Valmiki’s Joothan and Nasrin’s Lajja
as Literature of protest
“Better is to live one day virtuous and
meditative than to live a hundred years immoral and uncontrolled” (The
Buddha)
A.
Temjenwala .Ao*
N.D.R.Chandra**
Abstract
Literature is a
mouthpiece for the weaker section. Religious caste system and fanaticism are
two sides of the same coin. The evils caused by irrational thoughts are beyond
measure. Omprakash Valmiki’s Joothan and Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja
echo the voice of the unheard. Joothan stands for the untouchables, and
the evils practiced under the hierarchy of caste system. It is this evil that
pulls down the ladder of success in the lives of millions of untouchables.
Autobiographical dalit writing is a new trend in the current dalit writings. It
is not a chronological record of the writer but it is the pathos of his people.
It is a mirror to the lives of his people.
And as such in every page we find the elements of protest. Nasrin as a
humanist writes about the evils of fanaticism and religious extremism. She strongly
condemns any inhuman practice meted to the minorities in her country as well as
other counterparts. Her Lajja is a documentation of the brutalism of
Muslims on the Hindu minorities of Bangladesh. This paper aims to
project elements of protest and how literature connects people towards a
rekindling of empathy in solving the fundamental issues of life.
Keywords: protest, fanaticism, dal, Black Panthers, Babri Masjid, Dronacharya,
humanism, motherland, patriotic, communal
Literature of
Protest: An Overview
Protest as we know today may not have existed earlier. But
the idea represented by this term was known to the people and the poets since
time immemorial. They did express their resentment against unjust economic,
social and religious situations. It may be, because there is an inherent
tendency in man to protest. If this is so, then we know that with the passage
of time thin non-conformist expression have assumed the dimension of a
philosophy which in its ultimate analysis is a quest for freedom, liberty, and
injustice in any given society throughout human history. In a society, protest
provides human alternatives for safeguarding not only one’s natural rights but
also to ensure social change. According to Douglas O.Willium, “Protest is not
ideological in its orientation, but is, essentially activist” (1970:9). The
basic ingredients of protest that naturally comes into conflict with the
establishment are a consciousness regarding fundamental rights, a tendency to
struggle, and a sense of independence and liberty. Protest is, thus, primarily
the result of intense human consciousness, which involves values. It is both a
manifestation of human concern and an endeavour to add meaning to human
existence by strengthening the concepts of social justice, equality, and
liberty. Protest has the quality of identifying itself with the downtrodden and
the oppressed. We can say that it is a process of upholding human values as
they cannot be taken as eternal and unchanging. Emmanual G. states that “Most
frequently we make rearrangements in our value hierarchy; values once
considered crucial become less relevant and, therefore, less important while
others, once relatively lower in our estimation take on new importance. Values
do not have to be eternal and unchanging in order to be values” (1970: 47-48).
Protest as a value and as an effective medium will serve its purpose only if it
is used with relevance to real situations obtained in actual life processes.
Literature is a good medium to reflect such values through protest. A writer
who while struggling or confronting the condition of his times and society,
earns values in a new and fresh way and explores them in the context of real
life situations.
The right of protest and resistance had been known to
ancient Western thinkers and philosophers. They have contributed a lot to the
formulation to these concepts. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) who propounded the
theory of evolution; August Comte (1798-1857) who formulated and explained
three stages of intellectual development-progress from the theological mode of
thought through a metaphysical mode of thought; Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
who, influenced by Charles Darwin, propounded the theory of social evolution;
Karl Marx (1818-1883) who based his social theory on class conflict connecting
it to the development of technology on the one hand, and the resultant changes
in the production of goods, and services and the relation among social classes
on the other; all these people gave significant dimensions to the concept of
protest that revolutionized the ancient and the medieval thinking patterns.
These developments in understanding the socio-cultural-political contexts have,
undoubtedly given new meaning to these concepts whereby we enter the modern
age. Protest has the property of both negation and refusal in its preliminary
stages but later on it transcends. It reaches out for new values and norms.
Herbert Marcuse has aptly said “The radical refusal, the protest, appears in
the way in which words are grouped and regrouped freed from their familiar use
and abuse” (1972:103-104). Protest is deep rooted in human nature and it is
also reflected in social behaviour and functioning. Internal pressures and
external circumstances combine together for the realisation of protest. Protest
in literature is more of anticipation than an expression of a society.
In India,
from the upanishadic down to the present age ‘Varna Vyavasta’ continues to be
the cornerstone. It was, no doubt, hierarchical because it always
“differentiated between higher groups and lower groups. The caste system is one
expression of this social hierarchy.” (Kuppuswamy: 1972) There have been
persistent attempts to make this structure more open and flexible. Non-vedic
creeds of Jainism and Buddhism had been such great socio-religious movements
which challenged almost all the cannons of the Brahamical concepts and the
rigid social norms. By emphasising a moral principle of conduct for the
individual rather than ritual duties, Buddhism disengaged itself from the
hierarchical independence of the caste system. Kosambi rightly said “This was
the most social of religions” (1975:105). India has a long tradition of
literary protest that has changed considerably with time i.e. as man’s
relations with his surroundings have changed; simultaneously the very spirit of
literary protest and dissent has changed. In the medieval age, attempts were
made to break the caste system. The Bhakti Movement of medieval India embodied
a revolt against the inequality inherent in caste as well as against the intellectualism
of the traditional paths to salvation (Moksha). Saints and Sufi poets of
medieval period raised their voice against idolatory, the rigours of caste and
showed in their writings he futility of such practices. They believed in love
that transcends all barriers. This initial literature echoes the need for
social change and freedom from the bondage of caste apartheid. In the modern
age, one can discern corresponding artistic and literary revival in almost all
the artistic, literary genres, forms and styles. Socio-cultural-religious
renaissance created a great resurgence in literature, music, painting and
sculpture. Literary protest is related to the real life and the world around
it. But it does not confine to it alone. It transcends through the subversive
use of language, symbols, and images. Literary protest is multi-dimensional as
it upholds certain values in a specific environment and is concerned with the
ironies, contradictions and paradoxes inherent in the expression of dissent,
protest and freeform. A protest writer does not necessarily; seek inspiration
from religion, philosophy, or the socio-political system. Among many protest
writings, the writings of the backward classes in India call for minute attention.
There is a deep sense of anguish, injury and resentment in their protest
movements. Their ideologies are double-edged, expressing o the one hand
“feeling of dissatisfaction, dissent and protest with the existing situation
(with an awareness of relative deprivation)” and on the other “working out a
positive programme for removing the malady” (ed. S.C.Malik: 254).
The word ‘Dalit’ is found in several Indian languages.
According to Molesworth’s Marathi-English dictionary (of 1975), Dalit means
“ground, broken or reduced to pieces generally.” It is derived from Sanskrit
‘dal’ which is again borrowed from Hebrew. ‘Dal’ in Hebrew may be used in two
senses: ‘it may refer either to physical weakness or to a lowly insignificant
position in society.’ And when it is used in combination with another Hebrew
root-word ‘anti’, it describes an economic relationship. It is clearly
indicated by Harvey Perkins as,
Dal is derived from a verbal root which recognises that poverty
is a process of being emptied, becoming unequal, being impoverished, dried up,
made thin…. So there is social frailty (and those suffering from it) are easily
crushed and have not the means to recover. (1994:29)
Thus, the Dalits are people who are broken, crushed and
torn apart so much so that they are unable to rise and better themselves. The
name expressed their feelings of solidarity and kinship with Black Panthers who
were engaged in a militant struggle for African-Americans’ rights in the United States of America.
The name found a ready acceptance among untouchable communities all over India. This was
the first time they had been able to name themselves, as a collectivity, rather
than be named by others. Dalit is a political identity, as opposed to a caste
one. It expresses Dalits’ knowledge of themselves as oppressed people and signifies
their resolve to demand liberation through a revolutionary transformation of
the system that oppresses them. As Bishop A.C.Lal said in his address to the
first Dalit Solidarity Conference, meeting in 1992 in Nagpur, a place of
immense symbolic significance since it was there that Dr. Ambedkar converted to
Buddhism on 14 October 1956: “The word ‘Dalit’ is a beautiful word, because it
transcends narrow national and sectarian frontiers. It is a beautiful word
because it embraces the sufferings, frustrations, expectations and groanings of
the entire cosmos” (Lal 1995:xiii). For centuries, the Indian society has been
the most hierarchical among the known civilisations. The literature of this
country, until very recently has never focussed on the problems of
‘untouchables’ or the so called ‘Dalit.’ They were never mentioned because the
pen has, by and large, been in the hands of those who wielded power. At the
beginning of the twentieth century, a few upper-caste Hindu writers who
attempted to portray the lives of the untouchables tended to be driven either
by a zeal for social reform or by sentimental compassion. The works of these
writers can be termed as ‘emotionalistic’ literature. Seldom did anyone touch
an untouchable character realistically, like an ordinary human being full of
vitality and hope as well as despair. For a long time, both in pre-independence
and post-independence India,
the low castes did not have any formal education which would stimulate them for
a genuine literary movement to protest against the monopoly of the established
literature. It is only in the post-independence era that some educated
‘untouchables’, who tasted the fruit of modern education, realised the need for
an alternative mode of thinking and launched a new literary movement. The
movement started in Maharashtra, the home town of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar, who throughout his life
fought for the rights, liberties and equalities of the downtrodden. The Dalit Panthers formed in 1972 was a movement against
the caste Hindu. Their manifestos include all the revolutionary parties seeking
to destroy the Hindu Varna System. Its declared enemies were the landlords,
capitalists, moneylenders. The movement gave rise to Dalit Sahitya. This
movement gave rise to Dalit literature which embodies the agonising trauma of
the lives of India’s
Untouchables, from first hand experiences. The following questions loom
around when we talk of Dalit literature: What is Dalit literature? What are its
ideological concerns? Who is a Dalit writer? What are the aesthetics to be
taken into account? Limbale’s answer to some of these questions is,
By Dalit literature, I mean writing about Dalits by a Dalit
writer with a Dalit consciousness. The form of Dalit literature is inherent in
its Dalitness, and its purpose is too obvious to inform Dalit society of its
slavery and narrate its pain and suffering to upper caste Hindus. (2004:19)
Protest in literature is a kind of evolution. It is a
course of change and the need for reform. Dalit literature is a literature of
protest. And a Dalit writer is one who writes with the experience of his
community, the pain of his past burdens subverting the history, revitalizing
the denigrated spheres of language and creating an alternate vision of the
future. Raising the consciousness of the Dalits, and recovering their self
respect and challenging the traditional Hindu values are the Dalit writers’
expressed goals. In this process Dalits rebelled against the exploitative
character of Hinduism and the institution of caste and expressed their
ideological protest through literature, in the form of poems, dramas and
novels. Second is their refusal to perform traditional duties. The disobedience
assumed two forms, one an organized planned and overt protest and the other an
unplanned, unorganized and covert protest. The emergence of an alternative
literature was not without its historical antecedents.
Om Prakash Valmiki’s Joothan as literature of protest
Om Prakash Valmiki (1950- ), as a writer has done much to
stake out a space for Dalit literary expression, well exemplified by his
narrative. He is a voice who echoes the woes of the Dalits or the Subaltern. Autobiographical
method of narration is a current trend in expressing oneself- in individual and
social life. “The autobiographical method of narration is characteristically
modern western fictional technique” (Naik 1982:170). Valmiki’s Joothan (1997) translated into English
by Arun Prabha Mukherjee as Joothan: A
Dalit’s Life (2003) pose as naive
yet pregnant with the oracles of an untouchable. It gives one the effect of
Alice Walker’s Color Purple and
Sharankumar Limbale’s Akkarmashi, the
former create certain guilt in the White readers as they cannot tolerate the
suppressed voices and the latter represents a composite character of the
downtrodden caste which contradicts the Gita.
Valmiki, was inspired by Ambedkar. His Joothan
portrays the element of emancipation. It is a literature of response to the
horror of existence perpetuated by the institution of caste-apartheid. He gives
a historical account of the life of an untouchable in India of the
1950s.
Joothan is a
memoir that adds to the archives of Dalit literature. He speaks of the ground
realities and contradictions that had been shut down with thick walls of
denial. In his preface to the Hindi Edition, he wrote, “Dalit life is
excruciatingly painful, charred by experiences” (J vii) The title of the novel ‘Joothan’ literally means food left
on an eater’s plate, usually destined for the garbage pail in a middle class,
urban home. However, such food would only be characterized ‘joothan’ if someone
else besides the original eater were to eat it. The word carries the
connotations of ritual purity and pollution as ‘jootha’ means polluted. Valmiki
gives a detailed description of collecting, preserving and eating jootha. His
memories of being assigned to guard the drying joothan from crows and chickens,
and of his relishing the dried and reprocessed joothan, burn him with renewed
pain and humiliation in the present.
Valmiki in one instance of the novel writes, “I had to sit
away from the others in the class, and that too on the floor. The mat ran out
before door... sometimes they would beat me without any reason”(J 2). When he was in Class VI, the
headmaster asked Om Prakash to
sweep the school and the playground. He writes, “The playground was way larger
than my small physique could handle and in cleaning it, my back began to ache.
My face was covered with dust. Dust had gone inside my mouth. The other
children in my class were studying and I was sitting in his room and watching
me. I was not even allowed to get a drink of water”( J 4) He was badly
discriminated for his caste in India.
He says, “I swept the whole day....From the doors and windows of the school
rooms, the eyes of the teachers and the boys saw this spectacle.” (J 5)
Om Prakash was made to sweep the school and playground for the next
couple of days and this only came to an end when his father who happened to be
passing by, saw his son sweeping. He confronted the teachers and then walking
away from the school holding Om Prakash’s hand, he said loudly for all of them
to hear, “You are a teacher....So I am leaving now. But remember this much
Master... (he) will study right here...in this school. And not just him but
there will be more coming after him” (J 6).
Valmiki describes his childhood in the village in Barla district of Uttar
Pradesh. He writes about the ill treatment meted out to him when he was at
school because he was an untouchable. He describes the trauma he went through
when he was asked to spend three days sweeping the school courtyard instead of
accompanying his classmates belonging to the higher castes, in the study class.
Despite the barriers of caste which proved to be a hindrance at every step
throughout his years in school and college, Valmiki persevered to get better
education and evolved. While describing the events in Bombay much later in his life, Valmiki
highlights the fact that education is not the solution to the ills of the caste
system. On having been mistaken for a Brahmin because of his adopted last name,
“Valmiki” (used to denote a community of untouchables in Uttar Pradesh) he
found out that just the revelation of his real caste to well-educated middle
class people was received by shock and a sudden change of attitude towards him.
Even his own relatives were hesitant to invite him for a wedding as he refused
to let go of his last name because it would reveal their caste. Omprakash
Valmiki constantly stresses on the differences between the Dalits and the caste
Hindus, the Savarnas, with respect to their various religious beliefs and
customs, he subtly contests the belief that the oppression of the Dalits by the
Savarnas is justified as per the Hindu religious laws because the pork-eating
Dalits living on the outskirts of villages and towns actually do not belong to
the Hindu religion.
Valmiki devotes several pages to the ironies that his new
identity entails. While in Bombay,
he is taken to be a Brahmin by a Maharashtrian Brahmin family, indicating the
possibility of ‘passing’ if one travels far enough from the place of one’s
birth. In western Uttar Pradesh, however, this surname (Valmiki) does not lift
him up from his Chuhrahood and the attendant untouchability. Among the
Buddhists he is seen as a casteist because he refuses to shed this identity
marker as a badge of self-assertion, a declaration that he does not want to
hide his Dalit identity. Valmiki points out the daily dilemmas Dalits face in a
caste-based society that makes it almost impossible to shed one’s caste marker
and leave behind the stigma attached to it. Though they work day and night
unrelentingly, the reward they get is heaps of insults. In the light of these
experiences many questions arise like why Dalits have to rely on upper castes,
though they work day and night in all the seasons without permanent shelter and
unequal pay? Why are the upper caste people treating them inhumanly? Why are
the minority upper castes ruing the majority of Dalits in the whole country? Is
social change not possible in the Hindu society? Can the subaltern speak? Will
dominant sections allow Dalits to speak in this repressive social system?
Likewise there are many questions that strike one’s mind when we read such
books. In Valmiki’s words:
We need an ongoing struggle and a consciousness of struggle, a
consciousness that brings a revolutionary change both in the outside world and
in our hearts, a consciousness that leads the process of social change. (J:x)
Valmiki reminds us of the need and importance of struggle
and Dalit social consciousness to make people aware of the struggles they face
to make new directions for life, which can organize all the weaker sections. Ambedkar,
an indefatigable documenter of atrocities against Dalits, shows how the high
caste villagers could not tolerate the fact that Dalits did not want to accept
their joothan anymore and threatened them with violence if they refused it.
Valmiki has thus recuperated a word from the painful past of Dalit history
which resonates with multiple ironies. Mahatma Gandhi’s paternalistic preaching
which assumed that accepting joothan was simply a bad habit the untouchables
could discard, when juxtaposed against Ambedkar’s passionate exhortation to
fellow untouchables to not accept joothan even when its refusal provoked violence,
press against Valmiki’s text, proliferating in multiple meanings. It is not
surprising; therefore, that one of the most powerful moments of the text is
Valmiki’s mother’s overturning of the basketful of joothan after she is humiliated
by Sukhdev Singh Tyagi,
Sukhdev Singh pointed at the basket full of dirty pattals and
said, “You are taking a basketful of joothan. And on top of that you want food
for your children. Don’t forget your place, Chuhri. Pick up your basket and get
going.” That instant Valmiki’s mother emptied the basket right there and said
to Sukhdev Singh, “Pick it up and put it inside your house. Feed it to the
baratis tomorrow morning.” She confronted him like a “lioness” when he pounced
on her to hit her. (J 11)
Her act of defiance sows the seeds of rebellion in the
child Valmiki. He dedicated the text to his father and mother, both portrayed
as heroic figures, who desired something better for their child and fought for
his safety and growth with tremendous courage. His father’s ambitions for his
son are evident in the nickname, Munshiji, that he gives Valmiki. The child
Valmiki rises on their shoulders to become the first high school graduate from
his basti he pays his debt by giving voice to the indignities suffered by them
and other Dalits. Valmiki’s inscription of these moments of profound violation
of his and his people’s human rights is extremely powerful and deeply
disturbing. For instance, the higher caste people mock at him when he achieves
academic progress. It shows that one cannot change one’s fate of been born into
low caste no matter what religion or how one excel in studies. “Let me see how
bright you are… you will remain a Chuhra, however much you study”(J 28-29).
Autobiography fuses past, present and future. As Trotsky states,
“this book is not a dispassionate photograph of my life... but a component part
of it. In these pages I continued the struggle to which my whole life is
devoted. Describing, I also characterized and evaluate; narrating, I also
defend myself and more often attack”(Broughton 2007:130). Joothan is constructed in the form of wave upon wave of memories
that erupt in Valmiki’s mind when triggered through a stimulus in the present. These
are memories of trauma that Valmiki had kept suppressed. He uses the metaphors
of erupting lava, explosions, conflagrations and flooding to denote their
uncontrollable character. The text follows the logic of the recall of these
memories. Instead of following a linear pattern, Valmiki moves from memory to
memory, showing how his present is deeply scarred by his past despite the great
distance he has travelled to get away from it. He presents the traumatic
moments of encounter with his persecutors as dramatized scenes, as cinematic
moments. The event is narrated in the present tense, capturing the intensity of
the memory and suggesting that the subject has not yet healed from the past
traumas so as to put them behind. We see a full dress re-enactment of the
event, from the perspective of the child or the adolescent Valmiki.
Valmiki places his and his Dalit friends’ encounters with
upper caste teachers in the context of the Brahmin teacher Dronacharya tricking
his low caste disciple Eklavya into cutting his thumb and presenting it to him
as part of his gurudakshina or teacher’s tribute. This is a famous incident in
the Mahabharata. By doing this,
Dronacharya ensured that Eklavya, the better student of archery, could never
compete Arjun, the Kshatriya disciple. Indeed, having lost his thumb, Eklavya
could no longer perform archery. In high caste telling, the popular story
presents a casteless Eklavya as the exemplar of an obedient disciple rather
than the Brahmin Dronacharya as a perfidious and biased teacher. When Valmiki’s
father goes to the school and calls the headmaster a Dronacharya, he links the
twentieth century caste based relations to those that prevailed two thousand
years ago. By showing his father’s ability to deconstruct the story, Valmiki
portrays Dalits as articulate objects who have seen through the cherished myths
of their oppressors. When in a literature class, a teacher waxes eloquent about
this same Dronacharya, Valmiki challenges the teacher, only to be ruthlessly
canned.
The teacher told them that Dronacharya had fed flour mixed in
water to his famished son, Ashwatthama in lieu of milk. After listening to
this, Valmiki stood up and asked “So Ashwatthama was given flour mixed in water
instead of milk, but what about us who had to drink mar? How come we were never
mentioned in any epic? Why didn’t an epic poet ever write a word on our lives? To
this query the teacher screamed, “Darkest Kaliyug has descended upon us so that
an untouchable is daring to talk back.” Getting a long teak stick he said,
“Chuhre ke, you dare compare yourself with Dronacharya… Here, take this, I will
write an epic on your body.” (J 23)
Valmiki’s reconfiguration of the myth also inter-textualizes
Joothan with other Dalit texts, which
frequently use the character of Eklavya as representing the denial of education
to Dalits. The modern Dalit Eklavya, however, can no longer be tricked into
self-mutilation. While the education system is indicted as death dealing for
Dalits, Valmiki pays tribute to the Dalit organic intellectuals who help nuture
the growth of Dalit consciousness in him. While one of them is his father who
has the temerity to name the headmaster a Dornacharya, another is Chandrika
Prasad Jigyasu (‘Jigyasu’ means ‘curious’ and is an acquired identity after
shedding a caste-based one whose rendering of Ambedkar’s life is put into Valmiki’s
hands by his friend Hemlal. Like Valmiki, Hemlal, too, has shed his stigmatized
identity as a Chamar by changing it to Jatav. Reading this book is a
transformative moment for Valmiki, rendered in the metaphors of melting away of
his deadening silence, and the magical transformation of his muteness into
voice:
I felt as though a new chapter about life was being unfurled
before me. A chapter about which I had known nothing. Dr. Ambedkar’s life-long
struggle had shaken me up. I spend many days and nights in turmoil. The
restlessness inside me had increased. My stone-like silence had suddenly began
to melt. I proceeded to read all of Ambedkar’s books that I found in the
library. (J 72)
This moment, narrated at length in Joothan, gives us a key to how marginalized groups enter the stage
of history. Valmiki underscores the way Dr. Ambedkar has been excised from the
hagiography of nationalist discourse. He first encounters him through the
writing of a fellow Dalit, passed on to him by another Dalit, in a library run
by Dalits. Joothan thus has the
twofold task of celebrating and honouring Dalit assertions, and attacking and
dismantling anti-Dalit hegemonic discourses. Valmiki mocks and rewrites the
village pastoral that was long a staple of Indian literature in many languages
as well as of the nationalistic discourse of grass root democracy. Valmiki
portrays a village life where the members of his caste, Chuhras, lived outside
the village, were forced to perform unpaid labour, and denied basic
requirements like access to public land and water, let alone education or
fellow feeling. The tasks involved in reaping and harvesting are described in
terms of intense physical labour under a scorching sun and the needle pricks of
the sheaves of grain. Valmiki shows that he performed most of the tasks under
duress, and was often paid nothing. The most painful of such episodes is the
one where Valmiki is yanked away from his books by Fauz Singh Tyagi and dragged
to his field to sow sugarcane just a day before his maths exam.
He said, ‘Abey, Chuhre, what are you doing?
“I am appearing the Board exams. Tomorrow I have to do the maths
paper,”
“Study at night… come with me. I have to sow cane.”
He held Valmiki by the elbow and dragged him to his field where
he spent the whole morning sowing cane. (J 57)
Valmiki like many other Dalit writers, demands the status
of truth for his writing, taking issues with those find Dalit literature
lacking in imagination. Valmiki’s insistence that all persons and events in Joothan are true poses a considerable
challenge to postmodernist critics who propose
that autobiography’s truth is ‘constructed,’ that the autobiographic
narrator shapes a presentable self by reprocessing his/her memories in order to
fit the present. Dalit autobiography claims the status of truth, of testimony.
Naming people and places by their real names is one of the strategies through
which Valmiki establishes the status of Joothan
as testimony and it give Joothan the
status of documented Dalit history. In the novel Valmiki narrates an incident
which took place at Devband. Valmiki and his friend Bhikuram were send on an
errand by their teacher Brajpal from Barla to Devband. They were asked to
collect wheat from his house. Upon reaching the place, they were invited to share
food with the family and allowed to sit with them. Unfortunately somebody came
to visit the place where they were. Learning that they were from Barla, he
“fired” a question, “What is your caste?” To this Valmiki answered that they
were from the “Chuhra caste” (J 51).
Then without sympathy they were beaten and obscenities began to be hurled on
them by the elder whom showed hospitality at first. In Valmiki’s own words:
His eyes were fierce and his skinny body was harbouring the
devil. We had dared to eat in their dishes and sit on their charpai, a crime in
his eyes. I was standing below the porch, frightened. The elder was screaming,
and his voice had drawn a crowd. Many people suggested that we should be tied
to a rope and hung from the tree (J 51).
Here we find the hollowness of their hospitality. Valmiki
points out that to receive hospitality one should belong to the upper caste.
Such is the plight of the low caste, dalits. Joothan, then, is a multivalent, poly vocal text, healing the
fractured self through narrating, contributing to the archive of Dalit history,
opening a dialogue with the silencing oppressors, and providing solace as well
as frank criticism to his own people. For the fact that Valmiki has become a
speaking subject indicates that Indian democracy has opened some escape hatches
through which a critical mass of articulate, educated Dalits has emerged. On
the other hand, the harsh realities that he portrays so powerfully underscore
the fact that the promises made in the Constitution of independent India have not
yet been fully met. Joothan is a book
that voices the demand of the Dalits for their rightful place under the sun. Resolving
the problems of Dalit identity is an immensely difficult task. It appears that
only through the forging of alliances with oppressed communities elsewhere in
the world on the basis of human rights can some change be brought about.
Despite the challenges, the forging of a Dalit identity is of great importance.
The fact remains that Dalits still endure discrimination of different kinds;
they are still poorer, have less to access to education and less hope of a
bright future than the privileged castes. Dalit literary theory has emerged as
a reaction to dominant group critics’ negative evaluations of Dalit writing.
From a Dalit perspective, it offers a distinct formulation of the nature and
purpose of literature in general, an evaluation of the canon of Indian
literatures, and framework within which Dalit writing should be read and
evaluated. Valmiki has travelled from illiteracy to literacy and from the
village to the city. In his socio-cultural and literary transition he has had
many hardships; he felt doubts whether Sarvana Hindus would experience the
hardships while reading his autobiography, Joothan.
He says “A manifesto for evolutionary transformation of society and human
consciousness, Joothan contrasts its
readers with different questions about their own humanity and invites them to
join the universal projects of human liberation” (Joothan xxxix). Dalit autobiographies construct the human society
on the basis of humanity. If anyone accepts Dali literature it is the
construction of human relations.
Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja as literature of protest
Taslima Nasrin (1962-
) came to limelight as a poet, columnist, and strong feminist. Her Lajja (1993), she earned the wrath of
Islamic fundamentalists and clergy. Her book was banned in her country and a
Fatwa (religious ostracization) was issued against her. Further, she had to
seek political asylum in France
to save her life. Taslima was extremely bold; she remained untrammelled by all
these and kept writing on similar lines. It is not just because she is
intrepid; it is her uncanny knack of storytelling and an extremely limpid
writing style that make her extremely popular among the erudite circle. Her
book Lajja, is set in the backdrop of
the Babri masjid demolition saga, back in the year 1992, which caused a strong
religious, political and social impact, and resulted in riots in sensitive
areas throughout the subcontinent. The stage is set in Bangladesh and
the tale revolves around an extremely patriotic Hindu family. Suranjan, a
prodigal middle aged man with little or no accomplishment in his life to boast
about, is a son of a doctor (Sudhamoy) with strong national values. Sudhamoy
supported his clan during the national movement and worked for the cause of the
nation and in turn, his own countrymen for whom he stood for rewarded him by
mutilating his genitals! Despite all this, he strongly believed that Bangladesh was his home and refused to move to
Kolkata (India).
Suranjan despite being deprived of opportunities due to his religious
background, very much like his father, loves his motherland. Sudhamoy’s wife
Kiranmoyee is depicted as a very kind and a loveable character who stands by
her husband and her family during the testing times. Their daughter Maya, a vivacious lady is
distraught with compatriots’ attitude towards them and her family’s idealism to
remain in their country even during the hour of peril. The story speaks about
the atrocities and cruelties inflicted on Hindus (a religious minority in Bangladesh) in
general and Sudhamoy’s family in particular during the riots. The story is
gripping and the climax is extremely poignant. Taslima in her tale buttresses
her fiction with facts. Her attempt in this book is not to malign any religion,
it is an earnest entreat to the human race to embrace humanity and shun
fanaticism.
The book subtly indicates that communal feelings were on the rise and the Hindu minority of
Bangladesh
was treated unfairly. It shows the absence of secularism under the shadow of
Islam dominated state. The plot centres on a Hindu family of Bangladesh, the
Dutta family of four members; a young man named Suranjan, his father Sudhamoy,
his mother Kiranmoy, and his sister Nilanjana (with pet name Maya). The story
recounts an environment of communal frenzy with the help of these four
characters. In a far off place in Ayodhya, in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, on 6th December 1992, Babri
Masjid is demolished, and the demolition has repercussions even in Bangladesh, a
different country, and a far off place from Ayodhya. The fire of communal
rioting erupts, and the Dutta family feels about this in their own way.
Sudhamoy, the patriarch of the family feels that Bangladesh, his motherland shall
never let him down. Kironmoy as a faithful wife stands by her husband’s views.
Suranjan their son cares very little about the events. He sleeps happily, does
not feel any necessity to take refuge in the home of one of his Muslim friends,
and believes that events in a far off foreign place in India should
not affect his countrymen. Nilanjana curses her brother’s apathy and coaxes her
brother to take the family to a Muslim friend’s place. She says, “Dada aren’t
you going to wake up and do something before it is too late” (Lajja 1). We find an element of protest
in the attitude of Suranjan when he raises the questions as:
Why should he flee his home simply because his mane was Suranjan
Dutta? Was it necessary for his family –Sudhamoy, his father, Kironmoy, his
mother and Nilanjana, his sister –to run away like fugitives just because of
their names? Would they have to take refuge in the homes of Kamal, Belal or
Haider just as they had done two years back? (Lajja 1)
He resolved “I won’t leave my home whatever the
circumstances.”( Lajja 2) In his
voice we find courage and ownership. But gradually we find that all these
courage and sense of belonging are crushed by the dominant Muslims, all in the
name of religion.
In the wave of the events of the after-mate of the
demolition of Babri Masjid Nasrin through the retrospective thoughts of
Suranjan brings the episodes of the past: both pre and post-independent Bangladesh. The
exodus of 1947, 1971 and 1990 are vividly portrayed where the Hindus were
forced to leave their inheritance of their forefathers to flee to India. In the
year 1971, when Sudhamoy was a doctor on the staff of the S.K. Hospital
in Mymensingh, protest against the Pakistani soldiers erupted. A terrified
Kironmoy had said, “Let’s go away to India. All our neighbours are
leaving one by one.” That instant, he became “furious” and said, “You go if you
want to … I am not running away from my home. We’ll kill those Pakistani dogs
and get our freedom. Come back if you can, at that time.” (Lajja 9)
In the words of Nasrin “As the Babri Masjid had been
destroyed by Hindu fanatics it would be the Hindus in Bangladesh who
would have to suffer.” To save herself Nilanjana decides to become a Muslim.
She says, “La Ilaha Ilalahu Muhammadun Rasulullah is all that you need to say
to become a Muslim. That’s just what I’ll do, and I’ll call myself Feroza
Begum.” (Lajja 12). But when it comes
to women irrespective of their religion they were always a prey at the hands of
the dominant men. Sudhamoy recollects an incident where a young student of his
was stripped off her sari in the middle of the street by a “gang of boys”. She
was a Muslim and so were the boys, at this Sudhamoy consoled himself with the
thought that when it came to young women it was not a matter of “Hindus and
Muslima but a question of the weak always being bullied by the strong.” Here
lies the point of Nasrin, that women were the “weaker sex” and as such were
oppressed by the men who were the “stronger sex” (Lajja 17-18). Many flee from the situation instead of standing up
in protest, like Asit Ranjan who sends both his daughters to Calcutta for their safety. Reacting to the
exodus of his fellow Hindu friends Sudhamoy said, “When there was a war in the
country, you ran away like cowards. After we won our independence, you came
back to assert your heroism, and now, at the slightest provocation, you plan to
go back to India.
Honestly, what a bunch of cowards you are” (Lajja
19).
Nasrin advocates her voice of protest strongly in the
character of Sudhamoy, by using him as her mouthpiece. The Bengalis of
Bangladesh were subjected to be sidelined by their counterparts. Though
Sudhamoy urged his fellow Bengalis to be identified by the person first, his
cries were in vain. He would often say that ‘no religion had created this race
(Bengali) and he wanted his people to know no communal barriers, and live
together in perfect harmony (Lajja
25). But in Bangladesh
“unity” was being sought not between people of the “same nation”, but between
people of the “same religion” even if they lived in two different countries.
Because of this aspect people of a different religion were considered as
outsiders even in their own country.
Suranjan was being threatened to be beaten up by the
Muslim boys of his neighbourhood. He walks on the opposite side of the street
not because he was afraid but because he felt “ashamed” of the boys who were
threatening to beat him. These boys were all familiar to him and to some his
father has often given free medical treatment. Nasrin says, “Shame most
affected those who inflicted torture, not those who were tortured!” she mocks
at the irrational behaviour of the Muslim fanatics. In a conversation with
Akhtarujjaman on the issue of Babri Masjid when the visitor inquired whether
supports the demolishers, Sudhamoy replied, “Evil people have done evil work.
All I can do is feel very sorry about the whole thing” (Lajja 35). Nasrin does not support any particular religious group.
But she raises her protest for the cause of humanity and irrationality.
Sudhamoy further says,
Ironically, all religions point towards one goal-peace. Yet it
is in the name of religion that there has been so much unrest and lack of
peace. So much has been shed and so many people have suffered. It is indeed a
pity that even at the close of the twentieth century we’ve had to witness such
atrocities, all in the name of religion. Flying the flag of religion has always
proved the easiest way to crush to nothingness human beings, as well as the
spirit of humanity. (Lajja 36)
Many people renounce their religion and identity to
preserve their life and family instead of protesting against the inflictors.
People like Akhtarujjaman say, “I have given up my dhoti too, quite some time
back. For the sake of my dear life, my friend” (Lajja 36). Little does he
realize that he sold his right and freedom in saving his life. Suranjan mocks
at the farcical declaration of Bangladesh
that his country believed in communal harmony. Nasrin brings the metaphor of a
“cat” to show the element of escapism. Suranjan on 9 December “longed to become
a cat” (Lajja 59). Suranjan’s younger
sister was forcefully abducted from her house right in front her parents. Here
Nasrin voices the insecurity of the minority and the weaker sex. They were prey
to the dominant and fanatic Muslims. When the “frenzied” and “savage” ruffians
entered the house on that fateful day, they screamed, “You bastards! Did you
think you could get away after destroying the Babri Masjid?” (Lajja 147) Then they began to destroy
all the household things. After they had satisfied themselves ransacking the
house they “wrenched Kironmoyee off her daughter, broke Maya’s grip on the bed
and left as swiftly as they had come, carrying their prize with them” (Lajja 147). All these happened to the
Dutta family just because they were Hindus. All attempts to find Maya failed.
The family was now on the verge of breakdown. The father who was patriotic
enough to stay in his home country despite warning now lay paralyzed. His
daughter was abducted and his young son had no courage left to stand against
the system. His wife wailed day and night for her dear daughter. Under such
circumstances, where law governing bodies turn deaf ear to the plight of the
people, it deem better for them “to take poison and kill themselves” (Lajja 157). In Nasrin’s words “It was
obvious now that it was pointless for Hindus to try and survive in Bangladesh” (Lajja 157). When one is blind with
hatred and when religious leaders misguide their followers everything around
will be full of obscenities. When Suranjan went out in search of his sister
people on the street shouted “Here comes one of those bastards responsible for
breaking the Babri Masjid! These buggers should be kicked out of the country to
India”
(Lajja 184). The feeling of fellow countrymen and the
propagation of oneness in love by religion were long forgotten. It is against
such atrocities that Nasrin raises her protest. Slowly in the novel we find
that all the strong characters break down. It is like the famous African
proverb “A man cannot stand alone against his tribe.” Suranjan with a heavy
heart decided to tell his father to move out of Bangladesh
to India.
But the answer Sudhamoy gave brings out the meaning of the title, he said,
“Is India
your father’s home or your grandfather’s? From your family, who the hell stays
in India?
Do you want to run away from your own homeland... doesn’t it make you feel
ashamed?” (Lajja 213)
In reply to his father Suranjan raises some fundamental
questions of protest saying, “What homeland are you talking about, Baba? What
has this country given you? What is it giving you? What has this country of
yours given Maya? Why does my mother have to cry? Why do you groan all night?
Why don’t I get any sleep?” (Lajja
213) In the midst of despair and hopelessness Suranjan began to worry not for
his sister Maya but for his own future and “his heart quaked with fear and
apprehension” (Lajja 215). All these
events occurred for one single reason that is ‘religious fanaticism.’ Nasrin
states that “Religion is the opium of the masses” (Lajja 134). At the end after much debate and ordeals, the whole
family of the Duttas were shocked as Sudhamoy announced, “Come, let us go
away.” As he said these words “shame swept over him” (Lajja 216). It was the culmination of a saga, submission of the
weak to the strong. In Lajja we find
Nasrin’s confirmed view that it is because of religious disharmony there is
bloodshed, hatred, illiteracy, ignorance, injustice and inequality all over the
world. She is of the view that she feels justified in exposing the truth about
the Muslim leaders in Bangladesh
who took advantage of the Hindu minorities of Bangladesh in the name of religion.
Conclusion
In both Valmiki’s Joothan
and Nasrin’s Lajja, we find the elements
of protests. They act as a mirror, which reflects the suppressed and biased
lives of people who are innocent. In both these novels we find that it is
because of the improper exercise of religious beliefs that people suffer.
Literature acts as a mouthpiece for these sections of the people. It is like
reflecting through a mirror the pains of humanity as we glide through the pages
of Joothan and Lajja. The marks left by discriminating forces or agents will ever
remain inscribed upon the hearts of the receiving party. One can realize the
positive aspects of society when the cry of justice is made loud through
literature. Protest literature is replete with contemporary societal
inequalities, social and religious irresponsibility and opportunistic power politics.
Limbale comments “Dalit literature is a revolutionary literature which has been
waging a pen war against discrimination and untouchability among human beings,
hatred, humiliation of human beings, injustice, slavery, orthodox ritualism,
conservatism and Brahmanism. It militates against the faith in rebirth,
fatalism, god, sin and virtue, religion.... It spurs man on to his development,
welfare, faith in himself and introspection. So Dalit literature is a bunch of
explosive thoughts which will lead the exploited people to new life,
liberation, progress and development” (Limbale 3). Dalit autobiographies are
recollections with a motive. They are no mere chronicle for archives of social
history. Events are retained selectively. In all their biographies, the self is
narratively reconstructed in a performance of identification. In Valmiki’s Joothan we witness that the past is
re-visited, re-composed, re-assessed and recognised in the light that it
finally shines at the moment of fulfilment. In both Joothan and Lajja we find
the enemy within the caste and religion. Such literatures thus speak about
“live and let others live.” The projection of ahimsa can be brought in by abstaining from hurling irrational and
fanatical words. The voice of minorities can be beautifully brought out by
arousing the minds of the readers through empathic elements.
Taslima Nasrin is a humanist,
a rationalist,
an atheist. A humanist is the
well-wisher of all humans in the world. A humanist reacts to the human
sufferings anywhere in the world. When Hindus
are butchered by Muslim culprits in Bangladesh she
condemned them. Similarly when Muslims are butchered in Gujarat (India) by Hindu
culprits she condemned the Hindu culprits. She deeply studied the reasons for
human suffering and writing for the human welfare in the world. The religious
fundamentalists have misunderstood her. She is not against any religion. She is
against those exploiters who are causing human suffering. Enmities between
religions are causing wars between nations in the world. Every religion is
brain washing the innocent masses and using them as scapegoats and sacrificing
them as human bombs. Humanists want to educate the victims who think that they
will go to heaven if they die for their religion. Humanists have explored all
religions and want to help and educate the misguided superstitious masses to
bring peace in the world. The religious fundamentalists should try to find out
the knowledge in the point of view of humanist before threatening them to kill.
Shame (or Lajja in Bengali) demonstrates Nasrin’s determination to speak out in
favour of Islamic reform, religious tolerance and freedom of expression, and
against Muslim extremism and other forms of fundamentalism. It is a blessing to
exercise freedom of expression through literature but one should also know the
limits not to exploit and reduce incidents of communal sensitivity to mere
spectacles thereby hurting religious sentiments. Empathic love should be
reflected in literature. It must be felt by the readers. One should be
responsible for the outcome of the writings through which one projects the
voice of resentments and protests. It should have a comprehensive and holistic
approach. It should encompass the elements of unity.
References
Primary Sources
1. Nasrin, Taslima. Lajja. New Delhi:
Penguin, 1993.
2. ---. “They Wanted to Kill Me.” Middle East Quarterly, September (2000: 67-74).
3. Valmiki, Om
Prakash. Joothan (The Left-over Food).
New York: Columbia University
Press, 2003.
4. ---. “On Being Called a Hindu is like an Abuse
to me.” Times Of India,
January 23,(2010:1).
5. ---. “Democracy Held in Bondage.” Sangharsh/Struggle:
E-Journal of Dalit Literary Studies, Vol.1. no.2 (2012).
Secondary Sources
1. Ahmad, Imtiaz and Sashi Bhushan Upadhyay, ed. Dalit Assertion in Society, Literature and
History. New Delhi:
Orient Blackswan Private Limited, 2010.
2. Ansari, A. Iqbal. “Free Speech-Hate Speech: The
Taslima Nasrin Case.” Economic and
Political Weekly 23 February 2008: 16.
3. Bannerjee, Himani. Textile Prison: Discourse on Shame in the Attire of the Gentlewoman
(Bhadramashila) in Colonial Bengal. New Delhi: Shakti Malik
Abhinav Publications, 1998.
4. Dangle, Arjun, ed. Poisoned Bread: Translation from Modern Marathi Literature. Bombay: Orient Longman,
1992.
5. Guru, G. “The Language of Dalit-Bahujan
Political Discourse” in Dalit Identity
and Politics. New Delhi:
G. Shah, 2001.
6. Gupta, R. Dalit
Chetna Sahitya. Hazaribag: Navlekhan Prakashan, 1996.
7. Limbale, S. Towards
an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies, and Considerations.
New Delhi: G.
Shah, 2004.
8. ---. The
Outcaste (translated by Bhoomkar). New
York: Penguin, 1970.
9. Rodrigues, Valerian. The Essential Writings of B.R. Ambedkar. Delhi: Roopak Printers, 2006.
10. Samel,
Swapna, H. Rights of Dalit. New Delhi: Serials
Publications, 2006.
11. Wankhede,
S. Harish. “The Political and the Social in the Dalit Movement Today.” Economic and Political Weekly, 9
February, 2008: 52.
12. Zelliot,
Eleanor. From Untouchable to Dalit:
Essays on the Ambedkarite Movement. Columbia:
Columbia University Press, 2004.
 |
*A.
Temjenwala Ao, PhD, is administrator in Straightway Christian Mission
Centre.
**Professor in English, Nagaland
University, Kohima Campus: Meriema.
|
Get
Your Book Reviewed by
Contemporary
Literary Review India
— journal that brings articulate writings for
articulate readers.
CLRI prides itself to have a good number of
review writers. We have different review writers for books of different
genres. Our reviews are gaining recognition among the publishers, journals
and academia for fair and high quality reviews.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment