A Life Uprooted: A Dalit Refugee Remembers. A Tale of Loss and Rehabilitation

Abstract

Translation not only connects writers to new readers but also shapes and alters the course of literary history across caste, class and gender boundaries. Translating Dalit writing entails personal and political ramifications. It comes with a set of conflicts - dealing with one’s limitations and restrictions that is the result of a particular kind of upbringing, of one’s caste-based subjectivities and of a carefully constructed cosmopolitan identity that translators translating into English are usually embedded in. The translators are expected to display a deep understanding of their position as translators and the responsibilities they own up to by making an unmistakably political choice. First and foremost a reader, they engage at a visceral level with the narrative of pain and oppression. According to Rita Kothari, translation is one of the many consolidations that show a Dalit subject as an active participant in Indian democracy. The concerns about the authenticity of English as the target language should best be sidestepped as “its ideological potential to "translate" the Dalit life from fatalism to an identity of rights outweighs considerations of its distance from