Dalit Consciousness and Epistemic Resistance: A Study of Ratan Kumar Sambharia’s Short Stories

Abstract

Marginalization has been a part of human society ever since the first civilizational structures started to crystallize. It significantly affects the cognitive functioning of individuals excluded from mainstream culture. It conditions their access to epistemological resources required to exercise discursive agency as an individual. However, marginalization is a multifaceted phenomenon. This article goes beyond a monochromatic reading of the marginalized subject’s identity and argues for positive possibilities available to Dalit individuals as a result of conscious resistance offered by them to the casteist structure around them. This article studies Dalit consciousness and its theorizations for substantiating the incumbency of epistemic resistance upon Dalit individuals. This article focuses on the epistemic virtues of resistance offered by Dalit communities through a study of Ratan Kumar Sambharia’s short stories. He is a Hindi Dalit writer who has written extensively across genres and has been a recipient of state and national literary awards.

Keywords

Caste system Dalit consciousness social epistemology short stories

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