Out of the caste mould

The personal narrative is interspersed with acute observations on Dalit history, Ambedkar, the Indian tendency to look down on manual labour

Coming Out as Dalit
 

Yashica Dutt

Aleph, 207 pages; Rs 599







It is not often that a memoir is able to transcend its writer’s own lived experience to become a powerful social commentary. Journalist Yashica Dutt’s Coming Out as Dalit is one such work. It takes off from a unique springboard — growing up, Ms Dutt’s mother ensured that their caste identity remained a secret. So she buried her identity as a Dalit deep within, but years later, realised that she could no longer ignore this intrinsic aspect of her identity. So she decided