My parents didn’t talk about our caste until my older brother and I were 19 and 15, respectively. One long-time friend said I can’t “play the Dalit card” because I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston. Recently, I told some friends that I’m a Dalit. While growing up, my friends assumed I was upper-caste. My social circle has shrunk ever since I started talking about my caste. I realised the different levels of oppression I’ve grown up with, and I had a breakdown.
I started therapy after that, which helped me recall one of my first memories of facing casteism, in which I wasn’t able to crack nursery admissions in a privileged school because I – a 5-year-old kid who grew up in a house where nobody spoke English – was expected to answer in English. While writing, I realised the different levels of oppression I’ve grown up with, and I had a breakdown. But when the editors insisted, I wrote about myself. Initially, I didn’t want to do a first-person piece, but one that is based on people I’ve been following and inspired by, who are strong Dalit voices. But they don’t question the reservation that comes with caste, class and network privilege,” Dutt added.I came out with my identity last year when I wrote about it in a published article.
“A lot of people speak of quota system as a problematic concept. The session provided a critique of the socio-economic system, where “merit” is often used as an excuse to criticise affirmative actions like reservation. I decided to use the privilege I had acquired to talk about the trauma that comes with hiding your identity for so long,” she said. But when I read Rohith Vemula’s letter, something changed inside me. I tried to pass off as an upper caste person and slowly, I perfected that act. “I was told to hide my caste from a very young age. Dutt, who “came out” as Dalit after she read scholar and Hyderabad University Rohith Vemula’s suicide note in January 2016, was speaking to author Raghav Chandra and journalist Pragya Tiwari, as they tackled questions around identity and representation. We need to look beyond the binaries of violence and reservation when it comes to Dalit community, said writer Yashica Dutt on Saturday at the 13th edition of the Jaipur Lit Fest (JLF).
0 kommentar(er)
