What It Means to Come out of the ‘Caste Closet’
Nearly eight years ago, a young PhD student from India made a startling declaration about his identity right before he died by suicide. “My birth is my fatal accident,” Rohith Vemula wrote in a letter that went viral and was widely published across national news outlets.
Vemula was a Dalit, a social identity determined by the ancient Hindu caste system, which has parallels to America’s racism problem, and segregates Hindus into rigid occupational hierarchies. Historically referred to as “untouchables,” the Dalits have it worst, as they fall outside the caste system and thus face a form of apartheid because of their “outcast” status assigned by birth. Caste-based discrimination and violence is a hard-hitting reality for the nearly 200 million Dalits – nearly as much as the whole population of Nigeria – among India’s total population of 1.3 billion.
Since being a Dalit is extremely dangerous, especially in modern-day India where violence takes many forms online or offline, many Dalits have chosen to hide their surnames, often an obvious identifier of caste. Vemula’s letter emerged as a revolutionary act, a clear articulation of being Dalit at a time when being one exposes them to more harm and bias. His ultimate declaration mobilised Dalits even in urban India – the so-called modern space where many erroneously claim caste doesn’t exist – and even gave birth to “Dalit Lives Matter” that coincided with America’s Black Lives Matter movement.
Since Vemula’s letter, many young Indians or those of Indian origin have “come out” of the caste closet.
Yashica Dutt, a New-York based journalist and author, chronicled the journey in her seminal 2019 book Coming Out As a Dalit, which won the 2021 Sahitya Akademy Yuva Puraskar, an elite literary award in India. The term “coming out” is mostly used in the context of queer experience. But for South Asians or those of South Asian origin, the term embraces the Dalit identity, and resists the stigma and shame associated with it.
We spoke to some out and proud Dalits about what it took for them to speak up, and the impact this decision had on their lives.
Anurag Minus Verma
Verma is a digital artist, a podcaster and an anti-caste influencer who addresses caste through humour and art.
The first time I spoke up was when the lockdown started in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. I hid my caste my whole life because we often see Dalit identity with pity. Over the years, though, social media has changed the narrative and many people have started talking about their caste confidently, which gave me the strength to speak up, too. The pandemic also added an existential touch to this process, because the world appeared to be ending. I let go of my fear and when I finally started talking about it, I became much more comfortable with my identity. This experience was very liberating in a way that I wasn’t hiding or moving like a criminal in society. I could finally be okay with who I am. Coming out with caste is different from coming out in the LGBTQ+ world. In caste, if you have a surname, people already know your caste. I didn’t make an announcement of my caste. Rather, I spoke about it in a scattered form, through my posts or humour, or my podcast, where I became more in-your-face. Caste operates in abstract terms, too, where speaking up about it can trigger responses so subtle you can’t see them but can definitely sense them. You can sense people maintaining distance from you in a way that can’t be articulated. You can sense the discomfort and change in relationships. This distancing feels very humiliating, but one has to go through that to assert their identity. For me, though, I found a community online and created bonds that felt very liberating. Before this, I always felt like I was alone. Coming out depends entirely on people. If they really want to express themselves and it relieves them of some pressure or gives them dignity or hope, then they should do it. At the same time, there’s no pressure to be revolutionary. You can also earn your livelihood and be happy. In a society where pleasures are forbidden for Dalits, being a happy Dalit is in itself an act of resistance.
Suprakash Majumdar, 25
Majumdar is an independent journalist, who came out in a published piece last year for Rest of World. He describes himself as one of the “very few Dalit journalists” in India.
I wasn’t very vocal about my caste, and neither was my family. My parents always told me, “Don’t tell anyone otherwise people won’t talk to you.” I grew up in Delhi, where I went to a privileged school. Most of my peers there were from dominant castes, and spoke perfect English. As a first-generation English-speaker in my family, I was insecure about my own English. That insecurity persists even now because in India, how well you speak English reflects your upbringing. What really set me back was when I was in the 12th grade. During our examinations, the school asked us to fill out our caste on the form. I remember one kid in my class saying to my face, “Tu toh Dalit hi hoga, teri shakal pe likha hain (You must be a Dalit, it’s written all over your face).” He said that perhaps because I don’t have the conventional “privileged” appearance, which is fair skin. At that moment, I decided to completely disassociate from my Dalit identity. I came out with my identity last year when I wrote about it in a published article. Initially, I didn’t want to do a first-person piece, but one that is based on people I’ve been following and inspired by, who are strong Dalit voices. But when the editors insisted, I wrote about myself. While writing, I realised the different levels of oppression I’ve grown up with, and I had a breakdown. I started therapy after that, which helped me recall one of my first memories of facing casteism, in which I wasn’t able to crack nursery admissions in a privileged school because I – a 5-year-old kid who grew up in a house where nobody spoke English – was expected to answer in English. My social circle has shrunk ever since I started talking about my caste. While growing up, my friends assumed I was upper-caste. Recently, I told some friends that I’m a Dalit. One long-time friend said I can’t “play the Dalit card” because I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston. He no longer talks to me.
Meera Estrada, 43
Estrada is a Canadian of Indian origin, with roots in the western Indian state of Gujarat. In Toronto, the mother of two works as a radio and television host, and writes on culture. Last year, she wrote about her Dalit identity for Refinery29.
My parents didn’t talk about our caste until my older brother and I were 19 and 15, respectively. I think they waited until they felt we were old enough to grasp what this identity meant for us. Though they didn’t get into the harsher details of what they had endured, my father said that because we were born “untouchable,” we would have to work much harder to excel in a society that wants to bring us down. Growing up in Canada, my closest friends were Indians and we would go to weekly Gujarati language and religious classes at the temple, where people openly talked about their castes, even wearing it as a badge of pride. But there was never any mention of the so-called lower castes. People just assumed we, too, were upper-caste because my family is well-educated. Little did they know that my grandfather had to sit outside his school and listen in on the lessons because he wasn’t allowed inside. He ingrained in his children and the following generations that the only way out of the cycle of poverty and prejudice was through education. As much as I loved my Indian culture, I didn’t know if it loved me back. Especially during my 20s, I began to feel less self-worth and more shame around my caste. It felt as if a label, not my own actions, deemed my worthiness. I slowly started to gravitate away from my Indian community, particularly in my dating life, out of that fear of judgement. I fell in love with and married a non-Indian man, and we are now raising our children in a multifaith, multicultural home. I was 40 when I found the courage to speak out about being Dalit. It was 2019, at a Women’s Day event, where I was invited to speak about defining our identity. Caste was a big part of my speech. I didn’t realise how powerful the words “I’m a Dalit” were until that day. My dad – the sole man in a room full of women – cried tears of both pain and pride, and the room gave him a standing ovation. What triggered me to speak up was a conversation with a friend in Canada of Indian origin the year before. She had gone to India to have a baby through surrogacy. I’d read an article about how lower-caste surrogates were paid less. When I asked my friend about that, she, without knowing about my caste, said, “I would never have a lower-caste woman as my surrogate; I wouldn’t want my kid to be stupid.” I held back tears as I heard those words, realising I did not really know my friend at all, nor did she know me. Since then, I’ve spoken on national television, written articles, and even penned a piece in an anthology book on casteism. It’s interesting that while much of the non-Indian community is empathetic, many South Asians in the diaspora carelessly brush the topic aside, or simply stay silent. I strongly feel that instead of putting the responsibility of speaking out about casteism on the Dalit people, the onus should fall on the oppressors to speak up. We did not cause this suffering or harm done to us. Why are we the ones who should be fixing this?
Agnee Ghosh, 27
Ghosh is a freelance writer who lives in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata. Last year, she wrote about her Dalit identity for the first time for VICE.
While growing up, I didn’t know what my caste was until I was in the eighth grade, when our history books mentioned it. I remember coming home and asking my parents about ours. My mother resisted but when I persisted, she told me we belong to the so-called lower or Dalit caste. I was shocked because there’s this common perception, especially in urban India, that Dalit people are financially disadvantaged and don’t even own a smartphone. But I come from an upper-middle-class family. I studied in an English-medium school and I speak English very well. Everything about me is very urban and I have typical upper-class aspirations. It didn’t affect me until I was a teenager in college, and my upper-caste peers would crack inappropriate jokes about caste. I would hide my identity, even though my college had published my caste (along with everyone else’s) on the list of students who’d gotten through. People also commented on how reservation – the term given to affirmative action taken by the Indian government to allow positions to the disadvantaged castes that were otherwise historically denied – was the only way I made it to college, and not my merit. That was a blow to my self-esteem and mental health. I slowly developed an imposter syndrome, where I felt I wasn’t good enough despite my accomplishments, and I felt like I had to try twice as hard as my upper-caste peers. This feeling carries on even today, and I’ve been diagnosed with depression. The first time I spoke about it was in the VICE article last year, in which I came out of the caste closet. While writing the piece, I felt empowered, thinking that other Dalit people would read it, too. But my article also triggered hate on a scale I’d never imagined. On Instagram, the hate in the form of slurs and abuses was so much, I had to deactivate my account for a week. People questioned my Dalit identity because of my surname, which my great-grandparents had changed. Despite the hate, I still feel we should speak up. In fact, not just us – people from dominant castes should feel responsible for raising their voice, too.
Srishty Ranjan, 25
Ranjan is an MBA student and a powerful anti-caste voice online, especially on Twitter.
My first very public declaration of my identity was on a social media page called Humans of Bombay. Since then, I’ve gotten so many messages from people saying that the story resonated with them. I’ve been very vocal on Twitter, so in terms of coming out, I’ve always been out there. When so many atrocities happen around the world and in India especially, with my Bahujan people (a term that includes all disadvantaged communities including the Dalits), one cannot stay silent. Even though anti-caste voices are more prone to trolling, it doesn’t bother me as much as the incidents that take place in real life, which are way more severe. Despite being vocal for so long, the environment is still not conducive to my opinions. It can actually sabotage my career. Google my name, and articles about my caste will pop up. This is why a lot of people hide their caste, because they don’t want to be discriminated against at their workplace. This is especially true when one is a vocal Dalit woman. There’s absolutely nothing for me to gain from speaking up, except that it gives some people confidence and a lot of young people feel heard. But I feel so pressured by the legal implications I might face. With every passing day, our online spaces are shrinking, making it even more difficult for us to speak out. But I understand if somebody doesn’t want to speak out just yet. Those of us who speak out face the repercussions for it, and most of it is not nice. So it’s OK to choose your path.
Published by: Vice India
Reporter: Pallavi Pundir
