DALIT MEMOIR AS SOCIAL HISTORY: CASTE OPPRESSION, EDUCATION, AND POLITICAL ASSERTION IN SUJATHA GIDLA’S ANTS AMONG THE ELEPHANTS
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Abstract
Dalit memoir has emerged as a significant literary and political genre in modern Indian literature, documenting caste oppression, social exclusion, educational struggles, and the assertion of Dalit identity. By transforming individual and familial experiences into narratives of collective suffering and resistance, Dalit life writing challenges dominant representations of Indian society and recovers histories marginalised in conventional historiography. Although Marathi Dalit autobiography developed prominently under the influence of B. R. Ambedkar’s emancipatory philosophy and the Dalit Panthers movement, Telugu Dalit life writing followed a distinctive trajectory shaped by Christian missionary education, Gandhian nationalism, Communist politics, and regional social movements. Sujatha Gidla’s Ants Among the Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India (2017) offers an important contribution to this tradition. Through the experiences of three generations of her family, Gidla examines the relationship between caste, land dispossession, education, religion, nationalism, communism, and gender in colonial and postcolonial India. This article analyses the memoir as a form of social history, arguing that education enabled Dalit individuals to challenge inherited restrictions while exposing the persistence of caste discrimination within religious institutions, educational establishments, political movements, and families.
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