[Reader-list] [Announcements] Dalit Diary: Reflections on Apartheid in India

[Anand]

Navayana announces the launch of

Dalit Diary: 1999-2003. Reflections on Apartheid in India

By Chandra Bhan Prasad

A selection from Chandra Bhan Prasad's column in The Pioneer, the only weekly column by a dalit in any Indian newspaper. With an Introduction by Robin Jeffrey, author of India's Newspaper Revolution: Capitalism, Politics and the Indian-Language Press.

Pages 264, paperback.

Rs 225 (India). USD 25 (Elsewhere)

ISBN 81-89059-04-1




On the Dalit Diary:

Chandra Bhan Prasad's struggle for a dalit identity and voice encompasses the struggles of all those seeking to reform a socially conservative society. 
-Sagarika Ghose, Senior Editor, The Indian Express 


A dalit has the right to judge every community's role. If my shudra community commits atrocities against dalits, I certainly have to share the blame for these historical crimes. Dalitization of all communities is the only way out. For that, voices like Chandra Bhan's are very important.

-Kancha Ilaiah, author of Why I am Not a Hindu


Dalit Diary compares in its vision with Booker T. Washington's writings on the economic and educational empowerment of blacks. 

-K.P. Singh, University of Washington

>From the blurb:

India churns out 43,828 publications, including 4,890 dailies, in 18 principal languages and over 81 small languages and dialects. In 1998, the total circulation of the Indian press was 127 million. According to Unicef, "the Indian press reflects the country's immense diversity." However, dalits, who constitute one-fourth of India's billion-plus population, do not form a part of this diversity. Their exclusion from the print media, and probably other media as well, is near-total. In such a context, Chandra Bhan Prasad writes India's only column by a dalit in a mainstream newspaper, The Pioneer. Dalit Diary opened up new avenues for the dalit movement in India. Most significantly, it resulted in The Bhopal Document (2002), which made a case for the implementation of the diversity doctrine in India, the first major accretion to the discourse of dalit rights in post-Ambedkar India.

Unlike nondalit journalists who dwell only upon the number of dalits killed, maimed, raped, brutalized-a reality, no doubt-Prasad effects a paradigm shift by speaking the language of rights. For him, the exclusion of dalits from the faculty of Jawaharlal Nehru University is a more unpardonable crime than the violence that the Ranvir Sena unleashes. As Robin Jeffrey writes in the Introduction to this book, "Chandra Bhan's writing may equally provoke the shankaracharyas of Puri, Kanchipuram and India International Centre." Week after week, Prasad relentlessly voices the aspirations of millions of dalits with controlled rage, clothes facts in original perceptions, and demonstrates how untouchability stares you in the face at every turn, in every corner.

Excerpt:

"Untouchability is such a doctrine that it does not fully liberate even the most rational, most emancipated, progressive-minded person from practising it, howsoever unconsciously. Contrary to the popular perception that untouchability is a 'social evil', it is in essence a doctrine of exclusion . if there is not a single dalit who is an editor of a national daily, an anchor on TV channels, or a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry, it is not by accident, but because of the doctrine of untouchability."

-from 'Dalit Diary', 9 April 2000

Author note:

Chandra Bhan Prasad was born in 1958 in Bhadawn village in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh. His early political initiation was with the CPI(ML) in 1983. He did MA and MPhil in International Politics at Jawarharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and specialized in the history of Chinese science and technology. In 1991, he started the Dalit Shiksha Andolan, which spread to almost every district in UP. Since 1999, he has been writing the column Dalit Diary for The Pioneer. Subsequently, he has written for leading Hindi dailies, and his opinions are sought by television news channels.

ORDERING INFORMATION

Drafts/cheques should be payable to 'Navayana Publishing'. Add Rs 45 to cheques drawn outside Pondicherry. Add Rs 30 for postage for individual orders of Dalit Diary inside India. (For overseas orders, USD 25 includes postage. For orders from European countries, pay equivalent of USD 25 in Euro. Overseas cheques must be preferably drawn on a bank in Pondicherry.) 

Navayana Publishing
28, Veerabhadrasamy Koil Street, 
Lawspet, Pondicherry 605008

Ph 91-413-2253666/ 91-44-24422199. Cell: 094440-61256

Email: navayana at navayana.org

To avail FREE BOOKS and discounts up to 30 percent, join the Navayana Book Club. Visit www.navayana.org/book.html


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