Ooru Keri

Kamalakar introduces Siddalingaiah’s autobiography Ooru Keri in this blog post reproduced below.  Chandan Gowda’s review of the book has been published on Roundtable India. Excerpts from the book are available on Google Books.

“Siddalingayya’s Ooru Keri is one of the most important dalit autobiographies in Kannada. Other notable ones include Arvind Malagatti’s Government Brahman, Ramayya’s MaNegara and Govindaraju’s Manavilladavara Madhye. I think Siddalingayya’s autobiography is important not only because he is an important dalit poets in Kannada. I think his book has a larger importance for dalit literature as a whole.

Among dalit autobiographies we see two distinct types: autobiographies by those who are already notables in the society; by those who became notable because of the autobiography they have written. Siddalingayya was already an important public persona – an established kannada poet, a mass leader, a major figure in the Dalit Sangharsha Samiti (DSS), – unlike some of the Marathi authors of autobiographies, who came to obtain social notability through their autobiographies.  In this respect autobiography is not the means through which individuality is claimed by Siddalingayya.

Ooru Keri means ‘neighbourhood’ roughly, it refers to residential colony anyways. In this respect it is similar to Vasti an autobiography by the Marathi writer Vasant Moon. It has been pointed out by many that dalit autobiographies, contrary to other autobiographies, focus on the community rather than the individual. That is, an autobiography also becomes ethnography as it were, but one from within.The remarkable feature of this book is that it is less a record of pain and suffering than of joy and success. The reader will perceive the oppression that Siddalingayya and his community go through but the author makes the reader see the power of dalits too. Dalit solidarity, struggle become frequent motifs here. No wonder in his afterword to this book D R Nagraj speaks of the ‘power of poorman’s laughter’. The reader of this book is repeatedly invited to laugh out at the naughtyness of the protagonist, or his friends, at the humorous side of occurences.

While the narrative does not trivialise the experiences, it nevertheless does not become a record only of the power of victimisers but tells how dalits wrest power for themselves. Importantly it relates the determination and the commitment of the dalits to shape their own life even when they are caught in highly subjected situations.

The language used is standard kannada unlike some of his revolutionary poems which use dalit dialects. It has been translated into English by S. R. Ramakrishna and published by Sahitya Academy. Availability is thus an issue. But you can easily get it on Flipkart here.”

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Read this post on Kamalakar’s blog here.

Buffalo, Our Ancestor

MC Raj has written about how he became an author in two parts – part one and two. Here he writes about the significance of the buffalo in Dalit culture and about the work of REDS in preventing rituals that sanctify free caste labour.

Actually I did not mean to write another blogpost. However, it is difficult not to write now as there are a few things that are welling up in me. The name that you have chosen for your site [the blogger's name in Tamil] is ‘Buffalo’. This is a fascinating aspect for me. Let me explain.

When we started discussing seriously and researched into the history and culture of Dalits, we discovered, in our Movement, the close affinity we have with buffalo. I started writing and speaking about it. When REDS organized a national conference on globalization in Tumkur, I presented a paper in which I spoke at length about the significance of buffalo in Dalit culture. Within a few months, there was a book from Kancha Ilaiah. The title of the book was Buffalo Nationalism.

Much later, when we met Kancha, he presented the book to us and wrote with his hand that he drew inspiration from us for writing this book. We are happy that our thoughts worked like a spark to bring out a book. We were sad that I had to give up the idea of writing a book on buffalo’s significance in Dalit culture.

However, we continued the discussions with our people in our Movement. Every year, in Karnataka, Dalit people celebrate the festival of Maramma. In Tamilnadu, Maariamma is termed as a Dalit goddess, as I hear from friends. But in Karnataka, we have a different myth. Maramma is a Brahmin girl who fell in love with Kadaraiah, a young and robust Dalit boy. Both loved each other immensely. Maramma only looked at his body and its beauty with strong muscles. She was blindly in love with him. She also took it for granted that such a handsome young man could only be a Brahmin. Kadaraiah hid his ‘Madhiga’ identity for fear of losing his ladylove.  They married and lived happily. One day the mother of Kadaraiah went to see both son and daughter-in-law. Maramma was very happy and prepared good food for her mother-in-law, as she wanted to get into her good books. But it was all vegetarian food, grass-eating was the habit. They had a mouthful of all the preparations of Maramma. It was time for dessert. She had prepared ‘Kadubu’, a delicacy in Karnataka. In Tamil it is called ‘Kolakatte’.

She asked mother and son to have a taste of Kadubu and went to fetch water. Kadaraiah was full of fascination for his young love. At the end of the recitation of his love, he asked his mother about the taste of the food that Maramma prepared. He very casually asked her about how she liked the Kadubu that his wife had prepared. Kadaraiah’s mother was still having it in her mouth. She opened her mouth and said that it was very tasty and added: ‘However, Kadariah, it is nothing when we compare it with the taste of the bone that we bite during our meal’. The Kadubu in her mouth was laughing loud as it saw Maramma standing at the door before mother could close her mouth. Now Maramma knew that her husband was a beef-eating Madhiga Dalit. She opened her mouth wide and began to curse Kadaraiah for having married a Brahmin girl. She killed him and sent his ‘atma’ (soul) into a buffalo.

Today every year the village caste lord dedicates a buffalo to Maramma and gives it to the Dalits to rear it during the year. He becomes a sort of god for having gifted the buffalo to Dalits free. In return, he and other caste fellows extract free caste labour from all Dalits throughout the year. On the festival night, the buffalo is sacrificed and its head kept at the entrance to the village (now at the temple entrance) to remind all Dalits that they should never dare to even think of marrying a Brahmin girl or any other caste girls. More than the myth, it is the perpetuation of free caste labour that is unconstitutional.

Even as I am writing this, in Tharur, there are 8 policemen to prevent this festival tonight. This year, it has been a revolution in Tumkur District. Village after village, we have stopped this sacrifice of buffalo. No ordinary effort can achieve this. But we are very proud that we have stopped it even in big villages where ministers and MLA have supported the celebration and have hated us for stopping the festival. But this is being stopped all over the District. We have a big Movement, I told you.

In my latest novel Yoikana that has been published in the US, I have started it with Reindeer, which the Indigenous Saami people consider as their ancestor. I have brought buffalo and reindeer together as ancestors of two ancient peoples, the Saami and the Dalit. I was under the impression that this pride behind buffalo had not caught up in Tamilnadu. For the first time, I came across this in your website and it excites me immensely. Shiva’s wife Adishakthi incarnates as Chamundeshwari (We call her Chee Munde Eeshwari) to kill Mahishasura, who is Mahesh, the buffalo. This myth forms the background for the celebration of Dusserah.  I recollect that Dr. Badal Sen Gupta often used to narrate to me very proudly about the novel Mahesh that he relished reading. It is also about a buffalo written in Bengali language. He was not a Dalit. But he knew that I am and was happy to narrate it to me again and again.

I am sure one day when some others write Dalit history they will definitely refer to the way we have stopped this festival in our District in such large way. Am I so happy to send this blogpost to you! Our struggle is completely blended with the pride and dignity that this has brought in the lives of our people.

- MC Raj, Tumkur

Manickam Casimir Raj was born in Tuticorin and lives in Karnataka. He has a B.Ph. (Philosophy), B .D. (Theology), M.A Sociology. He has studied Tamil, English, Kannada, Malayalam, Latin, Greek and French. He has extensive work, travel, study, research, writing and consulting experience.  He works with the Rural Education for Development Society.

The Shaping of an Author – I

- MC Raj

Think of me as an author? No one including me could ever imagine this. I was born of totally illiterate parents. The genes were different. But today I have defied the rules of gene games with more than 15 published books. I had never dreamt to become a writer. But I wanted to establish myself as someone in society. That was a challenge as all the caste students in my village school joined together and nicknamed me as KAKAPEE, the shit of a crow. I grew up with this ascribed identity for eight long years till I left the village school to join a big school in the town. It has made an indelible scar on my psyche.

For many years working in the villages in the company of my wife occupied my entire life. Poverty and drudgery of my people were just a continuous experience of the poverty I suffered in my family. The ‘I’ and the ‘other’ soon began to synchronize into an unconventional music. The ‘personal’ and the ‘societal’ began to choreograph a dance of life. The pain and rebellion began to shape itself into a philosophy of revolution. It stretched out far back into history. The collective churning of all these came out in cultural manifestations. Amidst all the struggles of our people with sweat flowing from their foreheads, with mud covering their hands and legs and blood oozing through  body parts, books had to blend themselves into a high level of rationalization. There was no other go. There was no more strength in the body to face emotions. The humiliations, the rejections, the insults, the hostility to your achievements only because you are a Dalit had closed all the pores in the body. If we allowed emotions to get into our body we might have had to commit suicide. But a Dalit is born to live and dance on the streets in gay abandon. They were not isolated. They were coming in waves, sometimes as torrents opening the floodgates of caste mindset. Rationalizing and philosophizing were easy ways out.

Ask the young Dalits about their experience of untouchability. “No sir. We have never suffered untouchability.” Utter shock was inevitable. Send the shock into a grinding mill. Out came the discovery that even before rationality developed in Dalit children they learned the art of pulling down shutters on their emotions. A natural defense mechanism! They had to guard themselves against uninterrupted assaults from the caste children. Rceiving them at the emotional level would spell a doom in the young psyche. From suffering emerged great philosophers.

Dalit community had a well designed philosophy known as Cosmic-Shamanism. History-writing buried it from history. It became anti history for the Dalits. Caste people wrote Indian history and buried Dalit history. Now I took on myself the onus of bringing back to life our history, our culture, our philosophy and surprisingly also our religion. I wrote them as books. Dalit people hailed them as their scriptures. When Dalitology was released in Bangalore more than 6000 people assembled from all over the country. About a thousand people, most of them Dalit women travelled one full night from northern Karnataka without tickets in the train. The authorities decided to allow them to travel without tickets after seeing the pamphlet of the releasing function. Dalitology with 820 pages became a well acclaimed book even in many other countries. It was officially released in Birmingham by MP Clare Short. I had only attempted to do a philosophical analysis of Dalit situation in the country. After writing every chapter I used to call together Dalit elders and young people from the community and share my writing with them in sheer excitement. They would approve or disapprove a few things and subsequent discussions would provide substance for my next chapter. Those were my ‘whisky’ days. Now I don’t drink much whisky. Suddenly I would burst forth with a new insight and would share it aloud with my wife and children. There would be a discussion and they would go to sleep. My writings are mostly done at night. Days are for the people and for the villages. Nights are for writing. The rhythm continues till today. When Dalitology was about to be completed the Dalit people called it ‘our scriptures’. That was a blow. It was mind blowing. I have asserted in the book ‘non-existence’ of god and heaven. The people were asserting that this was their scriptures knowing fully well the content of the book. Dalit history and Dalit culture began to find new assertions. People became more and more successful in their struggles. Today our Movement has regained 9500 acres of land. Mind boggling.

There is an association of the Dalit IAS, IPS and IFS officers in Karnataka. Actually it is managed by the wives of these officers. When I wrote a book on Dalit spirituality known as Cosmsoity, we spoke to them and checked if they would like to be part of the releasing function in Bangalore. Incidentally I am originally from Tamilandu and not a Kannadiga but completely domiciled in Karnataka. Their response was amazing. All of them decided to take over the entire responsibility for organizing the releasing function. The big banner on the stage said, “We Dalits are Dalits.” It was a remarkable courage on their part and an outrage of the hiding identity of their husbands. The crowd was more than one thousand people in the releasing function. A similar function was organized for the release of my book on Dalit philosophy. Sivagami IAS from Tamilnadu gave a stunning review of the book.

For the release of my book on Dalit psyche, which is a volume of 1100 pages professors from Delhi and Mumbai had come to review the book. We make it a point to honor one eminent Dalit in each of our releasing function. Winnie Mandela had agreed to release the book DYCHE. But when there was only one day left for her to start, her grand daughter died in a swimming pool in the school and Winnie had to cancel her trip.

Many people ask me why the Dalit community in the country, especially Dalit intellectuals are hesitating to acknowledge my books. My answer is very simple. First of all our community does not even believe that we can be philosophers, psychologists, spiritualists, scientists and writers. Secondly our intellectuals often feel that their personal space gets constricted when someone else’s books are given publicity. I take consolation in the fact that after I die all of them will make use of my books as their resource to gain more intellectual space for themselves. Already now I see quite a few people making use of my books to write their books without even acknowledging the source. Perhaps it is because of our culture that everything in the community belongs to all. Ideas are to spread. Who spreads them is not the most important thing.

But a very big Dalit movement has been built with such intellectual resource building in Karnataka. It is not that all Dalits are reading my books in order to build the movement. But we write books before initiating any innovative enterprise among our people. We do not initiate any historic endeavor without first writing a book on the subject. This has been a consistent base for our success. My wife joins me in the writing of some books.

Of late I have turned my writing trajectory to fiction writing. Three of my novels have already been published. One of them is published in the United States.

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‘Do you write in English?’ MC Raj writes about facing this and other responses to his writing in Part II

Manickam Casimir Raj was born in Tuticorin and lives in Karnataka. He has a B.Ph. (Philosophy), B .D. (Theology), M.A Sociology. He has studied Tamil, English, Kannada, Malayalam, Latin, Greek and French. He has extensive work, travel, study, research, writing and consulting experience.  He works with the Rural Education for Development Society.