You grew up in a conservative Brahmin household in Kolkata in the 1950s. How did your early reading and your university years shape the direction your work eventually took?

I was born in Kolkata in 1952, in a conservative, well-educated, Bengali Brahmin family. From kindergarten to class X, I studied at the Convent of Our Lady Queen of the Missions School in Park Circus, an English-medium missionary school. When my father was transferred, I shifted to a Bangla-medium school—the Bankura Mission Girls’ School in Bankura town—and passed my Higher Secondary Examination from there.

At school, we were encouraged to read fiction. Starting from Enid Blyton, we moved on to Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Somerset Maugham, Jane Austen, and Kafka. At home, I was encouraged to read the Bangla works of Tagore, Sarat Chandra, and Bankim Chandra, and by the time I finished school, I had read most of their works.

College came in the early 1970s, a period of turmoil and Left activism. I began concentrating on Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao, and other Left thinkers, and it was then that questions of social and economic justice began to hold me. As I moved to the university level, the importance of caste, religion, and gender became more and more evident. A very strong influence in that regard was my PhD supervisor at Jadavpur University, the late Professor Jayantanuja Bandyopadhyaya. From him, I learnt to logically question the Brahminical social system.

Your doctoral research focused on racism and apartheid in South Africa, published as Colour Volcano in 1981. How did that early work feed into your later writing on caste?

As I was researching racism in South Africa, I was also looking at similar discriminatory practices elsewhere, including India. I became increasingly aware of the contradictions in India’s position—full support for the anti-apartheid struggle on the one hand and an inability to domestically rein in caste stratification on the other.

That work gave me a wide understanding of discrimination both theoretically and in a global perspective—the different faces it takes, and the different forms of struggle the oppressed undertake. It enabled me to comprehend the similarities and dissimilarities between the Indian varna system and South African racial stratification. This early research on racism has proved extremely valuable for my understanding of the Brahminical order.

Bengal has a Scheduled Caste population of 23.5 per cent as per the 2011 Census—one of the largest concentrations in any Indian state. What are the distinctive features of Dalit literary traditions in Bengal?

Bengal has multiple Scheduled Caste groups, many with their own separate literary traditions—the Namashudras and Rajbanshis, for instance. While some communities have high literacy levels today, many others do not. Overall, low literacy levels and limited access to formal education meant that most communities relied heavily on the oral tradition.

Even as there is today a substantial body of Dalit literature—most of it in Bangla and scattered across little magazines and periodicals—we should not overlook the rich folk tradition transmitted orally across generations. The Jatra folk theatre tradition, for example, developed in abundance over centuries and was passed from generation to generation through performance, not writing. Dialects differ by region, and different regions have produced different flavours of literary expression. Much of that vast treasure is yet to be recorded and archived.

The literature, both written and oral, reflects lived experiences, images of daily life, and visions of the future. An interesting feature of Dalit writings in Bengal is that lived experience does not remain confined to autobiography. It spills over into novels, short stories, essays, and poetry, making sharp genre distinctions difficult—all writings tend to become autobiographical in nature. In different forms, it is their story of existence and of struggle. The impact of Ambedkar’s teachings, Harichand Guruchand’s Matua philosophy, and the Partition are frequently reflected throughout.

In particular, this book examines the vulnerability of Dalit women, children, and those who are victims of displacement. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

In your co-edited anthology Under My Dark Skin Flows a Red River, you write that Dalit visions in Bengal were greatly shaped by the Partition. How did the Partition affect marginalised Dalit communities specifically?

Before Partition, a sizeable section of Dalits—particularly those belonging to the Namashudra caste—had been residing in the eastern districts of undivided Bengal. Following Partition, many preferred to remain in East Pakistan, which they considered their homeland. But after widespread riots in East Pakistan from the 1950s onwards and mounting communal tensions, there was a mass exodus. They became refugees. They lost their homes, their moorings, their livelihoods.

All of this came to be recorded through their writings. Their ordeals, their sense of loss, their emotions and dreams found expression in autobiographies, novels, short stories, non-fiction, and poetry. Bangla Dalit writings have, in many cases, come to stand as testimony to harsh lived experiences—under the combined oppression of being Dalit and being a refugee—and continue to do so.

You have written on Dalit women’s marginalisation. Do you think the broader Indian feminist and human rights discourse has adequately engaged with Dalit women’s experience?

All women’s experiences are not identical. Differences in religion, caste, class, and locale make for significant variations in lived experience. The women’s movement in India has a long history, drawing considerable inspiration from international feminist discourse. Over the years, however, the leadership of the movement remained in the hands of upper-caste and upper-class women. Their own inherited knowledge, and the limits of their experience, proved to be impediments to sensitivity on the Dalit women’s question. Dalit women’s concerns were either entirely ignored or sought to be subsumed into the wider women’s movement.

This became a matter of growing concern for Dalit women and led to the emergence of Dalit feminism from the late 1980s. In time, Dalit women succeeded in drawing the attention of mainstream feminism, at least to an extent. Careful understanding of the social structure—historically and analytically—is imperative. Without such a grasp, it is impossible to comprehend the intersectionalities of caste, class, and gender as they operate in India. The human rights movement’s sensitivity to the Dalit women’s agenda is growing, but the concern is historically delayed and still inadequate.

Debi Chatterjee’s analysis outlines historical and modern movements aimed at dismantling India’s caste-based social structure, identifying it as a major impediment to progress. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

Your comparative study Up Against Caste examines Ambedkar and Periyar’s distinct approaches to the Brahminical order. What can contemporary Dalit movements take from both?

Contemporary Dalit movements need to understand that the struggle for social justice and human rights must be waged in its totality. Despite their different approaches and strategies, Ambedkar and Periyar were both ideologically challenging the Hindu Brahminical order of society and calling for its total rejection. Periyar chose the path of atheism; Ambedkar opted for the alternative in the Buddha’s Dhamma. There can be no compromise with Brahminical hegemony, and the liberation of Dalits must rest on its ultimate and total destruction.

Keeping the ultimate goal in mind, there may not be a single path. Multiple strategies may and will have to be adopted depending on the conditions of time and place.

You have written monographs on anti-caste figures and translated the work of several Dalit writers. How can subaltern voices be brought into mainstream media and publishing, and what does regional Dalit literature offer a national conversation?

The Dalit literary tradition reflects a deep cultural conflict. With its distinct anti-caste message, it challenges the structural basis of Hindu cultural hegemony. It embodies the Dalits’ search for a culture of their own—a counter-culture parallel to the “Great Tradition”, without being co-opted into the Sanskritic tradition. This cultural movement creates a Dalit narrative asserting that they have always had a culture of their own, one that is not in any way inferior to any other tradition in India.

It is important for Dalits to challenge and sensitise mainstream media while simultaneously developing their own channels—channels that, as they grow, will compel the mainstream to take notice. Dalits need to bargain from positions of strength.

And what of the aesthetics of Dalit literature itself?

Dalit literature focuses on lived experience. It needs to expand its readership, reaching not only Dalits but non-Dalits, and beyond India’s borders. While most of the literature is in the vernacular, translations are vital—into English and into other Indian languages. Publication networks for the production and circulation of Dalit literature need to be expanded.

Dalit writers should not be anxious about the aesthetic standards set by mainstream literature. The aesthetics of Dalit literature need to be proudly upheld as a challenge to mainstream-imposed standards.

Chatterjee notes that the cultural movement of regional Dalit literature “creates a Dalit narrative asserting that they have always had a culture of their own, one that is not in any way inferior to any other tradition in India. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

You have edited Contemporary Voice of Dalit since 2008. How has the academic discourse on Dalit issues changed over those nearly two decades?

When I thought of launching the journal, I was uncertain about the response I would get. Over the years, I have been overwhelmed by the interest shown by readers, authors, young scholars, and senior faculty alike.

The discourse has shifted significantly. The focus has moved from examining traditional victimhood and rural untouchability towards a more structured conversation about Dalit agency and identity—one that adopts a human rights perspective and engages with intersectional justice. Academic work has also moved away from a purely sociological approach towards developing Dalit studies as a critical, interdisciplinary field. The journal now carries articles from economics, sociology, political science, anthropology, and literature, among other disciplines.

As a translator and editor, what responsibilities come with bringing marginalised voices to a wider audience?

Translators have an important role in making Dalit writers available to readers of other languages. Editors and translators, however, must be careful: their own ideas and standpoints should not intrude into the works they are presenting. The Dalit author’s voice must remain the Dalit author’s voice.

Where would you direct readers who want to understand caste-based oppression and Dalit life in India?

To understand caste-based oppression, I would begin with the multiple volumes of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, published by the Maharashtra government. They are informative as well as deeply analytical, covering economics, politics, and sociology.

Ambedkar’s inspiration stirred Dalits in Maharashtra towards a new sense of self-respect, which found literary expression and, eventually, the emergence of the Dalit Panther movement in the 1970s. Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature, edited by Arjun Dangle—a founder member of the Dalit Panthers—offers a window into that literary and political world.

To carry the analysis of Dalit consciousness further, Yashica Dutt’s Coming Out as Dalit: A Memoir is significant. Dutt, a journalist based in New York, had long concealed her Dalit identity. After Rohith Vemula died by suicide in January 2016, she decided to assert that identity publicly. The book is the result.

For southern India, V. Geetha and S.V. Rajadurai’s jointly authored Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium: From Iyothee Thass to Periyar documents the Non-Brahmin Movement and protest against the Brahminical system with great rigour. These are just some of the works that would help readers understand the complex scenario of caste in India.