IT IS with a laugh that Sanjay Kumar narrates his story — not because it is an amusing story to tell, but because it helps him confront his past and move ahead in life with dignity. If it were not for laughter, he would very likely have given up, letting ‘fate’ decide the course his life would take, like so many others in his community do. Sanjay, a chamar by caste, was the first in his family to pass the Intermediate. He grew up in Kolkata, where his father Guru Prasad was a migrant labourer at the Bata factory.
Forced to take voluntary retirement in the early 90s following the mechanisation of the factory and the related cutting down of work force, Guru Prasad then shifted to Japla, in Palamau district of Jharkhand. He eventually settled down there, barely sustaining himself and his family as a vendor of satthu or roasted gram flour. Even as a child, Sanjay was determined to study as much as he could, regardless of the poverty at home and the hostile environment created by upper caste teachers and peers at school. Much to his classmates’ envy, he consistently came first in class from elementary school onwards.
Having developed a love for reading, but with little access to books, he would often stand by magazine stands reading, until shopkeepers shooed him away. Many a time, he would borrow money from friends just to buy books; Premchand was an early favourite. Used to the relative anonymity of Kolkata, it was in middle school in Japla that he first encountered the demon of caste. On his first day at school, the upper caste class monitor and teacher demanded that he, like other Dalit students, sweep the classroom floor. Angered by the demand, Sanjay firmly refused, for which the class teacher beat him. He did not budge, and finally the teacher withdrew his demand. He would need to demonstrate this resolve again and again in the tough years that lay ahead.
In class seven, disturbed by chronic teacher absenteeism in his school, Sanjay organised some of the students and did a successful signature campaign demanding that teachers take their classes regularly. The reaction of an upper caste teacher to this act of ‘rebellion’ was revealing: “Saale bahut padakku bante ho, utake patak denge ki kohre ki tarah phat jaoge.” (“Trying to act studious? I’ll slam you so hard you’ll break into pieces”) Around the time he got to high school, his family was hit by an acute financial crisis. There were times when money would not come for months, and Sanjay often had to survive on just milk and bread.
The situation got worse when he entered Intermediate in Patna. Caste atrocities on Dalit students in the hostels made him opt for a rented room, which meant more expenses. His father being unable to support him now, he took up jobs, first as a peon in a film distributor’s office, later, as a courier boy, and so on. In between jobs, when the pocket was totally empty, there were days when he would go without any food whatsoever. During his undergraduate studies, the situation got so desperate that he went to Silwasa in Dadra Nagar Haveli to work as a watchman at a factory. Disgusted by the abuses his supervisor hurled at him for reading, he soon left his job and returned to Patna. Ridicule, especially on caste lines, was something he could never tolerate, even if it meant losing a job.
THROUGH ALL this, Sanjay kept himself up to date with studies, wrote exams and pursued his love of reading. He completed graduation and post-graduation with a first class, yet, when it came to finding a job, his caste once again posed a problem. He finally landed a job as an ad-hoc lecturer in a private college run by an upper caste management in Noida, but only because he had concealed his caste identity. Sanjay went on to do a B. Ed from Delhi University and an M. Phil in Education from Jawaharlal Nehru University; he now looks forward to a career in academics.
He’s grateful to some of his teachers in both institutions, who created a conducive atmosphere for him in a system that is unfriendly to his dreams. Yet, finding himself illequipped in an academia where ‘excellence’ is often measured by one’s knowledge of the English language, he had toyed with the idea of dropping out. But he knew that to do such a thing would be to go back on all that he had struggled for since his childhood.
In a sense, Sanjay’s story itself is a form of laughter. Laughter tinged with irony, directed at a situation where upper caste students, faced with reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs in higher education, try very hard to portray themselves as ‘victims’ of an unjust situation.
