Joothan: A Dalit’s Life: The Magical Transformation of Muteness into Voice

Abstract

Omprakash Valmiki is a prominent figure among Hindi Dalit writers. He is a forerunner among the writers who laid the foundation for Dalit literature in Hindi. Among his many published works so far, Joothan: A Dalit's Life, his autobiography has been the focus of critical appreciation and debate. All his creative works on the aesthetics of Dalit literature dare to swim against the tide and these works are identified as pioneering attempts to create an attitude of self- criticism among the Dalits. Joothan: A Dalit’s Life (1997), besides being the autobiography of an individual, is also the tragic tale of the community to which the writer belongs. In the preface to the Hindi edition of the book, he talks of many pressures--internal as well as external, that initially inhibited the telling of this story. Yet Valmiki fights off all these pressures and goes ahead with his plan to tell his story.
This paper consists of three chapters. The introductory chapter is an analysis of Dalit creative writing highlighting the contributions of Omprakash Valmiki towards the development of Dalit literature in India. The second chapter is a critical study of Valmiki’s autobiography Joothan: A Dalit’s Life. Naming people and places by their real name is a strategy adopted by Valmiki to give Joothan: A Dalit’s Life the status of documented Dalit history. Chapter three arrives at the conclusion that by reliving his past, the author is making an attempt to reinterpret history. Through this reinterpretation Valmiki voices the suppressed feelings of the marginalized Dalits of India.