Reality of Dalit Life in Joothan

Abstract

Literature is the mirror of life. A writer writes whatever he sees and experiences in the world. It is also true in the case of Dalit autobiographies. Omprakash Valmiki published his autobiography Joothan in 1997. He became the important subject matter of discussion in the realm of Indian literature with this book. It happened because he presented the real picture of his untouchable life in his autobiography. He wrote how he was ill treated by the people of upper stratum. He wrote his childhood experiences in his native village and the local school where he was again and again told that he was an untouchable and his social status is lower than the caste people of the village. The present research paper will include a discussion of the problematic life of the untouchables in Joothan.Although untouchability was abolished in 1949, Dalits continued to face discrimination, economic deprivation, violence, and ridicule. Valmiki shares his heroic struggle to survive a preordained life of perpetual physical and mental persecution and his transformation into a speaking subject under the influence of the great Dalit political leader, B. R. Ambedkar. A document of the long-silenced and long-denied sufferings of the Dalits, Joothan is a major contribution to the archives of Dalit history and a manifesto for the revolutionary transformation of society and human consciousness.