Sujatha Gidla is an Indian-American author. Gidla is known for her book Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India . She was born in Andhra Pradesh and moved to the United States in 1990, when she was 26 years old. [1] She now lives in New York and works as a conductor on the New York City Subway.
Sujatha Gidla was raised in the Christian Dalit family, in Kakinada, a small town in present-day Andhra Pradesh. Her great grandparents accepted Christianity during Colonial rule after they heard the Gospel propagated by Canadian Baptist missionaries in the town. With missionary institutions heralding development of the society in general through education, Sujatha's grandparents were also educated at one such institution run by the missionaries in Kakianda. [2] Prasanna Rao, Gidla's grandfather, studied in a school set up by the Canadian missionaries. [3] Gidla's parents were also college lecturers. [2] [4]
After getting her bachelor's degree from State-run Pithapuram Rajah Government College in Kakinada, Gidla enrolled in a Masters' program in Physics in Regional Engineering College, Warangal. During her second year there, in one of the earlier instances of her activism, Gidla participated in a strike against an upper-caste professor in the Engineering department, who was deliberately failing students from the lower castes. She was the only woman who had participated in the strike. The protestors were all jailed in an undisclosed location. Gidla was detained for three months, during which she was tortured and contracted tuberculosis. Her mother Manjula contacted a civil rights lawyer named K. G. Kannabiran to help them. [3] [5] This was one of the earlier instances of Gidla's activism.
Gidla then worked as a researcher associate in the Department of Applied Physics in Indian Institute of Technology Madras, where she worked on a project funded by Indian Space Research Organisation. [2] She moved to the United States when she was 26. Some of Gidla's family members also emigrated: her sister works as a physician in the United States, and her brother is an engineer in Canada. [4]
Gidla previously worked as an software application designer at the Bank of New York, but was laid off in the global financial crisis and recession in 2009. She says that she then wanted to do a manual job. [6] She became the first Indian woman to be employed as a conductor on the New York City Subway – one of the busiest mass transit systems in the world. [1] In an interview, she said, "Because I am a Marxist and Communist, I also have romantic feelings about being a working class person. So this job attracted me. Secondly, I wanted to do something that men are supposed to be doing." [6]
Ants Among Elephants is Gidla's first book and was published in 2017. It is a family memoir that chronicles the life of her uncle, KG Satyamurty, a Maoist leader and the founder of a left-wing militant organization called the People's War Group (PWG). The book also described the personal history of her mother Manjula's life, both of which are juxtaposed against the peasant revolt and the formation of a new state in newly independent India. [5] [7] Gidla classifies the book under the genre of 'literary nonfiction'. [8]
Gidla has recalled her introduction to understanding casteism as being through a movie. The film was a love story fraught with conflict due to the girl being a wealthy Christian, whose family opposed her marriage to a Hindu boy who was less well-off. She had hitherto believed that the caste discrimination she faced as a Dalit, or "untouchable", was due to her status as a Christian, since the vast majority of Christians in Andhra Pradesh converted from a Dalit community. In an interview with Slate, she says, "That's when I started thinking: If it’s not Christianity, why were we untouchables?" [1]
According to Gidla, the creation of the book was a family affair. Her mother was closely involved in the process of writing the book as it was her story too, and her niece Anagha was involved in designing the book cover. [1] [4] Gidla conducted over 15 years of research and made three trips to India for the book. She reportedly wrote 50 to 60 versions of the book before publishing it [2] [4] [8] Gidla has spoken about publishing first a prequel, and then a sequel to Ants Among Elephants. The prequel will tell her own family's story before her uncle's generation, detailing the journey of her family being hunter-gatherers in the forests of Andhra Pradesh before moving to the villages and getting subsumed into the Hindu caste system's lowest rung. The sequel will be an autobiography, and discuss the contemporary generation. [6] [7]
Her writing has also appeared in Oxford India Anthology of Telugu Dalit Writing. [9]
Ants Among Elephants has received the following accolades: [10]
A New York Times review called it "unsentimental, deeply poignant ... Ants Among Elephants gives readers an unsettling and visceral understanding of how discrimination, segregation and stereotypes have endured." [2]
Gidla declined an invitation to be the key note speaker in a festival called We The Women, a women-only festival curated by Barkha Dutt. Her refusal was a result of the conference being sponsored by the United Nations, which Gidla said was a "fig-leaf of US imperialism". She also objected to the participation of Smriti Irani, an Indian politician who was the Minister of Human Resource Development at the time that Dalit PhD scholar Rohith Vemula committed suicide. "She was instrumental in Rohith's death. His blood is on her hands. I couldn't possibly have participated alongside her," she said. [11]
Gidla was invited to the prestigious Jaipur Literature Festival in 2018 as a speaker. She spoke at a session called "Narratives of Power, Songs of Resistance", where she spoke about contemporary Dalit politicians Jignesh Mevani and Mayawati, saying they had a limitation in working for Dalit upliftment since they had chosen to work under the framework of electoral politics. Gidla also discussed the communalism present in both of India's major political parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress, as well as criticized Mahatma Gandhi for being casteist and racist. [12] [13] [14]
The Neo Buddhist movement is a religious as well as a socio-political movement among Dalits in India which was started by B. R. Ambedkar. It re-interpreted Buddhism and created a new school of Buddhism called Navayana. The movement has sought to be a socially and politically engaged form of Buddhism.
Jyotirao Govindrao Phule was an Indian social activist, businessman, anti-caste social reformer and writer from Maharashtra. His work extended to many fields, including eradication of untouchability and the caste system and for his efforts in educating women and oppressed caste people. He and his wife, Savitribai Phule, were pioneers of women's education in India. Phule started his first school for girls in 1848 in Pune at Tatyasaheb Bhide's residence or Bhidewada. He, along with his followers, formed the Satyashodhak Samaj to attain equal rights for people from lower castes. People from all religions and castes could become a part of this association which worked for the upliftment of the oppressed classes. Phule is regarded as an important figure in the social reform movement in Maharashtra.The honorific Mahātmā, was first applied to him in 1888 at a special program honoring him in Mumbai.
Dalit, also some of them previously known as untouchables, is the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna of the caste hierarchy and were seen as forming a fifth varna, also known by the name of Panchama. Several scholars have drawn parallels between Dalits and the Burakumin of Japan, the Baekjeong of Korea, the Hukou system of China and the peasant class of the medieval European Feudal system.
Kanshi Ram, also known as Bahujan Nayak or Manyavar, was an Indian politician and social reformer who worked for the upliftment and political mobilisation of the Bahujans, the backward or lower caste people including untouchable groups at the bottom of the caste system in India. Towards this end, Kanshi Ram founded Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti (DS-4), the All India Backwards (SC/ST/OBC) and Minorities Communities Employees' Federation (BAMCEF) in 1971 and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 1984. He ceded leadership of the BSP to his protégé Mayawati who has served four terms as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
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Potti Sreeramulu, was an Indian freedom fighter and revolutionary. Sreeramulu is revered as Amarajeevi in the Andhra region for his self-sacrifice for the Andhra cause. He became famous for undertaking a hunger strike for 56 days in support of having separate state for Andhra Pradesh; he died in the process. His death sparked public rioting and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru declared the intent by the newly liberated nation to form Andhra State three days following the death of Sreeramulu. He contributed his life for the formation of a separate Telugu-speaking state from the dominant Tamil-speaking Madras presidency. His struggles led to the formation of separate Telugu-speaking state called "Andhra state".
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is an Indian political theorist, writer and a Dalit rights activist. He writes in both English and Telugu languages. His main domain of study and activism is the annihilation of caste.
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Madiga is a Telugu caste from southern India. Madiga Known As Matang or Mang In Maharashtra State.They mainly live in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, with a small minority in Tamil Nadu. Madigas are historically associated with the work of tannery, leatherwork and small handicrafts. Today, most are agricultural labourers. They are categorized as a Scheduled Caste by the Government of India. Within the Madiga community, there are various sub-castes include Bindla, Chindu, Dakkali and Mashti. Madigas have their own classes, the priestly class is known as Madiga Dasari. The Sangaris, Thothis, etc. have different works for their community.
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B. Shyam Sunder was born in Aurangabad district in Bombay Presidency, British India. His father was B. Manicham, a railway employee, his mother Sudha Bai and Manik bai younger sister. He was a political thinker, jurist, prolific writer, parliamentarian and a revolutionary leader. In 1937, he founded the Dalit-Muslim unity movement at Parbhani in Aurangabad, Maharashtra and urged his people to join hands with Muslims. He was a legislator representing Andhra Pradesh and Mysore State.
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Satyendra Murli is a researcher, media pedagogue and a journalist. He has been associated with Doordarshan, as an Indian television journalist; and other several media organizations. He teaches at Delhi University as a professor of media studies. His research areas are journalism & mass communication, media studies, media pedagogy, ethics, Buddhism; and open and distance learning.
Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India is a book by Sujatha Gidla on how India's untouchables (Dalits) struggle to overcome poverty and social ostracism due to the rigid caste system. The book deals with the humiliation and caste-based discrimination which Dalits face in India. The book also looks at the various levels of oppression faced due to caste, gender, and familial norms. Writing in The New York Review of Books, Pankaj Mishra says that the book "significantly enriches the new Dalit literature in English" and that the book is a "devastating critique" of India's independence leaders and the caste politics of the Naxalite movement in India.
Sanghapali Aruna, also known as Sanghapali Aruna Lohitakshi, is a human rights activist from India, best known for her work on Dalit women's rights. She is the Executive Director of Project Mukti.
Swami Achhootanand, also known as Achutanand or Hariharanand, was a 20th century Indian anti-caste intellectual, Dalit writer, and social reformer. A former Arya Samajist, he became disillusioned with the Arya Samaj and established the Adi Hindu movement. He was a poet, critic, dramatist, and historian.
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