CHENNAI: Growing up in Chennai, writer, researcher and strategist Christina Dhanuja learnt early that even the Tamil she used could mark her caste. “The Tamil I spoke was colloquial. I said soru instead of sadham (for rice), thinitiya instead of saptiya (Did you eat?). And with that came the discrimination,” she begins.
We have to force every single person to reckon with our softness and heart in light of thriving beings who are way beyond caste. Dalit, Adivasi, and oppressed caste women have always insisted that we know how to thrive beyond the walls of caste- Shrujana Shridhar, illustrator of book cover, co-founder of Dalit Panthers Archive
She isn’t wrong. Language is not neutral. Chennai Tamil in particular, has often been coded, as rough or unrefined, mostly associated with slum-dwelling urban populations — as against the more Sanskritised, and so-called purer forms of Tamil.
Dhanuja traces such experiences from her life, ranging from discrimination and joys to her desire and self-hood as a third-generation Christian Dalit woman, while weaving in social analysis, commentary, history, and contemporaneity in her new book, ‘Dalit Women and the Fullness of Life’.
In it, she also narrates how her colleague assured her that she didn’t ‘look Dalit’ when the author had disclosed to her, even as later, “someone mentioned that my bulbous nose was a dead giveaway. Paara mooku”.
We may continue to centre justice and livelihood, but not well-being and healing. NGOs would never become redundant. With such narratives, we’d struggle to imagine, let alone build, a world that is not only free from violence, but one that allows for Dalit women’s full livesChristina Dhanuja, author, Dalit Women and the Fullness of Life
Dhanuja could disclose her Dalit identity publicly only after she left India. She also details how later reading led her to understand the complex ways Dalit communities assertively turned to conversion, something the textbooks and Sunday school books were silent about.
The book was also written during a deeply vulnerable period in Dhanuja’s life – a high-risk pregnancy that required complete bed rest. She also spoke about having experienced miscarriages in the past. “I was on bed rest from 28 weeks, which meant that writing was one of the few things I could do. I could focus on something else other than obsessing about the worst things that could happen,” she recalled. “There was also something profound about writing from a place of pain, while being, quite literally, pregnant with hope. It made the work that much more embodied, more honest.”
The book emerged from Dhanuja’s dissatisfaction with how Dalit women were often written about, and also from longing “to make sense of the world around me, and how it often responds to a Dalit woman who simply wants to experience a full life, one far more expansive than what I’m allowed.”
Going beyond centring Dalit women only through narratives of livelihood, victimhood and justice, the book explores their complexities as a right. “Stories of mere survival rob us of possibility; the ability to dream and plan for a better future,” says the co-founder of Dalit History Month. “Survival becomes the ceiling of what is imaginable. We may continue to centre justice and livelihood, but not well-being and healing.”
That same desire for expansiveness is what shaped the book’s cover, illustrated by Shrujana Shridhar, who is based between Mumbai and New York City, and co-founded the digital documentation project, Dalit Panthers Archive. The cover features women at different stages of life gathered around a doorway, set against an ocean-like backdrop. A child dressed in leafy green plays with a paper boat, while an older woman leans against the entrance. A girl reads a book nearby, another draws on her pad, and another decorates the door-frame with flowers.
“The flowers are a reference to the work on the ceiling of the New York Public Library’s reading room, where Dhanuja spent some time writing the book. The child’s dress is from her childhood. I’ve also referenced Urmila Pawar’s ‘We Also Made History’ as the book the girl is reading. I added a pingara (areca palm flower) as I really love it,” Shridhar says.
The cover intentionally resists flattening the experiences and identities of Dalit women into a singular narrative. “We’re all very different from each other; there may be a lot that binds us together, but we need to hold space for different aspirations and experiences,” she opines.
At the same time, she is aware of art’s limited potential, and pointes out: “It’s irrelevant what art does, because the impact of Dalit women’s labour is experienced by every South Asian, every day.”
Shridhar also reflects on how neoliberalism and urban migration have reshaped community life for the marginalised. “When working-class Dalit and Adivasi communities are losing land, access to water, healthcare and nutrition, more than before, young people are forced further away from community just to work low-paying extractive jobs, where they lead isolated lives in urban India,” Shridhar says. “Where, then, is the space to build community, in a real sense?”
For Dhanuja, the book isn’t attempting to redefine Dalit literature, but tries to bring forth a few sections of a vast canvas that may differ from those others have uncovered. “The book essentially petitions for a renewed, fuller and heterogeneous understanding of Dalit women,” she avers.