Love in the Time of Caste: Beyond headlines, a deeply human portrait

A powerful anthology that reimagines love as resistance, exposing how caste oppression shapes intimate relationships and personal freedoms in India

Love in the Time of Caste: A Dalit-Feminist Anthology of Love Stories

by Nikhil Pandhi 

Published by Zubaan Books

292 pages, ₹695

 

Love is an emotional bond between two individuals and is based on mutual trust and free from societal barriers. But in India, writes Anita Bharti in the introduction to Love in the Time of Caste, love must conform to and be guided by the established barriers of caste, religion, society and culture.  

As is well-known, the most potent force afflicting love is a deeply entrenched caste system, which imposes a draconian code of social relations across Indian society. No one understands this better than a person born into a Dalit community. In this context, this beautiful anthology of love stories can be viewed as both an act of revolt and of Dalit assertion of love, identity and activism. It is reflective of a community’s prolonged struggle against the Brahmanical order and the dehumanisation and injustices the community witnesses on a daily basis.  

Nikhil Pandhi, the translator, writes “Each of these seventeen stories that make up this collection were chosen by me, since, in their own distinct ways they all index a panorama of affective possibilities around the idea of love as a doing of liberation in the time of caste.” 

The characters in these haunting stories are lovers who have experienced oppression, stigma and segregation within their society and even community for being in a relationship outside their caste or what they ostensibly called a gotra (clan). Kusum Meghwal’s “Blaze” tells the horrific story of Jamna, a young girl from a commutity that faces the casteist slur of ‘chamar’, who is kidnapped and gang-raped by upper-caste Thakur men. Her brother, Heera, wants to avenge his sister’s violation, but it was Jamna who, while slicing off the Thakur’s penis with a sickle, has sought to destroy Brahmanical control over women’s sexual agency and reproduction.  

There is Ambar, a middle-class urban Dalit woman, who falls in love with a married man in her native village, who eventually abandons her for being a sub-caste. That made her understand that oppression against Dalit women is perpetuated by everyone — from savarna men to Dalit men, from home to community. Anita Bharti’s story “Blue Mountain, Red Sun” narrates a Dalit-Marxist couple’s souring relationship over their rival ideological positions. Samar, a Marxist, turned suspicious of his partner over her anti-caste activism. Pragya, a Dalit-activist, describes how gender norms prevent anti-caste love from being truly liberated from the bonds of social structures. 

These and other stories in this anthology offer the reader a study of Dalit social relations with Indian society at large. For decades Dalit love has been a victim of caste violence and Brahmanical terror, often dictated by the class consciousness. 

Accounts of this suffering are likely to make readers uncomfortable and start to question the very existence of the caste. As Pandhi points out, “The vortex of caste oppression simply expanded outward. Even in urban spaces, Dalits and backward-caste families lived crammed into overcrowded bastis, deprived of the most basic dignities of daily life”. 

Even though caste brutality and violence has suppressed love for centuries, love refuses to be suppressed and instead becomes a force of revolt against this caste hegemony. Several characters in these stories have defiantly revolted against the barriers of caste and class by turning love as a rebellious force towards emancipation.  

Love in the Time of Caste is an immersive work that transports the reader to another world, of insanity and barbarism. The evocative and lyrical prose in this anthology offers a deeply human perspective on a community too often reduced to headlines and statistics. For millennia, Dalits have been fighting a social colonialism in which their personal lives are intertwined with their political destinies.  

The essays in this collection offer a Kafkaesque critique of such colonialism by presenting a rival and more humane perspective of Dalit identity and existence.  

Nikhil Pandhi’s translation of these essays into English captures the spirit and subtlety of the original text and brings depth and nuance to a wide readership. Brutally honest, Love in the Time of Caste is an eye-opening read on love, betrayal and despair.

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The writer is an academic and freelance writer based in Kashmir