Who Speaks for the Subaltern? Translation,Caste and the Mediation of Dalit Voice in Bengal

Abstract

Translation mediates the ways Dalit voices are represented and misrepresented in postcolonial Bengal, where caste has long been obscured under bhadralok modernity and Marxist class discourse. Drawing on community periodicals such as Chhotolok-er Chithi and Dalit Mirror, Matua oral traditions and the writings of Manoranjan Byapari and Kalyani Thakur Charal, the study explores how vernacular expression is recoded through linguistic and epistemic translation. While translation enables visibility, it often domesticates Dalit experience within elite aesthetic and intellectual frameworks, muting its critical edge. Engaging postcolonial translation theory and Dalit epistemology, the argument foregrounds translation as a terrain of casteed power where voice, authority and knowledge are continually negotiated. An ethics of caste-sensitive translation is proposed—one attentive to the asymmetries of mediation that shape the articulation of subaltern experience in Bengal.

Keywords

Dalit studies translation vernacular memory subaltern voice Bengal

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