Reclaiming History: A Century of North Indian Dalit Protest

Organizer: Ramnarayan S. Rawat, University of Notre Dame

Chair: Anupama Rao, Barnard College

Discussant: Anupama Rao, Barnard College

This panel seeks to dispel a dominant view that organized Dalit Politics was essentially non-existent in North India in sharp contrast to South India, until the emergence of a Bahujan Samaj Party in 1980s. This panel, comprised of papers both historical and literary in focus, offers alternative approaches to the understanding of 20th century Dalit struggles. Two papers (Rawat and Duncan) discuss social and cultural protest by Dalit groups in early 20th century colonial north India. Rawat outlines claims for an alternative history made in Dalit histories published in Hindi to question Colonial and Hindu/Nationalist accounts, and argues that such an assertion was backed by a sustained Dalit agitations in 1920s and 1930. Duncan probes the relationship between the political and constitutional reforms of the 1920s and 1930s and the Dalit organisations that enabled the latter to constitute its politics by demanding more space in representative institutions. Brueck and Beth examine the continuing role of the Dalit intelligentsia in questioning both the legacy of Dalit representation in mainstream Hindi literature, as well as the historical understanding Dalit literature in Hindi. Brueck analyzes practices of contemporary historiography in Hindi Dalit literary criticism with a special reference to the ongoing debate over the problematic figure of Premchand. Beth will discuss the development of a Dalit counter-public sphere in Hindi from the 1920s through the present, and will reveal that Hindi Dalit literary production did not begin in the 1980s, but has a much longer history in the north Indian context.

Ramnarayan S. Rawat, University of Notre Dame

The mainstream Indian historiography is unanimous in its assumption about the absence of Dalit struggles in first half of 20^th century in north India. More recently, such an assumption has been reiterated in the works of Gail Omvedt (Bombay1973 and Delhi 1994), Mendolsohn & Vicziany (Cambridge 1998), Susan Bayly (Cambridge 1999), Sudha Pai (Delhi 2002), and Christophe Jafferlot (New York 2003). This paper seeks to dispel this assumption by offering a richly textured history of Dalit activism and struggles. Drawing from, hitherto, unused accounts and histories published by Dalits in the early decades of 20^th century, I offer their perspective against the dominant Colonial and Nationalist/Hindu discursive practices, which had repeatedly defined them as ‘untouchables’. Dalit organizations and activists were centrally concerned with the issue of identity and by framing strategies of liberation they sought to overcome their ‘untouchable’ status. For instance, Chamar histories borrowed from the Hindu Puranic tradition to ‘redeem’ and ‘reclaim’ a ‘pure’ historical past by claiming Kshatriya status ‘equal’ to the dominant Hindu castes, and also by questioning the practice of untouchability and begari. In addition, the CID archives offers us evidence that such claims were not limited to Chamar histories but widely shared by Chamar organizations that articulated these concerns through their political and social campaigns in the 1920s and 1930s. This paper, then, outlines their claims for an alternative history and its role in shaping their movement in the first three decades of 20^th century.

Ian Duncan, University of Sussex, UK

In the political and constitutional reforms of the 1920s and 1930s the colonial state confronted the question of what role should be allotted to Dalits in the new institutions and processes being established. This paper draws on material from United Provinces and argues that the colonial authorities were distinctly hesitant and uncertain about the incorporation of an institutionalized Dalit presence in the political process. Alongside the more well-known episodes of this period, such as the Communal Award and the Poona Pact, a more localized struggle was taking place in the Provinces as particular Dalit caste groups sought to gain maximum advantage from the reforms. In these confrontations the nascent Dalit movement probed and explored the uncertainties and ambiguities of colonial policy in its efforts to get a toe-hold in the new system of representative politics. Dalit involvement at the Provincial level in this phase of constitutional reform requires more attention than it has been given in the past. The paper also argues that the pattern of representation established for Dalits in the 1930s had profound long term consequences and only by appreciating their full significance can we understand the ways in which Dalit politics in north India was revived in the 1990s.

Sara Beth, Cambridge University, UK

This paper discusses the historical development of Dalit literary production in Hindi from the 1920s through the present. It focuses specifically on the development of a field of pamphlet literature and asks how a marginalized community such as the Dalits of north India have used literary pamphlets and other small Dalit newspapers to form a separate counter-public sphere through which they can debate current issues facing the community and contest caste discrimination. Beginning with the founding of two early Dalit presses in the 1920s, Bahujan Kalyan Prakashan in Lucknow and Achutanand’s private press in Kanpur, early Dalit pamphlets contained re-interpretations of Indian history, which placed Dalits as the indigenous inhabitants, and ancient rulers of the subcontinent. As this early Dalit literary sphere developed, we find a proliferation in political, religious and historical pamphlets, which are printed on private Dalit presses and distributed at annual Dalit melas (festivals). Most importantly, this papers looks at this sphere of pamphlet literature as a space in which Dalit writers in north India attempt to negotiate the developing tension between their claims to be a separate social and cultural community and their concurrent aspirations to be included as equal members of Indian society and citizens of the new nation.

Laura R. Brueck, University of Texas

The public burning of iconic Hindi writer Munshi Premchand's 1925 novel Rangbhoomi on July 31, 2004 in New Delhi by members of the Bharatiya Dalit Sahitya Akademi, and the firestorm of controversy that followed in both mainstream and Dalit media, demonstrates the incredible significance that the representation of Dalits in Hindi literary history continues to hold for members of the contemporary Dalit literary sphere. Beginning with an analysis of this event, this paper goes on to discuss the twinned historiographic imperatives in the current intellectual project of Dalit writers and critics in developing a distinctly Dalit literary identity. On one hand, Dalit intellectuals are engaged in the development of a Dalit literary history, while on the other they are increasingly re-reading and critiquing historical representations of Dalits in "mainstream" Hindi literature. With the newest spate of publishing and literary production by Ambedkarite Dalits in Hindi since the early 1980s, there has been a renewed interest among Dalit writers and critics in the critical re-reading of Hindi literary history. This paper addresses both the intellectual project of negotiating a distinctly Dalit literary identity through this practice of critical re-reading, as well as the development of an alternative, "authentically Dalit" literary history. This paper thus illustrates the complexities and the significance of establishing an historical literary lineage for a contemporary socio-literary movement.