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HomeOpinionCaste is still a daily struggle for US-based acclaimed author Sujatha Gidla

Caste is still a daily struggle for US-based acclaimed author Sujatha Gidla

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Author’s mother is still hounded by upper caste neighbours in Andhra, while Indians in the US also frown upon ‘untouchables’ like her family.

Mumbai: Sujatha Gidla’s Twitter bio is as no-frills and to-the-point as they come. It identifies her as “as a conductor in the New York City subway. Recently I published a book Ants Among Elephants”.

What it doesn’t tell you is that Gidla has received high praise and international acclaim for this recently released part-novel, part-memoir of her family’s struggle with caste and untouchability. Sadly, all these struggles are not in the past – even today, back in India, her mother is fighting a silent protracted battle on caste lines with her neighbours.

In a telephone interview, Gidla told ThePrint that her mother lives in an apartment building in Kakinada, a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh, where everyone in the neighbourhood is upper caste. The neighbours have been trying to drive her out of the building by claiming illegal alterations have been made to her apartment.

“There is blatant casteism in India. It exists in the cities too. It is still very much a problem, and I find it shocking that others don’t see it,” Gidla says. “My brother-in-law’s family in Hyderabad was looking for house help. Although the lady they hired was emaciated and in need of a job, they had to hide their caste, fearing she would refuse to work for them if she found out her employers were a family of untouchables.”

Born in Andhra Pradesh, Gidla moved to America in 1992 at the age of 26 to work in the booming software industry. However, she says she never really enjoyed the job. In 2009, Gidla was laid off from her bank job in the midst of the economic downturn, after which she took up the job at the New York subway.

She says she feels liberated and caste-free in America…until she comes into contact with Indians there. “I wrote a book that got international acclaim. Naturally, you expect that your family will want to talk very proudly about it to people they know. But my sister, who lives in a New York suburb has not been able to tell her friends in the Indian society,” Gidla reveals.

“My niece wanted to put up a picture about the book on Instagram, but her parents expressed concern that others will start identifying them as being from an untouchable family.”

She feels that the situation has worsened under the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre; she says she has seen caste violence connected with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindutva being on the rise in Andhra Pradesh. While Gidla thinks a certain need for revolt has created the space for Dalit and OBC leaders such as Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakor in electoral politics, she is unsure of how much they might be able to achieve.

“They are young and idealistic, but no matter what you are, what you can do is limited by constitutional framework. They may not become corrupt or pretentious, but they will have to succumb to the pressures of being associated with a mainstream political party,” Gidla says.

“Everyone is jumping up and down about their victory in the Gujarat elections, but I would like to wait and see.”

Gidla says she enjoys her job with the New York City subway, working with people from Eastern Europe and third-world countries.

“It feels like being on a university campus, and reminds me of my days at IIT-Madras. I like it very much,” she says, recalling her days as a researcher in applied physics on an ISRO-funded project in the southern metropolis.

“Although it is physically strenuous and requires an almost military-style discipline knowing that if I am not on the train, it won’t run, the work gives me a great deal of satisfaction – of rendering a service that is so useful to people.”

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5 COMMENTS

  1. The prejudice against Dalits i.e. SCs is deep and unrelenting. If an MP can call our MP, who is an OBC, neech, you can imagine the unprintable words used to refer to SCs. Intolerance and exclusion is clear from the data on intermarriage between castes as a whole just 5%! Intermarriage between SCs and high castes is virtually nil. An Analysis of Intercaste Marriages In India by Tridip Roy Arka Roy Chuadhari & Komal Sahai of Sept 2017 is a shocking revelation of social prejudice in India. So let’s not be ostrich like to deny the existence of the elephant in the room. Ms Gidla is right about the ill treatment of SCs and untouchables. Whether it has increased under PM Modi, one can’t say, but PM has secured only 32% SC votes for BJP in the Dec 2017 Gujarat Assembly elections while 58% voted for Congress and 10% for other parties (India Today data). So certainly BJP and PM Modi are losing ground as far as Dalits are concerned.

  2. her tweet history proves she is converted christan..and her aim and aim of this article is clear that as forced conversion by machinery is not going so smoothly in india now…their new tactkc is to devide hindus based on cast and make them fight with each other and converted christians will pretend like dalit and abuse other hindu cast ..so they will fight with each other and these christians will act as protector of dalits ..but they hide the fact taht they are against the beleives of dalits where they worship natural resources..whcih is allowed only in hinduism..

  3. I totally agree with Bankim Chaudhary’s comments. This piece is pointless and is a desperate attempt to keep alive a stereotype fast disappearing. Also, very easy to play caste card to hide illegalities.

  4. अमेरिका ने बैठकर इंटरव्यू देने के बजाय अपनी मां को बोलिए कि स्थानीय पुलिस थाने में शिकायत दर्ज कर के पुलिस कमिश्नर को मिले।उनकी शिकायत पर जरूर करवाएं होगी।
    उच्च जाति वाले लोगो के नाम उजागर कीजिए।

  5. So let me understand:
    1. Her mother has a dispute about illegal modifications (which is very common in india) but the immediate assumption is caste based?
    2. The niece / sister refuse to put a picture of their aunt / sister and somehow other Indians are to blame?
    3. Caste violence has gone up in India after Modi? Based on what data? Does she even know that Modi is not upper caste but belongs to the Backward Classes and that the President of India is a Dalit and was appointed by Modi?

    Oh.. and she prefers hanging out with non-Indians. Sounds like: her mother made illegal modifications, her niece / sister are ashamed of her, and she has a hatred for Indians. But the journalist was too busy to look at other angles since the interviewee’s perspective fit her own agenda.

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