No Appropriation Here: Dipika Mukherjee meets Manoranjan Byapari
On February 24, 2019, Manoranjan Byapari was launching a new book, titled There's Gunpowder in the Air , translated by Arunava Sinha . I was lucky to be in Delhi, and meet him. As an Indian writer, I feel privileged to be alive and writing at a time when so many regional voices from India are available in translation. As a postgraduate scholar in Texas, it had irritated me to see upper-class Indians with the privilege of their elite English educations building an academic reputation on whether subalterns could speak; clearly, in these cases, the people being spoken for would never read the lofty ivy league theories being spun on their behalf. So it is a pleasure to hear someone like Byapari, a Dalit who taught himself how to read while in jail, speaking for his people while deconstructing his own life. And what a raconteur he is! Having worked as a rickshaw-puller after being jailed for his political views, he spins tales of rage and redemption ...