LIVING WITH CASTE

On the tyranny of exclusion that marks Dalithood

- Nikhil Sehra

The idea is to live castelessly—these words from writer Vijeta Kumar’s piece on her Dalit identity, really hit home. My parents have been trying to do the same for years— acquiring possessions, working to assimilate themselves—all with the aim of living castelessly.

We are a Jatav/Chamar family. Chamars were among those who were formerly called ‘untouchables’ and are now called Dalits. My parents grew up in stereotypical settings of ghettoization. As adults, who were products of a caste-ridden childhood, they have spent their lives trying to absorb the shock of their caste identity and keep their children safe from it. In their early years of marriage, they moved away from their Dalit neighbourhoods to a new upper-middle-class locality, on the outskirts of Agra. My father ran a small business, but their life really turned around when he became a Member of the Legislative Assembly. My parents now enjoyed a new-found confidence— they had raised their social capital and maybe, even succeeded in leaving their past behind. They viewed their new social status as liberation from their stigmatized social group. But, reality didn’t quite match their aspirations.