HYDERABAD: Manasa Yendluri says that her introduction is enough while highlighting the intersectionality aspect of marginalisation, as a woman with a concern for the LGBTQ community, born as a Dalit Christian, she is already a minority in terms of gender, caste and religion. Within that too, being an Andhra Dalit is different from being a Telangana Dalit.
“Telangana Dalits claim that (with which I truly agree) Andhra Dalits are far more progressive, aggressive and advanced. The best example of this is my family background. My paternal grandfather was a Madiga whereas my grandmother was a Mala from Maharashtra, a BCC. She came to Andhra and married my grandfather, whose family has been cobblers for thousands of years and still lives in Madigawada. I am a second-generation learner from my father’s side but from my mother’s side, I am a sixth-generation learner. This is because her mother and grandmothers were in touch with the British and were part of the Salvation Army, higher cadres of the Christian community. On the other hand, my father’s family practise tanning cattle skin for their living,” she said.
Sharing her experiences from her childhood, Manasa said, “ I remember when I was in class 9, a friend came to me and said, ‘I don’t like Christians but I like you.’ I realised that comment was different from other compliments. In class 10, I got the highest marks in Economics. The teacher made all toppers stand in front of the class and all students clapped for us. Suddenly her face got dark and she said, ‘What are you all Hindu girls doing? Why aren’t you studying hard? Look all toppers are Christians.’ I was the only Christian girl standing there.”
Emphasising the fact that her identity as a Dalit Christian writer helps her cause of fighting for them but it becomes problematic when the same identity is used in a derogatory and insulting manner. The fame of her father as a poet and the skill of her mother as a researcher has accompanied her mostly as a blessing, but at times, overshadowing her too. “I cannot write what my father wrote but he too could not write what I write as a Dalit Christian woman,” she said.
This is precisely the experience from which her characters emerge, the complex fuzz of intermixed identities. There is Baby Kamble, Urmila Pawar and Namburi Paripurna but there is still not much change in terms of understanding and acceptance of Dalit expression and experience. “One day, I met a professor at a university who kept reiterating what a big fan he was of my father. Then he said, the real heroes of the Dalit community are rural women who sow seeds and work in the fields just after delivering a baby. I asked what their fathers, husbands, and brothers had been doing then. That got him offended. There is something called Dalit patriarchy, Dalit male domination, and subversion of Dalit women by Dalit men too. It needs to be highlighted,” she said.
Talking about urban identity fusing with caste, religion and gender, she said shared an anecdote of her father and a friend who worked in the police department exchanging experiences of being marginalised in their workspaces. While her father, despite being a renowned poet and a writer, was never wished by peons and clerks at the university of which he was the dean. The VC also did not have much problem with it. Whereas the police officer said that he was never given a tough branch such as crime to work with. He was just made to sit in his office and sign papers.
Shedding light on how ill-informed people are on sexuality, she recalled once being questioned about how a Dalit woman can be a lesbian. “I had the laugh of my life,” she said, chuckling. There need to be more such voices that have been left unheard, she said.
(Telugu writer Manasa Yendluri sheds light on how the intersectionality of caste, religion and gender works in shaping our complex realities and the need to share experiences highlighting the same.)