Dalpat Chauhan's 'Vultures' brings Dalit oppression to wider readership

Gujarati icon's searing tales cock a snook at the unfulfilled promise of an egalitarian India

An icon of Gujarati Dalit literature, Dalpat Chauhan, 82, has penned about 25 books, including novels, short stories, and plays, all delineating the lives of Dalits in Gujarat, drawn from his lived experiences of self, family, and community members.

Gidh, published in Gujarati in 1991, now reaches a wider readership through its recent English translation by Hemang Ashwinkumar, published as Vultures by Penguin Random House India.

It is based on the real story of a young Dalit boy murdered by upper-caste Rajputs in 1964 in a Gujarat village, in a chilling reminder that caste matters, above everything else, in this country.

The protagonist was "guilty" of reciprocating the attention he received from an upper-caste girl of the village—a familiar tale that can be relocated to any corner of India. But the attraction between two young people and the subsequent murder is only a backdrop for the daily barbarity that Dalits endure, exposed with brutal honesty by Chauhan in the book.

"With a few exceptions, sawarna (upper caste) writers have largely ignored our stories, our lifestyle, the oppression we have faced and continue to face in society," said the Ahmedabad-based Chauhan to DH.

"Munshi Premchand was an early exception, but our lives haven't changed drastically even 75 years after Independence. Who will tell our stories if we don't?"

The author likens India's Dalit literature to the Black literature of the US.

"Centuries of oppression and denial of basic things of life taught us to create our own barbers, our own tailors, our own temples too," he said. "Dalit literature was an addition in the same direction."

Gujarati Dalit literature was born in the mid-1970s, when some poems appeared on the subject. Simultaneously, Chauhan and his friends started publishing Dalit magazines such as Aakrosh and Kala Suraj.

"We needed to organise ourselves, and the Maharashtra Dalit writers inspired us. In South India, the Dalit writers are, in fact, a formidable force," he said.

Born in Mandali village of Mehsana district of Gujarat, Chauhan went to school in Ahmedabad, where his father had shifted to work in a mill. He began writing after retiring from a state government job in 1998. His stories are not yet over, as memories of several experiences since childhood sit fresh in his mind.

The common thread that runs through all those memories is the daily indignity heaped upon the Dalits by the majoritarian society, which is more excruciating to endure than even poverty.

"We have been fighting for this dignity for centuries. Things are changing but too slowly. We must continue the fight. I cannot pick up a sword, so I'm fighting with my pen," Chauhan declares.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based journalist, editor and arts consultant.)