Critical Caste Theory

• In Event: Culture, Identity, and Discrimination

Proposal

The purpose of this critical interpretive study was twofold: first, to develop a critical
caste theory based on Dalit women’s liberation epistemologies, as expressed
through the intergenerational Burrakatha oral tradition and the Indigenous Budagajangama
people’s life experiences in southern India; and second, to develop a decastizing research
methodology to inform future scholarship on the persistence of caste-based inequalities and
the possibilities for liberation through education. I interviewed Burrakatha practitioners,
folklore professors, and Budagajangama community members, and observed performances of
Burrakatha songs across the states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. Through
inductive analysis, I conceptualized what I call decastization to develop a methodology that
centers Dalit liberation epistemology. The study considers how the social reproduction of
caste occurs for those who embody resistance intergenerationally. Although the
Budagajangamas have been given untouchable status as a consequence of their resistance art,
they continue to oppose the caste system through their art. The community’s embodiment of
this contradiction highlights their unrelenting, restless search for liberation and the lifegiving,
life-sustaining, and life-saving education that Burrakatha offers for the
Budagajangamas and humanity. Acknowledging Indigenous epistemologies as theories offers
an alternative to Brahminical and casteist analyses of the Dalit population and aids in
decastizing the academic disciplines.
This study set out to develop a contemporary theory of the caste system in India,
focusing on the nexus of caste, class, gender, capitalism, and postcolonial discourses.
Conceptualized as critical caste theory (CCT), the study’s approach sought to
understand persistent caste-based inequalities in the Indian education system and the
potential for liberation through unsanctioned Burrakatha education. Specifically, I generated
this theory through an examination of Budagajangama, or Dalit, community ideologies about
caste, liberation, and education, as expressed in Burrakatha songs and through the life
experiences of Dalits. Burrakatha is an intergenerational oral tradition sustained by
Budagajangama women since time immemorial. In this research, I situated the
Budagajangama community’s liberation epistemology
in folklore and in the 12th-century
Bhakti movement, an anti-caste movement led by social reformer Basavanna, and discuss
this community’s struggles in the context of the post-Bhakti movement and prevailing
education practices within the current democratic neoliberal economic order.
In order to situate the research, I discuss Western
academic theories and Indian
postcolonial theories to highlight the critical importance of generating decastizing,
decolonizing methodologies and to centre Dalit women’s liberation epistemologies within an
Indian context. The study’s methodology attempted
to establish a decastizing approach
while, at the same time, investigating Dalit resistance movements in precolonial India in an
effort to explore the possibilities of liberation
in contemporary Indian society. Additionally,
the literature review offers a historical overview of the caste system, as well as a discussion
of the emergence of capitalism and globalization
and their effects on the current education
system in India.
Caste continues to be the primary determining
factor of marginalization for the people
of India. Indeed, marginalization is not a recent phenomenon in India; it is deeply rooted in
the history of the country, which continues to oppress people despite a transformative shift in
the economic order (and associated modes of production) from feudalism to capitalism. The
marginalized people have always struggled against systemic oppression. In this regard, understanding how Dalit women have organized their struggle to overcome caste-based oppression is critical for contemporary Indian society.
India’s caste system is over 3,500 years old
(Bidner & Eswaran, 2015; Pandey, 2013)
and continues to be the dominant force keeping a significant percentage of the country’s
population in the periphery of the social and economic order. As detailed in this study,
different populations within a multicultural,
multi-caste, and multi-religious country such as
India experiences different levels of oppression. Although historical and sociological research
has scrutinized the caste system in India, it has given minimal attention to the Dalit
population in particular. Indian history has been dominated by the upper caste narrative
(Mahe, 2003) or inquisitive “others’” (i.e. Westerner’s) perspectives (Dara, 2013). Though
literature on the caste system and the oppression
of the Dalit population has increased over
the past 20 years (Still, 2013), most of these studies have not made an appreciable difference
in the lives of Dalit women in modern India. While most of these studies have advocated
strongly for Dalit women’s educational “empowerment,” I argue that they are often
patronizing and based on a deficit model of thinking. Mainstream qualitative and quantitative
scholarship has demonstrated that Dalit women are indeed oppressed. This study, however,
sought to understand the Dalit community’s and
Dalit women’s resilience in the face of
Oppression. As a whole through this study I explore how people protested oppression by means of Burrakatha songs and continue to do so.

Author

• Savitha Rajamani