Narratives

The Apan Katha Apanei Bunechi campaign was born out of the audacity to wonder what nature of knowledge would arise if we were to listen, with humility, to the lived experiences of Dalit women. This campaign was born from the inspirational and extraordinary stories of ordinary Dalit women. In a society that pays very little heed to the experiences of Dalit women, our experiences, memories, myths, folktales, and oral histories are our greatest sources of knowledge.

Apan Katha Apanei Bunechi comprises Dalit women telling stories in the manner of their choosing, about the various aspects of a Dalit woman's life as they have experienced and seen.

Who may or may not eat and drink with whom? Who may or may not love whom? Who is allowed to or forbidden from marrying whom? What lines may not be crossed while in each other's company? Whose knowledge becomes canon, and whose may be reduced like an anthill? How are the present and the future determined by one's caste, class, and gender? Therefore, Apan Katha Apanei Bunechi is an experiment in understanding the caste system through the perspective of Dalit women who live in a society where caste determines people's lives. This initiative doesn't focus just on teaching Dalit women, but it is also especially preoccupied with exploring what can be learned from them.

Studying established canons on the caste system, studying life and the world, and learning to analyze this system – this is how we began learning in Apan Katha Apanei Bunechi. We looked at the COVID-19 pandemic as experienced and seen by Madheshi Dalit women, discussed it through their perspectives, and learned to correlate existing scholarship with lived realities. We also began to learn how to write about our experience of life, as we have seen it, and as we have learned about it. Therefore, we conducted the Narratives Lab each week alongside text-based learning about caste, gender, and sexuality, with an added focus on critical thinking tools.

Apan Katha Apanei Bunechi is a creative laboratory (lab). In this lab, everyone from fellows to faculty came together to write new stories or create new narratives in collaboration. Through this lab, various experiments were conducted for producing new narratives in written and non-written forms. In this process, the Dalit women who received the fellowship wrote their stories from their lived experiences. Of the 16 Dalit women from Madhesh, some wrote stories in words, some wove stories through images and voice, and some through video dialogues. The stories created through classroom writing and creative training on caste, sexuality, and gender are inspiring.