From Margin to Mainstream: The Politics of Learning in Dalit Life Narratives

Abstract

This study explores how learning (education) acts as a political tool in Dalit life narratives. It shows how these autobiographies challenge dominant knowledge and use education to resist, build identity, and seek social change. Dalit narratives offer counter-histories to caste oppression. While widely studied for their social and literary value, fewer works focus on how they depict learning. Influenced by Ambedkarite thought, these texts present education as both a site of struggle and hope. The study uses qualitative textual analysis. It focuses on Dalit autobiographies by Bama, Omprakash Valmiki, and Sharan Kumar Limbale. The analysis applies critical pedagogy and subaltern studies to explore education, exclusion, and empowerment. Education is shown as more than personal gain. It is a shared political act. The texts highlight caste bias in schools, language barriers, and flawed curricula. Yet they also show how learning fuels resistance and shapes awareness. Education is portrayed as both oppressive and liberating. It reinforces caste lines but also breaks them. Learning includes school knowledge, community memory, and oral traditions. Dalit narratives make education a political subject. They expose how caste shapes access and meaning in learning. These stories push us to rethink equity through caste, voice, and power. The study deepens our view of learning as a site of resistance and marginality