1 The Hindu caste system operates on a graded, hereditary scale of purity and pollution, with Brahmans (priests) as the purest and Dalits as the most polluting because of their association with ‘unclean’ work such as tanning leather, upkeep of crematoria and all sanitation work. While Hindu society depends on Dalit castes for such labour, it makes the latter’s touch and even shadow contaminating to caste Hindus. Untouchability is a criminal offence under the Indian Constitution, but is still practised in many regions in India.
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2 The vatan is part of a system called balutedari, which is a hereditary arrangement whereby village servants perform their duties for the village for a fixed amount of land or share of the harvest or various perquisites. In Maharashtra, there were traditionally twelve balutedars, of whom Mahars were one.
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3 To avoid excessive endnotes, all page references to Poisoned Bread are given in parentheses within the main text. Arjun Dangle (ed.), Poisoned Bread: translations from modern Marathi Dalit literature ( Bombay, Orient Longman , 1992).
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4 Vasant Moon , Growing up Untouchable in India ( Lanham, MD, Rowman & Little-.eld , 2000).
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Bama , Karukku ( Chennai, Macmillan India , 2000).
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5 Terry Eagleton , ‘History, narrative, and Marxism’, in James Phelan (ed.), Reading Narrative: form, ethics, ideology ( Columbus, Ohio University Press , 1989), pp. 275, 280.
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6 Amitabh’s narrative is set in a time-frame before the anti-caste struggle gained strength. As the Ambedkarite movement gathered momentum in Maharashtra in the 1930s, there were concerted efforts by Dalit activists to educate rural Dalits against the practice of eating carrion. Today, the practice has largely disappeared in Maharashtra.
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7 Karl Marx , Selected Writings ( Oxford, Oxford University Press , 1977; ed. David McLellan ), p. 79.
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8 The Patil is the village headman; the last name is also a caste marker, as are most Hindu last names.
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9 The ‘land right’ is the Mahar vatan (see note 2). Mhadeva argues that the vatan also keeps Mahars yoked to high caste farming families. He points out that, rather than cling to the meagre benefits that the land right may bring, Mahars could liberate themselves by breaking their feudal relationship with landowners.
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10 Quoted in Eleanor Zelliot , From Untouchable to Dalit: essays on the Ambedkar movement ( New Delhi, Manohar , 1992), p. 206.
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11 A caste name. Originally an official exercising hereditary police and revenue responsibility over a district and receiving land rent-free as compensation.
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12 Pandita (feminine form of ‘pandit’) is an honorary title conferred on accomplished scholars in India. The teacher is possibly making a sarcastic reference to Ramabai, Ambedkar’s .rst wife who died in 1935. Ramabai came from an impoverished Mahar family and, since she had been sent out to work from an early age, she had received very little education. Pandita Ramabai (1858–1922), on the other hand, is a different person, but also an important figure in the caste struggle as well as women’s rights. She was born into a Brahman family and was sent to school by her progressive father, an unusual opportunity for a girl in nineteenthcentury Maharashtra. She chose to marry a man from a low caste, but her husband died young, and, at 23, she found herself widowed with a young child. After her husband’s death, she converted to Christianity. She went to England for higher studies and focused on the treatment of widows in India. She wrote two books, Stridharma Niti (Morals for Women) and The High Caste Hindu Woman. She also founded an ashram for widows, Mukti (Liberation), where women of all castes ate and lived together.
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13 The Maharashtra State Assembly adopted a resolution in 1978 to rename Marathwada University after Dr Ambedkar, but, under pressure from upper caste Hindus and the Hindu Right party, the Shiv Sena, the proposal was inde.nitely deferred. In 1994, the Congress government in power under chief minister Sharad Pawar added the prefix Dr B. R. Ambedkar to the university while ‘ bifurcating’ the original university by opening another one in the region called Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University, named after a Hindu leader. In effect, it was a compromised settlement of the agitation, which many Dalits saw as a cooptation of an important cultural struggle. Even in 1994, after the newly-named Dr B. R. Ambedkar Marathwada University came into effect, atrocities against Dalits continued for several days.
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14 A country brew made from distilling the fermentation of the fleshy edible flowers of the Mahua tree (Maduca indica).
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15 Indian sweet made by deep-frying pieces of batter and then soaking them in sugar syrup.
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16 B. R. Ambedkar , Writings and Speeches ( Mumbai, Government of Maharashtra , 1979–98; ed. Vasant Moon ), Vol. 13, p. 1216.
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17 Quoted in Gail Omvedt , Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr Ambedkar and the Dalit movement in colonial India ( New Delhi, Sage , 1994), p. 325.
