Rejoinder: Use of Kafka’s cockroach metaphor for Dalit identity undermines anti-caste politics

In his article “Being a Dalit, being a cockroach: A self-reflective note on Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’”, Bhimraj M, a scholar at University of Oxford, uses an autobiographical lens and diagnoses his dalitness as a Kafkaesque condition. He compares his place in the caste society to that of Franz Kafka’s cockroach character Gregor Samsa.

As Dalit scholar-activists from Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University we find this metaphor inappropriate, misleading and potentially regressive. Dalit consciousness, we argue, is fundamentally political, not existential and it requires analogies that foreground active resistance.

Bhimraj is admittedly comfortable in his “familiar” cockroach-ness, and detests being humanised. Yet, he yearns for and, eventually, resolves to seek a humanness for himself. “How am I supposed to feel when my fellow Dalit students are forced to clean bathrooms in schools, humiliated as ‘quotawallas’ or even driven to suicide in colleges?” he asks.

Enraged, we say! Such has been the approach of Dalit movement from Phule to Ambedkar and Kanshiram. The Dalit Panther movement of the 1970s sought to transform indignation into collective resistance, with “Panther” symbolising strength and defiance against oppression.

It is pathetic to see, but crucial to understand why, and how, a Dalit imaginary of “panther” metamorphoses into a “cockroach?” Moreover, what kind of message does it...

Read more