Dalit Culture as Portrayed in Sangati

Sangati looks at Dalit life from the perspective of a female character, describing the manners in which women of the community respond to day-to-day events. As such, the narrative is an exploration of the lives of Dalit women (particularly those of the paraiyar population). While it clarifies the position of Dalit women within their community, the narrative also criticizes social structures and hierarchies that subdue women.

Sangati consists of a number of stories that are connected to one another in the fact that each experience, in the social context described in the book, is characteristically female. Women in Sangati are at once individuals and members of a community. The character who recounts the story too is an insider and an outsider. Living within the community, the narrator is familiar with its attitudes and outlook, but – as Holmstrom points out in her introduction to the book – there is also a reflective voice that moves across the narration of events in Sangati. While one voice recounts stories, the other weighs them – working out explanations, seeking causes.

“…even among women, I never heard of upper-caste women becoming possessed or dancing in a frenzy. The peys always seem to set on women from the pallar, paraiyar, chakkiliyar, and koravar communities.
…I began to wonder if there really were peys.
Women are overwhelmed and crushed by their own disgust, boredom, and exhaustion… The stronger ones somehow manage to survive all this. The ones who don’t have the mental strength are totally oppressed; they succumb to mental ill-health and act as if they are possessed by peys.” (58-59)

Women’s possession by peys is revealed as an act of release. For women, it is a way to balance personal well-being and complying with public demands on the individual.

The stories in the book are intersections between the lives of women as members of the Dalit community and their lives as individuals. As a community, women inherit the same traditions and ought to comply with similar customs. In these respects, their stories are identical. Domestic violence is a familiar account, while the confinement to the kuchulu when one comes of age is a part of every girl’s story. Yet there are unusual reactions to occurrences that have been considered customary. Raakkamma fights when her husband beats her; she lifts up her sari to embarrass and chase him away.

“…(Raakkamma) lifted up her sari in front of the entire crowd gathered there. That was when Pakkiaraj (her husband) walked off, still shouting. All the women began to speak amongst themselves. ‘Is this a woman or what? That Chinnayyan Mudiappan, the teacher and all our brothers are standing around. So casually she lifted her sari in front of them all. Shameless donkey! What an uncontrollable shrew she is!’

Immediately Raakkamma rounded on them. ‘Why don’t you lot just go off and mind your own business? It is I who am beaten to death every day. If I hadn’t shamed him like this, he would surely have split my skull in two, the horrible man.’

…I realized that it was only after she screamed and shouted and behaved like that that he let her go. I realized that she acted in that way because it was her only means of escape.” (61-62)

The act disregards traditional codes of conduct; it is unexpected and shocking. It is an act that affects – perhaps negatively – the identity of a community, but is a necessary assertion on the part of the individual. Distancing herself from the community, the narrative voice recognizes the possession of women by peys as what it really is – the need of women to give vent to their feelings. The stories about peys, like the collective attitude that insists on the ‘chastity’ and deference on the part of women, are inherited ways of thinking. Their legitimacy hinges on the fact that they have been handed down from generation to generation, granting them an arbitrary authority. They go by the umbrella term ‘tradition’. Overtime, what is perceived as tradition comes to define the identity of a social community. If one were a part of a certain tradition, it would be difficult to see it for what it really is – a collection of attitudes and believes that have come to characterize the character of a community. To stand back and take an objective look is like looking at one’s reflection in the mirror. One is aware of two selves at once. The reflection is the ‘self’ that is subject to external perception, while there is also the conscious self. The conscious self knows that the ‘self’ as a whole is more than the portrayal provided by the reflection. The problem is that a person’s consciousness (crucial to the conscious self), which subjectively constructs the person’s identity, remains invisible to the external view (gaze?). While one seeks to understand ways of thinking that locate the self in various social contexts (the self as externally perceived), there is a need to project oneself as an autonomous being whose identity is self-defined. The process is one through which the individual attempts to reconcile the views of the self as subject (the self that thinks and perceives) and of the self as object (the self that is being perceived and being thought of). This is the key preoccupation of Sangati’s narrator.

Because of the narrating voice that is exploratory and analytical, in Sangati culture emerges as a construct that becomes a controlling force only through compliance of a people. Through reflective storytelling, culture is dissected and exposed as a set of perspectives and practices that have come to be characterized as an innate authority in a community.


Bibliography:

Sangati. Bama. Trans. Holmstrom, Lakshmi. New Delhi: OUP, 2005.