Achieve Coming Out As Dalit: A Memoir Penned By Yashica Dutt Listed As Paper Copy

Utter waste of time and money, Full of unnecessary rants. Avoid. "Rohith Vemula, who lit a flame that made my silence impossible" Yashica,

I'm glad to know that Yashica has received Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar for this amazing book for the year.
While the biography is nicely written, there are few points where, IMO, she either lacks the depth of argument or begins to contradict herself.
To note a few:
a While Rohith Vemula's suicide, and following protests are a recurring theme in book, Yashica plainly mentions him as Dalit, every time failing to mention the controversy about his 'actual' caste.
Per the police report, he wasn't Dalit, at least from his father's side and that fact alone may collapse the case against university authorities.
This detail, perhaps inconvenienced the story line as the fact that he needed to be a Dalit, for anyone to be held responsible for his death, is contrary to argument presented.

b While she tries to debunks the claim that reservation perpetuates caste distinction, she seems to agree with the claim in more than one place.
Eg. She says that universities which have reservation have caste based bullying, She, herself, was terrified because her name was tucked under quota because she claimed the quota,
c Further, she says, that universities which seemed to be casteless became openly casteist during Mandal agitation, Again, is she disagreeing with or agreeing with the view that reservation is increasing casteism,
d Another contradictory theme is, that she was says that her mother was influenced into investing more in her education compared to upper caste people of same class.
Is this good investment or bad investment Because, she returns back and says that the way Indian competitive landscape works, is that such investment is necessary to crack the 'code' of examination.
By this inference, a Dalit child, is better prepared to tackle the examination compared to upper caste student of same class.
Sure, overall fewer Dalits than upper caste would belong to the class that can afford the investment anyways, but then that turns this into a class issue, not really a caste issue.

e She cites Tina Dabi's low interview marks claiming that anygt Dalit availing reservation is offsetting this discrimination.
Is she really trying to say that no reservation is needed in casteblind written exams
f There are a few issues with statistics that she puts up.
She says less thanmanual scavengers pass the age of sixty, In India, where the life expectancy isyears,passing age of, by itself doesn't seem that bad in itself, Did she mean, less thanpassRegardless, its pretty much given that manual scavenging is a disgusting practice, just that this piece of stats isn't adding impact Again, at a different place she saysurban business is Dalit owned.
Withpopulation, that doesn't seem bad either,
g While she calls out Arundhati Roy for not calling her position of privilege, she seems to be quite unclear of her own privilege.
First, she says her parents expertise was 'limited' to 'civils' yes, the famed civil services exam while comparing to expertise which her peer group had.
There are very very few Indians of any caste, who can claim parents with such expertise, Again, she feels the fact that it took her family four generations for first person to enter St, Stephens is a proof of her nonprivileged background is rather funny, Most most Indians, of any caste, do not have anyone in their ancestry who went to St, Stephens, or IITs or IIMs, Most also do not attend costly boarding schools as well, It seems, her experience of nonDalits is limited to her peers of rather elite education she was fortunate to have received.


This is not to say that book doesn't present a compelling and necessary narrative on Dalit history or movement.
These are just few places where author could pay more attention or be more clear in her arguments, Coming out as Dalit presents itself as part memoir part academic discourse, A need which stemmed from Vemula's death and the subsequent events that took place, Dutt had kept her Dalit identity under wraps for the longest time before deciding to come out to the world.
She belongs to the niche category of Dalits who had to cover up their identity in an attempt to avoid ostracisation by the society.


The memoir is lavishly sprinkled with slivers from history and milestones from Dalit movement and would serve as an excellent primer for those who want to learn about Dalit history.
Coming out as Dalit collates multiple incidents of public movements, caste based violence, government policies/bills of contemporary India, Dutt throws a light into the grim situation of media houses which has a dearth Dalit journalists,

I have few reservations about the memoir part, but in comparison to the rest of the content, it is insignificant.



This is a deeply personal tale of the author's life and her tryst with caste, I'd suggest reading the Epilogue before starting with the book  what needs understanding is that this is not just a narration of the historic injustices that Dalits have faced or the extreme levels of discrimination that Dalits continue facing today: it's a memoir.
And the memoir is of a Dalit born to a middleclass family of two generations of bureaucrats, She went to some of the best schools, she attended Stephen's and went on to study journalism in Columbia with financial difficulties throughout, I leave that to the narration.
She wrote this book sitting in Chelsea, This book is to patiently explain to the reader that Dalits are normal humans too, and not their extreme portrayals in movies either as victims of extreme atrocities or as those 'lazy', 'meritless' and 'undeserving' of reservations.
And the book does an excellent job at revealing a life somewhere in between these extremes, where all things equal, she had to hide her caste to be considered 'normal'.
Her case is that in a better world that we have a chance to make, nobody should have to do that.


Her central argument is that caste is a real thing, With the coming of reservations and the mainstreaming of Dalit politics, Dalits have received some benefits in terms of representation.
But what benefits exactly Reservations are twofold: for Govt, jobs and Univs. While a Dalit may enter establishments, they face such immense discrimination that makes their lives miserable, Rohit Vemula's suicide was one incident from the daily lives of Dalits in socalled modern and advanced India, Effectively, a Dalit has to hide her caste and act like an upper caste so that they don't face this some can do it that's the author's story, and others just cannot.
The rich culture and history of Dalits necessarily gets suppressed in this entire process: it must stop,

The book is an excellent introduction to Dalit movements and Dalit literature, She has explained in great detail of how Dalit voices always had to fight to be heard, and continue to do so even today though with the advent of social media, there is a greater scope for coordinated impact.
The seminal contributions of Ambedkar's views, what he means to Dalits and how upper castes appropriate Ambedkar are very well elaborated in this book.
References to portals which give Dalit voices their space, and new cultural engagement movies, music are immensely helpful to keep a track on.
Ultimately, we need to have a sustained and constructive engagement with the question of caste and Dalit voices need to be up front and centre in this engagement.
Yashica Dutt's Coming Out as Dalit brilliantly juxtaposes her personal story with the larger caste system in the country, I picked this book after reading Annihilation of Caste by B, R Ambedkar and couldn't have asked for a better reinforcement ー especially in the chapter where Yashica Dutt introduces Ambedkar and his journey against caste.
Reinforcement, of course, is not everything this book did for me ー Yashica Dutt's brave and personal story of coming out as Dalit ー also made me look at the immunity granted to me, for free, without shedding any sweat for it, up and close.


This book is a personal memoir about Yashica Dutt hiding her caste for a decade, the resilience of her mother along the way, and her coming out story the trigger, the journey, the wake.
It's also part history and part the reality we face today how our academia, media, cinema does little to change the narrative.
Largely and at the heart of it this book is a call to action to acknowledge and address the evils of caste.


Yashica Dutt's book taught me about the origin of the caste system ー how "Aryans exaggerated the concepts of purity and pollution and used it to maintain their superiority" how color and caste are deeply connected,

the historic Azadi Kooch March and Dalit movements which the national media failed to cover and the textbooks ignored, how systemic casteism stems from a nexus of religion and pride, shaped by arbitrary and wanton violence and exclusion, constitutional reservation and how it's a corrective measure, and Ambedkar's and Jyotirao Phule's legacy.


Leaving you with this searing description of "uppercaste" privilege by Peggy McIntosh which Yashica Dutt has quoted in her book and that will indefinitely stay with me: "an invisible package of earned assets.
This invisible package which is attached to their not so invisible upper caste, opens doors for jobs, bank loans, business opportunities, and education that are often closed for Dalits.
"

Please, please read this book, I cannot recommend it enough, More people need to read this book, Period. Privilege has created a bubble for a lot of us which doesn't expose us to the atrocities faced by a huge chunk of our population.
If nothing else, this book will force you to acknowledge your privilege and introduce you to the shameful reality of the caste system inst Century India.
Highly, highly recommend itstars

I wasnt a fan of this book, but its clearly aimed at Indian readers, so if you are one you should check out other reviews as well.
And you know what, here in the U, S. we produce massive amounts of media about our own problems for our own consumption, which nevertheless gets exported around the world, so it was nice to sit in on someone elses conversation for a change.
And I certainly learned some things,

Yashica Dutt is a journalist who grew up often on the edge of poverty, but in a family obsessed with keeping up appearances and pretending not to be lower caste.
She relates some of her own experiences in this book alongside more journalistic elements, Her overall argument is that casteism is alive and well in India despite attempts to sweep it under the rug, as can be seen from discrimination and harassment in higher education and the job market hate crimes failure to prosecute crimes against lowercaste victims relegation to disgusting menial jobs like cleaning and carrying away excrement from dry toilets by hand this, and not digging through trash for useful stuff, is whats meant by “manual scavenging” and more.
Dutt ultimately educated herself about Dalit history as an adult after being distanced from it as a child, and found empowerment in doing so.


Sadly, I found the book overall to be thin, more like a series of magazine articles touching on her life, Indian history and contemporary issues, than a really indepth analysis.
But knowing little about the subject matter kept me going, The writing style can be rough around the edges, as in for example: “Several Dalit women who dont find their issues addressed by uppercaste feminists often turn to black women activists and academics for inspiration.
” The repeated use of “several” in place of “many” was to me the most noticeable issue but perhaps a difference between Indian and American English.


The comparison between the experiences of Dalits and AfricanAmericans was in my mind throughout the book, and its quite striking.
While reading I kept wondering how a society that seems even more virulent in its discrimination nevertheless has managed to maintain what seems to me quite an impressive affirmative action policy in India the term is “reservation,” and it involves quotas for lowercaste admission to public universities and entrylevel civil service jobs, which actually reflect the lower castes representation in the population.
As it turns out the difference is not cultural uppercaste Indians hate and oppose reservation every bit as much as white Americans do affirmative action, and moreprotests have even involved selfimmolation, or even as far as I can see political though there have been two Dalit presidents and one prime minister, but constitutional: Indias constitution, effective, was actually drafted by B.
R. Ambedkar, a Dalit activist and statesman, who had made demands for serious Dalit power in government but was forced to withdraw them when Gandhi threatened to starve himself to death otherwise.
This spurred a wave of hate crimes, such that Ambedkar was forced to settle for reservation, Even granting all the problems raised in this book though, he still achieved quite a bit and is a hero for Dalit activists today.


Overall, I clearly did learn some things from this book, despite not being impressed by the writing, As a memoir, I liked sitelinkAnts Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India much better, though that one doesnt center the bigger picture as Dutt does here.
And of course, my reaction cant predict that of readers for whom this is all closer to home, An incredibly difficult read that forced me to reconsider a lot of what I had accepted about the world around me.
I've had this book for a year and struggled to start with it, possibly because I knew the direction it would take.
However, I will argue that if you live in India, this ought to be compulsory reading,

I grew up completely unaware of how deeply entrenched my life was in what I thought was an invisible caste system.
An awareness of my caste privilege has always lurked in the background, but this book brought it front and centre, and quickly dismantled many notions of society I'd believed to be true.
As a generational beneficiary of an arbitrary societal hierarchy, the book was directly at odds with the narrative in my family, and it became obvious from the start that much of what I'd heard in my childhood was a version of events that suited upper caste individuals by maintaining the status quo.
Reading the book, I was equally horrified at what I was learning about casteism in India, and appalled at myself for having known so little for so long.
It is a deeply discomfiting read that will if you are anything like me, make you cry at the blatant injustice of the world.


Despite being labelled a memoir, it doesn't necessarily take an in depth view of the author's life at all points.
Instead, it oscillates between account of her life and her family's, and a brief history of castebased oppression, Ambedkar's ideologies and the history of the Dalit movement among other things.


The tone of the book also changes markedly, The first third was so emotionally loaded, I needed a break for a few days all the while uncomfortably aware that people living in these circumstances get no respite.
The middle third was more informative and historical, and the last third was distinctly hopeful, While it is not a comprehensive picture of life as Dalit and perhaps does not intend to be, it stoked a need to learn more about people around me and my place in the world.


Compelling, distressing, and deeply moving, .