From “Bama: Cutting Through the System”

Bama and I have spoken over the years, and in early 2016, we retraced her journey, from writing autobiography and fiction, to teaching dalit schoolchildren—all with one guiding purpose: to bring about change. In her own words, ‘… we must dare to stand up for change. We must crush all those institutions that use caste to bully us into submission, and demonstrate that among human beings there are none who are high or low.’

January 29, 2016

Githa Hariharan (GH): Bama, when we first met all those years back, we spoke of your autobiography, Karukku. Let’s revisit that conversation.

Bama: Yes, the autobiography was published in 1992. You know that I had entered the convent to become a nun in 1985. I stayed there for seven years, but I couldn’t continue there because of the caste discrimination in the convent.

GH: You’d actually joined the convent hoping to serve the dalit community.

Bama: I was a teacher for seven years. Then I resigned and went into the convent. My motive was to teach, and to create an awareness in dalit girls. I chose that life because I knew that it carries power, and a lot of privileges also—I thought I would be able to meet and talk to girls, dalit girls. I entered the convent with that hope. But that hope was not realised. All I was supposed to do was teach English and mathematics. Since my dream of doing more than that could not be realised, I decided to leave. I left the convent in 1992. That was the time I suffered most in my life—I had no job, no place to go to, no money, no food. I used to worry about the next meal, where I would get it from…

GH: Bama, we have spoken earlier of the harsh reaction to your first book when it was published. The literary establishment criticised the language as not beautiful. And the paraiyar community in your village felt that you had exposed them in some way. Would you like to tell us about that? And how did the young people in the village manage to convince the others?

Bama: That was really unexpected actually, the reaction of my own people. I thought they would appreciate me, but they were upset. They told me I had shown them up to the outside world. That I had exposed the ugliness of their lives for all to see and hear. They felt betrayed. Of course, I had intended no such thing. But I was in the dock and I had to answer their question, ‘Why did you do that?’ It was not just a question—they wanted to beat me up, actually.

But there were also youngsters in the village, educated youngsters. They read the book and they went and fought with my parents. And my father was very angry with me and told me not to come to the house. So I was roaming around here and there.

One of the boys from the village had written a very good critique of the book. He also wrote to me, ‘Don’t come now, wait for some time. We will read aloud from the book and tell the people what it is about.’

And that is what they did. The youngsters collected the village people at night, after their working day was done, under the streetlights. They told the people they had misunderstood and misinterpreted the book. They read it out and explained to the people why and how I had written the book. The villagers came to know that their stories were being read by many people. They were happy about the fact that their history was becoming known to many people outside the village. Then this same boy asked me to come to the village and they organised a very big function. They celebrated me like I was a princess.

GH: So it was actually a process of their becoming confident enough to say, ‘This is how our lives really are. And this is how the women’s lives are.’ That leads me to ask if part of the problem was not just that you were talking about dalit life, but also about dalit women’s lives? Because, of course, women are doubly exploited or discriminated against, as dalits and as women. Was that part of the problem, do you think?

Bama: Not just doubly, but women are thrice exploited, actually: caste, class and gender. Religion also. So those in the community realised that there are these triple monsters in their lives. But my writing also helped them experience their strength. In my second book, Sangati, I have recorded acts of bravery of women, how they resisted this oppressive system, which again reinforced the idea. They knew that they could protest against the system and live.

And basically that is what dalit culture is: it’s loving to live. We want to live, but the system doesn’t allow us to live. So the culture is very vibrant and the women too realised this. I mean, in spite of all the struggles and hardships and violence we face, we know that we are capable women. We have the strength to break through the systems that are breaking us down, and that gives us hope. So they began to celebrate their womanhood and their militancy and their life, and there was a tremendous change after that.

GH: Yes, Sangati is a wonderful collection of stories of the kind of brave individuals you are talking of, and also of the gestures which allow people to say, ‘Look, I too can resist in this small way.’ I especially like the story of that old woman who gets a free ride in a jeep to go vote. When she comes back, she’s so gleeful, saying, ‘I got to ride in that fancy jeep, but nobody knows who I voted for.’

So in addition to those stories of feisty women, suppose we look at what you brought up, the fact that class, caste and gender are the three axes on which discrimination plays out. Since Karukku, in what ways would you say you have wanted to build alliances with other movements, whether in your writing or your life? Or do you foreground the dalit identity?

Bama: I have gained and still gain strength from dalit women. Whenever I face problems in my life as a woman, especially as a dalit woman, I learn from my sisters who are in the villages. I see that I am comparatively privileged. When they are able to face all these hardships and live life with so much joy and enthusiasm, why can’t I? That is a source of energy for me. With that, I move forward. And when I mingle and meet with other women, I always share this with them. I see that for nothing at all women take their lives. They lose hope in life. But I show them how life is beautiful, and beauty is simple. You can live life without having all kinds of consumeristic attitudes and values, because life is not that, real happiness is not there. Dalit women experience joy in hard labour, they live life amid their hardships. They see that life is made enjoyable by human relationships, human values—a humanistic approach gives you meaning and depth in life. That is the essential thing for our survival, not anything else.

Bama is the pen name of Bama Faustina Soosairaj, a writer and feminist giving voice to the dalit experience of discrimination as well as resistance. She has been a dedicated school teacher all her life.

Note: This extract does not include the footnotes in the essay as in the book.