That last word—my father calls it ‘our destiny’—decides everything. See what it just did? You could now put me in a box—or should I say, place me. Till I told you my birth name, I could have been anyone. But now that you know I am—and will always be—a Dalit. Only a Dalit.
Upendra Kumar Shivanand Rao
My name is Upendra Kumar Shivanand Rao and I am thirty-one years old. I was not born with this name. My admission records in a BMC school in Mumbai shows my birth name: Upendra Kumar Shivanand Harijan. That last word—my father calls it ‘our destiny’—decides everything. See what it just did? You could now put me in a box—or should I say, place me. Till I told you my birth name, I could have been anyone. But now that you know I am—and will always be—a Dalit. Only a Dalit.
I didn’t want to die a Harijan. After months of lawyer meetings and court dates I got a new name. One day, between a hundred-odd married women adopting a new name, I found myself shedding mine; the ‘new, clean me’ was neatly placed between a Kher and a Patil in the State gazette. In school, the first time I was spotted was by my teacher. “Those from Dalit and backward families will get the Maths and Science textbooks free,” she announced. I didn’t know, but she knew my history through that one word, ‘Harijan’. She pointed at me and two other girls to come forward, pick our books. As the class monitor and a topper in language subjects, I felt this could be something good.
What it Means to be a Dalit
College had to be aborted. My father couldn’t afford any tuition or coaching class fees. Then came that day when I finally understood what it means to be a Dalit. Apparently every Dalit has this day, only anecdotes change. It can range from what he is allowed to eat, to where he is allowed to drink water, to who he is allowed to love. Mine was how one is allowed to die. Hours after my grandfather’s death, I saw my family struggling to get a priest to conduct his last rites. In films, I always saw the hero holding an earthen pot, in a crisp white kurta, water falling from a hole in the pot, as he circled the pyre, always in daylight. My grandfather’s pyre had no such ritual; in fact, everything about the way he was sent off post midnight was demeaning, even the manner in which we had to clear the path his body took, to the far off crematorium, way outside the village.
A Desire for Change
In my twenties, back in Mumbai, I decided I had enough of this ‘Dalit’ business, I wanted to be a Hindu. My father had tried this, I understand now. The many Hindu Rams and Vishnus living alongside our cramped chawl rooms and his weekly climb to a temple on a hill was him trying to gain acceptance into the larger community of Brahmins, Thakurs and Yadavs. I thought of a different route, and grew a shendi like Brahmin priests and even purchased a janeu. Initially, people respected me; but finally it was a paanwala in Andheri who changed his polite tone to extreme rudeness when I told him I am a Harijan donning a shendi. Everywhere I encountered the same hatred for us—found it confusing that if Hindus feel insecure of their numbers, why don’t they make everyone Brahmins?
I can write an essay on how the higher ranking castes use the others to abuse Dalits. I started to use technology to learn more about us and got introduced to a beautiful man named Babasaheb Ambedkar. Today my wallet has his photograph with Ramabai, my Facebook wall has his famous pose holding the Constitution, and an entire album of his portraits changing my phone’s display every few hours. This is to remind me that I am not a nobody and that there was someone who felt I had a place on this earth and fought for it.
So did anything change with my name? Not much. I now tell everyone I am a Harijan who chose the name ‘Rao’ just to exercise a legal right I had. It has also taught me how frivolous this name game is. I jog in the mornings and trek up the same hill my father climbs to worship a Hindu deity. For years now, I have heard morning walkers greeting each other with ‘Jai Sri Ram’. The other day, a Yadav—a friend, fellow jogger and reader of books—waved at me from a distance and greeted with ‘Jai Bheem’. It was his welcoming smile which made me return his greeting with the loudest ‘Jai Bheem’ I could muster. That morning, the breeze felt beautiful and I felt accepted. Returning home, a thought crossed my mind, the day Savarnas say they are done with caste will be the best day for India.
Upendra Kumar Shivanand Rao works in Mumbai and is an avid reader (This appeared in the print as ‘Mumbai Diary’)
Courtesy : Outlook India
Note: This news piece was originally published in outlookindia.com and used purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes exclusively for Human Right
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