Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
How does literature help us to understand history
The search for self-identity
The search for self-identity
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: How does literature help us to understand history
Dalit literature contests written histories where the entire life and cultural heritage of these specific set of people have been neglected. Only a literature of their own can express the real life experiences and their history. The movement which began with Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and Dr. Ambedkar with the message, “Don’t let your pen be restricted to your own questions” (Nimbalkar 32 - 33) is genuinely carried out by Dalit writers, to awake, to emancipate and to make them realize that every human being is equal. In course of this development, Dalit authors’ pen not only restricted to mere proclamations of equality, liberty and fraternity but also tries to make Dalits proud of their origin by highlighting positive aspects of their culture and acknowledging various Dalit art-forms. The two biographical novels taken for this paper, Kalyan Rao’s Untouchable Spring from Telagu and Dr. Narendra Jadhav’s Outcaste - A Memoir from Marathi, are faithful to these aspects.
Both, Kalyan Rao and Dr. Narendra Jadhav represent a part of an awakened and educated Dalit community, focusing on their past, which is not found in written histories. They belong to the generation of struggle and assertion. The similarities between the two writers go further when we see their progressive shift from an untouchable to one of the recognised and well identified personalities in present literary and socio-cultural scenario. Kalyan Rao is a writer, a Dalit, a Dalit Christian and also a Dalit social activist. Similarly Narendra Jadhav, a Dalit writer and a converted Buddhist has also put his marks as an acclaimed Indian bureaucrat, economist, thinker, social scientist and educationist.
Untouchable Spring is the exemplary story of a family where the plot is i...
... middle of paper ...
...bay: Orient Longman, 1992. Print.
---. No Entry for the New Sun: Translations from the Modern Marathi Dalit Poetry. Bombay:
Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd. 2011. Print.
G. Kalyan Rao. Untouchable Spring. Trans. by Alladi Uma & M. Shridhar. New Delhi: Orient
Blackswan Pvt. Ltd. 2011. Print.
--- . ‘Gnapakala Vasantam’ Chatura, December 2008: 114-117. Print.
Narendra, Jadhav. Aamcha Baap Aan Aamhi. Mumbai: Granthali Prakashan, 2007. Print.
---. Outcaste: A Memoir. New Delhi: Vinking, 2003. Print.
Nimabalkar, Waman. Dalit Literature: Nature and Role. Trans. by Vandana Pathak & Dr. P. D.
Nimsarkar. Nagpur: Probodhan Prakashan. 2006. Print.
Singh, Manmohan. On the ccasion of release of seven books by Dr. Narendra Jadhav. New
Delhi. November 16, 2005. Address.
http://www.drnarendrajadhav.info/new_version/drnjadhav_web_files/appreciations/appreciations1.htm
Clive Wearing, an English musician, suffered from a severe brain infection that inhibited his ability to retain memories and knowledge after his sickness. In an article called “The Abyss”, Oliver Sacks reports that within every few seconds, Clive believes that he is “awake for the first time” (Sacks ). and claims that he was previously dead. Anything he then experiences in the short moment of time is sought to be real to him. He believes is occurring for the first time when in reality, it happened only minutes ago. Throughout time, he keeps a journal which demonstrates his repeated struggle. When recognizing previous handwriting, he believes that it occurred but not by him consciously and does not realize how it got there. Although his brain
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand. Young India, Volume 9. N.p.: Navajivan Publishing House, 1927. Print. Vol. 9 of Young India.
Szczepanski, Kallie. "Learn about India's Dalit or Untouchables." About.com Asian History. About.com, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.
Iqbal, Mohammad. “Complaint and Answer.” Trans. By A.J. Arberry. Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York: Pantheon, 2003.
Nicholas B. Dirks. (2011). Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton University Press
Gandhi, Indira. The Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu of Rūpa Gosvāmin. Delhi: National Centre for the Arts and Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2003.
Bama, the Tamil Dalit woman writer, she wrote Karukku her autobiographical novel published in 1992, presents the text as a double-edged sword before the reader. Hailed as the first Dalit woman writer in India Bama’s Karukku is the first autobiography of its kind in Tamil Dalit Literature. Karukku is the first ever autobiography of a Tamil Christian Dalit woman. It is an eye-opener for those who are unaware of the discriminations that Dalits face, the oppression of religious institutions, and Bama’s painful journey to arrive at solutions for problems that plague her community.
Mishra, Vijay. "The Texts of Mother India." After Europe.Ed. Stephen Slemon and Helen Tiffin. Sydney: Dangaroo Press, 1989. 119-37.
Nayar, Pramod K. Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: From Structuralism to Eco Criticism. New Delhi: Pearson, 2010. Print.
Devi, Mahasweta. “Draupadi.” In Other Worlds. Ed. Chakravorty Spriak. New York and London: Routledge, 1987.
Mulk Raj Anand was a prominent Indian writer in English. He was a socially committed novelist, who was born in Peshawar in 1905. His father was a coppersmith and his mother come from peasant family. His literary career was launched by family tragedy. He had a good deal of literature on his behalf. He has written more than a dozen novels and about seventy short stories and essays also. His attitude and views as a novelist had many influenas. His social condition, his parents, his education, and the books he read and the people he met all have a share in making Anand a novelist. Anand was aware about the sufferings, poverty, hunger and humiliations of Indian people. That’s why it became Anand’s aim as a novelist to focus attention on the sufferings and problems of the outcaste. No one in India had yet dealt with these subjects because of there crude realities. Thus Anand writes on what may be called “Epics of sufferings and humiliations”. He has also made Indian novel a novel of socialism and realism. He has introduced new type of characters. As Shrinivasa Iyenger observes, “Anand is often undistingaished and seems to be too much in hurry; but the vitality of his creations, the variegate...
Allen, Charles. Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling. New York: Pegasus Books, 2009. Print.
Indian women writers have given a new dimension to the Indian literature. Indian English Literature has developed over a period of time and writing in English did not start in a day. It took many years to bring the present status. We can find Indian literature as novels and also in the forms of poe...
The Guide, a novel by R.K. Narayan is rooted in everyday, down-to-earth characters in which he believes depicts the Indian way of life. This Bildungsroman novel is told in chronological manner with two stories in one plot. It reflects upon Raju’s life since he was a little boy to the present day. Set in Narayan’s fictional town, Malgudi, Raju tells the story of his past in the first person narration while his experience as a swami is told in the third person narration.
We need to study and understand the writings to Anand and Om Prakash Valmiki because their writings are an eye opener. We are able to precisely comprehend as to why our country’s caste system was one of the most evil systems in the whole world and the writings depict the ground reality that the Dalits were going through. Because of their eye opening accounts we get to realise how far we have moved forward from those dark ages and also how far we need to progress as a society in-order to eradicate the still existent evil practices which degrade the lives of Dalits (in/of) our country. These astonishing Dalit literatures are the reason why we as a citizen of this vast country got to realise that there exists an assortment of people who are depressed and oppressed living among us. Therefore there needs to be a mechanism where their voices are heard loud and clear. This in turn resulted in the creation sensitivity and empathy towards their lives which resulted in creating a genuine interest in the minds of people to work for these deprived people so that they can be brought up from the pit of deprivation and into the relm of quality living. Therefore, we can express with utmost conviction and vigour that Dalit literatures specifically by Anand and Om Prakash Valmiki paved the way in projecting