Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature

This international network, which responds to the research agenda set by the AHRC theme 'Translating Cultures', intends to analyse the literature created by Dalits (formerly referred to as Untouchables), one of the most oppressed and silenced communities in India. People with caste backgrounds which used to be referred to as 'Untouchable' form roughly 20% of India's population. The term 'Dalit' (meaning 'broken' or 'crushed' in Marathi) has been chosen by 'Untouchables' themselves as a nom de guerre. Dalit literature with its representation and assertion of subaltern cultures is the most significant development in Indian literature in the last three decades, but this unique literary corpus has not yet received the international recognition it deserves.

Despite the fact that the 1950 constitution of independent India abolished Untouchability, discrimination against people of untouchable caste backgrounds has continued, validated by Hinduism. Inspired by the political activism that challenged the discrimination on the grounds of caste in Maharashtra in the 1970s, Dalit writer-activists developed a highly politicised literature in the vernacular language of Marathi. This set the precedent for the emergence of other regional Dalit literatures in vernacular Indian languages such as Tamil in Tamil Nadu, Malayalam in Kerala, Telugu in Andhra Pradesh, Kannada in Karnataka and Hindi. Dalit literature is often highly innovative in its form, narrative perspective and use of language but so far only the work of a few Dalit authors has been translated into English and other European languages.

This project, undertaken under the aegis of Nottingham Trent University's Centre for Postcolonial Studies, will open up an international dialogue on hitherto unresearched dimensions of Dalit literature. Even when studied in India by critics familiar with the original language of Dalit writing, the analysis of the literary quality of Dalit literature has been neglected; instead it has been almost exclusively explored from a sociological and historical perspective. This project aims to produce a network whose research outputs contextualise Dalit literary texts in order to make them accessible to a wider audience, but also analyse them as literary artefacts, drawing on the methods of literary criticism and postcolonial and feminist theory. Academic postcolonial literature courses increasingly include course texts in translation but rarely from Dalit literature because academic studies do not exist that specifically enable the non-expert to engage with these texts. This project, with its varied research output, intends to close this gap.

The grant will fund a series of conferences, workshops and other events that are exclusively dedicated to the analysis of this exciting and previously almost 'invisible' literature outside of India. The project will thus establish an international dialogue between key researchers in the areas of Dalit literature, foster the close collaboration of UK and European academics working in the field of literary and cultural studies with Indian scholars researching in this field and cultivate contacts with authors, translators and publishers of Dalit literature.

This project will produce several published research outputs, such as a multi-contributor volume and several articles in peer-reviewed journals, thus allowing non-experts in South Asian Studies, researchers in literary studies, students and the public to engage with this work, which tends to be produced in vernacular Indian languages for a regional audience. These outputs are aimed at sustaining the network and drawing attention to and discussing this wealth of literary material that has been largely neglected outside of India and thereby contributing to a dialogue with previously marginalised cultures and communities.

Those outside academia benefiting from the network project include:

The Dalit literary movement in general: the network will increase its international visibility, stimulate more high-quality translations into English and other European languages but also other Indian vernacular languages. The Dalit literary movement will benefit from the inclusion of Dalit literature in contemporary debates surrounding literature and its critical and theoretical analysis; this inclusion in contemporary literary debates will encourage the Dalit literary movement to look beyond the sometimes enabling but also sometimes stifling cocoon of Dalit literary production and Dalit literary criticism in India.

Specific invited Dalit writers through international exposure at the networking events and public readings and closer engagement with an international, multi-disciplinary academic community. Dalit writers will deliver keynote speeches at the conferences and workshops and read from their work at the symposium at Leicester University, during the conference in Nottingham and the workshop in Montpellier. The investigators are currently communicating with the New Art Exchange in Nottingham, a gallery and cultural centre that fosters cross-cultural dialogue, to host a reading by the Dalit writer Sharankumar Limbale, and with the bookshops Les Cinq Continents and Le Grain des Mots in Montpellier to host a reading by the Dalit writer and critic Aniket Jaaware.

The Dalit community, in particular in the UK and the diaspora, by engaging with the network and thus reaching a wider academic and general audience for community and anti-caste discrimination projects; important non-academic partners in the network are for example the UK-based Dalit Solidarity Network (DSN), the Anti-Caste Discrimination Alliance (ACDA) and CasteAwayArts. Meena Varma of the DSN, Santosh Das of the ACDA and Reena Jaisiah and Rena Dipti Annobil have confirmed that they will attend the network's events and that they will publicise them on their websites and emailing lists.

Translators of Dalit literature through the development of a network of practitioners and theorists of translation, many of whom are not affiliated to academic institutions, in order to stimulate the production of more high-quality translations of Dalit literature. The network will draw on the expertise of the University of East Anglia's British Centre for Literary Translation in order to foster a professional practice of translation since so far Dalit writers are often forced to rely on the goodwill of non-professional translators who translate their work free of charge.

The publishing industry through networking with writers and translators and a wide academic and non-academic audience for Dalit literary texts at the proposed conferences and workshops. The investigators have already established contact with S. Anand, the Editor at Navayana (who confirmed attendance at the workshop in Hyderabad), the Director Nandini Rao and the Managing Director Veenu Luthria at Orient Black Swan in Hyderabad and the Assistant Editor Aakash Chakraborty at Routledge India.