ABSTRACT. This article highlights the connections, tensions and contradictions that materialise when postcolonial and Dalit lifeworlds are brought together in intra-active analysis. While a postcolonial critique offers important insights into the historical and ongoing workings of colonial capitalism, its implementation as a global design for liberation produces erasures that put Dalit lifeworlds at risk. The complexities and challenges of (not) belonging produced through a coloniser/colonised binary are highlighted by foregrounding theorising as embodied practice. In short, foisting the blame on colonialism produces a set of evasions that problematically reinforce notions of savarna innocence and ensure varna futurity. Through the savarna re-imagination of a national, homogenous ‘Hindu’ identity, Dalit lifeworlds are subject to a process of what Reghu (2010) refers to as ‘inclusive exclusion,’ wherein although the Hindu Order includes Dalits, it excludes them from the dharmic domain of caste Hindus. For the Dalit subject confronted by the affective intensities of caste hierarchies, this movement towards savarna innocence is profoundly disconcerting, as it relieves savarna responsibilities for onto-epistemic violences that predate colonialism and, more urgently, for the ongoing violences sustained through a refusal to be accountable. Contemporary analysis must attune to how the varna ideology intermingles with colonial capitalism to reconfigure relations; however, the article argues that this requires moving away from the totalising claims of postcolonial critique. The essay concludes by welcoming and proposing theoretical heterogeneity as a potent strategy to generate space for staying with the trouble of (not) belonging, potentiating meaningful alliances that make Dalit lifeworlds possible.

Keywords: postcolonialism; Dalit feminisms; caste; theory; belonging

How to cite: Mohandas, S. (2024). Dalit lifeworlds at risk: When postcolonial critique fails. Knowledge Cultures, 12(2), 49-66. https://doi.org/10.22381/kc12220243.

Received October 10, 2023 • Received in revised form December 29, 2023
Accepted July 15, 2024 • Available online September 1, 2024