Bangla Dalit Womanist Speaks: Interview with Bengali Dalit Writer

Kalyani Thakur Charal is a cyclonic Dalit feminist and social activist. She wants to be known as a Dalit womanist who believes that writing is an act of resistance. She has four collections of poems, one autobiography and three collections of essays. She edits a cultural magazine, Nir. Her works are translated into English and many of them are on University syllabuses. This interview is the outcome of the meetings we have in Kolkata in last four months. The interview was originally conducted in Bangla.


A. Bengali literature owes its origin in Charyapadas and those who were involved in writing
Charyapadas were all lower-caste people such as Dombini who belonged to the Dom (the corpse-handler) community, Sabari who belonged to the Sabar (the tribe whose livelihood depends on the forest) community as the very name suggests. Likewise there were people like Bhushuku, Kahnapa and many others. It is a surprising fact that the people were able to write literature of such high standard yet their successors have remained illiterate. The proponents of the Varna system or caste system not only drove them out of the mainstream society but also reduced them to an indigenous race. They were robbed of all things. The history of the Marathi literature shows how the upper-caste people threw all the songs of the Marathi poet Tukaram into the river. But, it is indeed surprising how the successors of such great literary personas are kept illiterate for thousand years. Those untouchable people got opportunities to step into education by the aid of Guruchand Thakur. Being one of the A. My autobiography generally narrates the life of a child who is born and brought up in any Dalit village. This is not my autobiography only but a collective narration of the autobiographies of all Dalit women of our society. It's a collective discourse of a society.
Q. Few words about your father… A. My father was a feminist as well. He never discriminated between a son and a daughter. At that time men of the village used to beat their wives after returning home from work or whenever there was any quarrel between the husband and the wife. My father brought such a man home and was about to kill him almost. The man got a lesson and from then he never again beat his wife. My father used to do little such things. He used to say, 'Anyone can do social work.' It was similar to Ambedkar's saying 'Pay back to the society.' My father said, 'If you have no money you can also help by seeking from others. You can admit someone to hospital.' He used to collect money for someone's daughter's marriage. If someone's father died he used to collect money for funeral, if anyone was not able to buy books he helped. He did whatever he could do with his limited efforts. Q. What is the role of difference between a Dalit mother and a high caste Hindu mother?
A. Dalit people are engaged in productivity all the time contrary to the traditional Varna (casteist) Hindu people. A Dalit mother is also a part of these activities. The children of Dalit families are parts of Dalit economy. My autobiography has depicted these things to some extent. I have observed difference in the work pattern between my own mother and my friends' mothers who were all Varna Hindus. The mothers of agricultural families spend a lot of time in the winnowing of the produced crops. Varna Hindu mothers never experience such a thing and so there is no similarity of work experience between them. Members of the families who are involved in working with leather and things made of leather, who are involved with making earthen pots and containers are all part of the production somehow or other. As Varna Hindu people are not engaged with such kinds of production related occupation, so there is a basic difference which can be observed between the work of a Dalit mother and a traditional Varna Hindu mother. Dalit mother speaks differently. Her language is different. Therefore, many Dalit writers have written essays and stories on 'mother'. They have less control over the social environment. Control over marriage and fertility decisions make them way apart from the high caste Hindu mothers.

Q. What is the role of a Dalit woman in her community?
A. No society can develop and uplift without women. Dalit society is no exception. Besides, until Dalit women become conscious, neither Dalit community can develop nor the true scenario of Dalit society can arrest attention of the public. There is no historical data of the Dalit women taking active parts in politics. The little we get is shown as a part of the reservation system. This is one form of discrimination. A group of people has thus been made to lag behind; the women have not even been noticed. When there have been discussions regarding the development of caste a parallel discussion has taken place regarding gender development. But gender issues have always been suppressed under caste because of the verbose words of the upper caste women. The rude reality of Dalit woman is their suffering at multiple dimensions at the intersection of caste and gender. They are often pushed into bonded labour, sex slavery and trafficking. With mass education and awareness drives from the government and NGOs things are changing fast and fair for good.

A. There are some hard hitting realistic aspects of Matua religion. That which attracts us inside the religion is obviously the instrument of social change. The proponent of Matua
Writers in Conversation Vol. 7 no. 2, August 2020. https://journals.flinders.edu.au/index.php/wic religion Guruchand Thakur started preaching the religion in 1812; it was such a time when what he said was contrary to the prevalent norms of the society. Contrariness inspires a particular community people to fight back when they are on the verge of doom. When the people who are placed at the lower stratum of the hierarchical ladder were considering Hindu religion as baser and vile than animal instincts, Matua religion emerged as a form of protest. The nineteenth century is fondly known as the Renaissance. Many great personalities were born in that century to reform the society. They have been mentioned in the history. Unfortunately, there is not any single mention of Guruchand Thakur and Harichand Thakur in those historical records.
Q. How did the ideology of the Matua religion act as an inspiration for your writing?
A. When we learned to write we felt the accountability that the person who showed the way to such illiterate, hapless people, inspired them to proceed into the field of economy and education, writing about them is my moral duty. There are many songs in the Matua community which are like treasures of Bengali literature and culture but the historians never felt the need to write a single line on those. The very untouchable mindset of the Bengalis lies in the very fact and it is written in pen and paper records. Now things are changing.
There is a special provision in the Matua religion where it is said that women should be paid respect. Not only that, when polygamy in the Hindu religion was on the verge of making the women devoid of self-respect, Harichand Thakur started preaching the concept of Ek Nari Brahamachari (or 'One woman as life partner is the Brahamachari').
When the Vaishnava Sahajiya sect became indolent and started begging to earn their living, Harichand Thakur spoke about the work culture at that very time: Koribe garhasthya dhormo loye nijo nari Grihe theke-nyashi, banprosthi, Brahamachari [You will spend the family life with your woman You will observe the life of a sage, thus becoming the Banprasithi and Brahamachari] When the caste pyramid is based on division of work started in Indian society, Harichand Thakur joined another occupation. It can be termed as 'occupational mobility'. When the work will be divided in such manner equality will come then only. No work is small. When the priest will start to regard the profession of a sweeper equal to his, the discrimination will lessen then and there. Hindu religion believes in caste hierarchy, hence, they do not want to transform the vertical structure of the society into a hierarchical one because it will curb their dominance. To get liberation from it both Harichand and Guruchand Thakur advised the people to get educated. Possess the royal power. He spoke in a very simple language-Khao ba na khao tate dukhho nai Chele meye sikhha dao ei ami chai [Nothing to be sad whether you can eat or can't