Dalit Symbolism: A Journey Towards Renewed Aspirations and Democratic Public Space

Abstract

The article talks about how Dalit symbolism has become an epitome of the Dalits’ assertion for democratic space in the contemporary period. The renewed aspirations of Dalits have emerged in the form of physical as well as cultural symbols. They are carving out their own public space through physical symbols such as imposition of icons through statues and monumental structures, and cultural symbols in the form of inventing popular myths, folk heroes, stories and history, which can be referred to as counter-publics or alternative public sphere. Treated as subservient and marginalized under the hegemonic power structure, the oppressed Dalits want to have their own voice and to present their own alternate views about State, culture and political philosophy. Nothing can be better than the exhibition of radical progressive Dalit symbols in the form of statues of Dalit icons at public places, calendars of Dalit heroes, Dalit blogs, Dalit songs, stories, poems and so on as mentioned, in order to develop an understanding of Dalit aspirations and history among the general public. Thus, the article endeavours to explore and analyse those symbols, narratives and songs, and their contributions towards Dalits’ renewed aspirations, historical claims and craving for democratic space.

Keywords

Dalits symbolism aspirations democratic public space and counter-publics/alternative public sphere

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ambedkar

B. R.

(1943). Ranade, Gandhi & Jinnah. Thacker & Co. Ltd.

Bhagwan

, & Feldhaus

(2008). Speaking truth to power. Oxford University Press.

Beteille

(1999). Citizenship, state and civil society. Economic and Political Weekly, 34(36), 2588–2591.

Brueck

L. R.

(2014). Writing resistance: The rhetorical imagination of Hindi Dalit literature. Columbia University Press.

Ciotti

(2010). Retro-modern India: Forging the low-caste self. Routledge

Dirks

N. B.

(2001). Castes of mind: Colonialism and the making of modern India. Princeton University Press.

Fraser

(1992). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. In Calhoun

(Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere. MIT Press.

Geertz

(1973). The interpretation of cultures. Basic Books.

Gupta

(2000). Culture, space and nation state. SAGE Publications.

10.

Guru

(1997). Dalit cultural movement and Dalit politics in Maharashtra. Vikas Adhyayan Kendra.

11.

Guru

(2005). Citizenship in exile: A dalit case. In Bhargava

& Reifeld

(Eds.), Civil society public sphere and citizenship: Dialogues and perspectives. SAGE Publications.

12.

Guru

(2011). The idea of India: Derivative desi and beyond. Economic and Political Weekly, XLVI(37), 36–42.

13.

Habermas

(1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An enquiry into a category of bourgeois society. The MIT Press.

14.

Halbwachs

(1992). On collective memory [trans and ed. Coser

L. A

]. Chicago University Press.

15.

Hardtman

E. M.

(2009). The dalit movement in India: Local practices, global connections. Oxford University Press.

16.

Hunt

S. B.

(2014). Hindi Dalit literature and the politics of representation. Routledge.

17.

Ilaiah

(1996). Caste: Its twentieth century avatar. Viking.

18.

Jaoul

(2006). Learning the use of symbolic means: Dalits, Ambedkar statues and the states in Uttar Pradesh, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 40(175), 175–207.

19.

Jayal

N. G.

, & Pai

(2001). Democratic governance in India. SAGE Publications.

20.

Krishna

(2016). Context and process of education: Ambedkar’s vision and social thought. In Sobti

R. C.

& Darapuri

(Ed.), Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar’s vision of education: Message for teachers & teachers educators. Narendra Publishing House.

21.

Mani

B. R.

(2011). Debrahmanising history: Dominance and resistance in Indian society. Manohar.

22.

Omvedt

(2004). Ambedkar: Towards an enlightened India. Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.

23.

Pal

(2003). Quoted in George Mathew, Panchayati Raj institutions and human rights in India. Economic and Political Weekly, 38(02), 155–156.

24.

Tartakov

(2000). The politics of popular art: Maharashtra. In Panikkar

S. K.

(Ed.), Twentieth century Indian sculpture: Last two decades. Marg Publications.

25.

Tiwari

B. N.

(2006). Women heroes and Dalit assertion in North India. SAGE Publications.

26.

Turner

V. W.

(1967). The forest of symbols: Aspects of Ndembu ritual. Cornel University Press.

27.

Turner

(1975). Symbol studies. Annual Review of Anthropology, 4, 145–161.

28.

Wankhede

H. S.

(2008). The political and the social in the Dalit movement today. Economic and Political Weekly, 43(06), 50–57.

29.

Wankhede

H. S.

(2010). Dalit symbolism and the democratisation of secular spaces. Mainstream, 48(XLVIII).

30.

Warner

(2002). Publics and counter-publics. Zone Books.

31.

Weber

(1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretative sociology (Vols. I & II; Roth

& Wittich

, Eds). University of California Press. (Original work published by Bedminter Press Inc. in 1968)

32.

Wright

(2012). Politics as usual? Revolution, normalization and a new agenda for online deliberation. New Media & Society, 14(2), 244–261.