Growing up Untouchable in India

A Dalit Autobiography

Eleanor Zelliot author Vasant Moon author Gail Omvedt author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield

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Growing up Untouchable in India cover

There is much in Vasant Moon's story of his vasti, his childhood neighborhood in India, that would probably be true of any ghetto anywhere in the world. There is hunger and deprivation, to be sure, but also a sense of community, an easy acceptance of petty crime and violence, the saving grace of sports and organized activities led by caring adults, the off-again on-again aid from relatives, the inexplicable cruelty and unexpected generosity, and escape through education. But there is much here that is peculiarly and vividly Indian as well. Primary among these is the factor of caste, a hierarchical system unrelated to race but based on ancient principles of hereditary pollution and purity, with Brahmans the purest and Untouchables the most polluted. Second is the presence of a hero so important he is described as a "wave," and surely no despised group has ever had a leader as meaningful as Dr. B. R. (Babasaheb) Ambedkar was and remains for India's awakened and ambitious Dalits. Third is nature, with Moon's compelling descriptions of Nagpur's heat and the vivid joy brought by the monsoon. Indeed, every tree, every fruit, every nook and cranny of the world in and around the vasti plays an important part in his story. Dalit literature, poetry, plays, and autobiographies have been one of the most important developments in the culture of India in the past thirty years, yet little has been translated for a Western audience. Vasant Moon's Growing Up Untouchable, the first Dalit autobiography to be published in English, is a moving and eloquent testament to a uniquely Indian life as well as to the universal human spirit.

There are few such autobiographies, especially in English, which makes Moon's memories of sleeping on village roads side by side with neighbors, of his mother waking at 4:30 a.m. to work in the mill and of the kindness of certain teachers particularly valuable.... * Los Angeles Times *
Omvedt's translation is true to the original Marathi. -- Ravi Shenoy * Library Journal *
This book is a welcome first step towards increasing our understanding of a much-neglected aspect of Indian life. * Times Literary Supplement *
Offer(s) an accessible glimpse of the life and times of one Dalit and the people he grew up with. * Journal of Asian Studies *
His [Moon's] autobiography, written in his native Marathi and translated into English, vividly describes life in an urban Indian slum and gives a glimpse of the internal politics that accompanied the independence movement. * Pacific Reader *
Vasant Moon's powerful memoir of youth in the slums of central India is by turns disturbing, entertaining, engrossing, and deeply inspiring. Moving beneath Moon's sharply etched tale of material deprivation, caste conflict, and neighborhood politics is the inexorable rise of Dalit (Untouchable) militancy and spirituality—illuminated by the towering figure of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, champion of the poor and leader of the Buddhist revival in India. This book puts living flesh on the bones of recent Indian social historiography. -- Christopher Queen, Harvard University
There are few such autobiographies, especially in English, which makes Moon's memories of sleeping on village roads side by side with neighbors, of his mother waking at 4:30 a.m. to work in the mill and of the kindness of certain teachers particularly valuable. * Los Angeles Times *
A powerful personal and collective memory of caste oppression and struggle in India from the 1930s to the 1950s. . . . Both as a historical and as a literary document, there is much to consider in this thought provoking and intensely moving memoir. -- Shalini Ramachandran * Race & Class *

ISBN: 9780742508804

Dimensions: 238mm x 153mm x 18mm

Weight: 417g

224 pages