Growing up as a Dalit in India: Real Stories From Across States

Yashica Dutt started Documents of Dalit Discrimination, a Tumblr blog right after “coming out” as Dalit.

What makes you Dalit? Are your bones Dalit? Or your teeth? Or your shoulders? Or your hands? No, it’s your surname. Your caste. Which is the only factor for which you will be oppressed, discriminated against, and shamed.

No more, says Yashica Dutt, who started Documents of Dalit Discrimination, a Tumblr blog, right after she “came out” as a Dalit.

Yashica, who was too fearful of revealing her identity earlier, came out after reading the posthumous Facebook post of Rohith Vermula, the Dalit PhD scholar, who committed suicide at a Hyderabad university. His suicide made her recognise that her history wasn’t one of “shame” but of oppression, wrote Yashica.

He (Rohith Vermula) made me acknowledge that my great grandfather learned to write by scrawling a stick in the mud because the higher caste schoolteacher forbade him from holding a slate. And he made me proud.

Yashica Dutt

Since then, the blog Documents of Dalit Discrimination has been receiving posts from people, who are sharing their stories of growing up and living as Dalits in a casteist society.

They Change Their Surnames for Fear of Discrimination

This story is faced by many. Even today being an SC/ST is taboo. I know few families who have changed their surnames just because people recognise their caste and discriminate them by their surnames. People are more interested in someone’s caste than the human being. I’m also proud to say that I belong to an SC. Don’t go by my surname. I’m not a Brahmin.

Archana Gore

Faced Class Discrimination in Class 4

You are not alone. In class 4, my headmistress made a big fuss in school when a student ate an egg next to a Brahmin girl. One of my earliest exposure to caste supremacists ideas which only piled up ever since. Caste is a reality. We’ll fight caste discrimination collectively.

Arie Purushu

Remained Closet Dalit All Through School and College

My parents never told me. From their experience of being identified as Dalit and being constantly picked on and humiliated, perhaps they thought it better not to tell me. My parents gave me a fictitious surname, Nimbekar, to be able to pass off as a caste Hindu. My parents never even applied for a Scheduled Caste certificate for me, keeping me from a range of reservation benefits in education and in employment. Thus, I remained a closet Dalit all through school and college. I came out as a Dalit when I was 18.

Sumit Baudh 2007, Reflections of a Queer Dalit, In Plainspeak, Issue 3, New Delhi: South and Southeast Asia Resource Center on Sexuality, pp 32-37

Even Top B-Schools Not Insulated

I grew up in urban south India, relatively not exposed to caste discrimination at school. My dad, a government employee, faced caste discrimination but shielded us from it by not talking about it in front of us. In general, we were taught, trained to ignore these things and move on. During my undergraduate days, there were the occasional snide remarks or casual casteist jokes but I took it in my stride, mostly because it was never direct or in my face. The first time I faced public humiliation was unfortunately at one of India’s top B-schools, where I should emphasise, I secured an admission as a general student (not based on any caste reservation!) for an employer-funded management program. In the Corp Fin course, there was an accounting concept that I could not get my head around and I asked the teacher for assistance. The very matter of fact response was, “oh you folks with X surname, I don’t expect you to get these concepts easily. Why don’t you ask some of these Iyengar and Aggrawal fellows here if they can help?” The entire class laughed at the “joke”. But that was the day I realised that no matter how qualified I am, my identity finally boils down to my apparently lower and therefore “incapable” caste.

Anonymous

These brave stories are a strong step in starting a serious dialogue against Dalit discrimination, not just in academic circles, but out there in social media and as part of everyday conversations.