"A Memoir of Surviving India's Caste System"

Coming Out as Dalit, Yashica Dutt (library book)

"Born into a 'formerly untouchable manual-scavenging family in small-town India,' Yashica Dutt was taught from a young age to not appear 'Dalit looking.' Although prejudice against Dalits, who compose 25% of the population, has been illegal since 1950, caste-ism in India is alive and well. Blending her personal history with extensive research and reporting, Dutt provides an incriminating analysis of caste's influence in India over everything from entertainment to judicial systems and how this discrimination has carried over to US institutions. 

"Dutt traces how colonial British forces exploited and perpetuated a centuries-old caste system, how Gandhi could have been more forceful in combatting prejudice, and the role played by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, whom Isabel Wilkerson called 'the MLK of India’s caste issues' in her book Caste. Alongside her analysis, Dutt interweaves personal stories of learning to speak without a regional accent growing up and desperately using medicinal packs to try to lighten her skin." (Overview from my library's catalogue.)

I was really struggling to sum up this searing memoir, because it covers so much, about India's history and its current social systems, interspersed with the author's experiences growing up - and most of what I read was completely new information to me. I don't remember when or how I learned about the country's caste system. I knew about the class of people considered "untouchable" (a term now considered offensive). I had the vague idea that particular status was part of the country's history and had no place in modern India. This book taught me just how wrong I was.

In January 2016, a Dalit university student named Rohith Vemula committed suicide, leaving behind a letter about the discrimination and difficulties that he faced, experiences many of his fellow Dalits have shared. After reading about his death, Yashica Dutt "started a Tumblr page where Dalits who, like [her], were passing as upper caste could anonymously or openly talk about their experiences. It would be a safe space, without judgement from upper-caste commentators, where our voices would be free to shape our stories the way we wanted." She goes on to say, "But I couldn't in good conscience be the provider of that space before I dealt with my own identity." Her page is called "Documents of Dalit Discrimination."

This is the epitome of an "own-voices" story, which is crucial because Dalits have been denied access to education, to basic literacy, and their stories have not been told. Or they have been told by outsiders, in ways that reinforce the stereotypes that are used to justify the persecutions. The technological revolution has changed that, especially the internet, giving the communities ways to connect, to share information and resources, and to make their voices heard. They are also able to focus on the challenges that Dalits face in their daily lives. In the past, Dalits were denied access to water resources like reservoirs if they were used by upper caste people, which remains a problem in rural areas. Sexual assault against Dalit women is common, because of stereotypes that the women are sexually available, and the justice system is prejudiced against the victims. Suicide is sadly common, particularly among university students facing situations like Rohith Vemula's. "Manual scavenging," one of the few jobs open to Dalit women, involves cleaning outhouses by hand and carrying the human waste to dump sites (often in baskets that leak, exposing the women to diseases and a corresponding high morality rate).

I am still processing everything I learned from this book. I want to read more about Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, himself a Dalit, who returned to India after earning degrees in Britain and the US. He was the first Indian student to earn a Ph.D. from Columbia University, which Yashica Dutt learned only after she enrolled there herself as a graduate student. "In March 1927 he organized the first conference for the Depressed Classes in Mahad to alert Dalits to their civil rights," and his book Annihilation of Caste is a foundational text of Dalit identity and resistance. Unfortunately for me, the only works our library has on him are not in English, but I will see what interlibrary loan can do for me.