The authors of this blog are four students of second year BA-HEP:
Vinitha Anna John (1413745)
Aleena Kurian (1413719)
Devika Dileep (1413721)
V Ananya (1413744)
We have started this blog as our Additional English CIA-3 assignment (Christ College). We are going to present some of the reviews of movies and books that came out in the previous century, that are linked to marginalisation. We shall also include analysis of certain poems and short stories. So, we shall be talking about various marginalised societies all over the world, such as the African-Americans, the Dalits of India, and the Aborigines of Australia.
Wakako Yamauchi is an Asian-American female playwright, short-story writer, poet, and painter. Through her creative work, Yamauchi draws portraits of people who struggle with their dreams and passions, while facing the psychological trauma of prejudice, economic depression, and the concentration camps of the Second World War. As a young child and adult, she witnessed the overt racism and harsh labor conditions her parents endured, and later built all these personal memories into the details of her work.
Wakako Yamauchi was born to immigrant parents in California, United States, where her parents worked farmed in the Imperial Valley. Her mother also taught Japanese on Sundays. When Wakako Yamauchi was seventeen years old, she and her family were imprisoned at Poston concentration camp in Arizona, where she met a young writer, Hisaye Yamamoto, who was already established in the Japanese-American press. Both women worked on the camp newspaper, the “Poston Chronicle”, and shared an interest in art and literature. After a year and a half at Poston, Wakako Yamauchi’s family was relocated to Utah and then to Chicago, where she worked in a candy factory and began attending plays, marking the beginning of her love for theatre.
Wakako Yamauchi’s live experiences in the American concentration camps influenced her writings later in career as a playwright and short-story writer.
Summary and Analysis
The story is autobiographical. It begins by the narrator, Masako, an adult by now, telling us that her family had been living in America, the place that her parents had migrated to from Japan (perhaps even before she was born), where her father works on a farm and her mother teaches Japanese at a Buddhist temple every Sunday. She also has a little brother, who is five years younger to her.
A poster of “And the Soul Shall Dance” by famous playwright, Wakako Yamauchi
The narrator begins the story with “It’s alright to talk about it now. Most of the principals are dead, except, of course, me and my younger brother, and possibly Kiyoko Oka…” From this line itself, we realise that the narrator is going to tell us something that had happened years ago (when she, her brother, and Kiyoko Oka) were all children, because now, it would not matter, since many of the people involved are no longer alive. This leads us to believe that she might be narrating to us something disagreeable about one of them. She then, she goes on to explain who the Okas were. As we read through, we realise that the story is all about the Okas, as the narrator knew them.
Mr. and Mrs. Oka were neighbours of the narrator’s family. Masako describes them as being strange, but she does not yet know how. Her mother, though, never liked them, and Masako never knew why, although she does speculate that it could be because Mrs. Oka would not be hospitable; she was also not very social with Masako’s mother, like women often tended to be. Masako wonders if it was only because Mrs. Oka was shy.
It so happens that one day, Masako’s family bathhouse is destroyed in a fire, and Mr Oka offers them the use of his, since it took quite some time to rebuild theirs. As her family starts visiting the Okas, so does Masako begin to see the true picture: that both Mrs. Oka and Mr. Oka are drunkards. Her mother comments on this by saying that women in Japan would never be allowed to drink, which shows that she is highly caste-conscious. This is understandable, since she might have been missing her life back in Japan. Masko then realises that her mother dislikes Mrs. Oka because the latter is not behaving like a “true Japanese woman”. It is also revealed in the story that both Mr. and Mrs. Oka fight a lot. The narrator comments on this when she says, “In spite of her masculine habits, Mrs. Oka was never less than a woman. She was no lady in the area of social amenities; but the feminine in her was innate and never left her. Even in disgrace, she was a small broken sparrow, slightly floppy, too slowly enunciating her few words… Her aberration [a state or condition markedly different from the norm] was a protest of the life assigned to her; it was obstinate but unobserved, alas, unheeded, ‘Strange’ was the only concession we granted her“.
However, by the time winter begins to set in, Masako’s parents decide that they need to rebuild their bathhouse. It is at this time that we realise what actually had been going on in the Oka family; Mr. Oka comes in to help Masako’s father, when he begins to tell the former his story. Mr. Oka had had a wife, who was the sister of the present Mrs. Oka. They had a daughter together. He had left his wife in Japan in order to set up a new life in America; however, as soon as he left, the wife had contracted a disease and died a few days later, leaving the daughter in the hands of her parents. The present Mr. Oka, who had wanted to elope with a man her family rejected, was then wedded to Mr. Oka in his absence, as a replacement for her sister. That was how she had come to be his wife in America.
Mr. Oka then tells Masako’s father that he had at last sent money for his daughter’s flight from Japan, and that she would be arriving in a few days. Now, this is a significant part of the story, since it is the point where the spotlight begins to draw away from the present Mrs. Oka and begins to focus on Kiyoko Oka, Mr. Oka’s daughter by his first marriage. Then, as the story progresses further, the narrator also starts to forget Mrs. Oka, as she relates to us how she used to teach Kiyoko English and, in turn, learn Japanese from her. She also describes how Kiyoko used to get frightened of her parents quarrelling. Gradually though, as seasons changed, so did Kiyoko, who began to be more cheerful, as she accepted her parents’s attitude and tried to ignore it all as much as she could. She was trying to get along with her life despite all that. Eventually, even the Okas themselves begin to ignore Mrs. Oka, as the father and daughter go off on their own.
Then, one day, Masako happens to see Mrs. Oka in her garden, picking flowers and dancing. Masako, afraid of what would happen if the latter saw her, hides in a bush nearby. Mrs. Oka then begins to sing in “A voice sweet and clear cut through the half-dark of the evening” the following song:
“Red lips pressed against a glass
Drink the purple, purplewine
And the soul shall dance”
(This song is, as we realise, how the title of the story has been derived.) Mrs. Oka seems strangely happy and ecstatic. Masako explains Mrs. Oka’s behaviour like this: “The picture of her imagined grandeur was lost to me, but the delusion that transformed the bouquet of tattered petals and sandy leaves, and the aloneness of the desert twilight into a fantasy that brought such joy and abandon made me stir with discomfort.“
At this moment, Mrs Oka describes her own position when she sings:
“Falling, falling, petals on a wind“
Shortly after this little incident, Mrs. Oka dies. Mr. Oka and his daughter move on to another place, and Masako tells us that they never saw them again.
Themes in the Story
The Lives of the Japanese-Americans
In 1941, the Japanese, who were fighting alongside the Germans and the Italians against the Allied forces, were afraid that the United States, which had been isolated since the First World War, might change its mind and ally itself against them alongside England and Russia. So, to prevent such a thing, the Japanese air forces sneaked into the port city of Hawaii, Pearl Harbour, and bombed it, killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process.
As a result of this, the Americans began to fear that the Japanese residents in their country might try and back up the army of their native land. Thus, on the order of President Roosevelt on 19 February 1942, the American government forced the Japanese-American people into camps, which the government called “relocation centres”, and deprived them of their liberty, a basic freedom of the American Constitution.
Surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed soldiers, families lived in poorly built, overcrowded barracks. The barracks themselves had no running water and little heat. There was almost no privacy, and everyone had to use public bathrooms. However, as time passed, the Japanese-Americans were given some sort of freedom, before 1946, when these camps were completely liberated, after the United States army sought revenge by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and taking over Japan.
It is important to remember, though, that this was before the civil rights movement. Racism against people of colour – Asians, Latins, and African-Americans – was common. Because they were easily identifiable as being Asian, Japanese-Americans felt more racial hatred than German-Americans and Italian-Americans. In addition, Japan put together an impressive string of victories in the first six months of the war, overwhelming the American troops in the Philippines, sinking many American ships, and conquering much of Southeast Asia. Their victories led to American paranoia, and many people thought their Japanese neighbors could be spies. These victories, combined with racism, created a war hysteria. People were afraid, and they thought that the only way that America could be safe was to put the Japanese Americans in camps.
Caste System in Japan
Caste system is a closed communal stratification system, where people of a region inherit their position on the basis of some specific rules that are followed by it since time immemorial.
Like India, Japan also used to practice a twisted caste system, which had developed since the inception of the first Japanese empire.
The Japanese caste system consisted broadly of two categories: the Touchable class and the Untouchable class (“Burakumin” in Japanese). While the Touchable class is the actual four-tier hierarchical system–the samurai, the peasants, the craftsmen, and the merchants (the ascending order), the Untouchable class was shunned and ostracised by the Touchable class–the executioners, workers in slaughterhouses, the undertakers, the tanners, and the butchers.
Although this evil system was formally abolished in the 1870s, yet people could not get out of the habit, and so, discrimination continued on indirectly, through surnames and the like. After the Second World War and the establishment of a parliamentary monarchy, the caste discrimination is said to have been reduced. However, there have been cases disproving this statement, one as recent as October 2015, when butchers had been receiving “hate mails”.
“The Last of His Tribe’’, by Henry Kendall an Australian writer and bush poet, who was known for his poems and tales set in a natural environment setting, was a poem written in the 1860’s under the title “Woonoona: The Last of His Tribe”. It specifies on the Aborigine tribes of Australia and the devastation of the tribe. It is the same then and now as compared to the poem “An Elder’s Passing”, for both the poems includes two different groups or clans within the Aborigine tribe but are similar and leave similar themes as they both talk on the devastations of their tribe.
The poem is broken into three distinct themes – the first two verses speak of ‘his’ shame and broken spirit. Verses 3 and 4 speak of his determination to do something about his fate (take action). The last three verses speak of his suddenly being shot and dying. Also the poem stanzas have the structure of rhythm and rhyme that makes the poem so enjoyable, and the last line of each stanza is repeated in a more detailed way. The title implies ‘he’ is the last one; all the others have gone; he’s the only one left; so the question is, what happened to them? No young ones; no generations; no lineage – just ‘the last one!’ The poem starts with a man who is in captivity, broken buries his face in his knees and hides in the dark of his hair, sitting or crouching like an animal all alone sinking in isolation, loneliness that came through utter loss. This aborigine is in captivity and is sick with shame; so sick, he cannot bear to look up to the storm-smitten trees, because he cannot see or face life and it reminds him of all that has been lost and the loneliness. It is quite possible that he has just been captured – colonial police and trackers standing over him; he may be in leg irons and been beaten after a struggle. For he is the only one left in the tribe after its encroachment. The short Kangaroos or ‘Wallaroos’ move through the grass and when they see him, they turn to their coverts or hiding places, afraid of the hunter, the one who is left. Wild game he used to hunt still come and act in the same way, but now he does not respond to them as he would have or used to for he sits in the ashes of the dead and lets them pass. Perhaps he is not allowed to hunt anymore for the born hunter does not use his tools anymore and the weapons are banned by the white man because they could be too easily used as weapons of battle and he feels that there is no more use of it for he lost everything and feels futile to live and hunting brings him the sweet memories of his past and therefore he refrains from it and laments. Perhaps it is a continuation of his shame, for he has no reason to hunt anymore – nobody left to provide for and no reason to maintain his own strength – a willing to die.
After the first two stanzas of his depression and disillusionment, in the third stanza there is a revelation. Suddenly, he is stirred up with rage – stirred up by the spirits of nature, the picturesque waterfall ‘Uloola’, thunder that breaks on the tops of the rocks with rain, wind which drives up the stinging salt of the lakes. Suddenly, he is aroused to the man he used to be, hunter and fisherman again. He stands up; stands up proud; lifts his head up. Some change occurred in him for he got some strength and courage. For his eyes have been full with smoldering thoughts burning inside him and still dreams of the hunts of the yore or hunts of olden times, of people he sought and of fights he fought with those who will not battle anymore and will not go to battle anymore was reminisced. The arousal is coupled with something he has been brooding on for quite a while, a smoldering thought. A smoldering thought is perhaps coupled with a plot, a plan to take action. But what action? With his thoughts, of foes that he sought and fights that he fought, the action seems assuredly to be one of warrior revenge. Though the smoldering thought may also have been coupled with a willing for himself to die, starve to death, suicide. But then perhaps, the spirits stir him to believe he is too good to die without a fight. In the fifth stanza he suddenly gets that positive thought. It is good that the water which tumbles and fills goes moaning and moaning with sounds for he is moving to oblivion. The sound of the waterfalls that moans and laments on the destruction of tribe is good. For echoes rolls out from the sides of the hills and he gets surprised by that wonderful song that they make, for the whole nature is lamenting on the state of the tribe. It is fine that he didn’t hear the gun shot which might come to him the last man, because the sound masks the rifle shot, an echo rolls out from the sides of the hills. That is the precise moment they shot him! And it is ‘well’, because he doesn’t know what has really happened to him. His head snaps back; he is jolted by the bullet.
The last two paragraphs or stanzas, showcase the process of the last man dying and he is being revived. In his loss of consciousness his vision becomes blurred and he dreams through the clouds, through the rents of the scattering fogs, the famous customs, festivals and traditions of his tribe. His thoughts rush jumbled and he relives all the preparations for battle, the noble death and the woman, who would be, mourner, for him, to wish him into the spirit world. He sees his fellow tribe men dancing in a warlike form, ferocious and serious. With the dance he sees a lady who is seated by the fire on a log and mourns for him. The last one left, from his tribe is dying, will he go in his sleep. And he is at peace and, having acquitted himself well, showed courage and bravery, proud. He is now deserved to go, from these desolate lands like a chief, to the rest of his race. And in his final passing over he sees the vision looking at him, a honey-voiced woman who beckons and stands like she is embracing death like a dream in his face. It is like she is inviting him also to the other land to their place now.
The poem ends with a mysterious note. Also leaving everyone feeling raged and pity and realize the fatality and struggles about the destruction of tribe and have a sense of helplessness and pity.
Dr. B R Ambedkar, popularly known as “Babasaheb Ambedkar”, was one of the architects of the Indian Constitution. He was a well-known politician and an eminent jurist. Ambedkar’s efforts to eradicate the social evils, like untouchability and caste restrictions, were remarkable. Throughout his life, he fought for the rights of the Dalits and other socially backward classes. Ambedkar was appointed as the nation’s first Law Minister in the Cabinet of Jawaharlal Nehru. He was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honor in 1990.
His Life
Bhimrao Ambedkar was born to Bhimabai Sakpal and Ramji on 14 April 1891 in Madhya Pradesh, as the fourteenth child of his parents. Ambedkar’s father was a Subedar in the Indian Army and posted at Mhow cantonment, MP. After his father’s retirement in 1894, the family moved to Satara, where, shortly afterwards, his mother passed away. Later, his father remarried and the family shifted to Bombay, where he cleared his matriculation in 1908, and obtained a scholarship of twenty five rupees a month from the then Gayakwad ruler of Baroda. He graduated from Bombay University in 1912, in Political Science and Economics. Ambedkar used the money for higher studies in the USA. His father, Bhimabai Sakpal, died in Bombay, in 1912.
Ambedkar was a victim of caste discrimination all through his student life. His parents hailed from the Hindu Mahar caste, which was viewed as “untouchable” by the upper class. Due to this, Ambedkar had to face severe discrimination from every corner of the society, and even in the Army school run by British government and the local school he had attended in Satara. When he got back from America, he was appointed as the Defence secretary to the King of Baroda, where, again, he had to face the humiliation of being an ‘Untouchable’. With the help of the former Bombay Governor Lord Sydenham, Ambedkar obtained the job as a professor of political economy at the Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Bombay. In 1920, order to continue his studies, he went to England at his own expenses, where he was awarded honor of D.Sc by the London University. Ambedkar also spent few months at the University of Bonn, Germany, to study Economics. On 8 June, 1927, he was awarded a Doctorate by the University of Columbia.
Dalit Movement
After returning to India, Bhimrao Ambedkar decided to fight against the caste discrimination that almost fragmented the nation. Ambedkar opined that there should be separate electoral system for the Untouchables and lower caste people. He also favored the concept of providing reservations for Dalits and other religious communities. Ambedkar began to find ways to reach to the people and make them understand the drawbacks of the prevailing social evils. He launched a newspaper called “Mooknayaka” (leader of the silent). It was believed that, one day, after hearing his speech at a rally, Shahu IV, an influential ruler of Kolhapur dined with the leader. The incident also created a huge uproar in the socio-political arena of the country.
The Scheduled Castes are known as “Harijnas”, meaning “Children of God”, a term coined by Mahatma Gandhi in 1933. During this time, the Mahar movement of Maharashtra has been seen as all India movement. Dr Ambedkar was seen as a national leader. While bargaining with the British and the Hindus, he represented all the Dalits of the country. Although Dalits all over the country consider to be their leader, his role in mobilizing the Scheduled Castes outside Maharashtra is not documented.
The main issues around which most of the Dalit movements have been centered in the colonial and post-colonial periods are confined to the problem of untouchability. They launched movements for maintaining or increasing reservations in political offices, government jobs and welfare programmes.
Immediately after the death of Dr. B R Ambedkar, the intensity of the Dalit Movement increased dramatically, so much that Dalits began to form political parties, first restricted in their regions, then evolving as full-fledged national political parties. Some examples of regional are as follows:
Bappusaheb Bhosale, founder of Dalit Panthers of India. Inspired by Dr. Ambedkar
Republican Party of India, which was successful in raising the Dalit issue in the Parliament, on the account of being elected to the Parliament.
Dalit Panthers of India, who solely follow the ideology of Dr. Ambedkar, although they are known to be more leftist then right. It spread to cities where Dalit population was the highest.
Bahujan Samaj Party, which was formed mainly to represent the Dalits of India and was supposed to have been inspired by the philosophy of Dr. Ambedkar.
The Mahar Movement in Maharashtra
“Mahar” is an untouchable caste in Maharashtra and adjoining states, who live in the outskirts of villages. They make up around nine percent of the entire population of Maharashtra. As a people, they are strong, hardy, and have fighting spirit. Traditionally considered lowest in the Hindu hierarchical system, a number of Mahars during the twentieth century converted to Buddhism, Ambedkar being one of them. They rose against the upper-caste domination in the early twentieth century and revolt was called the Mahar Movement.
The Mahar Movement brought together the smaller and untouchable castes and educated them about their rights, so that they are united into a political party. It also brought in a system of education in the form of schools and colleges, to promote education and self-awareness.
The Mahar Movement in Maharashtra was designed over the years with the ideology and program initiated by various leaders from time to time. Before Dr. Ambedkar, G.B. Walangkar was the first to fight for the rights of the Mahars in Maharashtra. He retired from military service in 1886 and mobilized people and made them conscious about their human rights. He highlighted the grievances of the people through his writings in Marathi newspapers, arguing that casteism and untouchability had no religious base and were creations of the Hindus. Walangkar petitioned the British government demanding that the so-called “untouchable” castes be taken back into the army. In his petition he claimed that “untouchables” were former Kshatriyas.
Another notable personality in pre-Ambedkar Mahar movement was Kisan Bansode from Nagpur. He started a press in 1900, in which he published various newspapers, brochures, and books concerned with the reform of untouchables. He set up a library. He established a school for girls in 1907 and started a number of hostels for boys. He established “The Sanmarg Bodhak Nirashrit Samaj” in 1901 which urged “untouchables” to take education, fight for civil rights, create a feeling among Hindus that the downtrodden should be raised up.
Kalicharan Nandagavli, another Dalit activist set up a school for girls in 1901. He highlighted the problems of the “untouchables” to the Simon Commission and the Southborough Committee. He fought injustice and published many booklets in order to mobilize the people. When he got closer to National congress, differences appeared among the “untouchables” and he lost his popularity.
The pre-Ambedkar Mahar movement had limitations as their efforts were limited to calling upon occasional conventions, submitting memorandums and asking for some favor from the existing government, publishing and circulating newspapers, and establishing hostels and libraries. However, the leaders of the untouchables were focused on bringing about social reform in their respective communities.
Thus they had prepared a ground for the leaders to come to represent the untouchables in an organized way. It is obvious from the work of G B Walangkar, Shivram Janba Kamble, and Kisan Fagoji Bansode that the social reform movement originated among the untouchables, especially among the Mahars, on their own. This prompted the Dalits to organize themselves and fight collectively against their social disabilities.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar came back to India after completing his studies abroad in 1923, he attended public meetings of the untouchables, but never took an active part. He observed that awareness and the spirit of militancy were growing among the untouchables. He decided to set up an organization with membership drawn from the Mahars, the Matangs, and the Chambhars called the “Bahiskrit Hitkarini Sabha” in 1924 in Bombay. With the rise of Ambedkar, the Mahar movement took a different turn.
In the first phase of Dr. Ambedkar’s leadership, in 1924, he took part in the Sanskritization activly. After realizing that the Hindus would not concede religious rights to the untouchables on equal footing, he put forth a radical program. He led the Satyagraha campaign at Mahad in 1927 against the ban on the use of water of a lake. Dr. Ambedkar led a group of people and drank water. The largest Satyagraha took place in 1930 at Nasik. It was organized by Dr Ambedkar and local leaders. It was called the “Kala Ram Satyagraha”, involving untouchables making efforts to enter temples. He participated in another Satyagraha in 1955 to gain entry to the Parvati temple in Pune. The untouchables, led by Sivaram Kambla and Rajbhoj with some Maratha and Brahmin sympathizers, joined in a four-month effort to enter the gates of the Parvati hill temple. Thus, over the years Dr. Ambedkar gained a lot respect from his fellow Maharashtra Mahars and, to this day, he is a celebrated leader of all Dalits and non-Dalits of India.
According to Sharankumar Limbale (author of “The Outcaste-Akkarmashi”), the caste of an individual determines everything about his life, including the clothes he will wear, the person he will marry, and the food he will eat. Limbale describes the life of a man who suffered the pain of not even being allowed into the caste system: he was an outcaste, below everyone else. “Akkarmashi”, a landmark in Marathi Dalit literature, was first written by Sharankumar Limbale in the Mahar dialect of Maharashtra in 1984. Through his words, he portrayed the miserable life he lived as an untouchable, as a half-caste, and as an impoverished man. This work was translated into English by Santosh Bhoomkar in 2003. “The Outcaste” is about an untouchable family in general and community struggles in particular. It reflects the conditions of a particular oppressed class, namely the Mahar community about half a century back and at the same time gives a true and realistic picture of the darker side of the Indian society. The best way to find out the sufferings of the Dalits and the other marginalised sections is through the words and emotions of those who have lived through the experience and who have the education and talent to write so vividly about it. One obvious source is Sharankumar Limbale’s autobiography, “Akkarmashi, The Outcaste”. He has also written many other novels and short stories on Dalit life.
He used a personal descriptive style in his auto-biography to show the life experiences of a Dalit, which includes inequality, discrimination and indifference towards them and their culture. The author describes about his pathetic situation of not having an identity, a home or place of belonging. Limbale was born as an illegal son of a high caste Patil and a poor, landless, untouchable mother. As a result, Limbale neither belongs to Mahar community nor the Marata caste; he is an Akkarmashi, i.e. an Outcaste. His mother lived in a hut, and his father in a mansion. Hence, the son was branded illegitimate. Due to this reason, he could not get certain papers signed for school and the school authorities would not accept his grandmother as his guardian because she lived with a Muslim and for obvious reasons, they could not accept his last name since it belonged to a higher caste. When it was time for marriage, he could not even get married to a low caste girl because his blood was not “pure”; he was not wanted anywhere. Eventually, a drunkard who had offered Limbale his daughter would not allow her to leave after the wedding because of Limbale’s background. Due to his fractured identity, the narrator suffered his entire life.
However, because of his incredible strength and bravery, he did not allow these socially constructed walls to stop him from getting an education and eventually publishing his story. Dalits lived in huts outside the Village (this depicts their status in the society). They spent most of the time inside the bus stand. Regarding the House, Sharankumar said: ” To us the bus stand was like home… we lay like discarded bus tickets”. They totally depended on upper caste people. They ate leftover food, did sub-ordinate work and wore clothes discarded by upper class society. It is said that for filling stomachs men become thieves and women become whores. However, due to the pathetic life situations, Limbale goes to the extent of saying that God had made a mistake by giving stomachs to the Dalits. The condition of the untouchables is such that they steal, beg, sort grain from dung, fetch dead animals and eat them, in order to appease their hunger.
In the caste hierarchy, Brahmins were the superior ones, then the Kshatriyas and then the Vaishayas and the Shudras. The fifth, which was not even considered as part of the caste system, was Dalits, which were often referred to as the “polluting” caste. The cruelty reached its height when the Dalits were imposed with murder, rape, and many more such allegations. Influenced by people like Shahu, Phule, Gandhiji and Ambedkar, Dalit writers started emphasizing on their existing issues. Following the path of these legends, Dalit writers began writing, focusing on themes such as cruelty on Dalits, demand of social equality, justice, and social and economic democracy. The teachings of Dr. Ambedkar woke up the Dalits. Ambedkar himself was a Dalit, born in the Mahar community who went on to become a social activist, a legal expert and a nationally respected leader of Dalits in India. The new found political independence also helped a lot in improving the living conditions of the untouchables. During this period, Dalits began to refuse to do the lowly jobs that they once did for the upper caste. They also started demanding equality, which was unacceptable to the upper castes.
The Dalits realised that being educated alone cannot help their community detach themselves from the influence of the caste system. So, they hoped to bring about a revolution through literature, by including their experiences. Therefore, auto-biographical narratives constitute a significant segment of Dalit literature. Autobiography has become an important means to convey the bitter experience of humiliation and injustice that the Dalits of India had been going through. The roots of this injustice and humiliation went deep into history, for many thousands of years. It is this pain, agony and suffering which persuaded Dalit writers to voice out their life-long experiences through literature. It throws light on their culture, traditions, believes and thinking as well. Sharankumar Limbale’s autobiography “The Outcaste” portrays the most humiliating events and insults that Sharankumar and his family endured. The narrator criticises the rotten social system and emphasises on the change of this system.
Dalit literature represents a powerful, emerging trend in the Indian literary field. Dalit literature began as a voice of protest against an unjust social order. Today, it has attained the status of a creative literary world, reflecting the plight of the marginalised people of the world, and highlighting the struggles of the human spirit against the age-old oppressive practices against them. In the changed circumstances, Dalits are getting education and are becoming aware of their rights. The policy of reservation ensures jobs for the educated ones.
The issues related to Dalit women have hardly been taken up seriously either by political leaders or by scholars until very recently. Dalit women were left out of the social reform processes and remained untouchables among untouchables. The onset of globalization in India enabled Dalits to raise the issue of discrimination based on caste in the international forums. Dalit activists and intellectuals introduced a case for recognition of caste-based discrimination in India as being similar to racial discrimination in the West, in the World Conference against Racism on 31st August to 7th September 2001 at Durban, South Africa. The debates on caste and Dalit rights at the global level gave a new dimension to the struggle against the caste system, with the emergence of non-governmental organisations and Dalit organisations as representatives of Dalits in India. These debates on caste in the global arena created a new interest in Dalits and their literature.
Limbale portrays the pathetic and miserable life of a poor and oppressed community in the hands of an unthinking privileged class in a simple yet touching and unique style. Santhosh Bhoomkar has done a good service by translating this work from the Mahar dialect to English. Through his autobiographical work, Limbale revealed a world of poverty and discrimination in which the Dalits had lived for thousands of years . He raises some valid questions to be answered by people who consider themselves civilized and modern- ‘How is a person born with his caste? How does he become an untouchable as soon as he is born? How can he be a criminal?’ etc. Limbale’s autobiography is a good quick read that would interest any student taking a course on modern India. The author includes an excellent introduction that describes the caste system to the Western reader.
Autobiography and poetry writings are amply found in Dalit literature. These writings had a significant and massive influence on the society as they depicted first hand experiences. Dalit literature is not simply literature. It is associated with a movement to bring about change. Dalits are masses, exploited and oppressed economically, socially, culturally, in the name of religion and other factors. Dalit writers like Limbale hope that this exploited group of people will bring about a socio-cultural revolution in India.
References:
“The Outcaste-Akkarmashi” by Sharankumar Limbale, Oxford University publications, 2013 edition.
The movie, The Color Purple, is an adaptation from Alice Walker’s novel of the same name. It is the story of an African-American woman in the early twentieth century United States. Renowned director Steven Spielberg, who gave the world movies like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, has done a marvellous job by directing the revolutionary film The Color Purple. The movie succeeded in reaching the depths of mind and making one aware about the lives of African-American women. It has truly brought out the essence of the novel. Through the character Celie, one can see how a woman longs for a free and independent life. It inspires people especially women. Whoopi Goldberg has done justice to Celie by bringing out the true feelings and emotions of the character. Her skills as an actor can be seen in the movie, as she makes one feel that she truly is Celie. Margaret Avery as Shug and Oprah Winfrey as Sofia have done an incredible job. Danny Glover as “Mister” did a wonderful job without losing the character’s essence, that he became a noteworthy part in the movie. The movie is slightly depressing, but, at the same time, carries revolutionary ideas that suppressed black women have. It was filmed in the lovely location of North Carolina. The music by Quincy Jones gives a soothing touch to the movie.
The film begins with purple flowers shown in a field and two little sisters dancing happily. The older girl, Celie (also the narrator), still a teenager, is pregnant with her step-father’s child. She is shown as a cheerful girl who wants to spend the rest of her life with her loving sister. However, later she loses her children and is forced to marry a man who never cared for her, a wealthy black man she only calls “Mister”. “Mister” or Albert is a cruel man, despite his manners being polite to outsiders. He beats his wife and later attempts to rape her sister, who escapes, promising Celie that she would write. Celie develops a tolerant attitude towards all the disrespect that she receives from her husband. Then, one day, “Mister” brings home a singer, Shug Avery, on whom he had had an eye for a long time. Shug Avery and Celie do not get along at first, but, later on, Celie begins to share her troubles with Shug, who then starts to understand her loneliness and the reason for shutting herself up almost completely. finds the sparkle in Celie that her husband failed to notice. Shug and Celie end up in a relationship that makes Celie
Shug Avery singing about Celie
eventually realize what all she missed in her life including her independence, her feminine life and so on… She finds a friend, sister, and lover in Shug. Then, a letter arrives from Celie’s long-lost sister, Nettie, who is apparently leading a fairly comfortable life in Africa. During the course of the movie, we also see the character of Sofia, a radical black woman, whose life is shattered when she hits out at a white man for insulting her in public. Her character showcases independence, pride, and strength. Even though she literally gets beaten up in jail for refusing to get patronised, her spirit survives and she comes back to her life as a strong woman. At the end of the story, we see that Celie, gathering courage from the letters written to her by Nettie in Africa, breaks her bondage and is soon reunited with her sister in Memphis, Africa, where she travels to with Shug and her husband.
Sofia’s character is a representation of independence, pride, and strength
Now, there are some themes which become prominent as the movie progresses; themes like marriage, women exploitation and oppression, religion, race, family, etc. of which we shall be discussing some in the following few paragraphs.
Firstly, as an African-American female living in the pre-Civil Rights South, Celie sees nothing in her race to be particularly proud of. Those were the days of legal segregation; African-Americans were frequently the targets of bitter discrimination. Black women in this period of time were far too often victims of violent crimes committed by white as well as black men. However, as the story progresses, Celie reimagines her own vision of God, she gains some pride in her ethnic heritage.
Secondly, Celie initially imagines God as a white old man. But as a black woman who’s been abused by men all her life, Celie eventually begins to rebel against this image of God. She begins to see God as genderless and raceless, a more universal being who wants humans to enjoy all aspects of life.
Thirdly, many female characters are faced with a tough choice—fiercely (and sometimes unsuccessfully) fight against men’s attempts to oppress them, or completely submit and get trampled all over, like the character of Sofia. The only women able to stand up for themselves without severe consequences are the ones who are economically independent, like Shug Avery, and they’re few and far between.
Through all these characters, and the way in which the actors have brought them to life, the movie turns out to be an extraordinary one. Celie’s plight, Shug’s independence and Sofia’s determination together makes the movie one that is worth to be watched and admired. Moreover, the scenes and the background where the story happens contradict what happens inside the four walls. Thus the movie makes the audience truly capture the feelings of Celie and what she misses. The scenic and the picturesque beauty of the place add up to the movie’s success. The way in which this beauty is captured from different angles speaks for itself and the costumes are chosen wisely according to the character and the time period in which the story takes place. The movie makers have given special consideration in avoiding some things in the book that may rather seem awkward in silver screen. They have done so without ruining the spirit of the movie.
In spite of all this, the music composition has a major part in the effect that the scenes create. For all the emotional scenes, the melodies played in the background do a huge help in rendering the sentiments. The dialogues are also touching and well scripted.
In a nutshell, with all these components it has become one of those movies that generations will remember because of its meaning, incomparable success and the message that it gives out not just to the African-Americans but to the women around the world, irrespective of country , language, race and time. Though the movie stereotypes black people, it touches hearts; invoking in viewers a feeling of love, hope and the spirit of survival even during the darkest phase of our lives.
poet, and painter. Through her creative work, Yamauchi draws portraits of people who struggle with their dreams and passions, while facing the psychological trauma of prejudice, economic depression, and the concentration camps of the Second World War. As a young child and adult, she witnessed the overt racism and harsh labor conditions her parents endured, and later built all these personal memories into the details of her work.
compared to the poem “An Elder’s Passing”, for both the poems includes two different groups or clans within the Aborigine tribe but are similar and leave similar themes as they both talk on the devastations of their tribe.
class. Due to this, Ambedkar had to face severe discrimination from every corner of the society, and even in the Army school run by British government and the local school he had attended in Satara. When he got back from America, he was appointed as the Defence secretary to the King of Baroda, where, again, he had to face the humiliation of being an ‘Untouchable’. With the help of the former Bombay Governor Lord Sydenham, Ambedkar obtained the job as a professor of political economy at the Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Bombay. In 1920, order to continue his studies, he went to England at his own expenses, where he was awarded honor of D.Sc by the London University. Ambedkar also spent few months at the University of Bonn, Germany, to study Economics. On 8 June, 1927, he was awarded a Doctorate by the University of Columbia.
the Satyagraha campaign at Mahad in 1927 against the ban on the use of water of a lake. Dr. Ambedkar led a group of people and drank water. The largest Satyagraha took place in 1930 at Nasik. It was organized by Dr Ambedkar and local leaders. It was called the “Kala Ram Satyagraha”, involving untouchables making efforts to enter temples. He participated in another Satyagraha in 1955 to gain entry to the Parvati temple in Pune. The untouchables, led by Sivaram Kambla and Rajbhoj with some Maratha and Brahmin sympathizers, joined in a four-month effort to enter the gates of the Parvati hill temple. Thus, over the years Dr. Ambedkar gained a lot respect from his fellow Maharashtra Mahars and, to this day, he is a celebrated leader of all Dalits and non-Dalits of India.
According to Sharankumar Limbale (author of “The Outcaste-Akkarmashi”), the caste of an individual determines everything about his life, including the clothes he will wear, the person he will marry, and the food he will eat. Limbale describes the life of a man who suffered the pain of not even being allowed into the caste system: he was an outcaste, below everyone else. “Akkarmashi”, a landmark in Marathi Dalit literature, was first written by Sharankumar Limbale in the Mahar dialect of Maharashtra in 1984. Through his 
words, he portrayed the miserable life he lived as an untouchable, as a half-caste, and as an impoverished man. This work was translated into English by Santosh Bhoomkar in 2003. “The Outcaste” is about an untouchable family in general and community struggles in particular. It reflects the conditions of a particular oppressed class, namely the Mahar community about half a century back and at the same time gives a true and realistic picture of the darker side of the Indian society. The best way to find out the sufferings of the Dalits and the other marginalised sections is through the words and emotions of those who have lived through the experience and who have the education and talent to write so vividly about it. One obvious source is Sharankumar Limbale’s autobiography, “Akkarmashi, The Outcaste”. He has also written many other novels and short stories on Dalit life.
reached its height when the Dalits were imposed with murder, rape, and many more such allegations. Influenced by people like Shahu, Phule, Gandhiji and Ambedkar, Dalit writers started emphasizing on their existing issues. Following the path of these legends, Dalit writers began writing, focusing on themes such as cruelty on Dalits, demand of social equality, justice, and social and economic democracy. The teachings of Dr. Ambedkar woke up the Dalits. Ambedkar himself was a Dalit, born in the Mahar community who went on to become a social activist, a legal expert and a nationally respected leader of Dalits in India. The new found political independence also helped a lot in improving the living conditions of the untouchables. During this period, Dalits began to refuse to do the lowly jobs that they once did for the upper caste. They also started demanding equality, which was unacceptable to the upper castes.
Voices From Margins 