Caste in a Casteless Language? English As a Language of ‘Dalit’ Expression

SPECIAL ARTICLE

Caste in a Casteless Language? English as a Language of ‘Dalit’ Expression

Rita Kothari

This paper focuses on a new archive of dalit writing My mother is an untouchable, while my father is a high caste from one of the privileged classes of India. Mother lives in a hut, father in a in English translation. The “archive” has a forced mansion. Father is a landlord; mother, landless. I am an akkarmashi homogeneity imposed by the term “dalit”, which (half-caste). I am condemned, branded illegitimate. – Limbale 2003: Acknowledgements embraces an urban middle-class dalit and a member of How is it that people consider us too gross even to sit next to when travelling? They look at us with the same look they would cast on a scavenger caste; the homogeneity is consolidated by someone suffering from a repulsive disease. the fact that the translated texts are in an international – Bama 2000: 24 I have asked many scholars to tell me why Savarnas (upper-caste language. The questions asked concern the relationship Hindus) hate dalits and Shudras so much? The Hindus who worship between caste and the English language, two trees and plants, beasts and birds, why are they so intolerant of dalits? – Valmiki 2003: 134 phenomena that represent considerably antithetical signs. Dalit writers accept English as a target language, Homogenising/Heterogenising the Archive he three excerpts above are by three authors – Sharan- despite the fact that local realities and registers of caste kumar Limbale, Bama and Omprakash Valmiki – who are difficult to couch in a language that has no memory Tbelong to different parts of the country. Limbale lives in of caste. The discussion shows how English promises Maharashtra and writes in Marathi. Bama is a teacher in Tamil to dalit writers (as both individuals and representatives Nadu and writes in Tamil. Omprakash Valmiki lives in north- ern India, and writes in Hindi. Born an illegitimate child to an of communities) agency, articulation, recognition and untouchable mother, Limbale rose to become the regional justice. The paper draws attention to the multiplicity director of a university. From an untouchable community in of contexts that make writing by dalits part of a literary Tamil Nadu, Bama moved to a Christian convent which, she public sphere in India, and contribute to our thinking hoped, would give her and many others like her a life of dignity and equality. On fi nding Christianity in India equally caste- about caste issues in the context of human rights. ridden, she quit the convent and now teaches in a school. Valmiki asserts his distance and exclusion from Hinduism by adopting his scavenger and untouchable caste as his last name, “Valmiki”. He is an ordinance offi cer in the town of Dehradun. Thus, all three represent not only different languages or regions, but also different religious identities. They call attention to many specifi cities, of caste, class and region. For instance, Limbale’s “Marathi” would not be the same as that of a Chitpavan Marathi-speaking person from Pune. Also, his mixed lineage as the son of an upper-caste father and lower- caste mother provides to his experiences a dimension of sexual and gender politics. His narrative becomes as much his own as his mother’s. Would the ramifi cations of being half-dalit be the same as (being) fully dalit? Does a dalit become fully elite – that is a question raised in Valmiki’s autobiography Joothan. Bama’s critique of Christian missions is as much about Hindu- The author thanks a viewer’s comments and also acknowledges ism as the localisation of Christianity in India, and its mis- the feedback and help received from Abhijit Kothari and Harmony placed claims of egalitarianism. Thus, it is possible to “read” Siganporia. each of these autobiographies as individual narratives of strug- Rita Kothari ([email protected]) teaches at the Humanities and gle and articulation of that struggle, or documents of commu- Social Sciences Department, Institute of Information Technology, nities, regions and nations, challenging the idea of India and Gandhinagar. its unfi nished modernity.

60 september 28, 2013 vol xlviII no ? EPW Economic & Political Weekly SPECIAL ARTICLE As an exercise, we could replace the three authors with an- by dalits part of a literary public sphere in India, and con- other set of authors, say for instance, Balbir Madhopuri (2010), tribute to our thinking about caste issues in the context of who provides a much-needed perspective on untouchability in human rights. Punjab and erodes populist myths about equality in that re- The subsequent section continues with English as a lan- gion, and with B Kesharshivam (2008), the author of Gujarat’s guage of empowerment, and also builds upon its “casteless- fi rst dalit autobiography. The heterogeneity of caste experi- ness” as a marked strength, not an inadequacy. It is based on ences, negotiations between caste and modernity, and caste as an interesting case study of a Gujarati dalit writer, Neerav both a pan-Indian and locally experienced phenomenon Patel, who raises some very important questions in this re- emerging out of life narratives, would provide the “point of spect. Drawing on his views, by no means representative of all entry that sees dalit sociology not through the eyes of the aca- dalits in India, I add specifi c and regional perspectives on not deme but in terms of its own emic categories” (Visvanathan only English, but the hegemony of standard language over 2001: 3123). what are perceived as dalit dialects. The favourable view in Thus, a new archive of dalit writing in English translation Patel’s case stems as much from the empowering nature of forms the basis of this paper. The “archive” has a forced homo- English, as the stigmatising nature of his own Gujarati. If geneity imposed by the term “dalit”, which embraces an urban standard Gujarati, Patel argues, is as distant and alien to dalits middle-class dalit as well as a member of a scavenger caste, as English, he would rather embrace English, and use it to re- who may have to wait a generation more before s/he can place his “mother tongue”, thus making English what he calls become part of the middle class. The homogeneity is also con- his “foster-tongue”. By being foreign, English does not normal- solidated by the fact that the translated texts are in an interna- ise and legitimise caste, and by being an ex-colonial language tional language. I have discussed elsewhere (Kothari 2008) with global reach, it becomes empowering. the politics of representation in an archive of this nature – the The closing section asks what it means to give up or embrace preoccupation with the autobiographical; the burden of repre- a language, and how the “self” gets redefi ned and translated sentation that some members of a dalit community carry with into new meanings by the aforesaid shedding or embracing of them, mostly ones who have had the opportunity of self-ex- a language. I suggest that embracing English involves, and pression through social mobility, and so on. Questions could also coincides with, multiple levels of translation as far as also be raised about the following: the transparency of autobi- dalits are concerned. ographies; the location of upper-caste mediators and translators who “re-present” such “authentic” voices; the middle-class Material and Symbolic Capital readers who would be much more willing to read autobiogra- The introductory discussion above mentioned the “archive” of phies as narratives of suffering than to engage with the polem- dalit literature in English translation. In the discussion that ics of essays and articles; and also the discursive nature of follows, I delineate the conditions that aid the emergence of truth, that is constructed as much through life stories as the the archive. The public sphere formed through dalit articula- blurbs of books, publishers’ efforts, the marketing economics tion has many agents and participants. As a signifi cant devel- of English publishing houses, etc. The scope of this paper does opment for the archive under discussion, life stories, witness not allow me to discuss them here, although they do get dealt accounts, YouTube videos, and a range of cultural texts of with in partial ways elsewhere (Anand 2003a, 2003b; Kothari groups subjected to vulnerability and violence, have come to 2008; Merill 2010). play an important role in the discourses on human rights. Pramod Nayar persuasively argues that “cultural texts may Issues and Arguments not have much evidentiary value in a court of law, but they The questions I seek to ask here are about the relationship carry enormous purchase on the civil society which becomes between caste and the English language, the two phenomena politicised as a result of these emotional appeals to its moral that represent considerably antithetical signs. Caste, an insti- imagination” (Nayar 2012: 5). Nayar’s study refers to the “in- tution that defi nes tradition and inheritance, combines, sertion of new identities (victims), contexts (casteism, racism), through translation, with the modern and secular discourse of economies (suffering) into popular and public discourses of the English language. Dalit writers, as we see in the section the nation – India – to produce a rights imaginary and a rights that follows, appear to accept English as a target language, de- literacy” (ibid: Preface). Written in the myriad languages of spite the fact that trenchantly local realities and registers of India, and very often non-standardised registers, dalit life caste are diffi cult to couch in a language that has no memory stories become a part of the gamut of cultural texts, a task of caste. The discussion shows how English promises to dalit accomplished for the most part through English translation. writers (at least in theory), as both individuals and (however Dalit literature in India has emerged in tandem with caste problematically) as representatives of communities, agency, protests in various states. In Gujarat, the state I come from, it articulation, recognition, and justice. It would seem that the gathered steam after the upper castes went on a rampage to inherent inadequacies of English as a target language of trans- protest against affi rmative action for the dalits. In Maharashtra, lation for dalit literature are compensated by it being a lan- on the other hand, where it has its seeds and strongest constit- guage of global dissemination. The two sections that follow uency, literature by dalits triggered off the political struggle draw attention to the multiplicity of contexts that make writing against caste. A literature that redefi nes the aesthetic by

Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 28, 2013 vol xlviII no 39 61 SPECIAL ARTICLE

making its readers confront the unpleasant, dalit writers very of Dalit movement. We use our words as weapons. It is our struggle often take risks. Engaged in writing about their lives, the writ- through pen and pain against inhumanity. We want liberty, fraternity, and freedom. We want to eradicate this cruel Hindu caste system. This ers very often do so to the chagrin of those around them, and message reached out [to the] the world at large through English trans- this includes not only the upper castes (whose hypocrisy they lation. Not only my life, but our movement strengthened. People know reveal), but also the humiliation of the entire community they we are living here (email interview with the author, 3 April 2006). belong to. They reveal, to the discomfort of their fellow community members, the internalisation of caste hegemony. This English Translations is also true of other dispossessed groups in India, such as the As far as dalit writers are concerned, there is prestige and wid- tribals and the de-notifi ed tribes. In an autobiography about a er dissemination attached to English translation. We do not criminal tribe, the author Laxman Mane, who evoked censure know how far this translates into sales for every single book, from his community councils for exposing and humiliating the unless dalit texts are prescribed (as is the case with some) as community, writes textbooks in courses taught at universities. At a more funda- From our panchayat’s point of view, the very writing of this book is mental level of identity, the act of writing and being heard/ a crime and I am aware of the provision of the punishment for such read in the English public sphere allows for a renewed repre- wrong doing. I am prepared to face the consequences. Is it because my Father has already conducted the weddings of both my sisters that I sentation. There is another, and to my mind a more signifi cant, have dared to write as I have? (Mane 1997: 5). advantage. By being translated into English and thereby fi nding an audience outside the local language community, a dalit Voices of Writers from the Grass Roots author creates a path that is independent of local politics. For Since some dalit writers are involved in grass-roots move- instance, the conservative literary establishment of Gujarat ments, their voices tend to take on the burden of representa- which, up to the end of the 1990s, continued to dismiss dalit tion. The candid nature of the autobiographies that have come literature, has had to reckon with its importance (at least as lip into English clearly show that the writing of such autobiogra- service) once it became a nationwide phenomenon. At the phies must have been an act of courage. For instance, the author same time, its residual reservations against writing, that ex- Kishore Shantabai Kale created a storm in the literary circles poses its own upper-caste duplicity, would not allow it to sup- of Maharashtra by describing candidly his experiences as the port dalit writing wholeheartedly. In such a situation, notes son of a “tamasha” dancer (Kale 2000). For the fi rst time, the Chandu Maheria, “we are able to bypass local politics and cre- sexual exploitation in the life of a dancer was exposed to a ate a more neutral place for ourselves” (personal interview wider public, fi rst through Marathi, and eventually through with the author, 8 February 2006). Another writer from Gu- English. Kale brought to readers, who considered tamasha jarat, Sahil Parmar, mentions that “the two issues of corrup- merely an innocent form of vernacular dance in Maharashtra, a tion and caste need to be internationalised and that is possible sexual and caste politics, which they were hardly aware of. After only through English translation” (personal interview with the the publication of the autobiography, Kale also set up counsel- author, 6 February 2006). While Maheria and Parmar rely on ling centres for tamasha dancers, to raise awareness about AIDS others to tell their stories in English, Meena Kandaswamy, and sexual exploitation. The autobiography proudly uses the equipped with the technologies of English and cyber-media, mother’s name as the middle name, and makes a political state- tells them herself. Her blog mentions the following: ment about the community to which his mother belonged. The Big media houses which own the major publications only rarely give above very often positions dalit literature as “authentic” and opportunity to dalit writers, and there is an absence of dalit/anti- “untold stories”, and this is particularly true of autobiographies. caste writers who write in English. The elitist writers want to write the feel-good stuff, India shining myths, and that’s the work that gets The writers of autobiographies take on a burden of representa- into print. So I wanted to tap the power and enormous outreach of the tion, and appear arguably as translators of their community. It is internet … (http://sotosay.wordpress.com/ by Kamalakar, accessed not possible, given the scope of this paper, to examine the im- 18 May 2012). plicit claims of “authenticity”; rather, one can draw attention to Meena Kandaswamy’s interventions in the silence she the symbolic premium this places upon dalit literature. The would have been subjected to confi rms Thirumal and body of “Indian” literature has come to be hugely enriched by Tartakov’s thesis that “cyber-savvy dalits now have the inter- narratives of an “other” India, emerging out of protests, strug- net for campaigning against cases of atrocities”, making “the gles and grass-roots activism. English translation plays a role in boundaries between civil society and political society porous”. its visibility and dissemination, at least potentially. In cyberspace, they observe, “dalits can explore what it means The act of translation into English has had an important im- to be a dalit, and what it means not to be a dalit” (Thirumal pact on the dalit authors themselves. For instance, Limbale’s au- and Tartakov 2011: 29). Edging out of the margins into which tobiography in English was shortlisted for a translation prize, their voices were relegated, dalits are now using many new and also made available in Tamil and Malayalam. In an (elec- technologies. Another case in point is the visual and graphic tronic) interview, when I asked Limbale if the English translation narrative, Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability, pub- of his Akkarmashi had helped him, this is what he had to say: lished in 2011 by Navayana Press (a press devoted exclusively

Because of English translation I get [a] world platform to present my- to dalit writing in India). A sophisticated and moving set of self and my community. It proves that the academic discussion is started i mages, drawing upon both tribal and cyber technologies, today on Dalit problem. Dalit literature is a socio-political document Bhimayana is a sign of our times.

62 september 28, 2013 vol xlviII no 39 EPW Economic & Political Weekly SPECIAL ARTICLE It may thus be useful to acknowledge the above as both the in considerable measure by liberal thought and the systemic symbolic and material capital which accrue to make a body understanding of caste, which he acquired over the course of called “dalit literature in English translation” possible. Infl u- his education in the west, English played a constitutive role in enced by Pierre Bourdieu, translation studies show how the his life. Without undermining the experiential discrimination fi eld, habitus and capital are formed through agents and partici- he underwent, it may be possible to say that not only did pants in translation and publishing, dissemination and distribu- Ambedkar create something through English, but that he was tion, readers and reviewers (Munday 2008: 157). The inclusion himself also a creation of English. Ambedkar set in motion a of dalit studies, and courses on identity politics, race and ethnic- political language of rights, as well as practices of self-expres- ity in universities in India and abroad, have also provided the sion and narratives. The practice of circulating stories that impetus for publishers to invest time and money in undertaking could generate political responses to caste is most evident to- such publications. Editors, translators and publishers are res- day in the various visual, print and cyber media (some exam- ponding to both the market and to personal or institutional ples of which have been provided in the previous section). This commitments which make translations by dalit writers possible. goes back partly to the way the relatively literate dalit commu- Of interest to us is also the relative comfort translators and edi- nities such as Mahars and Mangs would read out Ambedkar’s tors feel in carrying out “Indian” experiments on English. journalistic writings to hutment dwellers – men, women, chil- Publishers fl aunt the dalitness of texts; a stance governed dren – who listened with rapt attention (Punalekar 2001: 8). by both commitment and conducive market conditions. For Through this, Ambedkar also carved a tradition of self-expres- instance, through Limbale”s autobiography, The Outcaste: sion which laid emphasis upon the content of suffering and Akkarmashi, the translator Satish Bhoomkar makes the English- dissemination, rather than on the language chosen for the speaking reader reckon with a category and identity called purpose of this self-expression. This, to my mind, is the solid “half-caste”. Similarly, Lakshmi Holmstrom, the translator of foundation of dalit life stories, told by the dalits, although Bama’s autobiography, retains the title Karukku which, she ex- translated, edited and published (and even read?) very often plains, is a leaf that has sharp edges on both sides (Holmstrom by others (read upper castes). 2000). English readers unfamiliar with an object called When, in the centenary year of 1994, the writings of “karukku” come to realise on reading the autobiography that B R Ambedkar were translated into different Indian languages, the leaf is a metaphor for Bama’s existence, a woman in a situ- dalit literature received a strong impetus. Importantly for us, ation of unease with the traditional hierarchy of Hinduism, as Ambedkar was not merely disseminated through translation; well as with the understated hierarchy in Christianity. In the he used English translation to form his understanding of the translation of Gujarat’s best-known dalit novel Angaliyat, the caste system enunciated in ancient scriptures. In his well- retention of the title in the English translation is equally known essay “Who Were the Shudras?”, Ambedkar addresses signifi cant. Angaliyat refers to a child who is led by his angli those critics who had accused him of ignorance in Sanskrit and (fi nger) to the house of his new father, where he continues to declared his unsuitability to interpret scriptures (Ambedkar be the stepchild. Once again, the English translation brings to 2002). Ambedkar admits the role of English as the medium the reader an awareness of being angaliyat, not just for one through which he accessed Sanskrit texts, and declares that child, but an entire community (Macwan 2003). Similarly, “[t]he want of knowledge of Sanskrit need not therefore be a Changiya Rukh, an autobiography by Balbir Madhopuri, re- bar to my handling such a theme such as the present” (ibid 387). tains its title and refers to a tree that has been deliberately In addition to using English as a means of accessing Sanskrit stunted from the top; however, the same tree may also have texts and exposing their ideological support for social inequali- the resilience to bring forth fresh branches and leaves. The ti- ties, Ambedkar uses English to express his ideas of social and tles successfully evoke for the English reader (also) the simul- political democracy. It was in English that he wrote short narra- taneity of subjugation and resilience. It is unlikely that words tives about his life to show, in a simple and accessible manner, such as the ones described above would easily form a part of the everydayness of the caste system. Thus, through theory and living and dynamic vocabulary in English, like other forms of practice, Ambedkar supported the articulation of the dalit strug- interactions bet ween Indian languages and English, which gle and its expression or translation into English. create creolised mixtures. However, there is a philosophical Meanwhile, the generation that began to write dalit auto- faith in the idea of translation as well as English, contributing biographies (largely), poetry and fi ction grew up on the ideals to what have been discussed as contexts of material and sym- of Ambedkar, who had organised them into a political constit- bolic capital. Continuing in the same vein, the section below uency and made the nascent nation state of India incorporate on B R Ambedkar provides the exemplary role. electoral representation in its new Constitution. Ambedkar also initiated a move to include dalits within the educational Ambedkar, English (and) Translation system, and created a tradition of affi rmative action that con- It is useful to invoke B R Ambedkar at this point, a fi gure that tinues to this day, amid many in/valid objections from the not only imposes a pan-Indian unity upon dalits, but also has upper castes and privileged classes. Out of the constituencies specifi c contributions to make to three important aspects un- carved out of Ambedkar’s efforts, some, exposed to the “glory der discussion – telling stories, the English language, and of the alphabet”, have their autobiographies/life stories in translation. Considering how Ambedkar was himself formed print, mediated through an English translation.

Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 28, 2013 vol xlviII no 39 63 SPECIAL ARTICLE Caste in an Alien Language? from English – economically as well as culturally. The author Before we begin to examine the relationship between caste observes that “the dalit and OBC students seem to struggle and a casteless language like English, it is important to provide more than others. These are the students most in need of Eng- some of the main and unresolved positions on the English lan- lish, yet English seems farthest from them” (Ramanathan guage in India. English belonged to the white master in the 1999: 228). Elsewhere, in a rebuttal to a report that accused past, and is now wielded powerfully by India’s urban elite. The the University of Hyderabad of being elitist and metropolitan, history of the relationship between the English language and the writers clarify how dalit students enrol in the University India reveals several stages of ambivalence, stemming from its without the barrier of English restricting their entry (Palshikar being a colonial instrument (and therefore anti-nationalist) and Patnaik 2002: 1490). The veracity of claims and positions and an “alien” language, and therefore inadequate in enunci- is not my concern, but I wish to point out how, in the anxiety ating the “regional” ethos (Kothari 2003). However, others to refute the charges of elitism and exclusion affecting vul- argue that English might now have lost the taint of colonial nerable groups such as the dalits, rhetoric is mobilised to under- legacy. But even those who subscribe to such a view and vocif- mine English so as to make for inclusive spaces. Furthermore, erously insist upon the language’s postcolonial and benign the use of dialects, imagery and linguistic registers in dalit contribution to India would fi nd it hard not to acknowledge literature are tethered to regional and local life-worlds that English’s excluding functions. It is the economic and cultural demand from its upper-caste and urban readers a translation capital only of India’s well-heeled middle class, but is also one of not only linguistic, but also anthropological material. that is aspired to by almost all, regardless of caste, class and Lakshmi Holmstrom mentions in her introduction to Bama’s gender. One of the strands in the scholarship in English studies autobiography that looks at its vernacularisation in India, that encounter between Bama is doing something completely new in using the demotic and the Indian languages and English as a testimony of some shifts in colloquial regularly as her medium for narration and even argument, linguistic economy. The views in this regard tend to be, yet not simply for reported speech. She uses a dalit style of language again, polarised. Does the vernacularisation of English repre- which overturns the decorum and aesthetics of received upper-class, sent equal terms between an Indian language and English? Or, upper-caste Tamil (Holmstrom 2000: xi). as some ask, does English continue to maintain an upper hand Given this reality, it would seem almost paradoxical that (see, for instance, Harish Trivedi’s Foreword in Kothari and English should be a suitable language to carry across dalit Snell 2011)? On the other hand, some argue that English has realities. lost its upper hand and become democratic, accessible. In the In the context of this discussion, a refreshingly different process of becoming more available, shifts in syntax, vocabu- perspective was offered to me by Neerav Patel, one of the most lary and accent erode the edifi ces of power and exclusion well-known dalit poets from Gujarat. Patel stridently ex- present in the English language (ibid). pressed the desire to have English as his language of expres- As dalit texts are increasingly translated into English, they sion, without its mediation through translation. The idea, he bring to English (at least in theory) a working-class register, says, is “not to distrust translators of English, but to insist that “the shock of an idiom and sentiment” (Devy 2003: xix). The a dalit must learn English himself/herself” (personal inter- new speech sets its own boundaries, delineates its own aes- view with the author, 8 April 2012). A discussion based on his thetics, and when carried into English, bends the English lan- article “Gujarati Maari Matrubhasha, English Maari Foster guage. What are these relationships between caste and Eng- Mother” in the next section throws light on the ideological ap- lish established through translation, and what sustains them? paratus invested in the English language, which all dalits may/ Caste is an age-old institution in India – surviving, enduring, not share. The discussion also brings home the social meaning persisting, even consolidating, and thereby resisting the project of languages and the role they play in identity politics in India. of modernity. Its reinsertion into India’s census was both inevi- English in particular has unique possibilities of redefi nition. table and a poignant marker of its inescapability and the futility of chasing a modular western modernity. Its articulation in a Goodbye, Mother Tongue language whose existence in India goes back a mere 150 years Gujarati Lekhak Mandal, a literary circle in Gujarat, has been would seem anomalous. However, the life of English in India is engaging itself with a series of debates about the lack of pho- characterised by such anomalies: it carries simultaneous pos- netic consistency in the Gujarati language. Finding the rules of sibilities of exclusion and democracy, biases of class as well as Gujarati spellings cumbersome and awkward, a group of writ- neutrality of region, religion and caste. Hence, any discussion ers are campaigning for an alignment of the written language on English runs into the danger of perceived polarisation, over- with spoken Gujarati, which to them must be privileged as a familiar-but-continuing-to-be heated debates on its western he- more dynamic and living part of language. One of the argu- gemony versus part-of-the-Indian soil indigenisation. ments this group posits concerns the less educated, rural and It is an undeniable fact that by being a language of the underprivileged groups whose Gujarati must not be, according socially and economically privileged, English is distant from to them, deemed “inaccurate” (read, inferior to) by the speak- dalits. A study based upon language acquisition among stu- ers and writers of “standard” Gujarati. In 2012, the Gujarati dents in Gujarat illustrates how dalit and tribal students Lekhak Mandal invited responses to the question, “Who (all) remain outside the core of primary learning by being distant can claim Gujarati?” for its journal. Implicit in this question is

64 september 28, 2013 vol xlviII no 39 EPW Economic & Political Weekly SPECIAL ARTICLE not only the written/spoken dichotomy, but questions of power, later, almost in college, that “ghari” is the name of a sweet eaten by the legitimacy and representation. Are the lives of the dispos- upper-castes. Imagine if dalit children even today were taught the sound sessed, linguistic and religious minorities refl ected in Gujarati of “p” by “pasta” and not “patang” (Kite), would it not be confusing? literature? The question was meant to irritate Gujarati writers Although the distance may appear to be one of class, it is dif- into thinking about the politics of language, and its inclusion fi cult in Patel’s memory and experience to delineate it from as well as exclusion through standardisation. caste. Patel’s example underscores two things: fi rst, standard Indian languages are carved out of the reality and conven- Idea of a Mother Tongue? ience of hegemonic sections so that they neither refl ect nor While the responses are still under publication, this section make provisions for the disempowered sections. Second, the draws on Neerav Patel’s unpublished response to this question. disempowered groups’ effort involved in learning such stand- An acclaimed poet and critic, Patel attacks the homogeneous ard registers is as arduous as their attempt to learn English. idea of a “mother tongue” in India. Although this may seem a With this, Patel erodes an oft-assumed myth – that cultural separate issue from English, it is very important to see how the and linguistic translations between “Indian languages” are idea of an Indian language that alienates the dalits and col- easier than those from an Indian language into English. While ludes with the upper castes in normalising caste discrimination this may be theoretically true, Patel aims to show the many shapes the dalit response to English. The specifi city of the case languages that exist in even what is offi cially the “same” lan- below provides a much-needed elaboration of this operation to guage. This also establishes the context for the English lan- bring home the fact that Indian languages do not constitute for guage, whose cultural difference for the dalit is no more mar- all Indians a proud inheritance, which “globalisation” and simi- ginalising than an Indian language. The realisation takes lar invasive forces may allegedly besiege. This is essentially an away for the dalit a fundamental argument about the lack of upper-caste view and luxury; those who wish to redefi ne them- “authenticity” with respect to English. selves must do so by abandoning this inheritance and embrac- Meanwhile, Patel refers to his own “mother tongue”, the one ing English. This argument is not the same, Prasad (2012: 21), formed through locality, occupation, memory and inheritance, suggests as the one espoused by management gurus and also as Gujarati; but only as a qualifi er to “mother tongue”. In avowed adherents of capitalism, who see possibilities of order to mark this differentiation in the Roman script, let us progress only in English. The discussion shows how this aban- use the term “gujarati” for Patel’s mother tongue and “Gujara- donment is animated by the misery of unwanted memories of ti” to refer to “standard” Gujarati. The former (with its pecu- language, and a desire to erase that memory. Patel provides a liar words and accent), a mark of Patel’s dalit identity, brought biography of the language, and shows the uneasy interactions to him abusive terms, and both the non-standard and standard between standard and non-standard Gujarati. language carry for him the memory of pejorative words. In At the outskirts of Ahmedabad, my village Bhuvaldi is one of the 26 order to erase that memory and also to “become” a “proper” villages inhabited by the untouchable community of Rohits, to which Gujarati, he had to put behind “mother tongue” gujarati. He I belong. In addition to following their caste occupation [of removing says, “In any case, my parents from whom I had inherited are dead animals and skinning them], my parents also cultivated the land, no more, nor do I have a living relation with the dalit environ- and that is how they looked after our family. Their ancestors had fol- lowed the same occupation. This made the sphere of their social life ment of the village Bhuvaldi, my motherland”. and livelihood limited to a radius of about 25 kilometres. The mother- Saddened by this loss, Patel sees this as a matter of little tongue they had inherited, the language they acquired through a high- choice, and believes that dalits must embrace the international ly limited social sphere, and one shaped by the communities that their language of rights available in English. A foreign language, a hereditary occupation brought them in touch with – Muslim leather “foster-mother”, according to Patel, has extended to the dalits traders from Mirzapur, the Marwadi cobblers of Madhupur, the Vora Muslim goldsmiths of Manek Chowk, the thakurs, hot-headed neigh- more justice and empowerment than his gujarati. bours and landowners, the barbers and others – combined to make My innocent gujarati has taught me fi ne things of which one is en- my “mother-tongue”. How this “mother-tongue” was vastly different durance. But it did not tell us the reasons how caste and class were from the “Gujarati” of the upper-caste is something I wish to explain the basis of oppression perpetrated upon the deprived and dalits. It through an example …. did not tell us that in order to eradicate that injustice you needed a Patel echoes Kancha Iliah in illustrating how the language new awakening, knowledge and struggle. How would that poor thing teach us this? Living as it does in the shadow of oppressors, how would of artisans, pastoralists, dalits, and other labour groups is that mother-tongue of mine know that they had cast a web of oppres- formed through production and the materiality of everyday sion and hidden it deftly in their language? By forming words such as life (Iliah 2009: 3, 5). What constituted Patel’s vocabulary superstition, destiny, God, bhajan, rebirth and other-world, they had through occupation, oral traditions, trade and labour was not made it helpless, blind and fatalistic. I am grateful to the other tongue enough for him to relate with standard Gujarati. Hence, when which became my foster language; it is this English that provided sci- Patel was being taught the sound “gh” of an expensive sweet, entifi c thought and showed a way out of oppression and torture. ghari, made of dry fruits and ghee, he found himself outside Patel once again reminds us of Iliah, who says, “While the the imagination of that object. brahminical lessons had been conspiratorially silent about our When I was in the fi rst grade studying in a school in my village, a lady castes and cultures, the English texts appeared to be doing the teacher tried teaching me the sound and letter of “gh.” But I found it opposite” (2009: 55). However, Patel’s contribution lies in ex- very confusing. She would give an example of “ghari.” I learnt much posing an essentialist and sentimental defence of language as

Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 28, 2013 vol xlviII no 39 65 SPECIAL ARTICLE not only a luxury, but also a collusion of forces that wish to keep in India (2008: 4). Sanskritisation is a much larger and persist- dalits away (even now) from the benefi ts of a global economy. ent phenomenon than the Sanskrit language. It is manifested According to him, the ones whipping up anxieties about the loss in the perpetuation of Sanskrit through referentiality. In other of language and insignifi cant concerns of script are writers, words, a heavy infl uence of Sanskrit in diction, manner and journalists, teachers and politicians, whose status and liveli- form defi nes the “acceptable” norm of literary Gujarati. It posi- hood depend on Gujarati. As for those who genuinely care about tions the ordinary and vernacular as being less literary (ibid: 4). a more inclusive G/gujarati world, Patel addresses them thus: The Gujarati spoken and written by the educated and literary also tends to be Sanskritised, setting its difference from and They worry that should g/Gujarati disappear what would happen to such wretched communities [dalits, Muslims and other marginal sections]? superiority over the more vernacular, rough-hewn forms of They fear that people would have a sudden aphasia, and how would language used by the less literary and educated, including the they then express their struggles, emotions, thoughts and feelings? To dalits. This phenomenon is not unique to Gujarati; this is but this section I wish to extend reassurance and say that do not worry about one example from the cluster of Indo-Aryan languages that us Gujarati dalit, tribals and underprivileged sections. We have now fath- display these tendencies. Of course, such distinctions can omed the history of the language; we also know its politics …. appear facile in the face of the criss-crossings that characterise Patel perceives a collusion between the upper castes and languages. It is also possible to detect the Persian lexicon in offi cial, standardised Gujarati, which also in turn infl uences what is considered standard Gujarati, an outcome of Gujarat’s world views in his own gujarati, and normalises caste discrim- trade with the Perso-Arabic world. However, it is not common ination. In his elaboration of this link, Patel is convincing, even to see this as an expanding vocabulary. The third linguistic if he does leave some questions unasked: If Gujarati were to impact of Englishisation would appear to be closer to Patel’s make a trenchant critique of caste, would that not lead to a ideological stand on language. However, Patel is not suggest- reformulation of the role it has played (or not) over the centu- ing an alignment with the English register, vocabulary or syn- ries? Did Gujarati not briefl y adopt a language of reform apro- tax, but is propounding English as the new tongue for dalit pos its encounter with colonial modernity in the 19th century? communities, a replacement of the diverse dalit languages However brief this period of “reform” might have been, Patel spoken across India by English alone. makes no mention of it, or of the fact that language is also ani- An iconic expression of the dalit view on English is the cele- mated by hegemonic desires. And when the animating forces bration (by the dalit columnist Chandrabhan Prasad) of Lord change, do languages not get coloured? On the other hand, he Macaulay, who drafted the Minute on Indian Education (1835), could well argue, and quite rightly, that it was only through an and of “Mother Goddess English” (for a range of viewpoints on encounter with the English language that Gujarati acquired this, see Mukherjee 2009; see also Prasad 2012: 3-23). As far as (on occasions few and far between) voices of dissent against dalits are concerned, the Indian languages bring with them caste and other forms of injustice. This too was made possible Sanskritic traditions, perpetuation of inequality rationalised through and as translation, to which we return again. in linguistic structures, and restrictions on mobility. The “neu- Meanwhile, if English, as it would appear from Patel’s views trality” implicit in such a stance may also extend to a language (as stated above, and subsequently), is inherently democratic, such as Tamil, whose politics in the 20th century entail de- how did it become an instrument in the project of racial and Sanskritisation. It may also include a language such as Urdu, imperialistic agendas elsewhere? However, the argument he whose infl uence from Persian, rather than Sanskrit, may make makes about English below is most hard-hitting and incontro- dalit a more appropriate choice for the dalits. Hence English is vertible. Addressing the same group again (the one that expe- not the only language that may provide to the dalits the amnesia riences anxiety about the loss of Gujarati), he says: of ritual purity associated with Sanskrit. However, thinkers You wish to make your children study in English-medium schools and such as Neerav Patel and Chandrabhan Prasad gravitate to not prepare them for the gifts and power of a globalised world, while you only the absence of Sanskrit, but the presence of liberal thought, lure the children of dalits and tribals through mother-tongue, so that notions of equality and a vocabulary in English, which separates they continue being menial labourers? Is that not a plot, bhai? destiny from system. He sums up in unequivocal terms: Neerav Patel’s “mother tongue” gujarati evokes unease and I would like every dalit child to study in an English medium school and pain. It tethers him “back” to the community and village he has love his foster-mother English more than his mother-tongue. In fact I distanced himself from by being an urban dalit. English not only would like English to be their mother-tongue. Dear mother-tongue, I bid you goodbye ….

Standard Gujarati and Patel’s gujarati available at The difference between Patel’s gujarati and standard Gujarati, which he associates with both the upper caste and the upper Altermedia-Bookshop Ecoshop M G Road class, may be possible to view in terms of what linguists speak Thrissur 680 001 of as the three “impacts” upon languages. The well-known lin- Kerala guist Braj Kachru mentions Sanskritisation, Persianisation and Ph: 2422974 Englishisation as the three linguistic impacts upon languages

66 september 28, 2013 vol xlviII no 39 EPW Economic & Political Weekly SPECIAL ARTICLE enables him to transcend his region and origins, but also helps demography, its own vocabulary. It is this combination that is diverse dalits from all regions to imagine unity in a language described as “dialects” employed by the dalits. Dalit dialects that does not normalise caste. English is also the language of op- have hitherto formed an important part of dalit protest, as portunities, and hence empowering in more ways than one. weapons undermining the elitist registers of the “standard” Despite striking an unsentimental note, Patel’s biography of language used and institutionalised by the upper castes. How- gujarati, a language he willy-nilly moved away from, and an ever, the terms of this communication continue to be unequal. account of the new meanings he associates with English, is Patel recognises how the absence of standard Gujarati marks vivid and poignant. In addition to illustrating language and him out as a dalit. His protest persists without allowing him to caste politics in India, Patel successfully identifi es this as the be fully free of the memory of caste. By bringing English into political and philosophical affi nity dalits feel towards English. this communication, Patel seeks to shift the terms and use a And yet, the sophistication of his response lies in the fact that currency that upper castes aspire towards. Patel’s gesture this is not a brown sahib’s Anglicisation: English could well be refl ects a refusal to Sanskritise or vernacularise, and thus be substituted with French or German here. There are two things bound by the old terms of exchange. that may go against French or German, though: they do not His gesture of giving up a language is rooted in what would open up the opportunities for economic mobility that English appear as dalit “betrayal” of Indian languages (see, for instance, does, and they do not constitute a site of aspiration for the Ravikant 2006), in the way that NRIs, for instance, move away upper castes, and therefore cannot give the dalit a symbolic from their languages. The question is whether “mother tongues” advantage over the upper-caste person. It is also clear, though, generate the same meaning for everybody, and the discussion that the plea for English is not framed out of an inherent love above shows that they do not. They are, in some cases, painful for the Anglo-Saxon sounds or linguistic-literary traditions reminders of origins. Such narratives of language loss seldom attendant to it, but rather because of its refusal to recognise form part of language scholarship, focused as it is on language caste as a priori, “a given”. Thus, what could have been its dis- assertion rather than abandonment (Mitchell 2010; Rama- advantage for carrying local registers and references becomes swamy 1993). Moreover, dalits in India speak different languag- its advantage in philosophical and political terms. This is what es, and so asserting one language would yield neither a territory makes no dalit writer question the choice of English as the tar- nor a representation of all forms of dalit identities. English helps get language for their works. It is a different matter that dalit redefi ne identity and imagine a pan-Indian dalit unity, while writers may differ on translation practices and competence. also allowing a vocabulary of human rights. Many meanings of translation – translation into another Closing Thoughts language (linguistic translation), into other realities (transla- Neerav Patel’s farewell to his mother tongue gujarati for the tion in an anthropological sense), from experience to expres- “foster-mother” English opens up a gamut of questions, not sion, appeared as sub-themes. Translation is one of the many only about the relationship between caste and the English lan- consolidations that show a dalit subject as an active partici- guage, but also larger questions about the linguistic economy pant in Indian democracy – one who has changed the gram- in India – the relationships between what are considered mar of electoral politics, or one who wants caste discrimina- “standard registers” of language and forms of vernacularisation to be acknowledged as a human rights issue, and one who tion,1 the hegemony of the written over spoken languages, the is grappling with both the stigma and the assertion of her/his construction of the “mother tongue”2 and how some languag- identity. As far as the English language is concerned, its ideo- es have come to occupy places of pride, assertion, and (there- logical potential to “translate” the dalit life from fatalism to an fore?) territory, while some bring exclusion and unease. For identity of rights outweighs considerations of its distance from instance, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor mentions in a Indian reality. The process is as much about manuvaad testimonial, “When I refused to speak Hungarian anymore, (casteism) as it is about anuvaad (translation). Not surprisingly, my parents co-operated” (Epstein 1988). The loss of Hungari- translation has increasingly come to be referred to (Sakai 2009) an, perhaps as much of a mother tongue as gujarati would be as “the metaphor of the metaphor”. to Neerav Patel, is not always a source of joy and coherence to Notes a displaced person. For those wishing to erase sullied pasts, 1 For a study of the exclusion of the spoken and non-standard, an outcome of language is an obstruction. It carries unwanted memories. I mass printing in Europe, see Tonkin (2006). have discussed elsewhere that the post-Partition Sindhi mi- 2 For a fi ne-grained discussion of how “mother-tongues” are also an unstable category, constituted and perpetuated through 20th century scholarship grant refuses to speak her language and her parents cooperate and colonial technologies, see Michele (2009). Also of interest should be with her in shedding not only her language, but also her Sin- Bhalla’s views on the tyrannical nature of the so-called “mother tongue” in their repression of the vernacular (2010). Patel’s dismissal of the romanti- dhi identity. The reference to Sindhities in with the location of cism around the mother tongue as luxury and the sentimentalism of those Sindh in Pakistan, evoking an unacceptable lineage in India whose languages dominate, validates the constructive nature of the (Kothari 2007: 47). Language is a marker of identity and iden- mother tongue as well as the tyranny that Bhalla mentions. tifi cation. Accents, vocabulary, syntax, diction are indices of References knowing who you are, where you are from, which gender and Ambedkar, B R (2002): “Who Were the Shudras?” in V Rodrigues (ed.), class you belong to, and in many cases, which race and caste, The Essential Writings of B R Ambedkar (Oxford: Oxford university Press) too. Caste produces, through specifi c material practices and 385-95.

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Anand, S, ed. (2003a): Touchable Tales: Publishing into English” in Jeremy Munday (ed.), Transla- Punalekar, S P (2001): “Decoding Dalitism”, and Reading Dalit literature (Chennai: Navayana tion as Intervention, Continuum Studies in Frontier, September: 2-8. Publishing). Translation (London: Continuum) 38-53. Ramanathan, Vai (1999): “English Is Here to Stay: – (2003b): “Affirmative Fictions”, Outlook, Kothari, Rita and Rupert Snell (2011): Chutnefying A Critical Look at Institutional and Education- 20 October: 74-76. English: The Phenomenon of Hinglish (New Del- al Practices in India”, Tesol Quarterly, 33(2): Bama (2000): Karukku, L Holmstrom (trans) hi: Penguin India). 211-31. (Chennai: Macmillan). Limbale, S (2003): The Outcaste: Akkarmashi, S Ramaswamy, Sumathi (1993): “En/gendering Bhoomkar (trans) (New Delhi: Oxford Univer- Language: The Poetics of Tamil Identity”, Com- Bhalla, Alok (2010): “Ahimsa in the City of the sity Press). parative Studies in Society and History, 35(4): Mind”, Manoa, 22(1): 115-24. Macwan, Joseph (2003): The Stepchild: Angaliyat, 683-725. Devy, Ganesh (2003): “Introduction” in Sharankumar Rita Kothari (trans) (New Delhi: Oxford Uni- Ravikant (2006): “The Dalit Betrayal of Hindi- Limbale, The Outcaste: Akkarmashi, versity Press). Hindu-Hindustan”, 9 November, www.kafila. S Bhoomkar (trans) (New Delhi: Oxford Madhopuri, Balbir (2010): Changiya Rukh: Against org (accessed on 20 September 2012). University Press). the Night, Tripti Jain (trans) (New Delhi: Sakai, Naoki (2009): “Translation and the Schema- Epstein, Helen (1988): Children of the Holocaust: Oxford University Press). tism of Bordering”, Gesellschaft Ubersetzen Conversations with Daughters and Sons of Sur- Mane, Laxman (1997): Upara: An Outsider, A K Ka- Conference, 29-31 October, Germany. Availa- vivors (New York: Penguin). mat (trans) (New Delhi: Sahtiya Akademi). ble at www.translating-society.de/conference/ Holmstrom, Lakshmi (2000): “Introduction” in Merill, Christi (2010): “Human Rights Singular- papers (accessed on 5 August 2012). Bama, Karaukku (Chennai: Macmillan India), Plural: Translating Dalit Autobiography from Thirumal, P and Gary Michael Tartakov (2011): vii-xi. Hindi”, Biography, 33(1): 127-50. “India’s Dalits Search for a Democratic Open- Iliah, Kancha (2009 [1996]): Why I am not a Hindu? Mitchell Lisa (2010): Language, Emotion & Politics ing in the Digital Divide” in Patricia Ran- (Calcutta: Samya). in South India: The Making of a Mother Tongue dolph Leigh (ed.), International Exploration Kachru, Braj (2008): “Introduction: Languages and (Indiana: Indiana University Press). of Technology Equity and the Digital Divide: Contexts” in Braj Kachru, Yamuna Kachru and Mukherjee, Alok (2009): This Gift of English: Eng- Critical, Historical, and Social Perspectives S N Sridhar (ed.), Language in South Asia lish Education and the Formation of Alternative (New York: Information Science Reference), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Hegemonies in India (New Delhi: Orient Black- 20-39. Kale, K S (2000): Against All Odds, S Pandey (trans) swan). Tonkin, Humphrey (2006): “Language Inclusion (New Delhi: Penguin India). Munday, Jeremy (2008): Introducing Translation and Individual Exclusion: Patterns of Commu- Kesharshivam, B (2008): The Whole Truth and Studies (London: Routledge). nication in Bilingual and Multilingual and Nothing but the Truth: A Dalit’s Life, Gita Nayar, Pramod (2012): Writing Wrongs: The Cul- Multilingual Politics”, Paper presented at the Chaudhuri (trans) (Kolkata: Samya). tural Construction of Human Rights in India MIDP Symposium: Multilingualism and Exclu- Kothari, Rita (2001): “Short Story in Gujarati Dalit (New Delhi: Routledge). sion, University of the Free State, Bloemfon- Literature”, Economic & Political Weekly, Palshikar, Sanjay and Arun Kumar Patnaik (2002): tein, South Africa, 24-25 April. 24 November. “Violence in a University: Defending the Inde- Valmiki, Omprakash (2003): Joothan: A Dalit’s Life, – (2003): Translating India: The Cultural Politics fensible”, Economic & Political Weekly, 37(16): Arun Prabha Mukherjee (trans) (Kolkata: of English (Manchester: St Jerome Publishing). 1490-91. Samya). – (2007): The Burden of Refuge: Sindh, Gujarat, Prasad, G J V (2012): Writing India, Writing Eng- Visvanathan, Shiv (2001): “Durban and Dalit Dis- Partition (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan). lish: Literature, Language, Location (New course”, Economic & Political Weekly, August: – (2008): “The Translation of Dalit Literature Delhi: Routledge India). 3123-27. Decentralisation and Local Governments Edited by T R Raghunandan

The idea of devolving power to local governments was part of the larger political debate during the Indian national movement. With strong advocates for it, like Gandhi, it resulted in constitutional changes and policy decisions in the decades following Independence, to make governance more accountable to and accessible for the common man. The introduction discusses the milestones in the evolution of local governments post-Independence, while providing an overview of the panchayat system, its evolution and its powers under the British, and the stand of various leaders of the Indian national movement on decentralisation. This volume discusses the constitutional amendments that gave autonomy to institutions of local governance, both rural and urban, along with the various facets of establishing and strengthening these local self-governments. Authors: V M Sirsikar • Nirmal Mukarji • C H Hanumantha Rao • B K Chandrashekar • Norma Alvares • Poornima Vyasulu, Vinod Vyasulu • Niraja Gopal Jayal • Mani Shankar Aiyar • Benjamin Powis • Amitabh Behar, Yamini Aiyar • Pranab Bardhan, Dilip Mookherjee • Amitabh Behar • Ahalya S Bhat, Suman Kolhar, Aarathi Chellappa, H Anand • Raghabendra Chattopadhyay, Esther Duflo • Nirmala Buch • Ramesh Ramanathan • M A Oommen • Indira Rajaraman, Darshy Sinha • Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal • M Govinda Rao, U A Vasanth Rao • Mary E John • Pratap Ranjan Jena, Manish Gupta • Pranab Bardhan, Sandip Mitra, Dilip Mookherjee, Abhirup Sarkar • M A Oommen • J Devika, Binitha V Thampi

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