Mamta Kalia

century caste relations to those that
prevailed two thousand years ago. By
showing his father’s ability to deconstruct
the story, Valmiki portrays Dalits as
articulate subjects who have seen through
the cherished myths of their oppressors.
When in a literature class, a teacher
waxes eloquent about this same
Dronacharya, Valmiki challenges the
teacher, only to be ruthlessly caned.
Valmiki’s reconfiguration of the myth
also intertextualizes ]oothan with other
Dalit texts, which frequently use the
character of Eklavya as representing the
denial of education to Dalits. The modern
Dalit Eklavya, however, can no longer
be tricked into self-mutilation.
While the education system is indicted
as death dealing for Dalits, Valmiki pays
tribute to the Dalit organic intellectuals
who help nurture the growth of a Dalit
consciousness in him. While one of these
is his father who has the temerity to
name the headmaster a Dronacharya,
another is Chandrika Prasad Jigyasu
(‘Jigyasu’ means ‘curious’ and is an
acquired identity after shedding a castebased
one) whose rendering of
Ambedkar’s life is put into Valmiki’s hands
by his friend Hemlal. Like Valmiki,
Hemlal, too, has shed his stigmatized
identity as a Chamar by changing it to
Jatav. Reading this book is a
transformative moment for Valmiki,
rendered in the metaphors of melting
away of his deadening silence, and the
magical transformation of his muteness
into voice. This moment, narrativized
28 :: April-June 2010
at length in ]oothan, gives us a key
to how marginalized groups enter the
stage of history. Valmiki underscores
the way Dr. Ambedkar has been excised
from the hagiography of nationalist
discourse. He first encounters him
through the writing of a fellow Dalit,
passed on to him by another Dalit, in
a library run by Dalits. In my interview
with him, Valmiki told me that Jigyasu
used to publish cheap and accessible
materials on Ambedkar’s life and thought
and sell it himself by putting up makeshift
stalls. Valmiki says that emulating
Jigyasu, he, too, sold Ambedkarite
literature on Ambedkar’s birthday in front
of the Indian Parliament in Delhi. ]oothan
thus has the twofold task of celebrating
and honouring Dalit assertions, and
attacking and dismantling anti Dalit
hegemonic discourses.
Valmiki mocks and rewrites the village
pastoral that was long a staple of Indian
literature in many languages as well as
of the nationalist discourse of grassroot
democracy. Valmiki portrays a village
life where the members of his caste,
Chuhras, lived outside the village, were
forced to perform unpaid labour, and
denied basic requirements like access
to public land and water, let alone
education or fellow feeling. We read about
the cleaning of stinking straw beds in
the cattlesheds of higher caste villagers,
of the disposal of dead animals and their
hides. The tasks involved in reaping and
harvesting are described in terms of
intense physical labour under a scorching