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DOI: 10.1177/0262728013475542
Vol. 33(1): 3955

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ORAL HISTORY AND DALIT

TESTIMONIES: FROM THE
ORDEAL TO SPEAK TO THE
NECESSITY TO TESTIFY
Alexandra de Heering
Department of History, University of Namur, Belgium
abstract The

development of dalit literature and history plays a

vital part in the effort of dalit communities to (re)gain recognition
in Indian society. Victims of multiform discrimination in the name
of caste, dalits have used these areas of self-knowledge to assert
themselves culturally and socially. Indian society and mainstream
intellectuals continue, however, to deny the value and legitimacy
of dalit historical and literary productions. There is a tendency
to believe that dalits should be kept out of the mainstream and
effectively silenced. Therefore, testifying through writings or oral
narratives still requires courage and determination. It certainly
seems to be a demanding ordeal for those paving the way for dalit
expression. This article, based on oral history fieldwork conducted
among dalit (Cakkiliyar) communities in Tamil Nadu, as well as
on written testimonies, highlights factors preventing dalits from
exercising freedom of speech and also discusses some reasons why
dalits do decide to speak.

keywords:

autobiography, caste, dalits, history, India, literature, oral

history, testimony

When I think of my past, I feel like crying ()

When I think about it, Im crying.
So many types of difficulties
(Personal interview with Shanmugam,1 16 March 2010).

Dalit History and Literature in the Indian Context

Indian society has always attemptedfor a long time successfullyto ignore dalit
people.2 In her autobiography, Urmila Pawar (2007: xvi) relates how dalits have,
for centuries, been shamelessly exploited by the upper castes, reduced to a status of

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beasts of burden, extremely marginalized. Their state of oppression, their multiform

segregation, as well as their voices have been deliberately kept at a great distance from
the mainstream and thus systematically silenced. Since they have been considered as
second class-citizens their past has been neglected and ignored, in a big and organized
move for the dehistoricisation of Dalits (Narayan, 2004a: 3533). This fact illustrates
the overall discrimination dalit communities encounter everywhere in their daily lives
due to the pervasive and oppressive caste system.3 The silence imposed from above
has been intended to maintain the status quo by stopping members of the lower castes
from expressing themselves and eventually questioning and denouncing their situation.
Nevertheless, today, following the thrust of the dalit movement to assert the identity
and rights of dalits, more and more voices are piercing the traditional silence all over
India. Educated dalit activists realise they have to possess their own literature and their
own history as that will help them (re)possess their lives and identities. Literature and
history, as areas of self-knowledge and modes of expression, have proved to be of major
importance for communities in search of recognition by society (Narayan, 2004b:
206). Both fields are now acknowledged as powerful means to reveal the plight of
dalits and their inner thoughts and to unveil their life conditions and past specificities.
By entering the public domain, dalit stories and histories defy the rules that impose
silence on them. By talking about their lives and pasts, dalits are taking a stand against
the dominant social structure, particularly the caste system and its underlying value
system. Moreover, dalits insist on speaking from their own perspective and are no
longer content to be represented by others (Brueck, 2010: 129). By speaking out, they
turn from being passive subjects into active agents.
Dalit literature has emerged in this context. In quest of recognition, some dalits
have poured their sufferings out onto paper. Writing and expressing personal views and
experiences has become an urgent need. The right of expression having been denied
to them for so long, when speech appeared possible anger and frustration exploded.
Yalan Ati, a Tamil dalit poet writes: The footsteps of my creation lie all ground up in
the open spaces where my voice tried to transform into words the angers that rumble
around in the ferocity of my frustration (Buck and Kannan, 2011: 91). Words pour
out like a volcanic eruption. Gathak, talking about dalit literature, says: It arises in
the soil, in the land, in speech, holding within itself many strangely different facets
and it erupts as a scream piercing the wind (Buck and Kannan, 2011: 5). Eventually,
after decades in apnea, dalits can speak out and expose their stories in a kind of vital
outbreath. In this spirit, the day of the small narrative, something that detotalizes
[...] the official narrative of India has dawned (Nayar, 2006: 91). By developing its
own style and concerns and by asserting its inner value, dalit literature is effectively
resisting brahmanical hegemony in literature and society.
Dominant history solely depicts the existence and deeds of ruling figures and
refuses to acknowledge the worthiness of dalits in past times. It consequently conceals
the lives of millions of people and reinforces the overall denial of which dalits are the
victims. Subaltern and dalit intellectuals have provoked what Dipesh Chakrabarty

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de Heering: Oral History and Dalit Testimonies 41

(quoted in Narayan, 2004a: 3533) calls a paradigm shift in the Indian historiography
landscape: historical boundaries are redefined. Dalit history aims at correcting flaws
in this dominant history. Because people everywhere live lives which are constituted
out of the past (Cohn, 1987: 47), the dalit history movement acknowledges that
dalits, too, do have a past and insists that it be brought to the fore. Narayan (2008:
169) has demonstrated in a study on scheduled castes (re)invention of their past in
Uttar Pradesh that:
These histories and new narratives are helping the dalits to demarginalise themselves
and become a part of mainstream contemporary Indian life, while strengthening their
own identities, inculcating self-confidence, improving their present, and carving out a
brighter future for themselves and their children.

As such, the past, far from being limited to an area of theoretical knowledge, becomes
a tool for deconstruction (of the discipline) and reconstruction (of the life, legitimacy
and dignity of dalits). Both dalit literature and history thus participate in the effort
of dalit communities to (re)gain recognition in Indian society and assert their human
existence. This path is long and hazardous, because dalit historical and literary
productions continue to be disparaged and rejected by the social and intellectual elite.

Challenges for Carrying Out Oral History Research among Dalits

Given this scenario, the article starts by assuming that writing or speaking requires
courage and determination. For that matter, in his analysis of dalit written narratives,
Pandian (2008: 35) recognises the unnaturalness, or even the contradiction that
exists in the very act of testifying for a dalit as, according to him, [a]fter all, to be an
untouchable (i.e. to be treated as less than human) is to lack the agentive autonomy
that is central to autobiography. Dalits also encounter difficulties when bearing witness
orally. This basic factor has plagued me throughout my research into oral history within
dalit history. During most of the investigation, people were indeed very reserved and
guarded about recounting their stories. Afraid to speak out, they did not, at first, want
to open up. Testifying and denouncing is by no means an innocent exercise, but is rather
a very demanding ordeal for those who are ready to be the pioneers of dalit expression.
The analysis of this assumption constitutes the core of this article, since I consider
it to be of major importance when discussing dalit literature and history, to address
the issue of the personal struggle that recounting implies for them. In doing so, I did
not expressly consider whether the dalits to whom I spoke were reacting to me as an
outsider with a certain reservation.4 Despite the substantial work of familiarisation
carried out within the community, this possibility, indeed, cannot be completely
discarded, but it has not been pursued here.
To take part in breaking the silence that has been imposed on dalit communities
and to highlight the conditions of their life, I first of all undertook research on their
history. In an attempt to discover the nuances of the official macro history and thereby
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enrich it, I have been conducting fieldwork at the micro level in Tamil Nadu. My
research focuses on dalit communities memory processes.5 Through oral history and
oral testimonies, this work intends to reflect upon the ways social, political, cultural
and economic changes are perceived and interpreted among and by dalit people.
Since I have a specific interest in inter-caste relationship changes, attention is given
to collective as well as individual expressions of memory.
Fieldwork was conducted in 2010 and 2011 among the Cakkiliyar community in
two Tamil villages of the Kodaikanal upper hills area (Dindigul district, Tamil Nadu).
As a reflection of the caste system itself, dalit communities are divided into numerous
castes (jati) and sub-castes. Cakkiliyars or Aruntatiyars (a new designation usually
preferred for its less derogative connotation) form the third biggest dalit group in Tamil
Nadu, after Paars and Parraiyars and live predominantly on the western side of Tamil
Nadu, in Madurai, Dindigul and Coimbatore districts. They are usually said to have
originated in the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, which places
them in a very awkward position within widespread Tamil nationalism. As a sign of
the (forgotten) past, they still speak an evolving form of Telugu or Kannada among
themselves, which does not prevent them, however, from also speaking Tamil, their
cultural language. Traditionally, Cakkiliyars are responsible for the most menial jobs,
such as scavenging and quartering and are often referred to as dalits among dalits.
Although significant research has been published about Paars and Parraiyars, proper
studies on Cakkiliyars are yet to be undertaken.
When tackling the question of the difficulties faced by dalits when testifying,
two major categories of questions needed to be answered. First, one has to grasp the
factors preventing Dalits from speaking out: Why do dalits face so many difficulties
in speaking and writing? How can we explain the huge gap between the actual reality
of their life and their recollection of it? Secondly, it becomes important to understand
what motivates some dalits to talk openly despite the hindrances, as seen in dalit
autobiographies or oral narratives. What are the intentions of an author or witness in
setting out to overcome these difficulties? Why does s/he undertake the painful process
of recollecting atrocities? Dalit literature and more specifically dalit autobiographies
provide some interesting perspectives on this. Both the oral narratives collected among
dalit communities and the written testimonies found in dalit autobiographies constitute
the material of my analysis.
The present article first introduces oral history and its appropriateness to the study
of dalit history and identifies some of the difficulties the oral historian has to face
while investigating the memories of dalits. Autobiographical testimonies and oral
history narratives are then succinctly compared. Though each type is characterised by
its own features, they share important similarities, which explain and justify the dual
approach I use to support my argument. Thirdly, I turn to the explanations provided
by these two types of testimonies to understand why dalits encounter strong resistance
to recollection. Trauma, suffering, fear and lack of self-respect appear to be a barrier
against speaking out freely. Finally, I explore some reasons why dalits are ready to testify

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de Heering: Oral History and Dalit Testimonies 43

despite these obstacles. I show that collective awareness constitutes a prerequisite for
them to find a meaning in the long process of recounting. The individuals need to
speak out and a sense of duty towards the collective are two major reasons for breaking
the silences.

Oral History and Dalit Voices

Before finalising my methodology, as a historian, I faced a general lack of written sources
in relation to my topic. Having been denied education for centuries, most dalits were
illiterate and had left no written traces. This lack of historical sources might help to
explain how easily dalit history has simply been overlooked. In the positivist historical
tradition,6 which considers written sources as the only ones valid for historical enquiry,
historians had no choice but to involve themselves in the history of important people,
focusing on those who left some traces. Obviously, the lack of sources available for a
particular social group has not always prevented historians from conducting research
on that group, but it has definitely made this kind of study more difficult and a less
obvious choice. Along with aspects of social and cultural rejection, the unavailability
of written sources constitutes one more reason for historians in general to ignore dalit
history. Unwilling to give up a dalit history project, I had to find a way to deal with
this lack of written historical evidence.
Oral history quickly emerged as the most appropriate and promising solution.7
Oral history is unique in the field of historical studies, relying as it does to a great
extent, if not entirely, on oral sources and acknowledging their value (Charlton, Myers
and Sharpless, 2007; Perks and Thomson, 2006). This methodology allows scholars
to access information and memories that would not have been accessible otherwise.
It also opens a window onto history from below, which in turn allows new areas
of inquiry as it challenges the traditional concept of history, of what is historically
important (Charlton, Myers and Sharpless, 2007: 18). In this democratised vision of
history, anybodys living experience becomes part of history.
Oral history appears to be a methodology well suited to an enquiry into the past of
depressed communities like dalits that left no written traces. Collecting oral evidence
among witnesses allows historians to give a voice, or perhaps more appropriately to
listen to suppressed voices and to go deeper into the experiences of those historically
marginalised communities that have been hidden from History (Perks and Thompson,
2006: ix). Oral history, then, also opens a window onto the subjectivities of dalits.
Listening to peoples voices presupposes someone speaking, but the act of speaking
is far from being taken for granted here. While I was collecting oral narratives about
inter-caste relationships among dalit communities in rural Tamil Nadu, I constantly
had to urge people to share their perceptions about the changes that had occurred in
their lives. The very act of speaking about the past seemed to be a demanding exercise.
This situation challenged me specifically to reflect about the reasons why the flow of
dalit speech seems to be blocked.
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Oral and Written Testimonies: A Comparison

For the sake of argumentation, my reflection was elaborated as much from relevant
insights provided by dalit autobiographies (and other essays on dalit literature) as
from my own investigations into oral history. Both of these means of expression are
testimonies,8 since both consist of first person experience. Perks and Thompson (2006:
495) note that [t]o testify is to bear witness, to tell what you have seen or felt. Then to
come forward and speak. To deliver the word. Dalits, through written or spoken words,
are engaged in delivering testimonies when they undertake the recounting of their lives.
Characteristically, instead of recollecting the extra-ordinary or the historically relevant,
they speak about the ordinary and about events belonging to everyday life (Pandian,
2008: 35). In their testimonies, the injustices experienced by them personally as well as by
their whole community due to the iniquitous nature of the caste system are ubiquitous.
Specifically, repeated time and again, the experience of untouchability was part of their
daily routine. In both written autobiographies and oral life stories, testimonies are
emerging from the critical examination of an individuals own life. People look back
at their lives and select events that make sense in their present perception of their past.
There are clearly enormous subjectivities involved in this process of testifying.
To give testimony as a dalit becomes to tell the unofficial story, to construct a
history of people, of individual lives, a history not of those in power, but by those
confronted by power and becoming empowered (Perks and Thomson, 2006: 502).
This interpretation of testimony, given prominently in the Central American context,
suits the Indian context of caste very well. When testifying, dalits are deliberately and
intentionally deciding to come to the fore and to tell their truth, their version of their
past. By doing so, they momentarily regain the central place in the narrative that they
have been denied in official versions. The similarities of content and meaning found
in dalit written autobiographies and oral narratives as testimonies explain the decision
to interweave references from these two sources. Beside the common patterns, they
differ in ways that are related to the witnesses background, the form of the testimony
and its origins. These characteristics need be addressed according to the significant
impact they have on the structure and the content of testimonies as well as on the
time the witnesses have for reflection and on their involvement.
Social background generally varies considerably between those who speak and those
who write. Having benefitted from the developments that have been taking place in
India in the last decades, dalit writers usually belong to the middle class. Educated, they
share an overview as well as a general understanding of a wide range of issues and have
probably encountered other testimonies in their reading. In contrast, most oral history
witnesses have never been to school and are usually employed in the economically
insecure field of agriculture. The villages have long lived in a state of quasi-autarky;
their exposure to the outside world has therefore long remained limited. Although the
difference of background might foreshadow an impact on the way each group speaks
about the past, a close analysis reveals a wide and significant consistency of content
between both types of testimonies.

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de Heering: Oral History and Dalit Testimonies 45

The language used in both kinds of testimony, however, does not vary as much
as the difference of educational background might lead us to expect. In fact, the
language that dalit writers use is comparable to the spoken and colloquial language,
as recorded in testimonies from oral history. Brueck (2010: 128) explains how Dalit
consciousness purposefully deconstructs hierarchies of language, () and [elevates]
street-level vernacular to literary status. Instead of borrowing the language of classical
(brahmanical) literature that is quite inappropriate to depict their lifeworlds (Ganguly,
2005), dalit authors write in the same way as they speak. A new literary style, steeped
in realism and authenticity, is thus created and claimed.9 Because the writing emerges
from the spoken form, the dalit colony (ceri in Tamil language),10 one naturally wonders
whether dalit writings can be assimilated into oral history.
Style and coherence of testimonies are also affected by the very form of the testimony.
While written narratives allow the writer time to think over and to structure his
testimony, oral testimonies are impromptu. The interviewee is expected to answer
rapidly after the question is asked, there is no time and occasion for editing. The
differences in terms of preparation and reflection times between these two kinds of
testimonies result in important variations in the way each one organises and details
narration, articulates thoughts and relates to temporality. The chronological linearity
characteristic of autobiographies is usually not to be found in oral narratives.
The third listed difference is related to the origin of testimonies. Oral testimonies
are most of the time elicited and are the result of the joint collaboration of informants,
witnesses and oral historians. Dalit writers, for their part, consciously take the
decision to write, without any outside contribution. The implications on either side
consequently tend to differ. While the intensity of interest often increased during the
interview, people I collected narratives from did not at first have a spontaneous desire
to testify, rather the contrary. On the other hand, when dalit writers make the decision
to write, they are impelled by their need and their conviction.
Finally, all these factors, namely witness background, testimony form and
testimony origin, influence witnesses reflexivity with regard to the testimony itself.
In the context of an interview, interpretation is left to the interviewer. Except through
informal conversation and clues to understanding, scattered here and there during
the interviews, the meaning given by informants to the recollected events, as well
as to the perception of the act of testifying, is left unrevealed. Conversely, writers
are often involved in a process of auto-analysis of their lives and their work. They
are active producers of history meaning (Perks and Thomson, 2006: 509). Their
decision to write is commented on, often in the preface to their writings. Therefore,
the reader has access to the writers inner thoughts which outline his or her reasoning
and intentions.
Despite discrepancies and status variations among dalit witnesses, common features
need to be observed in connection with the challenging act of testifying, whether
orally or in writing. The fact of being a dalit seems to impose a number of significant
psychological and cultural barriers against speaking out freely.
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Factors Explaining Dalits Resistance to Speaking and Writing

Before listing the major factors hindering dalit testimonies, some contextual factors
specific to the context of oral history interviews need to be considered. The interview
setting, the interviewers identity, villagers tight schedules or the formal context of
the interview might have played a role in preventing people from speaking up. Their
objections to being interviewed were, however, neither explained by, nor reduced to,
these contextual factors. Insights from both types of testimonies reveal that other
factors directly related to their specific identity happen to be much more relevant. All
of these refer to the very condition of being a dalit.
The first and major reason might be referred to as trauma. This notion has no
straightforward definition, for it refers to two things. Firstly, this concerns the event
which happened in the external world, together with the way it was subjectively
experienced (Rogers, Leydesdorff and Dawson, 2004: 29). It is considered to lead
to the destruction of subjects and the self (Lewis Herman, quoted in Nayar, 2006:
83), survivors of trauma being cast into a state of existential crisis. Wars, natural
disasters and other kinds of social, state or interpersonal violence are taken as causes
of trauma.
Going a step further, Kai T. Erikson, an American sociologist quoted in Rogers,
Leydesdorff and Dawson (2004: 2), argues that trauma should not be conceived of
as caused solely by a discrete happening, but as the outcome of a constellation of life
experiences, as trauma will arise not only from an acute event but also from a persisting
social condition. This conception of trauma, being possibly structural, fits the Indian
context of caste oppressions particularly well since, in the name of caste as a social
structure, dalit communities have experienced humiliation and abuse for generations.
Hence, I contend here that dalits are victims of trauma. Their trauma is socially rooted
in structural oppression, persecution, devaluation and official indifference to [their]
sufferings (Rogers, Leydesdorff and Dawson, 2004: 9). It is also characterised by its
everydayness. Dalits have no respite.
Innumerable reports and articles attest to the harsh reality of dalits enduring
trauma at the individual level and these individual traumas seem to be encompassed
by collective trauma. In his enlightening reading of Valmikis Joothan, Nayar (2008)
argues that the physical and moral traumas that dalits as individuals suffer are actually
the consequences of inhuman social practices affecting all dalits. As victims of collective
trauma, they endure oppression because of their identity. Whatever be the intensity
of the trauma, from humiliation to assassination, it affects dalits ways of considering
themselves and their community. Kesharshivam (2008: xi) writes bitterly:
I have been an officer of a high rank; I have received higher education from a university;
I am also a writer. Yet a tenant living in my house still had the audacity to call me a dhhed
[a particularly degrading abuse used for all the untouchables]; You are a dhhed. A dhhed
will always remain a dhhed! Now go to the court and file a case of atrocity against me.

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de Heering: Oral History and Dalit Testimonies 47

As trauma studies have demonstrated (Rogers, Leydesdorff and Dawson, 2004;
Williams and Banyards, 1999), traumatised people tend to forget emotionally
negative experiences and are consequently hindered in their ability to testify about
them (Brdart and van der Linden, 2004: 6668). In this respect, the seriousness of
the situation in the Indian context invites us to reflect upon the effect of collective
trauma for dalits recounting their own experiences. In a form of denial that might be
defined as an unconscious repression of memories of events that are too painful or
challenging to confront (Perks and Thomson, 2006: 513), afflicted people generally
show a reluctance to speak. This is directly related to the resistance of the rest of the
population to allow them to be heard and considered. Their silence has been socially
as well as psychologically determined (Rogers, Leydesdorff and Dawson, 2004: 6).
One may distinguish three more reasons why dalits have difficulty in speaking out:
suffering, fear and lack of self-respect. These are closely associated with the trauma
experience and are tightly interwoven with it. Suffering prevents dalits from speaking easily.
When questioned about her past, a woman was reluctant to speak at first, but finally was
unable to contain her emotions (Personal interview with Kaliammal, 13 May 2010):11
What else can I say about my life? My problem is not going to be solved. Whatever I
tell its my fate, I have to suffer. If I think about my past I will cry, all of my past [is]
just that. So whatever happens I dont care about it, keeping all the problems inside my
heart, I live.

Suffering irremediably emerges from recollecting sad and hopeless events, be it in the
written or the spoken form; this is what they experience(d), at the pan-Indian level.
Similarly, the Tamil dalit author Bama (2000) has said that writing often mostly
hurts (cited in Buck and Kannan, 2011: 74). In addition to the experience of pain
in the past, the act of writing seems to relive the hard reality experienced. Sudhakar
Gathak, discussing his own experience, writes (cited in Buck and Kannan, 2011: 6):
Through my stories I struggle to bring into the present the lives of people who have
stamped an impression on the memory-scales of my brain. Bringing this out in the
open carries with it nothing but grief. Then this grief is re-duplicated as I write, and I
experience yet more grief.

Some could not even come to the end of their revelations: A lot has remained unsaid. I
did not manage to put it all down. It was beyond my power (Valmiki, 2003: 8). Daya
Pawar (1996: 61) assimilates for dalits the act of remembering the emptying out of
nasty rubbish, which forcefully illustrates the fact that remaining silent is analogous to
a protective strategy. Instead of facing the inglorious past, many dalits have opted for
denial as an act of survival. Whoever enjoys hurting himself or crawling into rubbish
dumps? Pawar explains that his ability to forget has allowed him to be still alive today,
because otherwise it would have been his turn to die.

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Fear also impedes on open and free speech due to the myriad restrictions and
bans imposed on dalit communities. There were bans on education, on wearing good
clothes, on circulating and expressing oneself freely. The list is long and has been largely
depicted in various narratives:
They [upper caste people] consider us in very cheap ways. When they sit on a chair, we
have to sit down [below them]. We should not put our slippers in this place [rthe
caste part of the villagevs Cerithe dalit part of the village]. And in the tea shop, they
will drink from the silver tumbler, while we have to drink from the glass tumbler ().
They wont allow us inside their houses (Personal interview with Ramesh, 5 May 2010).

Emotions were forbidden as well: We had the ability to cry but we were not allowed
to cry (Kesharshivam, 2008: xii). And society has ensured that there will not be any
exceptions to the established rule. The silence imposed on dalit stories and sufferings
has been orchestrated by the same people who ban and exclude dalits, keeping
them at the dirt-ridden edges of society. Whether in cities or villages, in schools or
administrations, the dominant castes make sure dalits do not rise above their status.
Nimgade (2010: xv) writes:
Over thousands of years, the traditional orthodox mentality behind the caste system
had reduced the dalit people to a state of indignity, injustice, suppression and slavery.
As a result, ignorance, backwardness, poverty and helplessness were to be our lot in life.

Although these barriers have definitely started to crumble after, among other things,
the spreading of education and the implementation of quotas, these psychological
barriers remain firmly established in many dalits minds and the fear of high caste
people still paralyses many of them. How might those upper castes retaliate if they
happened to hear anything said against them? Symptomatically, in the villages, when
tackling caste issues, interviewees often start whispering. One witness, questioned about
her reluctance to speak about the events she had been experiencing, said (personal
interview with Jaishree, 21 March 2011):
I have gone and given my testimony in the Court, right. And in this place some might
think thatoh this lady is the one who gave testimonies against us and what if they stab
me suddenly what if they just stab me, what can be done after that? So, thats the fear.

This quote reveals that mental freedom has not yet been achieved on a large scale
and that the psychological trauma of oppression still holds dalits back from talking.
The last reason is the widespread tendency towards a lack of self-respect among
dalits. They often tend to humble themselves and minimise their capacities. For
instance, in the villages, some people blame their incapacity to recollect past events
on illiteracy: As we had not studied we could not remember anything. We forget
everything on the day itself (Personal interview with Kaartika, 24 March 2010).

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de Heering: Oral History and Dalit Testimonies 49

They devalue themselves and thereby gain an excuse for avoiding recollection. In
this excerpt, for instance, two types of memory are invoked (semantic and episodic
memory) that theoretically should not be confused. Not being able to read should not
prevent people from remembering, since the ability to recollect experiences (episodic
memory) is independent of the semantic memory used in the course of studies (Brdart
and van der Linden, 2004).
Added to this, I often received the answer: Everything is over now, what is there for
us to tell. (Personal interview with Pandian, 16 March 2010). This recurrent sentence
is a blend of fatalism and of the conviction of the unworthy nature of dalits stories.
Their past is filled with suffering, enduring to this day: What can I tell [you]? What I
suffered exists till today. It has not come to an end yet. () [up to] now we are suffering.
(Personal interview with Laavanya, 3 April 2010). Even Nimgade (2010: x), whose
dreams inspired by Ambedkar guided him from success to success, initially questioned
the value of putting his own life into words: What would be worth writing about for a
simple man such as myself (Nimgade, 2010: xiv)? Eventually, his circle of colleagues and
friends found the right words to convince him. Apart from recounting some personal
achievements, as in Nimgades case, many might doubt the necessity and the usefulness
of outpouring trashes, as Pawar (1996: 61) has phrased it. Unlike rich, dominant
families who make sure of preserving stories from their glorious past in memoirs, there
is nothing for dalits to be proud of.12 Accounts of humiliation and exclusion are not the
kind of stories that people are eager to pass on to the next generations.
All these factors, trauma, suffering, fear and lack of self-respect, diminish dalits
ability to speak openly and fearlessly about the past. This is what must be understood
if the recurrent gap between the experience of suffering and the capacity to speak
and think about it is to be grasped. The attempt at understanding does not, however,
aim at creating a single category or a unique way of responding to the experience
of oppression and deprivation among dalits. Each one reacts differently to a given
situation and individual specificities or needs may be the trigger for those who are
ready to break the silence.

Requirements, Reasons and Meanings of Speaking and Writing

This brings us to the intriguing phenomenon of dalits ending up writing or speaking
about the very difficulties they have in writing or speaking about their past. Despite all
the hindrances mentioned, some people do manage, as we have seen, to speak and write.
The evolving context of reservations, the spreading of education, the Untouchability
Offenses Act of 1955, amended in 1976 and re-named as the Protection of Civil
Rights Act, the dalit movement and social programmes, by extending dalits rights and
confidence, pave the way for their expression. Nevertheless, this explanation, depending
as it does on somewhat favourable contexts, is not entirely satisfactory. The peculiarities
and difficulties faced by dalits simply due to their dalit status prompt us to look more
deeply into this phenomenon and to wonder why they do eventually speak out.
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For some of the dalits testifying is a necessity. Silence has to be brought to an end;
the rubbish of history has to be thrown out in a cathartic action, discussed further
below. For others it is a duty. Individual reluctance to testify must be overcome in
order to make a denunciation possible: How many more generations will we have
to wait? It is only when such disillusionment sets in, when the hope seems dim that
one is compelled to take up the pen (Kesharshivam, 2008: xxv). In this dynamic, the
shame and stigma that often characterise trauma (Perks and Thomson, 2006: 199) are
replaced by anger and the will for reparation. The fury of denouncing can become an
inspiration: You cant ignore the fact that the insults I have met might be a source of
strength for my writing (Buck and Kannan, 2011: 94).
The factors involved in speaking out, its requirements and its reasons as well as its
meanings, are explored below in the interests of the deeper understanding at which we
are aiming. This oral history enquiry has made it clear that motivation to speak out
requires a certain level of awareness and a determination for change. It goes without
saying that collective awareness and self-respect is high among dalit writers, but the
situation in villages is very different. In rural areas, I have noticed that daily worries
and lack of political exposure often stifle peoples sense of community, affecting their
wishes and their ability to speak. When the dalit communitys interests are not taken
into account, individuals feel that talking and raising issues is useless and in fact
counterproductive; it will do neither them nor their families any good.
Very soon after the interview with Laavanya began, I had an answer to my question
about her past: What all I have suffered, I told you already. It will not end today or
tomorrow. (Personal interview with Laavanya, 3 April 2010). Why should such people
hurt themselves unnecessarily by uncovering old wounds? As individuals they choose
silence and oblivion as a protection strategy. Conversely, among more aware people,
the aim of serving the community prevails over personal concerns. Awareness of caste
issues seems to create a sense of collectivity and as a result there are some who overcome
the immediate difficulty in speaking when the need to reveal the harsh realities and to
instigate change is too strong to be resisted.
The people, during that period, lived like that; and they were bowing their heads and
were under them [upper caste people]. What can we do apart from this? This is our life,
this is our condition, what are we going to do instead? Like that my forefathers lived.
After some time, youths came out and were questioning them [their elders]. After they
came out, they fought against this [this way of behaving towards upper castes]. And after
that, the younger generation is now studying. (Interview with Madhan, 12 May 2010)

We turn now to reasons for speaking out. Speaking out is a political as well as a
therapeutic act and as such, is a claim to power (Rogers, Leydesdorff and Dawson,
2004: 6). Testifying brings results both at the individual and collective level. It can
be assimilated to an act for survival, the survival of the self and of the community,
for that is what makes Dalit testimonies a narrative of trauma and survival (Nayar,
2006: 93, italics by the author).

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The act of speaking or writing can be undertaken for its healing and self-assertive
effect, it becomes a cathartic, therapeutic action:
We shouldnt hold things back. Only when we speak out do we feel light. () It feels
good that you asked and that we shared (laughs). I feel as though half my load is gone
(laughs). Yes, I feel like that. (Personal interview with Adithi, 24 March 2010)

Revealing is a challenge to conventions of oppressive silence and allows the dalit to

repossess his or her life (Nayar, 2008: 60). Indeed, autobiographical memory is closely
related to the construction of ones identity. Kesharshivam (2008: xxiii) writes that
[the autobiographical genre] had given them the scope of asserting their identity: in
the case of the dalits, their dalit selfhood. Similarly, Bama (2000), cited in Buck
and Kannan (2011: 7374), recollects:
Writing like this made me rediscover myself and my identity. Hope sprouted in me once
again, and my shattered self was made whole. It transformed me. It freed me from the
perplexing cultural crisis brought on by my life in the convent, that life that had eroded
my identity. I sank my roots in my own culture once again. Deep within my alienated
self, there welled up a sense of belonging to my people and my soil, and it flooded all
over me. That is what healed me. That is what strengthened me. That is what merged
me once again into the ebb and flow of social relationships.

The healing effects of narration have been widely discussed among oral historians.13
While recounting, witnesses are prompted to reflect upon their memories. Bringing
issues to the fore helps individuals to realise the value of their stories and of their
selfhood. It can give a sense of belonging to a place or in time. In short it makes for
fuller human beings (Perks and Thomson, 2006: 31). In other words, it acts towards
the development of dignity and self-confidence. Nevertheless, when dalits recollect
their history, the usefulness (need) of the I (the individual) quickly merges with the
necessity (duty) of the We (the caste community):
They (my parents) did not allow me to study. I was grazing the cows here, and giving
the cows their food, (). After some time, I got some knowledge. During that time we
knew only how to graze the cows, apart from that nothing. But now, little by little, step
by step we are making our children study, we want our children to study. So now we
are not going for the grazing work. (Personal interview with Madhan, 12 May 2010,
emphasis added)

Individual stories starting with a personal memory will often switch to the collective
memory of the larger social group (Arnold and Blackburn, 2004: 21). This is the
community survival aspect, which indicates that authors and speakers actually stand
for the whole community. Sarah Beth (quoted in Kesharshivam, 2008: xxv), has
argued that autobiographical expressions of marginalised groups such as dalits differ
in that they are written by individuals who emphasize the ordinariness of their life
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rather than their uniqueness in order to establish themselves as representative of their

community. Unlike most autobiographers, dalit writers do not deliver an account of
the personal self (Kumar, 2010: 208); they use their own experiences for illustrating
their communitys existence and strategies. The I and the we often follow one
another to the extent of merging with each other. The singular becomes universalised
(Nayar, 2006: 89). In this regard, to ensure its anonymity and repeatabilitythis
rather applies to autobiographiesthe specificities of location or event are usually
erased so as to fit any dalit community in the country; if the names are mentioned,
the situations are interchangeable. It could be anytime, anywhere (Pandian, 2008:
36). Owing to the ordinary lives that are recounted, a single person speaks on behalf
of thousands of suppressed voices.
Finally, the meaning of giving testimony lies in the process by which individuals and
eventually the community, become historical narrators and thus actors: Testimony is
about people rising from a condition of being victims, objects of history, and taking
charge of their history, becoming subjects, actors in it. History no longer makes them;
they make it, write it, speak it (Perks and Thompson, 2006: 501). Speaking involves
agency and aims at provoking changes in the wake of Ambedkars motto: Educate,
Organise, Agitate. Changes must take place both in society and in the minds of its
members. The Dalit narrative is not only a performance but also a performative, where
a set of acts (political solidarity, archivisation, identity-building) is performed within
the very process of articulation and listening (Nayar, 2008: 62).

Conclusions
Here I would like to address the issue of the impact of dalit testimonies.14 Used as
tools for social struggle, testimonies are intended to influence the minds of both
dalits and non-dalits. Nimgade (2010: xv) believes in the educational content of life
stories for his people: Through the written word, these memories and lessons may
perhaps help provide guidance for coming generations. Might it not also extend the
dalit struggle for recognition, assertion and emancipation to non-dalits? Testimonies
inviting readers to bear witness are likely to encourage solidarity across castes. This
implies a listening ground that is not granted automatically, but very often has to be
won through struggle (Rogers, Leydesdorff and Dawson, 2004: 10). By spreading
their testimonies, dalits, while struggling to impose their own literature and history,
aim at breaking the silence as well as triggering the awareness of the non-dalit audience.
However, there is still a long way to go. As mentioned, wounds of the past (trauma,
suffering, fear and lack of self-respect) may be enough to prevent some from speaking
out. Nevertheless, dalit literature and history rekindle hope.
There are some people like Maturai Vra, ndi Vra [two brave heroes reported to
belong to the Cakkiliyar caste and today worshipped as gods], but we didnt know about
these people. For a long time, they [high caste people] kept these persons life histories

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secret, because (they knew) we would develop from this. If we knew about it we will
also become brave. So they kept these persons histories a secret. () Then, we came to
know about them and after that we also felt happy. As our people also lived like this,
they were also making history () So, we are brave too, our people also fought for
Independence. We are also humans. Why are you treating us like this?. In this society,
we have the same rights. My forefathers struggled to get the freedom. () Why have
you [upper castes] hidden these things from us, and treated us in a very low way? After
we came to know about these persons history we felt happy. (Personal interview with
Madhan, 12 May 2010).

One should not minimise the considerable transformative power of such testimonies.
Rebellion in the cultural sphere is, for that matter, viewed as essential by many dalits
(Buck and Kannan, 2011: 74). It opens the way for the future by providing sources of
vision and material for contemplation (Narayan, 2004b: 206). There are now many
glimpses of hope and identity assertion.

Notes
1. In order to respect privacy requirements, all interviewees names have been altered.
2. Developed in different historical contexts, various designations refer to the hierarchically
lower castes among others in India: Depressed Classes, Harijan, Untouchable, Scheduled
Caste, Outcaste and Dalit. I opted for the commonly accepted term dalit, as it encompasses
an idea of agency as well as includes all castes of this segment of the population.
3. Although Article 17 of the Indian Constitution officially forbids any kind of discrimination
based on religion, race, caste or gender, dalit people continue to face a wide range of
economic, cultural, social and political discriminations. While economic discrimination
also affects other sections of the population, what makes the dalit condition unique is
that dalits face several other types of interconnected discriminations. At each level, this
obstructs their march towards emancipation. Most of the time, traditions largely prevail
over constitutional prerogatives.
4. This was pointed out specifically by one of the anonymous reviewers.
5. It is part of a PhD project undertaken at the University of Namur (Belgium), in collaboration
with the French Institute of Pondicherry and the Arul Anandar College (Madurai).
6. The so-called positivist history is inspired by Auguste Comptes nineteenth century positivist
theory. As historians were driven by the desire to transform history into a scientific discipline,
objectivity was aimed for. Factual history became the tendency; critical history (internal and
external critique of documents) of written sources the adopted methodology. Documentary
and written sources gained primacy, not to say exclusivity. Indeed, written sources were
considered to be the only ones able to respond to historians new concern with objectivity.
7. Oral history had been introduced in the academic world by the end of the Second World
War, when Allan Nevins launched The Oral History Project at Columbia University, New
York in 1948. Oral historians usually insist upon the fact that the use of oral evidence was
widespread from ancient times and until the nineteenth century, when it was marginalised
by the development of positivist history. Oral history gained wide popularity and expanded
dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s. A cumulative process of transformation was set in

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motion with new areas of enquiry and recognition of previously ignored groups of people.
Oral History in turn also underwent several controversies and paradigm shifts, among
others about the legitimacy of oral sources, the reliability of memory and the interviewerinterviewee relationship. Today, oral history has acquired a solid theoretical, epistemological
and methodological basis as well as a relative respectability in the academic world. There
is some apprehension now that oral history, in becoming mainstream, might tend to lose
its critical and subversive edge. On this issue, see specifically Field (2011).
8. Testimonies include a wide range of documents, among others autobiographical narratives,
oral histories, semi-official testimonies, legal testimonies and filmed testimonies. Here, the
analysis is limited to autobiographical testimonies and oral testimonies and narratives.
9. Dialectal literature had actually already introduced the use of spoken language in writings.
Dalit literature has therefore expanded a pre-existing literary style.
10. For the transliteration, I follow the norms given by the Library of Congress in its Bulletin
64 of February 1964.
11. Interviews were conducted in Tamil, with the help of a field assistant and later translated
into English.
12. A similar tendency can be observed in Europe, where old aristocratic families tend to keep
track of their past and their ancestors with family archives and family trees. Modest people
and commoners tend to know hardly anything about their remote origins or ancestors.
13. Trauma narratives have to be handled with specific care. Indeed, interviewing a person
who has experienced severe trauma implies many dilemmas, including the side effects of
opening the wounds of the past. Oral historians are aware of this: The recounting of
trauma narrative can be a psychically charged event entailing great vulnerability (Perks and
Thomson, 2006: 199200). As a result of oral historians not being therapists, they have to
have specific and professional assistance to provide appropriate follow-up.
14. This article does not take into account the differences in terms of reception in the oral and
written testimonies. While autobiographies tend, through publication, to reach a certain
readership, the transmission of oral narratives usually depends on the interviewers initiative.

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Alexandra de Heering is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Namur in

Belgium and works in collaboration with the French Institute of Pondicherry (India).
She graduated in Modern History and her current academic work focuses on dalit
oral history.
Address: FUNDP, 61, rue de Bruxelles, B 5000 Namur, Belgium.
[email: alexandra.deheering@fundp.ac.be]

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