Dignity Withheld: Representation of Humiliation in
Omprakash Valmiki’s Autobiography Joothan
Raj Shekhar Barman
ICSSR Doctoral Scholar
Department of English Literature
The English and Foreign Languages University
Hyderabad, India
Abstract: This essay attempts to focus on the
phenomena of humiliation and its praxis in the caste-ridden society through a
close reading of Omprakash Valmiki’s autobiography Joothan. A person feels
humiliated when their sense of self-worth or self-respect is compromised. A sense
of self-respect and self-esteem are inseparable from the occurrence of
humiliation. It is capable of functioning when an individual actively takes
part in this process. Hence, this essay identifies five key locations in
Joothan where humiliation occurs. It begins by looking at the humiliation
Valmiki had to go through in order to earn a formal education. This essay then
concentrates on Dalit labour, which turned into a tool for exploitation. Then
it further investigates the humiliation Dalits underwent in order to quell
their hunger. Furthermore, this research goes on to show how an outcast
attribution to a human being turns into a tool for humiliation. Lastly, the
psychological effects of Valmiki’s caste humiliation are examined in the
paper’s final section.
Keywords: Humiliation, Joothan, Oppression, Caste, Dalit
Introduction
While defining Dalit Literature Sharankumar Limbale
asserts, “By Dalit Literature, I mean writing about Dalits, by Dalit writers
with a Dalit Consciousness”. He also mentions the obvious purpose of it, i.e.,
“to inform Dalit society of its slavery, and narrate its pain and suffering to
upper-caste Hindus” (Limbale 20). From this perspective, if we see Joothan ticks all those boxes mentioned
by Limbale.Valmiki’s autobiography can also be seen as historical documentation
of those marginalised people whose lives are marked with exploitation,
disgrace, oppression and discrimination. The title of the book, Joothan, sums up the saga of sorrows,
miseries and humiliation faced by the whole Dalit community for centuries. From
an overt perspective this book may seem to be an autobiographical element of
Valmiki’s lifelong journey but delving deep into this one can easily realise
that this story is of all those whose voice never found any place in the status
quo of traditional Indian Literature. With a closer look into this book, this
essay will try to point out how in its every layer a seed of humiliation is
present either overtly or covertly and this essay would try to focus on some of
the key axes one by one where the manifestation of humiliation has gone deep.
Valmiki’s Struggle
for Education
A Dalit
child’s struggle begins from its childhood days and for Valmiki, it was not
different. Valmiki had four brothers and one sister in his family. At that time
there was no question for women’s education and among the five brothers, only
Valmiki had the good fortune to get the opportunity to study. Every other
person in the family had to do some sort of work to manage two meals a day.
Right from his early childhood, Valmiki became conscious of the importance of
the study. Hence he always complied with his father’s words—“You have to
improve the caste by studying.” (Valmiki 29)
Due to
the rigid Hindu caste system, the Chuhras’ children were
not allowed to enrol in government schools. Hence, Valmiki’s first
acquaintance with the alphabet happened under a Christian teacher named Sewak
Ram Masihi. Valmiki points out that although it had been eight years
since India’s independence when Gandhiji’s emancipatory words were
resounding everywhere for the upliftment of the untouchable, the mentality of
the ordinary people hardly changed. (Valmiki 2) Therefore, Valmiki’s father
had to beg to admit his child to primary
school. Though Valmiki was admitted to a school the situation was
too adverse to study. Because according to the caste-Hindu people, a
Dalit’s attempt to get schooling was itself unwarranted so all types of snares
were spread to make him run away from the school and to compel him to take up
the kind of work his family is used to doing for ages. Valmiki recalls “I had
to sit away from the others in the class, that too on the
floor. The mat ran out before reaching the spot I sat on. Sometimes I
would have to sit way behind everybody, right near the
door. And the letters on the board from there seemed faded”
(2,3).Without any reason,Valmiki had been teased by the children of the savarna Tyagi families. Sometimes he was
beaten up without any reason which resulted in Valmiki becoming introverted and
irritable. Valmiki also recalls a no-win situation where he was humiliated for
his dressing. If he went to school wearing neat and clean clothes he had been
teased for dressing well. On the other side if he went to school wearing old
and dirty clothes he was said to get away from the other students.
In every sphere of
society, Dalit people face the worst kind of treatment because that is what we
can expect from a society where lawmakers themselves are the lawbreakers. In a
caste-Hindu society, the education system itself serves as the machinery to maintain
the caste disparity, it makes sure that the disparity prevails.
Valmiki was not only humiliated by his fellow students but also by his
headmaster Kaliram. It was a daily routine for the
Dalit students to be beaten up or thrashed at the slightest excuse.
Therefore, for Valmiki,the ideal image of a teacher is completely different
from what it is meant to be. He recalls “Whenever someone starts talking about
a great guru, I remember all those teachers who used to swear about
mothers and sisters. They used to fondle good-looking boys and invite them to
their homes and sexually abuse them” (Valmiki 4).The oppression was not limited to these as
it went further as Valmiki was compelled to clean the entire school and sweep
the wholeground daily. A school that is like a temple, from where the
light of knowledge spreads is altogether a different place for a
Dalit child. The treatment Valmiki got in the school was not any
different than what convict gates in rigorous imprisonment in jail. After
cleaning the large playground with his small physic Valmiki was not
even allowed to get a glass of water to drink. What could be more
humiliating than to sweep the school the whole day when all the other
students were studying!In each and every step Valmiki was reminded of
his place in the society.
This oppressionupon Valmiki could have gone like this
for innumerable days unless his father saw his son while doing the work
one day. Though that day for Valmiki his father came to rescue but
there was no one to rescue them from the oppression of the
society. Valmiki narrates:
Whosoever’s door we
knocked, the answer was,
What is the point of
sending him to school?
When has a crow
become a swan?
You
illiterate boorish people, what do you know? Knowledge is not gained
like this.
Hey, if he asked
a Chuhra’s progeny to sleep, what is the big deal in that?
He only got him to
sweep; did not ask for his thump in the gurudakshina like Dronacharya. (6)
For aDalit
child, his caste identity is like a shadow. One cannot getaway from
it. Defeating extreme poverty Valmiki ranked first in his class in
the half-yearly examination in class VI but that didn’t change others’
treatment towards him. The teachers’ behaviour was still unfriendly and
indifferent to him. Valmiki was kept aside from any kind of
extracurricular activities. He too wanted a role in the annual
function, he too had the desire to do something but he was not
allowed to do so. He was a mere spectator, his place was always outside the
door. Valmiki had carried the baggage of caste throughout his life. Though
he stood first in his section, he didn’t have the right to drink water from the
glass. Valmiki recalls one incident— “During the examinations, we
would not drink water from the glass when thirsty. To drink water we had to cup
our hands. The peon would pour water from way high up, lest our
hand touch the glass” (16).
Paulo Freire opines “Education is suffering from
narration sickness” (71). Critiquing the traditional education system Freire
points out that so far Indian education has always been based upon the
‘banking’ system where teachers transfer their knowledge to the students. Which
dismantles the possibility of free and critical thinking. This in turn
solidifies the power hierarchy in the teacher-student relationship. The moment
this equilibrium breaks down, the teacher suppresses the student by coercion.
In Joothan Valmiki recalls an incident when his teacher was teaching a lesson
on Dronacharya. The teacher’s eyes were filled with tears while describing how
Dronacharya fed his famished son Ashwatthama flour-dissolved water in place of
milk. Finding his own condition worse than Ashwatthama, Valmiki’s innocent soul
asked a simple but striking question, i.e., “Ashwatthama was
given flour mixed in water instead of milk, but what about us who had
to drink mar? How come we were never mentioned in any epic? Why didn't an epic
poet ever write a word on our lives?” (Valmiki 23).Despite giving a proper
answer to those questions, the teacher did what higher caste people used to do
with Dalits for ages. The teacher brutally beat up Valmiki for daring to ask
back being untouchable. Valmiki remembers the teacher “had rapidly created an
epic on my back with the swishes of his stick. That epic is still inscribed on
my back. Reminding me of those hated days of hunger and hopelessness, this epic
composed out of a feudalistic mentality is inscribed not just on my back but on
each nerve of my brain.” (Valmiki 23)
Humiliation
and Exploitation Based on Labour
In a society whose cornerstone is the caste
system, the very purpose of lower caste people is to serve the higher caste
people. Axel Honneth in his book The
Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts categorises
three types of ‘disrespect’ which come from various experiences. Those are
physical abuse, denial of rights and degradation or insult. (132-135) Omprakash
Valmiki’s story is like a burning example of this. Throughout this novel,
Valmiki mentions many incidents from his past which clearly shows how the lower
caste people were exploited based on these three axes.The untouchable Chuhras
and Chamars were the means of production for the higher caste Tagas during the
harvest times. One of the lowest castes, the Chuhra, was what Valmiki belonged
to. They were called to work in the field and in return most of the time the
Tagas exploited them by not giving them proper wages. The higher caste people
were always close-fisted in the time of paying the wages. And the rigid caste
system didn’t allow the lower caste people to even protest. In Valmiki’s
village Barla, the upper caste people didn’t miss any opportunity to take
advantage of the lower caste people’s helplessness. The Chuhra-Chamars had to
submit themselves before the Tagas to console their hunger. On top of this, it
was the responsibility of the Chuhra-Chamars to load and unload the grains on
the cart, clean up the wheat and break down the sheaves into the straw. But for
all this work they didn’t get any wages at all.
All of the menial
works of the Taga families were done by the Dalits of the Barla village.
The Chuhras and the Chamars were like the servants of the Tagas. To
clean the cowshed of every higher caste family was a daily duty of the
Dalits. They received five seers of grain for two animals, or roughly 2.5
kg of grain, as remuneration (Valmiki 9). Valmiki also
remembers how his elder brother Jasbir had returned
from Bagdogra empty-handed after years of hard work. When
he came, he did not have even half-decent clothes on his body. A
Dalit’s lower caste status snatched away from their right to protest against
any kind of injustice. Suffering in silence was the only way left for the
Dalits.
In 1962 after the
heavy rain the condition of the Dalits were miserable. Everyone was starving.
No chulla (stove) had been lit in any
house. Finding no way when Valmiki’s father went to Sagwa Pradhan for
help. He was instructed to keep one of his sons indentured on an annual lease.
In return, he could take as much grain as he wanted. The higher caste people
took advantage of every possible situation to exploit the Dalits. There was no
place for words like ‘honour’ and ‘prestige’ in a Dalit’s life. It was a daily
occurrence for them to be threatened and controlled by the upper caste.
While looking back into his past Omprakash
Valmiki narrates that their responsibility was not only limited to cleaning the
cowsheds of the Tagas but the responsibility to dispose of the dead animals was
also of Dalits. And we must realise that this job was not at all as easy as
lifting the corpse of a cow or buffalo on a cart minimum of four to six people
were needed. And as usual, no wages were paid for such tiresome work. The only
recompense was curse. Such is our cruel society where hard labour has no value
at all. Pointing out the irony Ambedkar asserted “I asked them [our Hindu
friends], you take the milk from the cows and buffaloes and when they are dead
you expect us to remove the dead bodies. Why? If you carry the dead bodies of
your mothers to cremate, why do you not carry the dead bodies of your
mother-cows yourself?” (Ambedkar 143).
According to Raj Kumar, the Indian Caste
system prescribed by the Dharma Shastras is
composed of Brahmins to enforce their power over the lower caste. To have
control over a large section of people of the society was the sole purpose of
the higher caste people (2).Whenever the upper caste people had realised that
their control over the Dalits was in danger they had taken the help of state
machinery to maintain their dominance. Valmiki mentions one such incident where
the Chuhras and the Chamars of his basti refused to work without a proper wage.
As the basti folks dared to act like this they were needed to teach a lesson.
Hence, after fifteen days police came into the basti and caught whoever
happened to fall on their way. They were brutally thrashed and beaten up until
their whole body turned blue. They were taught what their place is in society.
“The women and children of the basti were standing in the lane and crying
loudly. Their men had been captured by the police for no reason. They could not
think of what else they could do but cry” (Valmiki 38). These types of gruesome
incidents raise the finger to all those who sing the glories of democracy.
Valmiki questions, what type of democracy is this where asking wage for one’s
labour is a crime? In this context, it would be apt to quote Gopal Guru about
his remarks on the Karma theory prescribed by Manu Dharma Shastra, i.e., “The karma theory, particularly in the
Indian context, does not provide any scope for the lower caste untouchable to
stake a claim against humiliation. This is because a slave in the grip of fear
of death finds it impossible to stake a claim” (Guru 4). Valmiki realised
rightly that “there is a conspiracy to keep us in perpetual poverty” (34).
Humiliation to Appease Hunger
The word ‘Joothan’ in the literal
sense means leftover foods on an eater’s plate, usually thrown away as garbage.
So, when some other person besides the original eater consumes the leftover
food it is called ‘joothan.’ Valmiki in this book has given a comprehensive
description of how they used to collect, preserve and eat joothan:
During a wedding... the Chuhras would sit
outside with huge baskets. After the baratis had eaten, the dirty pattals or
leaf-plates were put in Chuhras’ baskets, which they took home, to save the
joothan sticking to them. The little pieces of pooris, bits of sweetmeats, and
a little bit of vegetables were enough to make them happy. The joothan was
eaten with a lot of relish. ... Our elders narrated, in thrilled voices,
stories of the baratis that had left several months of joothan. (Valmiki 9)
It would certainly be a strange thing for the
readers to believe such kind of act but the harsh reality is this. Where a
portion of India’s society is flooded with foods there another portion is
quenching his hunger by eating joothan. After serving all the higher caste people
day and night the price a Dalit used to get for his sweat was just joothan.
Valmiki remembers another humiliating
incident – his mother was sitting outside a wedding house. When the feast was
over and the guests were gone, his mother asked Sukhdev Singh Tyagi to give
some food for the children. What her mother got in return that day left a
permanent mark in Valmiki’s mind. She was mercilessly humiliated by saying,
“you are taking a basket full of joothan. And on top of that you want food for
your children. Don’t forget your place, Chuhri. Pick up your basket and get
going” (Valmiki 11).Hunger drives people crazy. It compels human beings to do
things which he/she has never even imagined. ‘Honour,’ and ‘prestige’ these
words seem futile in front of this situation.
After the heavy rainfall of 1962 when most of
the Chuhra’s houses were almost damaged, they didn’t have anything to eat for
days. After many days of starvation, Valmiki's mother was able to manage some
rice. Valmiki asserts that they could not afford to throw away the mar (rice
water) as it was nothing less than milk. The children of Valmiki's basti ran
through the door to door to collect Mar. We can get a resemblance of the famous
Bengali poem Fyan (mar or rice water)
written by Premendra Mitra on the backdrop of the Bengal famine of 1976. Yes,
what the Bengali poor people faced during a famine, the lower caste people
faced throughout their whole lives. The thing which was discarded by everyone
was a means to quell the hunger of the Chuhras (Valmiki 23).
Here, one may very well argue why is it
important to discuss the indigence of the lower caste people while decoding
humiliation. Raja Dhale has its answer. For Dhale untouchability provides the
base of poverty. He asserts that the lower caste people are poor because they
are untouchable and not the other way around. Had it not been so, every poor
person would have been called an untouchable in India.
Humiliation
Based on Caste
Joothan by Omprakash Valmiki recounts his birth and
upbringing in the recently independent India as untouchable. Valmiki’s lifelong
tormented journey as a Dalit doesn’t only give one person’s experience of
victimization in the hands of Indian caste-based society but it also shows a
panoramic view of the tormented life of nearly 16% population of the whole
Indian population. In 1950, when the Indian Constitution came into effect,
untouchability was abolished but in Valmiki’s village, it was so rampant that
one happened to get polluted if he/she touched a Chuhra, while it was not an
issue to touch cows and dogs. The Chuhra-Chamars were not treated as humans at
all. Their place was at the lowest in the social pyramid. “They were simply
things for use. Their utility lasted until the work was done. Use them and then
throw them away” (Valmiki 2).
Omprakash Valmiki has also exposed the
hollowness within the hospitalities of the higher caste people. As long as no
one was aware of the Dalit caste, everything was okay. But everything changed
to caste as soon as it was disclosed. Just as in Birajpal Singh’s house Valmiki
and his friend Bhikhuram were being treated until they knew their caste. The
moment caste was known Valmiki and his friend was thrown out of the house.
Valmiki was really surprised to see that a metropolitan city like Maharashtra
was also no different. It was like the same place as Valmiki's own where Dalits
are treated as uncultured and dirty, where separate dishes are kept for the
lower caste, and where a person is loved by a girl based on caste. Standing
amidst such a rotten society Valmiki realised “the entire value system of the
Brahmins is based on lies and deception” (Valmiki 96).
Humiliating
Lifestyle and Inferiority Complex
As we go through the autobiography of Valmiki
we can understand that, it was not the case that the Dalits were always
directly humiliated by the upper caste people. Sometimes Dalits were humiliated
in an oblique direction. The prime example of this is their own lifestyle itself.
Yes, there is no scope for denial that our society, governed by a pernicious
caste system is solely responsible for this but it is also a fact that many
times the Dalits themselves are not able to understand which is humiliation and
which is not. In this context Gopal Guru’s comment is insightful, i.e. “The
theory of karma, from the point of view of those who are reduced to servility,
seeks to manipulate the servile into acknowledging their contemptuous and
repulsive image as the part of a natural social arrangement. This acquiescence
necessarily leads to the diminishing of moral initiative that is important for
making a claim against humiliation” (5).
At the very beginning of this book, Valmiki
presents a glimpse of the environment in which he was born and brought up. The
women and girls would sit in an open space to take a shit, without worrying
about decency, exposing their reproductive organs. He narrates, “There was muck
strewn everywhere. The stench was so overpowering that one would choke within a
minute. The pigs wandering in narrow lanes, naked children, dogs, daily fights,
this was the environment of my childhood” (Valmiki 1).As Dalits were not
treated as human beings at all, consequently their environment also resembled
the same. During monsoon, the lanes of
the basti used to get filled up with mud full of pig excrement. Flies and
mosquitos were everywhere. One could be easily deceived into thinking that the
place is a landfill. During the monsoon season, the Chuhras’ sole well used to
get infested by long worms. However, as they were forbidden to draw water from
the Tagas’ well, the Chuhras were forced to consume the tainted water.
While decoding humiliation in the book Joothan we come across some of the
customs of Dalits which themselves are so humiliating. ‘Salaam’ is one of
those. Whenever there was a wedding the bride and the groom had to go to
‘salaam’ with his or her mother-in-law to all the houses where she worked. It
was nothing but a kind of begging to get some donation in the name of a wedding.
Most of the time the upper caste people didn't even open the door, sometimes
they would make a face saying, “the stomachs of Chuhras are never filled”
(Valmiki 31). He realized that “it may seem like a simple thing, but whether it
is the bride or the bridegroom; this custom creates an inferiority complex in
them on the very first day of their marriage” (Valmiki 33).
All these incidents which were discussed
throughout this chapter suggest another important aspect, i.e. inferiority
complex and it is the educated ones like Valmiki who suffered the most due to
the social pressure. All the time in Valmiki's mind there was a constant fear
while doing that kind of work for which they were destined from their very
birth. This inferiority complex sometimes resulted in internal contradictions
within themselves. There was a segment among Dalits who were affected by the
centuries-old inferiority complex. “They were perforce compelled to hide their
identity as Dalits. They kept their distance from Dalits in order to win favour
from Savarnas, and worked against Dalits, reporting on their activities to
Savarnas” (Valmiki 110).
Conclusion
Gopal Guru in the introduction of his edited
book Humiliation: Claims and Context
writes humiliation operates through “asymmetries of interesting sets of
attitudes - arrogance and obeisance, self-respect and servility, and reverence
and repulsion” (1). Among all these binary oppositions Valmiki always
represented the sides of the lacking end. As a result, Valmiki suffered a lot
socially, economically and culturally. Valmiki left no stone unturned to get
past of cast but failed. But that couldn’t stop him from picking up a pen and
using it like a sword. Limbale realised the need to reform the society which
could only be possible by exposing the wrongdoings of the caste-Hindu people.
Therefore, through Joothan Valmiki
was able to draw a picture of his barren and sterile society. Joothan can be
seen as a manifesto of Dalit consciousness.
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Freire,
Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. 30th ed.
Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005.
Guru,
Gopal, ed. Humiliation: Claims and Context. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2009.
Honneth,
Axel. The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts.
Trans. Joel Anderson. The MIT Press, 1949.
Kumar,
Raj. Dalit Literature and Criticism. Orient Blackswan, 2019.
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Sharankumar. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History,
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Valmiki,
Omprakash. Joothan: A Dalit's Life. Trans. Arun Prabha Mukherjee.
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