The Role of Ambedkarite Ideology in Shaping Dalit Identity in the Writings of Narendra Jadhav and Vasant Moon

Abstract

The theme of this article is to investigate how Dalit identity is being manifested in Ambedkarite literature in Outcaste: A Memoir written by the writer Narendra Jadhav and Growing Up Untouchable in India written by the writer Vasant Moon. They are both 'life stories' about the Mahar world from the twentieth century in Maharashtra. The principal concern of the paper is the achievement of two goals. The first is to follow these notions of dignity, education, self-respect, and resistance in each text and how they are related to the Dalit self. The second is to contrast the two writers in their narration of the oppression of caste and the consciousness and emancipation of the people. The paper uses Ambedkar's critique of caste and scholarship that interprets the Dalit as a witness to read the Dalit autobiography as an Ambedkarite narrative grammar that turns humiliation into claim, a grammar, not a borrowed slogan. The grammar is organised by Jadhav each around a family's generational rise; Moon spreads it out over a neighbourhood. The comparison indicates that Ambedkarite Dalit identity in life-writing is multiple, conflicting and formally creative.