The present book Outcaste: A Memoir is an expanded version of Jadhav’s best selling Marathi novel Amcha Baap Aan Amhi written in 1993.This memoir is a multilayered saga of the social evolution of the Dalits in India. It is a tribute from a son to his father as well as an appraisal of the caste-system. It tells the story of the awakening of the Dalits through three generations. The caste-system represses even stupefies the Dalits so that they grow into the dutiful lambs that need no shepherding in order to stay within the fence, it serves as a kind of cultural repression where people imprison themselves and guard their own prisons. There is no external enemy to combat, we are staying within the enemy territory and the enemy is within us. The
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The narrative moves in the form of flashbacks and flash-forwards, revealing the caste-ridden status of Jadhav’s family and tracing its journey out of the caste system in three stages. The first stage is the one in which Jadhav’s father Damodar Ranjhaji Yadav is a low-caste helpless Mahar, in the second stage he moves to city and comes under the influence of Bhimrao Ambedkar, hence realising the need to stand against the inhuman caste-system and the final stage is the one where he succeeds in providing his children a life of respect and dignity with the help of education and …show more content…
His father Damodar tells his wife Sonabai that once he joined his father to his place of work. Damu got thirsty because of the scorching heat. The master who was from the higher caste offered him water, but when Damu stretched his hand for the tumbler the man screamed at him and abused him for daring to touch the tumbler. Damu could not understand what was wrong in touching the tumbler and how could the water get polluted by his mere touch, while he has seen a dog lapping water from the same pot. Damu says “This was the first time I wondered if it is better to be born a dog than to be born a Mahar” (47). Damu felt humiliated at this incident and was unable to explain to himself the reason for this kind of treatment. He could understand just one thing that the insult was a result of his belonging to an untouchable
The narrative moves in the form of flashbacks and flash-forwards, revealing the caste-ridden status of Jadhav’s family and tracing its journey out of the caste system in three stages. The first stage is the one in which Jadhav’s father Damodar Ranjhaji Yadav is a low-caste helpless Mahar, in the second stage he moves to city and comes under the influence of Bhimrao Ambedkar, hence realising the need to stand against the inhuman caste-system and the final stage is the one where he succeeds in providing his children a life of respect and dignity with the help of education and …show more content…
His father Damodar tells his wife Sonabai that once he joined his father to his place of work. Damu got thirsty because of the scorching heat. The master who was from the higher caste offered him water, but when Damu stretched his hand for the tumbler the man screamed at him and abused him for daring to touch the tumbler. Damu could not understand what was wrong in touching the tumbler and how could the water get polluted by his mere touch, while he has seen a dog lapping water from the same pot. Damu says “This was the first time I wondered if it is better to be born a dog than to be born a Mahar” (47). Damu felt humiliated at this incident and was unable to explain to himself the reason for this kind of treatment. He could understand just one thing that the insult was a result of his belonging to an untouchable