Author, poet and playwright Dalpat Chauhan pens everything he has seen and heard of Dalits in Gujarat — so that the blood-inked tales of oppression aren’t wiped off India’s caste rhetoric. ‘I want to chronicle our history and our resistance, so I use village dialects and bring mythological characters into my works,’ reads his quote in the introduction of Fear and Other Stories, an anthology of his 11 short stories translated by Hemang Ashwinkumar from Gujarati to English, published by Penguin this month.
In his four-decade literary career, Chauhan, 83, has written extensively on the socio-cultural and economic realities of the Dalit community with nearly 30 books to his credit, including five novels and eight anthologies of short stories, poems and plays. “I was born in a Dalit family of weavers in Mandali village, Mahesana. My father fled to Ahmedabad in 1948, when upper caste men started attacking our community because we wanted freedom from begaar [forced labour]. We still have a house in the village,” he says over a phone call from Gandhinagar, where he now lives.
For Chauhan, the act of documenting Dalit history paves the way for asserting caste identities. The subjugation of Dalits by Savarnas (people belonging to the four main castes) is central to the characters of Fear and Other Stories. They are in black and white, not in shades of greys masquerading as a euphemism for the balanced narrative of ‘every coin has two sides’. His stories spell the wide gap between the oppressor and the oppressed. In one of his stories, ‘Touch of Snake’, for instance, when a witchdoctor refuses to suck the venom out of Viro’s ‘untouchable’ snake-bitten son, Viro continues to be the dutiful, servile scavenger. He leaves his dying son to go save a cow that fell into a well. Eventually, when his son dies and the witchdoctor stops pretending to suck the venom through telekinetic powers, Viro, instead of saying something to him, spits: ‘Aak... thoo... thoo... thooo’.
Fear and Other Stories
Helping Dalit voices travel
“Dalits weren’t allowed to have a front door in their houses or wear shoes. As a child, I remember jumping into the classroom through a window so that I don’t accidentally touch an upper caste student,” says Chauhan. “Even today, I am not allowed to enter the temple in my village.” His interest in Dalit literature was ignited by his love for reading, which acquainted him with the absence of a Dalit narrative in literary writings of the time.
In 1972, when Dalit Panthers (a resistance group formed in Maharashtra against caste discrimination) arrived in Gujarat, he was introduced to Dalit literary circles. That’s how he got associated with radical Dalit literary magazines Aakrosh (1978) and Kalo Suraj (1979).“I worked at Gujarat’s Directorate of Accounts & Treasuries and would give all my TA/DAs [travel and dearness allowance] to Kalo Suraj. I’d also ask my friends to contribute. We sold it for Re. 1 and published 14 issues. I wrote poems for Kalo Suraj, but never wrote against the government because I was scared of losing my job. In fact, I only started writing novels when I was 40,” he says.
“Dalits weren’t allowed to have a front door in their houses or wear shoes. As a child, I remember jumping into the classroom through a window so that I don’t accidentally touch an upper caste student”Dalpat ChauhanAuthor, poet and playwright
In 1982, three of his stories got published in three magazines: Halkaye Kuttu (Mad Dog) in Navneet Smarpan, which was published from Mumbai, and Gangama in Parabh and Badlo (Revenge) in Chandani, both published from Ahmedabad. Chauhan is now penning his autobiography. “I already have an offer for translation,” he says.
Last year, Penguin published his 1991 novel Gidh, translated from Gujarati to English (Vultures) by Ashwinkumar. Translations are a ‘something lost, something gained’ measure of literature’s worth, he feels. “We do not write in the shishtmanya [refined] language, but the narration [of Dalit literature] is quite refined.We want our stories, our pain, our struggle to travel as far as possible. In that case, translation is the way forward. But when it comes to animating the innate dialect of Gujarati, foreign languages often fail,” he shares. “I feel English writers are an empathic lot. It takes a sensitive writer to tell the story of the oppressed.”
Adding to popular discourse
Stripping away the layers
Other than documenting religious and social traditions of Dalits in Gujarat, Dalpat has compiled a dictionary, Talani boli, comprising about 10,000 words from lok boli (oral literature) of Dalit communities living in northern Gujarat. Last year, National Sahitya Akademi published his novel Mulak, translated to English by Nilufer Bharucha. He has also written a collection of 18 short stories, Ghabajariyu, which will be released in Gujarati this year by Gurjar Sahitya Bhavan.
For Dalpat Chauhan, the act of documenting Dalit history paves the way for asserting caste identities | Photo Credit: Vijay Soneji
Perhaps, Chauhan’s merit lies in his ability to strip the layers of caste hierarchy in mundane ways. The short story ‘Cold Blood’ narrates the tale of a Dalit doctor, Devendra Parikh, who changes his surname after migrating to the city. Devendra is shocked when the family of an upper caste man, whose life he tried saving by giving him blood, refuses to take a glass of water from him. ‘The author astutely problematizes the idea of Dr Parikh’s modernity, which doesn’t grant him humanity despite his education, noble profession and a bottle of blood,’ Ashwinkumar states in Fear and Other Stories.
It is a reality in Chauhan’s everyday life. He says if he wants a house in Gandhinagar, no one will give it to him, especially next to a Savarna. “We bury our dead; they don’t give us wood to cremate them. I got this house only because of my government job,” he says.
