LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 23:9 September 2023
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

Celebrate India!
Unity in Diversity!!

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

Poetic Encounter
Available in https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09TT86S4T

Poems
Naked: the honest browsings of two brown women
Available in https://www.amazon.in

Decrees
Available in https://www.amazon.com

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2023
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

Critique of Everyday Dalit Marginalisation Across Terrains in
Ajay Navaria’s Unclaimed Terrain

Richa Dawar, M.Phil.


Courtesy: www.amazon.com

Abstract

This paper delves into the portrayal of Dalit everyday experiences in Ajay Navaria's short story collection, Unclaimed Terrain (2013). The study examines how Navaria's narratives draw from both real-life incidents and fictional storytelling to shed light on the struggles faced by Dalits in both rural and urban contexts. Through these stories, Navaria portrays the struggles of Dalits in rural and urban settings, critiquing the failures of modernity and the secular nation to provide social equality. The paper discusses how Navaria navigates the tensions between social activism and the art of literature, particularly within the context of Dalit literature. His stories reveal the complexities of the urban Dalit subject, caught between the allure of economic opportunities and the persistent anxiety of caste-based discrimination in the urban spaces. Furthermore, the study explores how Navaria's narratives reflects upon the failures of modernity and the secular nation in delivering on their promises of social equality. Despite the rhetoric of equality and freedom, the contemporary nation-state continues to marginalise Dalits, leaving them to confront fear and exclusion in their everyday lives. In conclusion, Navaria's Unclaimed Terrain offers a compelling critique of the prevailing socio-political landscape. By delving into these complex themes, Navaria's stories call for an inclusive public sphere and underscore the need to redefine the concept of nation as a daily referendum based on shared suffering and collective consensus, ultimately paving the way for a more equitable and just society.

Keywords: Ajay Navaria, Unclaimed Terrain, Dalit experience, Dalit consciousness, everyday discrimination, social equality.

“Ever since the family bought the horse, the Darbars had been threatening Pradip and Kalubhai. Once Kalubhai had even decided to sell the horse but Pradip cried for days and Kalubhai reluctantly agreed to keep the horse. In fact, Kalubhai was threatened last week. The Darbars told him to sell the horse as Dalits are not meant to ride horses,” said Himmatbhai” (Dhar, “Family Alleges”).

The above quoted statement is not extracted from the short stories which comprise the collection Unclaimed Terrain (2013) by Ajay Navaria, but are taken from a news report which had published an interaction with the kin of the Dalit boy from Timbi village in Umrala (Gujarat), who was killed by the Kshatriya caste Darbar community members last march for daring to own and ride a horse.

The above incident is almost a spectral repetition of a similar incident in the story “Subcontinent” in Ajay Navaria’s short story collection, where the protagonist Siddharth is witness to the incident where the wedding party of the Dalit boy Bhima is disrupted by a mob of upper-castes, who terrorise the party into going ahead without the ceremonial horse. This is ostensibly a punishment for breaking the “traditions of millennia” (93), with the upper-caste mob collectively acting as the vigilante protectors of the caste hierarchies and status quo in the village setting. While the groom in the story is spared from any fatal consequences, the pall of violence that lies over the everyday life of a Dalit in the village setting is palpable throughout Navaria’s short story collection. The everyday of the Dalit in the village, as well as Dalit as an urban migrant are the subject matter of these stories with the two terrains marking the territories of the traditional and the modern respectively.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Richa Dawar, MPhil., University of Delhi
905, Tower 1 and 2, The Amaryllis, Gaushala Road
Karol Bagh, New Delhi - 110005
richaadawarr@gmail.com
Official Email ID: richadawar@dr.du.ac.in
Phone number: +91 8860191318
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.