#sukirtharani

[apparitionhood]

by Tamil Dalit poet Sukirtharani (translated by Lakshmi Holmström)

[desigrrrl]

— Sukirtharani, My body (translated by Lakshmi Holmström)

[thozhar]

I am definitely not surprised that these poems were dropped. We now have a Union government that believes in Sanatana. But clearly, they are troubled by what I write. I am not surprised because erasure of powerful Dalit voices has always happened. When they cannot face the truths in our works – mine, Bama’s or Mahasweta Devi’s – they try to stop us. But our works speak for themselves. They continue to be taught in many colleges and universities. It’s not just about one Bama or Sukirtharani, our works are representative of thousands of Bamas and Sukirtharanis who continue to fight oppression. It is just hard to stop us speaking,” says Sukirtharani.

– 'Who Is Afraid of Women's Voices?' Ask Tamil Dalit Writers After DU Drops Them from Syllabus

[hystericalfeminist]

BUILD ME A CANON

Earlier this week, Delhi University's Oversight Committee removed works by writers Bama, Mahasweta Devi and Sukirtharani from the university's syllabus for undergraduate students of English. Bama and Sukirtharani are Tamil Dalit writers whose work looks at the experiences of the marginalised. Mahasweta Devi, a Bengali writer, was well-known for her Left-leaning politics and for being an advocate for tribal communities and their rights. She passed away in 2016.

I'd suggest one moment's silence for the Oversight Committee committing an oversight, except this is not an oversight. An oversight is an unintentional mistake, but this seems very intentional. As the DU clarified in a statement later, "the syllabus of the course has been passed through a democratic process with the involvement of all the relevant stakeholders and necessary deliberations at appropriate forums” (emphases mine). The university claims the English syllabus is suitably diverse and inclusive (suitably being the key word here) and it's interesting that as part of its defence of the Oversight Committee's decision, DU has pointed out the process of coming to that decision was "democratic". What it doesn't acknowledge is that if the committee is full of people who belong to dominant groups and doesn't have members who represent the minorities and the marginalised, then the committee's "democratic process" is critically flawed.

The DU statement came after the Academic Council submitted a dissent note, protesting the Oversight Committee's decision. The Academic Council described the Oversight Committee's functioning as vandalism and alleged it has been harassing liberal arts departments. "It is important to note that the Oversight Committee does not have any member from the Dalit or the Tribal community who can possibly bring in some sensitivity to the issue," said the Academic Council in its note.

There was some noise on social media about the decision to drop works by these three writers. Most of the discussion that I saw was about Mahasweta Devi's dropped short story, Draupadi. (Apparently the Oversight Committee chair complained the short story doesn't show the military in a good light. From what I remember, it's the police. They carry out wrongful arrests and brutally gangrape a tribal woman.) There's been far less discussion of Bama and Sukirtharani's works on English Twitter, who have mostly been referred to as the "two Dalit writers", like an addendum to Mahasweta, which is infuriating in itself. I know that this is probably because not enough people read translations. Particularly translations of literature from Indian languages.

There is also little talk about what has replaced the dropped works. One of the authors who has been included is apparently Pandita Ramabai, identified as an upper caste writer (Brahmin, if I'm not mistaken). I've no idea if her writing continues to feel relevant and/ or engaging, but it is all sorts of bizarre to "replace" a 20th century author with someone who died in 1922. Also, if she was included because she was Brahmin, I hope they have fun reading her book The High Caste Hindu Woman which is, I'm told, deeply critical of how sexist Hinduism. Whether or not Pandita Ramabai voiced any opinions of casteism in Hinduism, I don't know.

Even though translations don't get read as much, the fact is, the writings of Bama, Mahasweta Devi and Sukirtharani have been translated to English and other languages. They're part of different university's syllabi and for better or for worse, DU is not such an influential player in academia. If DU's decision to drop these writers convinces some Indian universities to do the same, we can only hope that other universities (in India and abroad) will start thinking about including them in their syllabi (if the writers aren't in them already). In a not-so-distant future, it's very likely that there will be universities abroad that will have a more diverse, inclusive and representative portrait of Indian culture in their syllabi while institutions like DU remain mired in a casteist, Hindutva bog. At that point, who should decide what will make the canon for Indian literature? The Indians or the foreigners?

It's the second time this week that we've heard conversations about erasure in the Indian cultural scene. Earlier this week, social media was on fire after the Indian edition of the Rolling Stone carried a cover story about the record label and music platform Majja, featuring two artists best known for their collaborations with Dalit rapper and lyricist Arivu. Rumour has it that the Rolling Stone cover was bought by Majja, presumably to promote upcoming albums by those two artists. However, since Dhee and Shan Vincent de Paul are currently riding a popularity wave because of their work with Arivu, many readers — beginning with director Pa Ranjith — expected the cover story would be as much about Arivu as Dhee and Shan Vincent de Paul. People also pointed out that Arivu had effectively been removed from a (disastrous) remix of "Enjoy Enjaami" (the original song is amazing).

Shan Vincent de Paul, one of the artists featured on the Rolling Stone cover, issued a statement on social media saying he had the utmost respect for Arivu and had no intention of erasing him. He clarified that the story was part of his efforts to promote his new album Made in Jaffna, which he's releasing with Majja. "I have no control over how the Press chooses their messaging or what narratives they push," de Paul wrote, which would be an excellent point if the cover wasn't bought. He may not have control over the narrative, but he's hardly an irrelevant cog in the wheel. Instead of attempting to exonerate himself, de Paul could have acknowledged that the story doesn't give as much space to Arivu as it should. I am, of course, presuming he's read the story.

If the rumour about the cover being bought is true then Rolling Stone and Majja are complicit in deciding a narrative that sidelines Arivu, either intentionally or carelessly. More than half of Rolling Stone's cover story is about "Enjoy Enjaami" and there is just one quote from Arivu. This sidelining may not be deliberate — the way DU's Oversight Committee's decision was — and it could be an example of the kind of unthinking oversight that the privileged commit all the time when it comes to acknowledging the contribution of the marginalised. Either way, the impression conveyed by the two organisations is that Arivu is not the person they want to promote. Countering the decision of the establishment — it doesn't get more establishment than Rolling Stone and Majja. One of Majja's founders is legendary music director AR Rahman — is the reaction on social media. The songs being freely available on multiple platforms and the (relatively) free access to the artwork and arguments by Dalit creators and critics on social media makes it difficult to invisibilise Arivu.

A translation of Mahasweta Devi's Draupadi is available online as are some of Sukirtharani's poems. DU has dropped Bama's novel Sangati. I'm not sure if there's an extract that's available online. It is not lost on me that it's easier to listen to a song than it is to read a novel, or a short story, or a poem. It is also not lost on me that the fact you can bob to an infectious beat makes it easier to not register the deep-rooted casteism referenced in the lyric, "Enna kora, enna kora, yein chella peraandikku enna kora? (In what way is my darling grandson any less?)" There are no such distractions when you read, for example, Sukirtharani's My Room Needs No Calendar: "As they write on me/ with their penises,/ I will my body to stop/ slithering away."

Sukirtharani and Bama minced no words when they were asked to respond to their works being dropped from the DU syllabus. "I was not surprised at all. Dalit voices such as myself and Bama’s are speaking for all oppressed women, not just Dalit women," said Sukirtharani. "I don’t see this necessary as an exclusion of just Dalit writers as we have seen how progressive writers whose works speak against caste, Hindutva, fundamentalism have also been removed in the recent past. These things will happen in our society, but we cannot be ignored." She said she wasn't going to ask for an explanation, but believed DU owed her an explanation. At the very least, they should have intimated her about the works being dropped. "When they want to project an image of India wherein there are no caste and religious inequalities, our works point out that caste and religious inequalities exist in our society. So, it is obvious that they want such works removed from the syllabus," she said.

Bama said, "For more than 2,000 years, we have been segregated, our histories have not been written. This government is trying to strangulate our voices, but we will shout. The youth of this nation have understood [what is happening]. Rather than being upset, we are angry. The anger will reflect in our works in future.”

I find myself wondering if the business of building a canon was always so complicated and rife with uncertainties. Will the books, music and art propped up by commerce and politics be the ones that make up our mainstream cultural identity? Could we build a better literary canon for Indian literature if more excerpts and poems were available online for free, if more works were translated? Would we care more if the literature was easier to access or would we still dismiss it because they're translations, because the works are by Dalit women? Can the conversations that we hold in the informal spaces of the internet be loud enough to make the canon more inclusive, to make the mainstream expand its narrow definitions? What is more likely to make it into an archive and survive into posterity — the Rolling Stone Cover image or the many "fixed it" versions that people created online? Is it possible that both can and will be preserved? Does dropping the works of writers like Bama and Sukirtharani and Mahasweta Devi make them invisible? Will the dissent make a few more people buy Bama's novel? Will it make some curious enough to look up Sukirtharani's poems?

The words, the tech, the platforms, the imagery — are all these still the master's tools? How long must one wield them before they can claim the tools to be theirs? Will they always be the master's tools and not "our" tools? Is the master the one who cares for the tools and uses them better? Is the master the one with the loudest voice and the deepest pockets, the one who can bribe the boys and hire the deadliest mercenaries? Who decides when the tools have been reclaimed?

[purplepencilproject]

In their minds,

I, who smell faintly of meat,

my house where bones hang,

stripped entirely of muscle,

and my street

where youths wander without restraint

making loud music

from coconut shells strung with skin,

are all at the furthest point of town.

I assure them

we stand at the forefront.

S. Sukirtharani, "A Faint Smell of Meat" trans. by Lakshmi Holmström

[pyotra]

Two poems by the amazing Tamil Dalit poet Sukirtharani (translated by Lakshmi Holmström).

From Wild Words: Four Tamil Poets:

Sukirtharani was born in Lalapet, a village near Ranipet, in Vellore district. She still lives and teaches there. Hers was one of ten or twelve Dalit families who lived in the Cheri (as the street where the Dalits lived was known). Traditionally, their occupation was to take away the carcasses of the dead animals belonging to the upper caste people, and to bury or burn them. For this, they were paid in grain. Sukirtharani’s father only studied up to class three, although his brothers went to college. He worked as a labourer in EID Parry Company in Ranipet. Sukirtharani was the fifth of six children. Her father was a Hindu, her mother Christian; the family grew up in the Christian faith. In an unpublished article, ‘Naanum en ezhutthum’ (‘My writing and 1’), she writes of growing up as a tomboy, wandering about with the boys, riding a cycle, climbing trees, roaming through the mountains and forests, swimming in the tank ‘until my eyes were red’. 

Such independence began to be curtailed, however, when she reached puberty. She began to be aware of caste distinctions when she started school. Other children would shun her. But despite this and despite her lack of notebooks and other materials, she studied well and stood at the top of her class. And she continued to study. Inspired by a teacher in class eight, she was drawn towards Tamil literature. But a serious interest in writing began only after she had finished her higher education and a teacher’s training course. Significantly, this was the time, she says, that she was tormented by the problem of gender equality, the difficulty of finding answers to her questions, the lack of a platform or venue where she might publish her own tentative answers. 

[...] As she read more and more, her understanding and perspective of poetry gained greater clarity. She writes about this experience with wonderful vividness: ‘So, as an understanding of poetry seeped into me more and more, all the questions and doubts which had made me bleed within for so long, all my doubts and criticisms of past beliefs, rose to the surface of my mind and seized the form of poetry.’ Her family began to express their disapproval when her poetry moved towards feminism and started to appear in well known publications. Her poetry developed, she says, in an atmosphere of disapproval, refusal of permission to attend public meetings on the part of her parents, and evasive lies on her part. When her first collection, Kaippatri En Kanavu Kel (Hold Me and Hear My Dreams) was published in 2002 and her name was bandied about with that of other women poets and trashed for its so- called ‘obscenity’, she received no support from her family.

[pyotra]

In their minds I, who smell faintly of meat, my house where bones hang stripped entirely of flesh, and my street where young men wander without restraint making loud music from coconut shells strung with skin are all at the furthest point of our town. But I, I keep assuring them we stand at the forefront.

Sukirtharani, “A Faint Smell of Meat” (tr. from Tamil by Lakshmi Holmström)

[representation-matters]

Nature’s Fountainhead

Say you bury me alive. I will become a green grass-field and lie outspread, a fertile land. You may set me on fire; I will become a flaming bird and fly about in the wide, wide space. You may wave a magic wand and shut me up, a genie in a bottle; I will vaporize as mercury and stand upright towards the sky. You may dissolve me into the wind like water immersed into water; from its every direction I will emerge, like blown breath. You may frame me, like a picture, and hang me on your wall; I will pour down, away past you, like a river in sudden flood. I myself will become earth fire sky wind water. The more you confine me, the more I will spill over, Nature’s fountainhead. —Sukirtharani. Wild Girls, Wicked Words: Poems by Malathi Maithri, Salma, Kutti Revathi and Sukirtharani. Trans. Lakshmi Holmström. Ed. Kutti Revathi. Chennai: Sangam House-Kalachuvadu Press, 2012. Also see her chilling ‘The Faint Smell of Meat’ in Pratilipi. Point of interest: "The poems of Malathi Maithri, Salma, Kutti Revathi and Sukirtharani so enraged the Establishment in Tamil Nadu [southern state in India] it was even suggested that the poets be burned alive…" Read seven of the poems in The Caravan magazine.