Dalit definition
Dalit means 'crushed' or 'broken' in Marathi, an Indian language. The word was coined by Jotirao Phule (1827-1890). See, Anand Teltumbde, The Persistence of Caste: The Khairlanji Murders and India's Hidden Apartheid (Delhi: Navayana, 2014).
Dalit is the word that means ‘oppressed’ or ‘untouchable’ in Sanskrit denoting the community belonging to the lowest caste in India. The people belonging to this community are poor and are oppressed by other upper-caste communities. They suffer a lot for their daily survival. Dalits in ancient times were prevented from public spaces because of untouchability. They became the victims of such cruel practices. Dalits were prohibited from entering the temple, were not allowed to wear slippers, and were denied basic needs such as drinking water, proper food, etc. One could notice changes in the austere behaviour towards the Dalits especially, after the post-independence. While open discrimination and untouchability reduced over the last few decades, Dalits remain an oppressed community.
Dalit literally means “oppressed’” or “broken”. It designates the group of people, (previously) outside the Hindu caste system, the so-called “untouchables”.
Examples of Dalit in a sentence
Dalit migrant identity politics has consolidated in the face of recent ethnicisation of citizenship.
So I wanted to educate myself on ▇▇▇▇▇ lives in the hopes of later working towards better Dalit livelihoods in my own country, Pakistan.
Many Dalit narratives are memoirs, but they are inherently social, dealing with the lives of a community, making them more similar to socio-biographies in nature.
The weakness in Dalit movements, according to Deliѐge, lies in the fact that Dalit movements became caste movements and would often work for the betterment of one (sub)caste at another’s expense.
What is unique about her writings is that she approaches the subject not only as a woman with a vast record of literary achievement, but also as an activist who has developed a specific stance on Dalit feminism.
More Definitions of Dalit
Dalit literally means people immersed in a swamp.
Dalit. , which literally means ‘broken’, ‘ground’ or ‘suppressed’, is an expression of self- representation used by groups which were earlier classified in British India as ‘untouchables’ or ‘depressed classes’. Dalits stand outside the traditional four-fold hierarchical division (varnashrama) of classical Hindu society into Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. This mythical categorization, derived ultimately from the Rig Veda X, 90, was the basis for the subsequent emergence of numerous castes (jatis) which are hierarchically- ranked endogamous groups associated with certain food practices and occupations (Quigley 2004). Various theories have been put forward concerning the ‘origin of the Dalits’ such as their emergence through the admixture by way of inter-marriage between the four varnas, their socio-economic oppression by the predominant classes, and their segregation, physical and ritual, through the operation of the principles of purity and impurity. In several parts of the country, they remain towards the bottom of the economic ladder, dependent on the higher castes for their living either as landless labourers or as performing ritually polluting tasks such as sweeping streets and officiating as funeral priests (Webster 1992). Empirical studies reveal that the classical ideas of varnashrama feed into a hierarchical system, operated by the dominant Brahmanical codes of purity and status, which aggravates the Dalits’ lack of
Dalit means broken, oppressed, untouchable, downtrodden, and exploited. They come from the poor communities which under the Indian caste system used to be known as ‘untouchables’. They constitute nearly 16 percent of the Indian population; about 160 million.
Dalit literally means ‘downtrodden’ or ‘broken’, but it is a word pregnant with meaning, reflecting the struggle of a community to reassert its identity and lay claim to the rights that were denied to them for centuries.
Dalit means “oppressed” in Sanskrit and “broken” in Hindi. This is the category of people who are assigned to the lowest socio-political level of India’s caste system. Historically severely marginalized and excluded from Indian society, Dalits are often offensively referred to as “the Untouchables”.
Dalit literally means ‘downtrodden’ or ‘broken’.
Dalit means “down-trodden or crushed”. It was chosen by the group themselves and conveys a message of protest against the traditional caste hierarchy.