Under the Yoke: Representation of the Class Struggle in Select Dalit Fiction

Article Info: Article Received 20/01/2016 Revised on: 25/02/2016 Accepted on: 08/03/2016 ABSTRACT The anthology of short stories selected for analysis in this paper is titled Survival and Other Stories (2012). The work has been edited by Sankar Prasad Singha and Indranil Acharya and is a collection of Bengali Dalit Fiction in translation. Certain stories which throw light on the changing perspectives of Dalit Literature and emerging consciousness have been selected and studied in detail. To better understand the complex concept of the term ‘minority’ it is crucial to understand the manifold undercurrents that accompany it. Different locales provide that element of vitality and alternate manifestations of the same intrinsic problems that distress the communities. According to Lawrence Venuti, a leading Translation theorist, the term minority can be defined to mean “a cultural or political position that is subordinate, whether the social context that defines it is local, national or global. This position is occupied by languages and literatures that lack prestige or authority, the non standard and the noncanonical, what is not spoken or read much by a hegemonic culture. Yet minorities also include the nations and social groups that are affiliated with these languages and literatures, the politically weak or underrepresented, the colonized and the disenfranchised, the exploited and the stigmatized. The terms “majority” and “minority” are relative, depending on one another for their definition and always dependent on a historically existing, even if changing situation”. This definition rather aptly sums up the Dalit situation in India.