Joothan:
A Dalit’s Life Omprakash Valmiki
Valmikiakash Valmiki is a
great poet and short story writer in Hindi Dalit Literature. “Joothan” is an autobiographical account of
his miserable birth and life. Omprakash believes his lineage starts from
Valmiki, the great author of Indian epic The Ramayana and says that even the
great Rishi Valmiki is a Joothan (sweeper caste). “Joothan’ literally means
scraps of food left on a plate. It is related to the word ‘jootha’ which means
‘polluted. The word reflects pain, humiliation and poverty of the untouchables.
Omprakash Valmiki’s family was in
the colony of the village where the untouchables lived. ‘Chuhra, Chamar and
Jhinwar are the caste names of these untouchables. Tyagi, Taga are the upper caste people of
both Hindus and Muslims. Valmiki’s home was in front of the stinking cowshed of
an upper caste family. On the one side there was a pond and on the other side,
there were high walls of the brick homes of the Tagas. In his family there were
five members. All of them worked hard,
yet they couldn’t get two decent meals a day.
Most often they had no payment for their work. Instead, they got only
abuse from the upper caste masters
Valmiki learned to read and write
from Sewak Ram Masihi who was a Christian.
It was an open air school. After
that Valmiki’s father took him to the Basic Primary School. Valmiki’s father
begged the master of the school to teach his son. Master asked him to come the
next day, and Valmiki and his father kept going for several days and finally
Valmiki was allowed to study there. Valmiki had to sit on the floor where there
was not a mat even. The children of the
upper caste used to tease him by calling ‘Chuhre k’. If he was thirsty, he would run to the
hand-pump to drink water. All the teachers belonged to the upper caste and they
hated the untouchable boys and Valmiki was often punished and insulted by the
teachers and students of the school. If the untouchable boys dressed well, they
would be laughed at and if they were shabbily dressed, others would ask them to
get out because they were stinking!
When Valmiki reached fourth
class, Kaliram, the headmaster asked
Valmiki to sweep every class room and the poor had to climb the teak tree and
made a broom of its twigs and began to sweep. After that he was asked to sweep
the school compound. The dust and heat entered his mouth and nostrils and he
went on sweeping, while other students were studying in their class rooms! On
the third day, while the boy was sweeping the school yard, his father passed by
the school and saw what his son was doing. He called his son ‘Munshiji what are
you doing?’ The boy burst out sobbing. Valmiki told everything to his father.
Pithaji threw away the broom and shouted at the headmaster and called him ‘the
progeny of Dronacharya.
Pitaji went door to door of the upper caste
people and begged them to let his son study in the same school. But they all
shut their doors against the poor old man and his son Valmiki. Still he was not
disappointed. Finally he walked to the house of the village Pradhan and
explained to him about the cruelties of the headmaster and begged him to allow
his son to be taught in the school. Pradhanji told Valmiki’s father not to
worry about the past, but send his son to the same school and there would be no
more trouble for him. Thus the determination of Valmiki’s father helped Valmiki
to continue his education in the same school. Kjt/29-03-2017
My Dungeon Shook James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin is a great
African-American writer. His first novel is ‘Go Tell it on the Mountain’. This
essay ‘My Dungeon Shook’ is quoted from the book titled ‘Fire Next Time’ which
was published in the year 1963, the 100th anniversary of the
Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln, abolishing slavery in the
USA. The title ‘My Dungeon Shook’ is quoted from the ‘old Negro spiritual.
This essay is in the form of a
letter written to the author’s nephew James. Baldwin tells his nephew that his
grandfather was very soft at heart and he was so innocent that he blindly
believed whatever the whites told him. He was told that he was a ‘nigger’ and
he believed it. ‘Nigger’ is the most dirty and vulgar name given to a human being.
The grandfather thought of himself a cursed dirty slave and worked for the
whites throughout his life. Thus the grandfather destroyed himself. This is why
he had a terrible life and he was defeated long before he died.
Baldwin says that the black could
be destroyed only when they blindly believed what the whites told them. For
example the whites called the blacks a nigger. Any man of common sense knows
well that human being is not a nigger or insect. The whites have committed many
crimes. They enslaved and tortured thousands of blacks and imprisoned them in
the dark cells because the blacks never believed what the whites told them and
never accepted them as their masters. Therefore the blacks could not be
defeated in spite of innumerable cruelties and persecutions. But the whites are so stupid that they
themselves don’t know the seriousness of their crime. They believed for many
years that black men are inferior to whites. This is why Baldwin sarcastically
calls them ‘the innocent’.
The black were brought from
Africa in ships and forced them to work as slaves in farms and homes of the
whites for many centuries. The blacks silently suffered these cruelties and
lived in miserable living conditions. Charles Dickens, the famous English
novelist explains misery and poverty of the black people in his novels. The black children were born in the slums of
the cities and they were sent to orphanages and workhouses. For the whites, the
black is a worthless human being and he must live and perish in the ghetto.
Referring to the birth of his
nephew, Baldwin says that on the day when he was born, they all trembled with
fear because of the sufferings the child will have to undergo in his life as a
black in the USA. Still they were very happy and thrilled with joy because a
boy was born to them; one more black soldier is born to the black community to
fight for full citizenship rights. So they loved him and thus they survived.
Baldwin says that if the blacks had not loved each other, they would have been
perished long ago.
According to James Baldwin, the
white Americans are afraid of the strength and capacity of the Blacks to
dominate the whites in all fields of life, such as sports and games,
literature, music and art. This is why the black are given the symbols of life-
nigger, ghetto, and ask them to be slaves of the whites. For many centuries,
the black man has functioned as a fixed star in the white man’s world and
worked for him as his slave, but with the passing of the Emancipation
Proclamation Law by Abraham Lincoln, slavery was abolished. It was a rude shock
to the ‘innocent whites’ of America. This terrible law upset their identity.
They are no longer masters and the blacks are no more slaves. It is a terrible
paradox for the whites. For many
centuries, the whites thought of themselves as superior to the blacks, the
slave. Baldwin reminds his nephew that the blacks have produced great poets,
prophets and artists of the world. ‘The Old Negro spiritual is not only a
prayer to God but also a great poem composed by an unknown Negro slave who with
tears of joy falling down his cheeks, knelt down in the farm where he was
working, praises God Almighty, when he heard the Emancipation Proclamation
abolishing slavery.
Baldwin advises
his nephew to treat these whites as his brothers and thus the Blacks and the
whites should accept the integration. The whites should also accept the reality
that the black are their brothers and not slaves. This is the integration of
America.
The old Negro spiritual
“Free at last,
Free at last, free at last,
Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.
The very time I thought I was lost,
Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last;
My dungeon shook and my chains fell off,
Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last,
This is religion, I do know,
Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last;
For I never felt such a love before,
Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.
Kjt/14-03-2016
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