He belonged to the Chuhra community and the entire village was segregated among the Chuhra and Tyaga on grounds of touchability and untouchability. His account begins with recalling a traumatic experience he faced while growing up in Barla village, Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh.

Om Prakash’s critique of the education system revolves around the inability of constitutional provisions and the Gandhian mission in uplifting the lives of lower castes. With the legal abolishment of untouchability and increasing access of education by the unprivileged (on paper), caste oppression and violence became a living reality of the newly ‘independent’ generation of lower castes. The meaning of education for the unprivileged With its non linear style of writing, his work is a collection of memoirs, of detailed accounts of caste violence during his school and adult life. His work stands out as extraordinary for its sheer realistic detail of caste oppression but still struggles to be included into the mainstream literature in the country. Om Prakash through his work highlights the importance of literature in providing a platform for disseminating knowledge about Dalit lives and their experiences. Joothan marks as a first Dalit autobiographies in Hindi literature and later translated into English by Arun Prabhas Mukherjee in 2003. His autobiographical account brings into light one of those rare, detailed and lived accounts on Dalit lives.

Om Prakash Valmiki provides a chilling account of caste oppression in the newly independent state. Through Joothan, he reveals that the instances of violence caused due to caste system remains etched around throughout one’s life.

Om Prakash Valmiki’s autobiographical account Joothan highlights that untouchability was practised by the educators, educated – like minded upper caste people, and his relatives belonging to same community. The practice of untouchability was legally abolished in 1950 but not from people’s mindsets.

Joothan by omprakash valmiki