caste is decided not on the basis of qualities of a person but by
the caste in which he or she is born.
The utterly neglected part of society, which was surprisingly invisible till today,
got cristal clear after reading Baguls short stories. Till today we just know to throw
some money or slice of bread to beggar, fakir, murali, devdasietc, but now after
reading the stories we, come to know their pain, sorrow, problems, the situation in
which they have to live in, their mentality, their surrounding, and the cause of the
self they have become. We just think that they deliberately live like this, they
deliberately become like this, but this is not a truth, the reality is that they have
compelled to live like animals. As Marx said: “there is no truth but interpretations
of truth” the actual reality about Dalits was hidden, we were convinced to the
representation, made about them by others, and we never bothered ourselves to put
ourselves on their place. The truth about them was hidden and it has brought to
light by the writers like Baburao Bagul.Though being a part of the Dalit
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community I was also unaware of the terrible condition, and extreme sorrow of my
own people. This is not just the case with me but majority of people, from or
upper lower class, middle lower class doesn’t think about them let alone the high
class, middle class people.
We haven’t considered them as human beings as we
are, we just think of them as non humans or sub humans. But after studying the
short stories we suddenly get the new sight, rather I would say we get a new eye to
see the invisible part of our society. We cannot read and forget the stories as just
literature, these stories daily happens before us, with different characters and with
different situations, the stories flashes before our eyes when we see the beggar,
juggler, fakir, rickshaw puller, labors working on daily wages, pickpockets,
hawkers, prostitutes and the likes.
In KalokhacheKaidi he picturises the feeling of revenge prevailing in a section of
the society in general and the young son of a rich man in particular against a
beautiful widow. The vehement excitement of the people is the outcome of their
unsatisfied sex and unquenched desire for the widow. The story is about a
muraliBanu , who livies with a Deshukh, satisfying his sexual desire from twenty
years.After the death of the Deshukh, Banu the murali,the unprotected widow,
becomes a tool of sexual harassment and torture for the whole village. Even the
step son Devram also tries to rape her. Being a poor helpless and above all an
untouchable widow, is a curse. A woman has her own share of universal sufferings
as a woman and the fact of being a dalit woman adds up more social, religious and
cultural exploitation in the list. The story ends with the note of pain and loss of the
mother.Watewarchi, brings out the sexual exploitation of a woman who is forced
to accept prostitution. The prostitute Girija actually wants to go to village to have a
look of the dead son, but unfortunately she doesn’t have a penny to travel. In this
situation also she has to sell her flesh and earn money, in this struggle she falls
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dead at the end of the story.Spardha also represents sexual explanation of common
women, who is forced to entertain workers in the mill. The coquetry she practices
is a sort of poison she takes to serve her sick husband on his death bed. This is
story which shows how a Dalit woman is forced to become a prostitute. What
situations are there which make a respectful woman a whore? Dasryacharaida
brings out the deceptive relationship between the rich higher castes and the poor
lower castes and obliquely indicates the fraudulent element in our religious
custiom.His longer stories Vodriha and Jevha Me JaatChorali are very powerful.
The mental torture of the young man who is educated but is forced by the system
to take up the traditional sweeper’s job is accurately depicted. This is the beginning
of the revolt of the young generation which ends in futility here but leaves a very
imprint on readers mind. The other one deals with the sufferings of the low caste
young man who is insulted and beaten bitterly by the people of higher caste. Both
the stories end in tragic note of unending injustice done to dalit people.If we are
honest, we must admit that caste prejudice runs very deep in the Indian psyche.His
stories start with a problem and ends with a problem.
So his stories are not based on the imagination but on experience. The plight and
pain of the majority of India was never represented in literature before him with
such a force and strength. Now also in many villages and in urban slums majority
of India is living in such a bad condition.The cruel caste system has been a huge,
never-ending problem for us as Indians. Our inability to eradicate caste completely
even after the rise of prophets like Mahatma Phule and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar reveals
our own blindness to one of the most dehumanizing systems the world has ever
known. There is no point in saying that the Indian Constitution has abolished
untouchability because we all know that the law has not taken care of the root
system that gave rise to the practice of untouchability.The vast majority of our own
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people do not know the meaning of “India Shining” – a slogan of the upper-castedominated Indian elite. India does not shine for the masses – not simply because
they are poor, but because of the social system that denies them equal
opportunities, empowerment, capital and freedom. Globalization has resulted in
“India Shining” for the privileged minority, but now let globalization also result in
“India Shining” for the majority Dalits and other oppressed castes/tribes.
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References.
1] Bagul, Baburao. when I Concealed My Cast,Mumbai:Akshar
Publication.1963.
2]Limbale, Sharankumar. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature, (trans).
Mukherjee Alok,New Delhi: Orient Longman.2004.
3]Waghmare, Janardan. HaakAniAakrosh:Shrividya publication, Pune.1984.
4]Radhakanta Nayak, "Dalit identity in a caste-clawed society: A voice from
within", in The Fourth World: Journal of the Marginalised People, No. 11,
NISWASS, Bhubaneswar, April 2000, p.8.
5]Raj Kumar, "People at the bottom: The untouchables in Indian novels", in The
Fourth World: Journal of the Marginalised People, No. 8, NISWASS,
Bhubaneswar, Oct. 1998, p.39.
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