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Narratives of Dissent: Exploring Communitarian Identity in Post-Partition Bengali Dalit Magazines

Presenter:

· Kanad Giri West Bengal State University (Kolkata, India)

Timeslot:

07/27 | 15:30-15:50 UTC+2/CEST

Abstract

The paper will be a study of Bengali Dalit magazines of the post-partition era, the advent of which can be viewed as one of the first attempts to consolidate a distinctly Dalit sensibility and aesthetic, based on communitarian experiences. The publication and circulation of magazines, often by writers and editors themselves, were aimed to create a space of collective articulation as the mainstream publication houses seemed reluctant to publish writings which could hurt the sentiments of elitist, urban writers. Here, I will argue that the rise of Dalit magazines in 1980s did not only forge a collective solidarity among the victims of caste-hierarchy, but also transformed the act of articulation and writing into a political force. In these magazines, one finds repeated assertion of the experiences of partition, homelessness and subsequent resettlement in a land which is yet to consider them as its citizens. By exploring narratives of casteism, partition and post-independence political upheaval from a subaltern perspective, I will show how the writers make the reader aware of the ‘other side of the hi(story)’ which has never been explored. In reading these magazines, one finds that there is always a conscious effort to move beyond the Dalit experiences in particular by establishing a feeling of cohesion and collectivity with other marginalized communities. These magazines, I will argue, aim to establish a wider communitarian identity in the world: a sense of belonging that will counteract the feelings of rootlessness and social discrimination and will define the individual by going beyond the historical experiences of torture, humiliation and social segregation.