A Life For Rights
Pradeep Gopalan
STRIKE A BLOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD by Eknath Awad Speaking Tiger, 2018, 282 pp., 399
October 2019, volume 43, No 10

Although the book under review is an autobiography of the late Dalit activist Eknath Dagdu Awad (1956-2015), (‘Eknath’), it actually reads as a ‘sociography’ of caste-ridden rural Marathwada. Three-fourths of its area is agricultural land. More than four hundred farmers committed suicide in 2014 due to the agrarian crisis that swept the region. The author originally narrated his life story to Prashant Kunte in Marathi who accompanied him on his travels to record his story that was published in 2012. The translation in English that appeared six years later is by Jerry Pinto who is a Mumbai-based poet, novelist and journalist.

Born to Dagdi and Baagubai in January 1956 in the Dukdegaon village in the Majalgaon tehsil of Beed district, Eknath was witness to extreme poverty and deprivation all around him. An elder brother had died within 15 days of his birth on account of smallpox.  Baagubai was so malnourished she could not breast feed Eknath and his elder sister Kalabai fed him with opium so that he would sleep without crying! Eknath belonged to the Mang community, who were not only treated as untouchables but was also classified earlier by the British in 1871 as ‘criminals by birth’ together with fourteen other communities. As Eknath puts it: ‘Our poverty forced us to steal, and once we were branded a thief you could only live by stealing.’ His father Dagdi was however a Potraj, a religious mendicant who ‘is allowed to beg and when given alms also takes the karma of the donor’s sins upon himself and then expiates them by cracking a huge whip around himself.’ Being a Potraj, the family was exempt from the traditional role of the Mangs and the family survived somehow on the meagre handouts Eknath’s father received as a Potraj. Eknath had the option of either becoming a Potraj or ‘acquire a skill befitting a Mang’. Further, since there wasn’t a single Mahar (another Dalit community) family in the village, the family was assigned all the menial tasks of the Mangs and the Mahars. Eknath’s mother suffered from frequent bouts of epilepsy, and hence Eknath had also to do the housework. When he was barely eight years old, Eknath was married to Gaya.  According to custom, the bride was required to be provided with gifts. The family had to sell its goats to fulfil this custom. Bereft of any assets thereafter, for survival, the family had to rely  on the bakhri  Eknath’s  father would get from begging.

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