Humko power mei nhi aane denge: an autoethnography of our caste histories
Photo by Fabian Kleiser on Unsplash
Today, I sit the most comfortably uncomfortable I have been with my caste identity. For most of my 25 years, I had no idea about my caste identity as I navigated upper-caste classrooms and learning spaces. I talked and associated with my upper caste peers, allying with them as they made casteist jokes. Given my middle-class family background, I belonged and assimilated into those spaces easily. It wasn’t until my university education that the big ‘reveal’ happened.
Caste is a rigid social stratification system operating in the Indian subcontinent. It is hierarchical and hereditary in nature, i.e., one is born into a caste. Embedded in racial supremacist beliefs, it naturalises the subjugation of lower castes by upper castes. Dalit is a political term for people of the lowest castes, previously called untouchables, who were considered ‘impure’ by wider Hindu society. Dalits are still marginalised and violated by upper-caste Hindus in India.
My caste identity as a Dalit was finally handed to me in the form of a piece of paper (caste certificate) by my parents, who asked my 18-year-old self to decide whether to either embrace it or keep the mask of upper-castedness. Everything changed from that moment. I felt betrayed by my parents for hiding this, but more so for ‘being lower caste.’ I felt the kind of burden that this marker would bring me, so I continued my facade of upper-castedness. I kept navigating in the same upper-caste educational spaces, being a part of and reproducing the same systems of caste hierarchies. However, not being able to embrace my caste identity always sat uncomfortably with me; there was almost a shame attached to it.
Even when I was abroad, I hid my caste identity as I navigated upper-caste Hindu diasporic spaces. Going to Navratri, Holi and Diwali events dominated by upper-caste people, their ways of celebration, customs, languages and histories. I never felt included or represented there, but I continued to go to keep up the charade. My ex-partners or friends did not know about my caste identity, given my ambiguous surname, and every time the question came, I dodged it skillfully. Years of practice had made me adept at such dodging.
However, things turned around when I started my PhD and came to Aotearoa. Seeing multiculturalism and finding an inclusive community of friends and whanau helped me finally come to terms with my Dalit identity, or at least say the word out loud without hesitation when someone asks about my whakapapa. I found people and communities that were more accepting of my caste identity, where I could finally shed my ‘upper-caste’ skin and reveal my true self.
Like most Dalits, I was tired of living a double life, where I had to hide my Dalitness to assimilate in upper-caste public spaces. Realising the importance of whakapapa and family histories in Aotearoa, I went on a journey to find my family’s history. My parents and grandparents never told us those stories of pain, struggles, and caste discrimination they faced (and continue to face) throughout their lives. But this time, I was determined to find out. This began my journey to find my whakapapa, which has been hidden in caskets of shame, humiliation and endless pain.
I started talking to my dad, who is a staunch Ambedkarite Buddhist man. I asked him about our family history, especially if the independence of the Indian subcontinent brought a change in the lives of our community. I wanted to know if caste-based discrimination was reduced after independence and the framing of our constitution. To my surprise, he replied, “Azadi ka matlb jo educated hai unke liye hai thoda yahan sheher mei lekin gaanv mei jo gareeb hai unke liye toh whi hai sb”, “Freedom has some meaning for our communities in the city, but everything remains the same for the poor, uneducated people living in villages”. The same upper-caste people with money and power continue to dominate and discriminate against lower-caste communities.
He recalled how he was discriminated against by the upper castes in the village where he grew up. They didn’t share vessels with him and did not let him go to their spaces and touch their things (wells of water, for example). Being connected to the village, we know this continues today; lower-caste people are still treated similarly, and things haven’t changed even after 76 years of independence. People don’t discriminate overtly against him anymore (due to class mobility), but mann se kisi k discrimination nhi gya, the discrimination has not left their minds.
As he said this, he remembered how the hierarchies of caste and caste-based discrimination did not leave him even when he came to the city, even after finishing his doctorate and becoming a professor at an eminent State Government university. Discrimination became more covert but remained ubiquitous in his life.
The structures of casteism continue to exist and control society. They regulate the fictions in which lower-caste people can operate, i.e., it might be okay for them to get educated and occupy space in educational institutions, finally, but they can’t take powerful positions. The Savarna domination is so pervasive and naturalised that a Dalit person in a position of power (where they can control upper castes) is unusual. In the quote below, my dad refers to an event when he had to fight the university in court for stripping him of his deanship, accusing the institution of caste-based discrimination.
Kehne ki baat alg ki padhai ke baad discrimination nhi hota hai - marte dam tak hota - mein aaj yahan university main hun samne se nhi krte , humko power mei nhi aane denge, samne nhi aane denge.
People say that caste-based discrimination does not happen post-education, but caste remains attached to you till your death, and the discrimination happens until you die. Today, I am at the university. People don’t discriminate to my face, but they won’t let us come to the front and take space and power.
He was the first Dalit dean at the university, but soon, the deanship was transferred to an upper-caste person. The case went on for three years. He finally won, but the cost was huge—the financial cost (which he could afford given his somewhat privileged class position), the insurmountable impact on him and the family’s mental health, and the constant media reportage of the case, which brought more unnecessary attention to our family. All of that is for just an administrative position.
Often, we would be so drained that I’d lose sight and ask my dad to give up and end this pain, but he persevered and told us that this had happened to so many people in our community that he couldn’t just give up. He needed to lay a precedent that we could win against a casteist society.
As I narrate my family history in Aotearoa, I acknowledge that I have a lot of privilege. I have been protected and sheltered from my caste identity all my life in India and have not faced much overt caste-based discrimination. I have the privilege and space to write and share my family’s story with the world.
My father believes that my migration abroad is the story of my ultimate emancipation from caste-based discrimination.
Aap wahan chale gaye acha nhi nhi hai, mei eisi liye apko wahan bhejne k liye tyaar ho gya - ki iss gandi duniya se aap alg rhoge - abhi tk ye apko ek scale mei naapte hai - konsa scale - apki caste k scale - but wahan aap apne mehnat se puchuche ho koi apko nhi puchega.
You are there, and it’s not good for me. But I was ready to send you abroad because I want you to stay away from this ugly world where people will always measure you on a scale—the scale of your caste. But there, you have reached there through your own hard work, and nobody will question your abilities or merit.
Caste does not magically vanish in diasporic spaces as expected; it is like a chameleon that shapes and colours. It manifests itself through Hindu socio-cultural organisations, the celebration of Hindu festivals and casual colourism that marks caste identities. I am working and researching the impact of casteism in the Indian diasporic communities in New Zealand. The research has shown how castes are transported from India and remain attached as status symbols even after chains of family migrations. These findings are beyond the scope of this article, so I’d limit myself to my family’s ethnography and our caste histories.
Even after trying to talk to more family members about our caste histories, nothing substantial came up regarding how they faced discrimination in specific events. Their narration blurred our family histories with the more general histories and treatment of lower-caste people in India. They talked about oppression, discrimination and violence as external, never as something attached to the family. Instead, it is something the entire community continues to face. I wonder what this has to do with the politics of remembering and forgetting, how their “strategic amnesia” saves them from the pain and generational trauma while they are still able to recall our caste histories by generalising them nationwide.
This choice of forgetting some parts of history while remembering others is political, agential and powerful. Through selective remembering, they chose to preserve their families while protecting me from the shame of the oppression and violence they faced in the past. Collective forgetting by my family was their way to reconciliation and moving forward after facing generations of pain and violence. As I write this today, going through those recordings of conversations with my family, I feel a sliver of the endless pain in their voices, words and silences. As I write today, misty-eyed, I finally bring some of that pain from my heart to these blank sheets of paper and hope my audience feels a sliver of that pain, too.