30 days of Writing Caste

Malarvizhi Jayanth does her version of the ‘From the Editor’s Desk’ column thingie by pleading for help, listing reactions to the blog and presenting a round-up of blog posts for the month.

Thirty days of writing caste. On this momentous occasion, I have three requests to make:

1. Please write for this blog.

2. Please write for this blog.

3. Please write for this blog.

Please do write personal narratives of caste – describing personal encounters and practice and understanding of caste. I can conduct interviews, if you do not want to write. If you know people who can be interviewed and I can contact, please do pass on contact information.  If you have seen blog posts, books, articles or any material that you think is relevant to the purpose of this blog, I would be very glad to hear about them.

And, now, for your reading pleasure, here is a cross section of the reactions to this blog and its aftermath…

‘Why are you doing this?’ ‘Isn’t gender more important than caste?’ ‘I’m so glad to see this blog doing so well.’ ‘How can you carry posts that are critical of the left?’ ‘Isn’t this a divisive form of political engagement – a language of emancipation that includes all of us, rather than resentment against some, is going to be more valuable, isn’t it?’ ‘What an irresponsible post.’ ‘The quality of posting is uneven, that could lose you readers.’ ‘This just shows how socially isolated you are.’ ‘May a thousand Malars bloom’ (Thank you, Anu, for that one) ‘Why are all your recent FB posts about caste?’ ‘Why is there so much Tamil on your blog? You should just rename it ‘writing caste in Tamil’.’

Also, members of the extended family have been complaining to my mother that I am using ‘violent’ language and that I ‘hate brahmins’ – a sin, apparently, since Christ has ordered us to love everyone. I warmly encourage the complainers to find spouses for their children from outside their caste and spread the love. Come to think of it, almost every family wedding has been just another brick in the walls of caste. Ugh.

Now that we have settled scores,  here is a round-up of the posts this month:

In the Milestones in the Struggle against Caste section: We have excerpts of the personal narratives of Ambedkar and Iyothee Thass, a reminiscence from Meenambal Sivaraj of how Periyar got his name and some memories of the Dravidian movement.

In the Poetry section: poetry from Kalahandi and Tamil Nadu.

In the Critical Writing section: An insightful taking-apart of a poem and its worldview by Anu Ramdas, some excerpts from Nicholas Dirks’ Castes of Mind.

In the Caste in South Asia section: A documentation of caste in Pakistan

Under the Personal Narratives section: Experiences of discrimination at IIT Delhi, a story of the boy who fought back, personal narratives from P. Padmini, Meena Kandasamy, Vizhi. Pa. Idhayavendhan,  J. Balasubramaniam, Shruti Padmanabhan, A.N. Sattanathan, Gayathri Bashi, Prasanth Radhakrishnan, Ashley Tellis and S. Anand, excerpts from a conversation on caste and Indian history and reflections on how caste governs social interactions in this country.

In the Dalit authors section: Writing by Tamil author Bama, an interview with Telugu writer Vemula Yelliah and a preface to a book on Dalit literature from Tamil author Sivagami. Also, excerpts from a community publishing effort to document the history of a dalit community in a village.

In the newly inaugurated Visual Art gallery: Drawings by children depicting caste discrimination they have experienced.

Thank you for reading. Do stay with the conversation. Do write.