MAKING SENSE OF DALIT HISTORY: LOCATING SEEDIAN AS AN ARCHIVE
Authors :Rajesh Komath1 & Sudheesh CP2
Abstract
The paper tried to bring forth the potency of a magazine called SEEDIAN3, published by Dalit intellectuals in the 1970’s to articulate Dalit and other marginalized sections of the people. It was to make it public domain of Kerala the particularities and complexities of social problems faced by the Dalit and other depressed communities which was often neglected in the larger narration of issues based on class consciousness. Putting in place the magazine, the paper interrogates subaltern studies collective initiative of writing history from below and a sort of historiography it had followed. It argues that beyond the conventionalities of writing history, Dalit history matters to address the problems of the Dalits in the way it points to the complexities of caste, class and gender hierarchies in our society, for which archives such as SEEDIAN are important to articulate a Dalit social world.
Key Words: Dalit History, Subalternity, Exclusion and Historiography
