Outcaste, a Memoir

Outcaste, a Memoir

Author: Narendra Jadhav

Publisher: Viking Books

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13:

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Outcaste: A Memoir Is A Multilayered Personalized Saga Of The Social Metamorphosis Of Dalits In India. At One Level, It Is A Loving Tribute From A Son To His Father. At Another, It Gives An Intelligent Appraisal Of The Caste System In India And Traces The Story Of The Awakening Of Dalits Traversing Three Generations. At Still Another Level, It Is Reflective Of The Aspirations Of Millions Of Dalits In India. Written In The First Person, At Times From The Perspective Of Narendra Jadhav S Parents, Damu And Sonu, And At Other Times From His Own, The Book Traces The Remarkable Journey Of Damu From A Small Village At Ozar In Maharashtra To The City Of Mumbai To Escape Persecution. In The City, Although Illiterate And Despite The Disadvantages Of His Mahar Caste, Damu Earns Respect In The Various Jobs He Undertakes. Even More Heartening, His Children And Their Offspring Go On To Fulfil All His Aspirations, Rising To High Positions In Their Chosen Careers, And Overcoming, Finally, The Barrier That Had So Bedevilled His Own Life. Damu S Refusal To Cave In To Any Type Of Injustice And His Iron Determination Form The Heart Of The Book. But Outcaste Is Much More Than A Personal Recounting Of The Downside Of The Caste Divide In India. It Also Examines Dalit Issues In The Context Of The Dalits Awakening Spearheaded By The Champion Of Human Rights, Babasaheb Ambedkar, The Independence Movement, The Civil Disobedience Movement, Gandhiji S Relation With Ambedkar, The Mass Conversion Of Dalits To Buddhism In 1956, And Caste In Its Contemporary Reality. A Crucial Landmark Is Damu S Own Transformation Under The Spell Of Ambedkar. The Radical Change In Damu And His Family, Their Sloughing Off Of Servility, And Their Self-Esteem Are Seamlessly Woven Into The Narrative. The Book Ends With A Note Of Self-Realization: That In Modern India Dignity Rests In The Minds And Hearts Of People, And That Obsolete Prejudices Do Not Really Matter. Enlivening The Text Are Personal Anecdotes, Some Funny, Some Sad And Some Heart-Warming. And Running Like A Refrain Throughout Is The Clarion Call Of Ambedkar, Educate, Unite And Agitate . Poignant And Simple, Outcaste Makes For Fascinating Reading.


Book Synopsis Outcaste, a Memoir by : Narendra Jadhav

Download or read book Outcaste, a Memoir written by Narendra Jadhav and published by Viking Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outcaste: A Memoir Is A Multilayered Personalized Saga Of The Social Metamorphosis Of Dalits In India. At One Level, It Is A Loving Tribute From A Son To His Father. At Another, It Gives An Intelligent Appraisal Of The Caste System In India And Traces The Story Of The Awakening Of Dalits Traversing Three Generations. At Still Another Level, It Is Reflective Of The Aspirations Of Millions Of Dalits In India. Written In The First Person, At Times From The Perspective Of Narendra Jadhav S Parents, Damu And Sonu, And At Other Times From His Own, The Book Traces The Remarkable Journey Of Damu From A Small Village At Ozar In Maharashtra To The City Of Mumbai To Escape Persecution. In The City, Although Illiterate And Despite The Disadvantages Of His Mahar Caste, Damu Earns Respect In The Various Jobs He Undertakes. Even More Heartening, His Children And Their Offspring Go On To Fulfil All His Aspirations, Rising To High Positions In Their Chosen Careers, And Overcoming, Finally, The Barrier That Had So Bedevilled His Own Life. Damu S Refusal To Cave In To Any Type Of Injustice And His Iron Determination Form The Heart Of The Book. But Outcaste Is Much More Than A Personal Recounting Of The Downside Of The Caste Divide In India. It Also Examines Dalit Issues In The Context Of The Dalits Awakening Spearheaded By The Champion Of Human Rights, Babasaheb Ambedkar, The Independence Movement, The Civil Disobedience Movement, Gandhiji S Relation With Ambedkar, The Mass Conversion Of Dalits To Buddhism In 1956, And Caste In Its Contemporary Reality. A Crucial Landmark Is Damu S Own Transformation Under The Spell Of Ambedkar. The Radical Change In Damu And His Family, Their Sloughing Off Of Servility, And Their Self-Esteem Are Seamlessly Woven Into The Narrative. The Book Ends With A Note Of Self-Realization: That In Modern India Dignity Rests In The Minds And Hearts Of People, And That Obsolete Prejudices Do Not Really Matter. Enlivening The Text Are Personal Anecdotes, Some Funny, Some Sad And Some Heart-Warming. And Running Like A Refrain Throughout Is The Clarion Call Of Ambedkar, Educate, Unite And Agitate . Poignant And Simple, Outcaste Makes For Fascinating Reading.

Caste and Outcast

Caste and Outcast

Author: Dhan Gopal Mukerji

Publisher: Graphic Arts Books

Published: 2021-08-03

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 1513217593

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Caste and Outcast (1923) is an autobiography by Dhan Gopal Mukerji. Published the year after Mukerji moved from San Francisco to New York City, Caste and Outcast is a moving autobiographical narrative from the first Indian writer to gain a popular audience in the United States. Although he is more widely recognized for such children’s novels as Gay Neck: The Story of a Pigeon (1927), which won the 1928 Newbery Medal, and Kari the Elephant (1922), Mukerji was also a gifted poet and memoirist whose experiences in India, Japan, and the United States are essential to his unique perspective on twentieth century life. “As I look into the past and try to recover my earliest impression, I remember that the most vivid experience of my childhood was the terrific power of faces. From the day consciousness dawned upon me, I saw faces, faces everywhere, and I always noticed the eyes. It was as if the whole Hindu race lived in its eyes.” Raised in a prominent Brahmin family, Dhan Gopal Mukerji enjoyed immense privileges in his native India and came to trust in the effectiveness and fairness of the country’s caste system. As a young man, however, no longer enthralled with the ascetic lifestyle explored in his youth, Mukerji devoted himself to nationalist politics and eventually left India for Japan. Unsatisfied with life as an engineering student, he emigrated once more to the United States, where he moved in anarchist and bohemian circles while embarking on a career as a popular poet and children’s author. Although he never returned to his native country, Mukerji left an inspiring legacy through his literary achievement and unwavering commitment to Indian independence. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Dhan Gopal Mukerji’s Caste and Outcast is a classic of Indian American literature reimagined for modern readers.


Book Synopsis Caste and Outcast by : Dhan Gopal Mukerji

Download or read book Caste and Outcast written by Dhan Gopal Mukerji and published by Graphic Arts Books. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caste and Outcast (1923) is an autobiography by Dhan Gopal Mukerji. Published the year after Mukerji moved from San Francisco to New York City, Caste and Outcast is a moving autobiographical narrative from the first Indian writer to gain a popular audience in the United States. Although he is more widely recognized for such children’s novels as Gay Neck: The Story of a Pigeon (1927), which won the 1928 Newbery Medal, and Kari the Elephant (1922), Mukerji was also a gifted poet and memoirist whose experiences in India, Japan, and the United States are essential to his unique perspective on twentieth century life. “As I look into the past and try to recover my earliest impression, I remember that the most vivid experience of my childhood was the terrific power of faces. From the day consciousness dawned upon me, I saw faces, faces everywhere, and I always noticed the eyes. It was as if the whole Hindu race lived in its eyes.” Raised in a prominent Brahmin family, Dhan Gopal Mukerji enjoyed immense privileges in his native India and came to trust in the effectiveness and fairness of the country’s caste system. As a young man, however, no longer enthralled with the ascetic lifestyle explored in his youth, Mukerji devoted himself to nationalist politics and eventually left India for Japan. Unsatisfied with life as an engineering student, he emigrated once more to the United States, where he moved in anarchist and bohemian circles while embarking on a career as a popular poet and children’s author. Although he never returned to his native country, Mukerji left an inspiring legacy through his literary achievement and unwavering commitment to Indian independence. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Dhan Gopal Mukerji’s Caste and Outcast is a classic of Indian American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Language in South Asia

Language in South Asia

Author: Braj B. Kachru

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-03-27

Total Pages: 640

ISBN-13: 9781139465502

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South Asia is a rich and fascinating linguistic area, its many hundreds of languages from four major language families representing the distinctions of caste, class, profession, religion, and region. This comprehensive new volume presents an overview of the language situation in this vast subcontinent in a linguistic, historical and sociolinguistic context. An invaluable resource, it comprises authoritative contributions from leading international scholars within the fields of South Asian language and linguistics, historical linguistics, cultural studies and area studies. Topics covered include the ongoing linguistic processes, controversies, and implications of language modernization; the functions of South Asian languages within the legal system, media, cinema, and religion; language conflicts and politics, and Sanskrit and its long traditions of study and teaching. Language in South Asia is an accessible interdisciplinary book for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, multilingualism, language planning and South Asian studies.


Book Synopsis Language in South Asia by : Braj B. Kachru

Download or read book Language in South Asia written by Braj B. Kachru and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-03-27 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Asia is a rich and fascinating linguistic area, its many hundreds of languages from four major language families representing the distinctions of caste, class, profession, religion, and region. This comprehensive new volume presents an overview of the language situation in this vast subcontinent in a linguistic, historical and sociolinguistic context. An invaluable resource, it comprises authoritative contributions from leading international scholars within the fields of South Asian language and linguistics, historical linguistics, cultural studies and area studies. Topics covered include the ongoing linguistic processes, controversies, and implications of language modernization; the functions of South Asian languages within the legal system, media, cinema, and religion; language conflicts and politics, and Sanskrit and its long traditions of study and teaching. Language in South Asia is an accessible interdisciplinary book for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, multilingualism, language planning and South Asian studies.

Interrogating My Chandal Life

Interrogating My Chandal Life

Author: Manoranjan Byapari

Publisher: SAGE Publications Pvt. Limited

Published: 2019-01-17

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789381345139

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Winner of The Hindu Prize 2018 (Non-fiction) Shortlisted for the 3rd JIO MAMI Word to Screen Award 2018 If you insist that you do not know me, let me explain myself … you will feel, why, yes, I do know this person. I’ve seen this man. With these words, Manoranjan Byapari points to the inescapable roles all of us play in an unequal society. Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit is the translation of his remarkable memoir Itibritte Chandal Jivan. It talks about his traumatic life as a child in the refugee camps of West Bengal and Dandakaranya, facing persistent want—an experience that would dominate his life. The book charts his futile flight from home to escape hunger, in search of work as a teenager around the country, only to face further exploitation. In Kolkata in the 1970s, as a young man, he got caught up in the Naxalite movement and took part in gang warfare. His world changed dramatically when he was taught the alphabet in prison at the age of 24—it drew him into a new, enticing world of books. After prison, he worked as a rickshaw-wallah and one day the writer Mahasweta Devi happened to be his passenger. It was she who led him to his first publication. Today, as Sipra Mukherjee points out, ‘issues of poverty, hunger and violence have exploded the cautiously sewn boundaries of the more affluent world’, rendering archaic the comfortable distances between them. Despite ‘Chandal’ explicitly referring to a Dalit caste, this narrative weaves in and out of the margins.


Book Synopsis Interrogating My Chandal Life by : Manoranjan Byapari

Download or read book Interrogating My Chandal Life written by Manoranjan Byapari and published by SAGE Publications Pvt. Limited. This book was released on 2019-01-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of The Hindu Prize 2018 (Non-fiction) Shortlisted for the 3rd JIO MAMI Word to Screen Award 2018 If you insist that you do not know me, let me explain myself … you will feel, why, yes, I do know this person. I’ve seen this man. With these words, Manoranjan Byapari points to the inescapable roles all of us play in an unequal society. Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit is the translation of his remarkable memoir Itibritte Chandal Jivan. It talks about his traumatic life as a child in the refugee camps of West Bengal and Dandakaranya, facing persistent want—an experience that would dominate his life. The book charts his futile flight from home to escape hunger, in search of work as a teenager around the country, only to face further exploitation. In Kolkata in the 1970s, as a young man, he got caught up in the Naxalite movement and took part in gang warfare. His world changed dramatically when he was taught the alphabet in prison at the age of 24—it drew him into a new, enticing world of books. After prison, he worked as a rickshaw-wallah and one day the writer Mahasweta Devi happened to be his passenger. It was she who led him to his first publication. Today, as Sipra Mukherjee points out, ‘issues of poverty, hunger and violence have exploded the cautiously sewn boundaries of the more affluent world’, rendering archaic the comfortable distances between them. Despite ‘Chandal’ explicitly referring to a Dalit caste, this narrative weaves in and out of the margins.

In the Sanctuary of Outcasts

In the Sanctuary of Outcasts

Author: Neil White

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-06-02

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0061351601

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White tells his emotional, incredible true story of crime and redemption, vanity and spirituality, as he discovers happiness and fulfillment in an unlikely place--imprisonment in The Long Center, the last leper colony in the U.S. 30 color photos.


Book Synopsis In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by : Neil White

Download or read book In the Sanctuary of Outcasts written by Neil White and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: White tells his emotional, incredible true story of crime and redemption, vanity and spirituality, as he discovers happiness and fulfillment in an unlikely place--imprisonment in The Long Center, the last leper colony in the U.S. 30 color photos.

Caste

Caste

Author: Isabel Wilkerson

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks

Published: 2023-02-14

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 0593230272

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions—now with a new Afterword by the author. #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist “As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.” In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.


Book Synopsis Caste by : Isabel Wilkerson

Download or read book Caste written by Isabel Wilkerson and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2023-02-14 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions—now with a new Afterword by the author. #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Post, The New York Public Library, Fortune, Smithsonian Magazine, Marie Claire, Slate, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews Winner of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • National Book Award Longlist • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist • PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist • Kirkus Prize Finalist “As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.” In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Original and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.

Dalit Literature

Dalit Literature

Author: Amar Nath Prasad

Publisher: Sarup & Sons

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9788176258173

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Book Synopsis Dalit Literature by : Amar Nath Prasad

Download or read book Dalit Literature written by Amar Nath Prasad and published by Sarup & Sons. This book was released on 2007 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

A History of Prejudice

A History of Prejudice

Author: Gyanendra Pandey

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-03-25

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 110731125X

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This is a book about prejudice and democracy, and the prejudice of democracy. In comparing the historical struggles of two geographically disparate populations - Indian Dalits (once known as Untouchables) and African Americans - Gyanendra Pandey, the leading subaltern historian, examines the multiple dimensions of prejudice in two of the world's leading democracies. The juxtaposition of two very different locations and histories, and within each of them of varying public and private narratives of struggle, allows for an uncommon analysis of the limits of citizenship in modern societies and states. Pandey, with his characteristic delicacy, probes the histories of his protagonists to uncover a shadowy world where intolerance and discrimination are part of both public and private lives. This unusual and sobering book is revelatory in its exploration of the contradictory history of promise and denial that is common to the official narratives of nations such as India and the United States and the ideologies of many opposition movements.


Book Synopsis A History of Prejudice by : Gyanendra Pandey

Download or read book A History of Prejudice written by Gyanendra Pandey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-25 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about prejudice and democracy, and the prejudice of democracy. In comparing the historical struggles of two geographically disparate populations - Indian Dalits (once known as Untouchables) and African Americans - Gyanendra Pandey, the leading subaltern historian, examines the multiple dimensions of prejudice in two of the world's leading democracies. The juxtaposition of two very different locations and histories, and within each of them of varying public and private narratives of struggle, allows for an uncommon analysis of the limits of citizenship in modern societies and states. Pandey, with his characteristic delicacy, probes the histories of his protagonists to uncover a shadowy world where intolerance and discrimination are part of both public and private lives. This unusual and sobering book is revelatory in its exploration of the contradictory history of promise and denial that is common to the official narratives of nations such as India and the United States and the ideologies of many opposition movements.

Outcaste

Outcaste

Author: Matamp Kunnukuttan

Publisher: MacMillan India

Published: 1996-01-01

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 9780333923115

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Available in English translation, this book is one of a collection of leading Indian post-independence novels. Each text is supported with an introduction and either detailed footnotes or a glossary as appropriate. Publication coincides with the 50th anniversary of Indian independence.


Book Synopsis Outcaste by : Matamp Kunnukuttan

Download or read book Outcaste written by Matamp Kunnukuttan and published by MacMillan India. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available in English translation, this book is one of a collection of leading Indian post-independence novels. Each text is supported with an introduction and either detailed footnotes or a glossary as appropriate. Publication coincides with the 50th anniversary of Indian independence.

Joothan

Joothan

Author: Omprakash Valmiki

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2008-07-02

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0231503377

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Omprakash Valmiki describes his life as an untouchable, or Dalit, in the newly independent India of the 1950s. "Joothan" refers to scraps of food left on a plate, destined for the garbage or animals. India's untouchables have been forced to accept and eat joothan for centuries, and the word encapsulates the pain, humiliation, and poverty of a community forced to live at the bottom of India's social pyramid. Although untouchability was abolished in 1949, Dalits continued to face discrimination, economic deprivation, violence, and ridicule. Valmiki shares his heroic struggle to survive a preordained life of perpetual physical and mental persecution and his transformation into a speaking subject under the influence of the great Dalit political leader, B. R. Ambedkar. A document of the long-silenced and long-denied sufferings of the Dalits, Joothan is a major contribution to the archives of Dalit history and a manifesto for the revolutionary transformation of society and human consciousness.


Book Synopsis Joothan by : Omprakash Valmiki

Download or read book Joothan written by Omprakash Valmiki and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-02 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Omprakash Valmiki describes his life as an untouchable, or Dalit, in the newly independent India of the 1950s. "Joothan" refers to scraps of food left on a plate, destined for the garbage or animals. India's untouchables have been forced to accept and eat joothan for centuries, and the word encapsulates the pain, humiliation, and poverty of a community forced to live at the bottom of India's social pyramid. Although untouchability was abolished in 1949, Dalits continued to face discrimination, economic deprivation, violence, and ridicule. Valmiki shares his heroic struggle to survive a preordained life of perpetual physical and mental persecution and his transformation into a speaking subject under the influence of the great Dalit political leader, B. R. Ambedkar. A document of the long-silenced and long-denied sufferings of the Dalits, Joothan is a major contribution to the archives of Dalit history and a manifesto for the revolutionary transformation of society and human consciousness.