Redefining Ostracism in Soundararajan’s Trauma of Caste

Pooja Kamble
Research Scholar
Department of Studies in English
Rani Channamma University. Belagavi

Prof. V.F. Nagannawar

Abstract:
The study discusses the traumatic circumstances in which the Dalits, who are on the
lower rungs of society, endured in all social, political, cultural, and economic aspects. Trauma
appears to be employed as a catch-all term in Psychoanalytic literature to describe anything
that produces psychological distress. They have suffered for ages, yet there is still no witness
to end their existence. Dalits who have suffered at the hands of the upper caste or Brahmins
have had a lasting impact on their mentality in this caste system. The trauma of caste is a
psychoanalytic method for studying the mental state, nature, and existence of Dalits in
society. It also provides a little overview of how this experience evolved the mental wounds
that were left undetected. The anguish of horrible harassment and repressive treatment faced
by countless generations of souls was difficult to put into words. This article highlights some
of the phases that must be understood and concentrated on, as well as the traumatic
environment in which they lived for several years. After acquiring recognition and political
support, it is proposed to eliminate its existence. Even after relocating to independent India,
we were unable to delve further into its origins. Independence itself speaks of freedom in all
aspects, yet Dalits continue to be suppressed; they have failed to win freedom for their
existence, despite their lengthy struggle against oppression. This article will help you
comprehend the Dalit's emotional trauma that has made their life and battles more difficult to
deal with, as systematically analyzed by Thenmozhi Soundararajan in the work The Trauma
of Caste.
Keywords: Trauma, Psychoanalytic, Dalits, Caste

Introduction:
Jean Laplanche has given a general description of Freud's understanding of trauma,
which varied significantly throughout defined as: “An event in the subject’s life, defined by
its intensity, by the subject’s incapacity to respond adequately to it and by the upheaval and
long-lasting effects that it brings about in the psychical organization.”1 The concept of trauma,
or the word "trauma" itself, appears to be employed in Psychoanalytic literature to refer to
anything that harms the mind.

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 Freud went on to say that the essence of the traumatic circumstance is the
"experience of helplessness". The author defines trauma as any unresolved autonomic
nervous system response. It is about how the nervous system reacts to an event, not the event
itself. A traumatic response is a set of characteristics that occur in response to
multigenerational, collective, historical, and cumulative psychic harm across time, both
during one's lifetime and across generations.2 (Freud, 2022)
Dr. Gabor Mate’s poignant words on Trauma: “Trauma fundamentally means a
disconnection from self. Why do we disconnect? Because it is too painful to be ourselves.” 3
(Mate, 2021)
As Peter Levine has shared, “Trauma is caused when we are unable to release blocked
energies, to fully move through the physical/emotional reactions to hurtful experience.
Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic
witness.”4 (Levine, 2012)
Staci Haines builds on these ideas in her book The Politics of Trauma: “Trauma and
oppression can leave people with a deep sense of powerlessness, isolation, and shame that
you can't talk someone out of.” 5(Haines, 2019)
The defining aspect that allows us to comprehend the pain is its scientific nature,
which has left people subjugated for millennia. To understand the core cause of this
suppression, we must look at the past and the existence of this culture from civilization. One
of the oldest civilizations in the world arose in the Indus Valley Civilization from 2600 to
1700 BCE, it was thriving with major centres at Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, Lothal, and many
more.
After the Indus Valley Civilization declined, a new wave of immigrants arrived:
Aryans and Indo-European tribes from the Black and Caspian Seas in the steppes of southern
Ukraine and Russia. The Aryans introduced horse sacrifice, cow adoration, and Brahmin-
controlled rites. A new Indo-Aryan culture evolved in the area. The Vedas, the first book of
the Hindu scriptures, were written during this period, establishing the groundwork for
Brahmanical rule. In the centuries that followed, textual awareness interpreted the four Vedas,
introducing concepts such as purity, defilement, and hierarchy. This philosophy will pave the
way for the Varna caste system. Thus, Vedic society was established.
Within these scriptures lies the beginning of the Hindu articulation of Dharma the
cosmic law whose rules and rituals created the universe from Chaos defining everyone's duty
in society and their caste as inevitably and irrevocably determined at birth. Dharma would
come to encompass all behaviour considered appropriate correct or morally upright and in
doing so it separates women from men praised from spiritual outcasts pure from polluted.
The obligations of the pure castes are very different from the demands made of the polluted
castes.
According to Dharma, the caste-oppressed must accept the terms of their oppression as
punishment for crimes in another life. Challenging the conditions of caste-apartheid violates
the cosmic order and is therefore a failure of one spiritual responsibility. Dharma encodes
dehumanization into a society, where to be in alignment with the divine one must submit to
the accepted order of power. As a woman, you must be subject to your husband. As a subject,
you must be servile to your King. As a Dalit, you must submit to the dominant caste.

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Stepping out of line means you’re failing in your divine dharmic duty and deserve to be
punished in the most brutal of ways.
As Gale Omvedt details in her classical study ‘Buddhism in India’ states:
Brahmins used Vedic scriptures to award themselves high status, sanctity, and
power while circumscribing other communities in lower classes based on social
functions, the first scripture to do this is the Vedic Rigveda, in the Purusha Sukta,
a hymn that introduces the concept of Varna as part of the divine order. 6 (Omvedt,
2014)
Purusha is described as the first being by the Brahmins, from whom all other
creatures descended. His sacrifice generates all life forms, including humans, as it is the
beginning of the universe, the elements, all worlds, and everything in creation. The text reads:
What number of parts did they make when they divided Purusha? What do
they name his mouth, his arms? What do they name his legs and feet? Rajanya
was created from both of his arms, and the Brahman was his mouth. His thighs
transformed into the Vaishya, while the Shudra emerged from his feet. The moon
arose from his mind, the Sun from his eye, Indra and Agni from his tongue, and
Vayu from his breath. Mid-air sprang from his navel; the sky was formed from his
head, the earth from his feet, and the regions from his ear. As a result, they
formed the world. 7 (Omvedt, 2017)
Thus, it outlines a world in which all humans are descended from the varnas, or
social classes, which arose from the body of Purusha, whose mouth or head was the source of
the priestly class, the Brahmins. The Rajanyas, or the Varna that would become known as
Kshatriya--rulers and warriors--were meant to emerge from his arms and chest. The Vaishyas
came from his abdomen and thighs; they were merchants, artisans, and traders in charge of
the World's external affairs. Shudras were the servant class, and they served as his feet.
This classification also formed Vedic concepts of the relative holiness of different
parts of the body, with the head representing wisdom and being the purest, while the feet are
considered filthy. Eventually, a new class of outcasts emerged below the lowest in the Varana
system: the untouchables. In Hindu texts, they were referred to by several names, including
Dasyu, Dasa, Mleccha, Nishada, and Chandala. These exiles are from the Panchama Varnas
or fifth Varna, and their touch, breath, or simple presence pollutes the other four Varnas. This
outcast dehumanization was inextricably tied to committing these individuals to spiritually
sanctioned servitude and exploitation inside this system.
Some even seek to deny that caste existed in any of the Vedas by claiming
that the wording in the Purusha Sukta is a perversion or interpolation. Even though it is a later
addition to the Rigveda, the Purusha Sukta remains one of the oldest Hindu writings.
Furthermore, the concept of Varna is limited to only one hymn in the Rigveda. It develops
stronger in following Hindu scriptures, each time becoming more intricate and more
entrenched from the Yajur and Arthava Vedas, as well as later Hindu epics like the Ramayana,
Mahabharata, and Bhagavad Gita. All of this text established a strong argument for Dharma
being tied to Varna's status.8 (Keane, 2016)

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 Babasaheb writes in Who Were the Shudras about the emergence of the castes that
started with the Purusha Sukta, a section of one of God's creation hymns in the Rigveda.
Regarding the placement of the shudra who was born at the feet of Purusha Sutka, he states,
"Is it not the case that the Purusha Sukta did not hesitate to remark that the Shudra was born
at the feet of the Purusha and that his duty was to serve? If yes, what is the source of this
animosity?9 (Ambedkar, 2022)
The principal elements in the Western theory about the origin and position of the Shudras in
the Indo-Aryan society. It says:
The Vedic literature was composed by members of the Aryan race. This Aryan
race conquered India after arriving from outside. Different from the Aryans in
race, the natives of India were called Dasas and Dasyus. The white race is known
as the Aryans. A race known as the Dasas and Dasyus were dark. Dasyus and
Dasas were subjugated by the Aryans. Shudras are the descendants of the Dasas
and Dasyus who were subjugated and sold into slavery. Because the Aryans
valued color discrimination, they created the Chuturvarnya, a system that divided
the white and black races, the Dasas and the Dasyus.9 (Ambedkar, 2022)
Prof. Max Muller, according to him the word Arya is used in different senses. As stated:
I understand that ar or area is one of the first names on earth, meaning the
ploughed ground. It was lost in Sanskrit but was kept in Greek as (era), therefore
the original meaning of Arya would have been landholder or tiller of the land,
whereas Vaishya from Vis signified housing. The cultivated soil is also known as
Ida, the daughter of Manu, which is most likely a variant of Ara. 9 (Ambedkar,
2022)
Mr. A. C. Das says:
“The Dasas and the Dasyus were either savages or non-Vedic Aryan tribes. Those
of them that were captured in war were probably made slaves and formed the
Shudra caste”. 9 (Ambedkar, 2022)
These were some of the reasons cited, which clearly show that the Brahmins
adopted the term on purpose to give it a bad connotation and disseminated it from Sanskrit
books to make people believe blindly because they are considered sacred in the Hindu
religion. People who doubt the dharma shall face punishment under God's law.
In the Bhagavad Gita, and the rest of the Mahabharata of which it is part, the power of
the Brahmins is continuously asserted by their subjugation of others. Consider this passage
from the Mahabharata: ‘The highest duty of the crown King is to worship the Brahmins. They
should be protected, respected, and referred to as if they were one’s parents. If Brahmins are
content, the whole country prospects, if they are discontented and angry, everything goes to
destruction. They can make a God a non-god and a non-god, a God”.10 (Ganguli, 2021)
According to the Chandogya Upanishad, "People of good conduct can expect to
quickly gain a pleasant birth like that of the Brahmin Kshatriya or Vaishya, but people of Evil
conduct can expect to enter a form like that of a dog a pig or a Chandala." 11 (Roebuck, 2003)
The Chandalas are subjected to such savage scorn and dehumanization that one text compares
the Chandala woman's womb to that of an animal. These passages underline the carceral

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cycle of Dharma and Karma that underpins the Hindu rebirth paradigm. So, there is no point
in rejecting your fate.
This Dharma’s scriptures are built by the Brahmans from the texts of Vedas, following
the verses of being told that your womb is a curse. As a Hindu, I have to take a step back and
see the suffering these writings create. When she first heard these verses, she recalled laying
my hands on my abdomen and imagining a future kid. Would this child be treated differently
than others because she was their mother? This concept bothered me for many years. I
wonder if her painful periods are caused by her caste. Is it any wonder that in Tamil, the
author's mother tongue, the word for spiritual pollution is "Theettu", which denotes the
pollution of a woman during her period, the pollution of a dead body, and the pollution of
untouchability? 20(Soundararajan, 2022)
The scripture specifies that "dwellings of Chandalas (outcastes) must be outside the
village and are considered forbidden." The Chandalas should wear lifeless clothing and eat
from broken plates, with black iron as their only decoration to indicate that they are
oppressed. "They are doomed to wander." 12 (Olivelle, 2007)
The texts also mete out inhuman punishment to the caste-oppressed, stating:
If a once-born man uses abusive language towards a twice-born man, his tongue
would be severed because he was born from the lowest caste. If he insults their
name or castes, a red-hot iron nail ten fingers long should be forced into his lips.
If he arrogantly delivers instructions on the laws to Brahmins, the king should
have hot oil poured into his mouth and ear. It further goes on to say, When the
lowest-born man uses a particular limb to injure a superior person, that very limb
of his should be cut off…. If a low-born man attempts to occupy the same seat as
a man of high rank, the king should brand him on the hip and send him into exile
or have his buttocks slashed. 12(Olivelle, Manu’s Code of Law)
And yet this next excerpt from the Dharma sutra of Gautama shares the same violent
punitive approach to the caste-oppressed. It decrees that if a Shudra listens in on a Vedic
recitation, “his ears should be filled with molten lead and lac; if he repeats it, then his tongue
should be cut off; if he commits it to memory, his body shall be split asunder.” 12(Olivelle,
2007)
According to the Manusmriti, if a Brahmin makes another Brahmin do the work of
slaves, he will be fined, but Shudras can always be compelled to do servile work because they
were created to be slaves of the Brahmin. Even if he might be released from servitude, a
Shudra cannot truly be freed because slavery is innate in him. It describes slaves of seven
kinds: “He who has been made captive by the standard. He who serves for daily food. He
who was born in a house, he who is bought and he who is given; he who is inherited from his
ancestors, and he who is enslaved by way of punishment” 13 (Olivelle, 2007)
One verse decree: “A female, whether she is a child, young woman, or an old lady,
should never carry out any task independently. As a child she must remain under her father’s
control; a young woman, under her husband, and when her husband is dead under her sons.
She must never seek to live independently.” Moreover, a good woman should “always
worship her husband like a god,” for a woman will be “exalted in heaven by the mere fact
that she has obediently served her husband”. The reproductive control of women in the

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Manusmriti continues with severe consequences for relationships between castes and the
birthing of intercaste children.
The Manusmriti even ranks the pollution of children from those relationships, not
unlike the way children of interracial marriages were ranked in terms of blood purity. A
shocking verse speaks of the disgrace of women when they stray from prescribed caste sexual
relationships: “When a woman abandons her husband of lower rank and unites with a man of
higher rank, she only brings disgrace upon herself in the world and is called woman becomes
disgraced in the world, takes birth in a jackal’s womb, and is afflicted with evil diseases.” 13
(Olivelle, 2007)
The Indigenous psychologist Eduardo Duran talks about colonization as a “soul
wound” that affects human beings at a soul level, where the mythology the dreams, and the
culture of an oppressed people also carry those wounds. And so, they bring the suffering of
the people that come out of that. So too with Brahminism. Caste is a soul wound. Untreated
soul wounds become the work of the next generation and the next. As Ruth King says, “What
is unfinished is reborn.” We just keep passing the violence on. And all we do is wound and
wound and wound.14(Duran, 2019)
Soundararajan chooses here to focus more on the emotional wounds of caste
because too often we do not allow the pain of caste to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be
legible. Brahminism has made such examination taboo by shaming and gaslighting those who
would bring forth the injury of caste. “Soul wound” is most often used about the
intergenerational and historical trauma of Native Americans. Eduardo Duran’s book on
counseling with Native peoples is entitled “Healing the Soul Wound”
The scars that influence people's psyches can be understood through Piaget's
Cognitive Theory. According to him, cognitive growth was a gradual restructuring of mental
processes caused by biological maturation and environmental experience. It builds a grasp of
the world around them, only to encounter contradictions between what they already know and
what they learn in their surroundings. Thus, the presented environment, which was
purposefully designed to empower the superior to degrade the inferior complex to the point of
damaging their identity, had a profound impact that could not be reconstructed to its normal
state.
This dreadful situation is very comparable to Dalits' status in Indian society. Dalit is
a term coined by Jyoti Rao Phule, an activist and social reformer from the 1880s, to
characterize the terrible exploitation of people directly affected by the Indian caste system.
"Dalit" is the name we chose for ourselves after Brahmanism, the animating religious system
that founded caste, branded as "untouchable" and "spiritually defiling." Dalit translates to
"broken." Suffering breaks people. Broken by caste: the world's oldest and longest-running
dominator system, enshrined in scripture and perpetuated through horrible cruelty. Broken by
the horror of the magnitude of human potential lost to this murderous system, lives that were
not completely lived, and souls that never got to sing their true song.
It is incorrect to assume that Dalit is a Sanskrit phrase that implies broken, scattered,
or split. The fact is that Dalit is not a Sanskrit term nor does it have a negative connotation
such as shattered. To disparage the Dalit race, racists may have initially spread the name Dalit
as a Sanskrit word with a negative connotation.

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 In the text, Karunyakare gives a clear statement that: No Sanskrit text mentions the
term Dalit. In Sanskrit literature, the word Dalit is not mentioned in Rigveda. Dalit word is
not mentioned in any Veda. Dalit word is not mentioned in two Aryan epics- Ramayana and
Mahabharata. It is not mentioned in Aryan’s sacred book Gita. Not in any Aryan stories-
Puranas. Aryanists followers of Aryanism and some human rights activists claim that in
Sanskrit, Dalit means split, torn, or crushed. It is because a Dalit is a Jew. The Aryanists, out
of the racist mindset, are trying to defame and humiliate the Dalit identity. Otherwise, on
what basis do Aryanists propagate that Dalit means or suppressed people? 15(Karunyakare,
2021)
The next question arose in our mind why do Aryanists and Human Rights Activists
give negative meaning to Dalit identity? The Aryanists don’t want an independent Dalit self.
They want the Dalit self to be subservient to the Aryan self. This is possible only when the
Dalit self is dependent on the Aryan self. To make Dalit self-dependent on the Aryan self, the
roots of Dalit identity have to be located in the Aryan language only. Hence, Aryanists
propagate the term Dalit as a Sanskrit term and also, they give negative meaning to it.
Aryanists antagonism to dignified Dalit self can be traced in the history of Aryan’s racist
ideology called Manusim and Nazism.15 (Karunyakare, 2021)
Later, misinformed scholars unwittingly adopted the so-called Sanskrit meaning and
spread it. Unfortunately, human rights experts and activists used the negative Sanskrit word
to demonstrate the violation of human rights in India's socially excluded communities.
Though their intentions are admirable, their appropriation of Dalit identity is unacceptable. It
is a non-historical approach. The term Dalit does not refer to any community's socio-
economic standing.15 (Karunyakare, 2021)
It describes how they have misconstructed the Dalit identity to diminish their
existence. This identity they carried with them caused them to feel they were born low and
belonged to a lower caste. They deliberately misplaced it to demonstrate their influence over
them. It instantly conditioned their mentality to feel they are from a degrading caste and unfit
to live a happy life.
Braj Ranjan Mani notes that Brahminism uses the ideology of caste to dehumanize,
divide, and dominate the productive majority to distract them from holding caste elites
accountable for issues like poverty, illiteracy, hunger, and unemployment.16 (Mani, 2005)
Brahmanism is a dominant system of caste-apartheid, it is the animating ideology
that justifies the dehumanization and destruction of caste-oppressed peoples. We know that
white supremacy asserts and reasserts itself by centering the stories and practices of
Europeans and settlers these animate history as we learn it and know it, and in doing so they
cause further violence to people oppressed and exploited by white supremacy. The same is
true with Brahmanism.
Some people believe that if they aren’t Brahmin, they can't be casteist. The reality is
quite different. It doesn’t take a Brahmin to uphold the structure and benefits of the caste
system. Much of the violence in our home countries is often exacted by non-Brahmin
dominant castes eager to maintain their hegemony of power and resources in a climate of
terror. Brahmanism set up Brahmins to be the top beneficiaries of caste but further divided all

7
of society and pitted each level against another based on caste privilege, what the great Dalit
leader and theorist Dr. B. R. Ambedkar called “Graded inequality” 17(Ambedkar, 2014)
Brahminism is the first hegemonic dominator system that we must tackle to heal
historical harm in South Asian bodies and geographies. To do this requires Debrahmanisation,
which, as Prachi Patankar describes, “is a practice to support Dalit-Bahujan leadership and
the unapologetically anti-caste movements, groups, and formations that are fighting for
dignity, livelihoods, and freedom.” 18 (Patankar, 2021)
To be clear, Debrahmanisation seeks to destroy not the actual people who have been
called Brahmins but rather the system of Debrahmanisation that has placed Brahmins above
others and created a hierarchy of castes and persons. This is akin to how we talk about
dismantling white supremacy and patriarchy, where we are focusing not on the harm of
individual white people or men but on the structures and systems that have empowered some
while marginalizing, demeaning, subjugating, and dehumanizing others.
Similar to white supremacy, caste apartheid is a false system of separation for
exploitation. It divides the caste-privileged and the caste-oppressed. However, the anguish it
generates in the caste-oppressed also divides us from ourselves. We endure catastrophic
events and their legacies throughout generations by separating from our emotions, bodies,
spirits, the divine, our families, ancestors, loves, and other species, as well as the land. We
create compartments. We go numb. We make horrible choices. So, healing from trauma, from
that internal divide, is part of the duty, the dhamma of caste.
Despite untouchability being banned by Indian law since 1950, caste persists and
thrives with impunity, a de facto apartheid that exploits, excludes, humiliates, maims, rapes
and murders caste-oppressed people every day. Caste is a system of exclusion that ranks
people at birth into a hierarchy based on alleged purity and pollution.19 (Tete, 2021)
Soundararajan reminds me of a phrase she often heard from her mother and
grandmother, “Mooche Varakoodathu,” or “Breath should not come”. They would use those
words to chastise me or other children or anyone who was crying from grief. The idea is that
no one should hear our cries, not even our breath because to yield to that pain would lead us
into an unending pit of despair. Imagine centuries of emotional training that pain should be
fiercely silenced.
Talking about the experience of the author during her college days, when she
attempted to learn about the Dalits. She thought of majoring in South Asian studies. She
arrived at UC Berkeley and started knocking on doors, introducing herself as someone who
came from an “untouchable” background. “She wanted to learn about her people. She wants
to know who is significant in the canon: Which can be studied? Who are the experts and
scholars?” Again and again, scholar after scholar told me it was a dead end to study caste.
“You’d do better to look through the lens of class,” she was told. Professors told me there
were no significant Dalit thinkers. They said they won't take me on or support this line of
inquiry. I was shut out and shut down by the professors I’d hoped to learn from. 20
(Soundararajan, 2022)
She came to realize that all the Indian professors at UC Berkeley were caste-
privileged. The fact that they were gatekeeping a Dalit hindering and dissuading me from the
pursuit of knowledge with which she might free herself was an act of significant epistemic

8
injustice, Epistemic Injustice refers to those forms of unfair treatment that relate to issues of
knowledge, understanding, and participation in communicative practices. These issues
include a wide range of topics concerning wrongful treatment and unjust structures in
meaning-making and knowledge-producing practices. Miranda Fricker speaks about
epistemic injustice where someone is wronged in the capacity of a knower and their essential
human value in the work.21 (Fricker, 2007)
We can also relate to some of the incidents which took up many lives of untouchables,
where the government did not take any initiative for the victims and their struggling families,
due to caste issues. The world’s worst industrial accident was in Bhopal, where over forty
tons of deadly gas exploded from the Union Carbide pesticide plant, killing thousands and a
disproportionate number of those deaths were of people called “untouchables” The Indian
government, Union Carbide, and its parent company, Dow Dupont, all continue pointing
fingers at each other, while the seventy-acre site in Bhopal has yet to be cleaned up. Many
survivors struggle even today.22 (Mandeville, 2018)
Caste discrimination, poverty, and lack of social mobility have resulted in over 70
percent of Dalit women facing health problems, and one in four Dalit women aged fifteen to
forty-nine is undernourished. Dalit women face the compounded challenge of caste-based
sexual violence, a key tool of maintaining a climate of terror and shame, so Dalits fear
challenging the system. More than 67 percent of Dalit women have experienced sexual
violence.6 The average age of death for Dalit women is thirty-nine.23(Nigar, 2018)
You could just equate or substitute the word “Caste” with “suffering”. According to the
Indian National Human Rights Commission Report on the Prevention of Atrocities against
Scheduled Castes, every hour two Dalits are assaulted; every day three Dalits women are
raped, two Dalits are murdered, and two Dalit homes are torched. A crime against a Dalit
happens every eighteen minutes. This is happening today right now, in the twenty-first
century.24 (Saxena, 2021)
Public health workers refuse to visit Dalit homes in 33 percent of villages. Dalits are
prevented from entering police stations in 28 percent of villages. Dalit children have to sit
separately while eating in 38 percent of government schools. Dalits do not get mail delivered
to their homes in 24 percent of villages. Dalits are denied access to water sources in 48
percent of villages.24 (Saxena, 2021)
On January 17, 2016, a bright Ph.D. student named Rohith Vemula chose death
as a way out. Is it any wonder that so many caste-oppressed people see death as the only path
to liberation? In Rohith’s Final letter, he wrote, “I feel a growing gap between my soul and
my body. I have become a monster.”. He captures how alien and wrong this isolated state of
being is- the division, the separation, at the core of caste apartheid. This is not a natural state
for anyone, for any living being. It is a place of unthinkable, unspeakable pain and suffering.
That state of suffering eclipses every dream of possibility, the wonder of life.
The same year Rohith took his own life, the same year Rohith took his own life, a
seventeen-year-old Dalit girl named Delta Meghwal was found dead, after having been raped
by a teacher at her college. The police called it suicide, but her family did not believe it was
as simple as that- especially since her perpetrator asserted that their relationship was
consensual. But due to her family’s heroic persistence for justice, her rapist Vijendra Singh

9
was finally convicted of kidnapping, raping, and aiding the suicide of a minor five years after
her tragic death.25 (Akodia, 2021)
The body’s response to the experience of casteism can make accessing resources to
cope with the situation difficult. Caste stress evokes anger, anxiety, difficulty in controlling
emotions, fear, frustration, depression, helplessness, hopelessness, hypervigilance, imposter
syndrome, insecurity, isolation, low self-esteem, paranoia, resentment, sadness, self-blame,
and self-doubt. Over time we can somatize these emotions into serious conditions like heart
diseases, diabetes, hypertension, and chronic pain. This is why we must name without
question that caste is in our bodies and is killing caste-oppressed people.
If Brahminization is all about separation, then the healing from Brahminization has
to be about connectedness. As the author and healer Rachel Naomi Remen says,
Healing is not a relationship between an expert and a problem… it is a
relationship between human beings. In the presence of another whole person, no
one needs to feel ashamed of their present pain or weakness and be separated
from Others by it. No one needs to feel alone and small. The wound in me evokes
the healer in you and the wound in you evokes the healer in me.26 (Remen, 2010)
We must realize that there is a cost to pay for everything. There is a cost every time you
stay silent and are complicit in the face of violence. There is a cost when you are trained to
lift yourself at the expense of others. When you are brainwashed to believe that someone else
is less than you, doesn’t deserve to sit at your table, should eat at your feet, doesn’t deserve to
stay in your home, actually deserves segregation and deprivation of comfort or stability or
dignity, how numb must you become to bear it? How frozen is your heart? How
fundamentally broken is your consciousness? Because to another is to lose your humanity.
We reject this heinous system and call ourselves Dalits, people who are broken by a
system yet maintain the resilience to fight for our dignity and freedom. Dalits have to develop
a very deep existential strength because we have to challenge spiritual dogma, the very
firmament of the divine, to forge our dignity and chart a pathway to ourselves and our
freedom. It requires a great will to take on the gravity of who you are in the face of a society
that insists you are not equal and therefore not human. That’s a muscle that many oppressed
people develop because it is untenable to accept your extinguishment. It is untenable to
accept that there is no possibility, we must find a way to our humanity or perish.
One of the harms propagated by Darwin’s theory of evolution was the idea that the
natural order was solely defined by competition. However, I believe that natural order is also
about interconnectedness and collaboration. The eternal lesson I’ve learned as a Dalit person
is that the burden of Dalitness is too much for one person to bear. We carry what we can
when we can in the moment. I recognize there are many people for whom the burden of being
out is too heavy. And some don’t have a choice, who must be out because there isn’t an
option. Others are out and hold space for those who must stay hidden. Whatever a caste-
oppressed person chooses what is important is the movement towards our integration into
humanity.20 (Soundararajan, 2022)
Caste-related answers are elusive. So much is hidden. So much remains unspoken.
There's so much shame, concealment, and collusion. It is a taboo perpetuated by ignorance
and violence. Crossing it, even with a child's curiosity, is like climbing a mountain of trauma

10
in the dark. You need all of your senses and modes of knowing, whether rational, experiential,
physical, historical, ancestral, or heartfelt. Caste took generations to build and fortify, and it
will take a lifetime to unlearn.
Dalits face a double-blind situation in majority-white institutions, where they must
be acknowledged by both white supremacist knowledge frameworks and Brahmin
gatekeepers. It has been a challenging task because there are so few tenured Dalit professors
in the United States and Europe. Many of our great anti-caste writers are not even included in
the canon of philosophers on liberty and human rights. As a result, part of our struggle for
freedom as Dalits is figuring out how to make our cause more visible without compromising
ourselves. We may be brought to the table in the guise of diversity, but we are not given the
ability to shape the conversation.
Assimilation has a seductive quality that invites us to give up our self-
determination or deradicalize our aspirations for equity to obtain prominence. As caste-
oppressed people, we must recognize and avoid this trap. Only we can determine our
worldview, knowledge systems, cultural understanding, practices, myths, and wisdom.
Legibility is not the same as legitimation, which is beyond the point. We must have
boundaries and clarity of vision to see that our freedom is not contingent on certification by
our oppressors.20 (Soundararajan, 2022).
Safiya Noble investigates and exposes the racial disparities built into algorithms, data,
and internet activities in the United States. This is an urgent call due to the terrible practices
in the United. This is an essential call since democratic activities are increasingly being
digitalized around the world. So, if the so sector is Brahminized, is our democracy, and we
shall witness the final reinscription of caste for future generations under a terrifying new
digital system.27 (Noble, 2018)
This is a territory that is particularly suitable to Brahmins, who regard themselves to be
the academic caste. They thrive on identifying as knowledge makers. From the Vedic
scriptures onward, they have been data hoarders, deciding who has access and who speaks the
language in which it is written. It's terrifying to consider what they might do with data sets
under their control and voter lists to weaponize. It's not surprising that, despite the prevalence
of South Asians in Silicon Valley businesses, only a few organizations have designated caste
as a protected group. Many CEOs are dominant caste, including those at Microsoft, Twitter,
and Alphabet, thus they cannot pretend that they don't know what caste is.
When we talk about sexual violence and caste, we often see violence against low-
caste women because ritual acts of rape and sexual mutilation, particularly on the bodies of
women and nonbinary persons, are used to enforce caste. Many cases of caste-based sexual
violence involve performative violence: It's not only about sex or lust; it's more than just
taking and stealing. They do more than just rape a lady; they want to strip her naked, shave
her head, smear her in tar, and sexually mutilate her. The conduct is intended to dishonour.
Shame is an effective tool in our society. Everything they do to a Dalit woman has a symbolic
meaning for her Dalit family and the Dalit people. It is done publicly as a reminder. This is
what happens when you step out of line. A human body becomes a billboard, reminding the
oppressed of the consequences of resisting domination.

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 Every aspect of the system that should provide healing, assistance, and justice to a
woman who has experienced caste rape or sexual abuse has failed. The doctors who examine
her will fail to collect proof, call her a liar, and subject her to the "two-finger test" to
determine how loose her vaginal canal is, leading them to assume she is morally tainted. The
cops will occasionally rape or molest her again, as well as harass and humiliate her. They
have even been known to set fire to the body of a lady who died as a result of injuries
sustained during a horrific rape, destroying any proof. The judges and justices will frequently
twist the case around and accuse the survivor of being the one who attacked the perpetrator, a
form of gaslighting known as “lie cases.”
District collectors, who are responsible for reporting caste-rape crimes to establish
accountability metrics, purposefully reduce and disregard reports. None of this is abnormal; it
is the usual. When you see all of the systemic barriers to Dalit women and survivors receiving
justice, you realize that the fight for justice is distinct from the fight for healing. Engaging
oppressed survivors in pursuit of justice without giving them routes to recovery is unethical,
as the system harms survivors and their families. And it is not limited to cisgender women; it
affects people of all genders. Survivors of gender-based violence say that this abuse will not
define them. The meaning we make of it will define us.
When many Dalits first went online, particularly on social media, there was an
illusion of freedom and democracy: Oh, I can finally break free from the monopoly of
Brahminical media. I have a direct platform to share with the world, and I can raise all of
these topics. I have a voice and a platform, and I want to interact with others. Many of the
earliest Dalits online were Dalit feminists who used the forums for organizing, advocacy, and
representation. Those platforms are quite appealing, especially for folks who have never been
represented. Wow, I now have followers. I now have a platform. However, it is a foundation
constructed on shaky ground because we were among the first to be targeted online. 20
(Soundararajan, 2022)
Everything about overcoming Brahmanism is about regaining control of one's
identity as a Dalit. We have a choice in how we choose to be identified. We get to choose how
we wish to be named. We can choose which religion to practice. We have the option of
choosing who we want to be with or not. The removal of consent is such an important aspect
of Brahminism's violation. I believe the only way to heal from such a wound is with
cooperation. You establish consent by allowing people to make their own decisions and
reminding them of their boundless existential possibilities. That is how you get from the
margins to the center. We are liminal beings who reject binaries and accept that anything is
possible when caste is abolished.20 (Soundararajan, 2022)
To recover from Brahminism, Dalit women, Dalit Queer people, and Dalit non-
binary individuals must rediscover consent to harmful Brahminical norms that have harmed
our bodies and psyches. Knowing how to seek and give consent is an important step toward
debrahminizing our bodies, hearts, and relationships. We may heal together, alongside one
another. When we begin to design methods for returning consent, we must consider both the
person and the group.
As Peter Levine reminds us,

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 Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence. Not only can
trauma be healed, but with appropriate guidance and support, it can be transformative.
Trauma has the potential to be one of the most significant forces for psychological, social,
and spiritual awakenings and evolution. How we handle trauma (as individuals, communities,
and societies) greatly influences the quality of our lives. It ultimately affects how or even
whether we will survive as a species.28 (Levine, 2012)
To openly declare that you are a survivor also implies that you are not accountable
for the abuse. It shines through the humiliation. Survivors of gender violence and caste-based
sexual abuse are rarely outspoken about their experiences in South Asia due to feelings of
shame. I want to be open about being a victim because people need to know that leaders can
be survivors and that the shame lies not with us, but with the system that created the
conditions for this brutality. The blame belongs to the individual who was so lost that they
attempted to take another person's humanity.
The author wants other survivors to know that there is life beyond the caste wound,
and it is lovely, especially when we return to ourselves. That there is a location where they
can experience joy again without being plagued by worry, panic attacks, or nightmares. Some
of this stems from the restoration of bodily joy. When you consider Brahminism in
conjunction with patriarchy, there is a lot of policing of the body: what it can look like, what
it can eat, who it can procreate with, who is pure, and who is not. The elimination of caste
occurs when Dalits embrace pleasure in their bodies and begin to experience life as sensual
and loving. We want to connect with other beings. To recuperate the thrill of sensation, to
rediscover what it means to have an orgasm and claim it as your own. And not to let anyone
tell you who you should love or what gender you will be. These are all ways for us to heal
from the cruelty of Brahminical patriarchy.20 (Soundararajan, 2022)
In The Final Frontier, the author poses an imaginary fundamental question that
remains central to artistic practice: can we dream beyond our oppression? How do we
envision interdependence? We are currently imagining our own lives. We are reflecting on the
greatest dilemma of our time: white supremacy and Brahminism's incapacity to believe that
the rest of the world, even the earth itself, counts. "Find me and I will find you." She brings
questions into the present moment: Are we brave enough to continue dreaming? Are we brave
enough to keep the door open while despair, rage, and greed try to close it? Can we love
ourselves enough to refuse to do the oppressors' labor for them? To stop our loved ones from
self-erasure? What are we willing to do for possibility?20 (Soundararajan, 2022)
It's a call to question everything so that we can rethink what's possible. This is a
message to the world that the time has come to stand with the Dalits. Regardless of where
you are from, what spiritual practice you engage in, or whether you have any link to caste
apartheid.
Because the world supported the civil rights movement in the United States and the
anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa, these causes were successful. In the name of all who
have suffered from systems of division, exclusion, and exploitation, the world must now join
with Dalits to put an end to caste oppression's atrocities. We have gone too long without a
global compassionate witness to our struggle, and all we want is a reconnection to humanity.
Our restoration to humanity necessitates a reconnecting of material solidarity with all people
around the world.

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 As indigenous leader Sherri Mitchell gently guides us in her book Sacred
Instructions: “A wound cannot be healed by pretending that it doesn’t exist. It must be
examined, cleansed, and tended. To create a healthy path forward, we must deal with the
spiritual illness that plagues our past and present reality.”29 (Mitchell, 2018)

Conclusion:
The Trauma of caste considers the caste soul wound as a great teacher. That wound’s
poignant lessons hold wisdom not just for Dalits or South Asians, but also for all those
committed to liberation and healing from trauma. When we take the time to attend to our
wounds as both the oppressed and the oppressors as well as the wounds of our ancestors, we
can awaken to the possibility of ending our collective suffering. Only then can we keep the
cycle of trauma from repeating in future generations. International Dalit Solidarity Network
and the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies attempted to provide data on the full extent of caste
across all the countries in the region through which we can deal with the situation should be
highlighted in the mainstream media.
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