Prabha Shares

The very title “Joothan” meaning ‘left-out food’ itself made me pause for a second and sit back with the thought of giving it a try. The subtitle goes like ‘A Dalit’s life’ is an autobiography of Omprakash Valmiki translated in English by Arun Prabha Mukherjee, describing the worst clutches of casteism. There is a saying that “People can’t understand certain things until they undergo them’ and I found it true on reading this book. We have heard about the worst forms of casteism but after heavy manual labor just receiving the ‘left-out food’ as the payment is really sickening. Source: Stree-Samya books The most interesting part of the book is the ‘Pitaji’, that is the father of the author who showed a denial against the system of caste. He believed that literacy and a high professional position can only help a person to come out of the iron fist of casteism. This very thought is the seed behind the growth of the author as a person not surrendering himself to the ugly frame of casteism.

In the previous article “My encounters with the system called Caste” ( https://bit.ly/3gGDDva ) I have concluded that change in mindset from both the dominant and subordinate castes should change to eradicate the discrimination. The feedback I received from many demanded an explanation about what change should happen in the mindset of the oppressed ones. So this article is regarding that in which I would like to add a sociological theory and a few life incidents as examples. The effective continuation of the system called Caste is mainly because of the blind belief and inferiority complex of the oppressed ones. Knowingly or without knowing they tend to agree that forward castes are superior and try to follow them and identify themselves with the upper strata people. There is a popular theory profounded by Sociologist and Professor M.N.Srinivas called “ Sanskritization ” in his famous work Religion and society among the Coorgs of South India where he explains how the subordinate cas

First of all, I would like to clarify that this article is not to prescribe anyone about the woes of casteism and how to overcome it because I am not the first one to talk about it and nothing is changed yet and I know very well that I am not the last one too because this is not going to end in near future. I am from the Scheduled Caste community and my father’s brought up and his position as a DSP has always kept me out of this to that extent that I was in a utopia that the so-called advanced society is out of this evil. The recent happenings where the people representatives made a small boy from the scheduled caste to set right his slipper in one case and made a person to carry his slipper in another case shows how this evil has rooted so deeply in the society. Here am sharing my countable experiences with the system. It was in my childhood when I was not at all aware that such a system exists. I and my family visited our village deity where we rarely go. As usual, I went near the sa