Historical Description Of Modern India In "The Ants Among Elephants" By Sby Sujatha Gidla

In the particular reading of the Ants among Elephants, Sujatha talks about how India’s “untouchables” struggle to overcome social ostracization due to the rigid caste system. It talks about the humiliation the lower caste people have to face in India. These few pages highlight the early years of the author’s life as a child in Khazipet, Andhra Pradesh, her life in the college and hostel in Warangal and her life in New York. There are stories of author’s friends and family in India.

The writer talks about her mother who was a lecturer, about her Uncle K G Satyamurthy who was one of the principal founders of a Maoist guerrilla group in the early 70s, which was considered as a threat to the nation’s security. She also writes about her other, usually drunk uncle, Carey, who was the director of Physical Education at a medical college. The author’s comes to this question of self-consciousness and how we think and express ourselves from different perspectives. The author also tries to figure the relation between religion and caste, between caste and social status, social status and wealth. Also, how caste system after being abolished in 1950 is still so real and prevalent today.

She tells us as she talks about herself that nobody told her she was an “untouchable” but she felt it. The central question of research that comes up is the concept of caste system in India and how differently it is viewed in the other countries. She tells us that how in America people do not care to ask or know what caste one person belongs to. It examines how religions like Christianity or ideologies like Communism have little to offer to the Dalits in India, since the personal in India is shaped by the social positioning of caste into which a person is born. Taking example from Satyamurthy’s life, there are certain phrases that points to this failure.

Sujatha writes, "SM, when asked about himself, would only talk about his political life, his life in the movement. I would try asking what it was like for him when his first child was born. He did not care to answer. When I asked how it felt to be separated from his children when he went underground, he told me he did not remember. That may have been true. He was like that. The movement was his life." Gilda text is a reference for understanding concepts like Caste, Christianity and Communism in India. It is because of her illustration of the social history behind a person’s history, the connections between social realities and personal stories. She tells stories of different characters and connects it to the social realities of the world.

These concepts are being questioned, shows even how education provides no escape from the tentacles of the caste system in India. She finished her physics degree at Warangal and then studied at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology. There she learnt that even high-minded revolutionaries struggle with caste and gender equality, haunted by ancient prejudices.This is a personal historical account of modern India. It is written with a Dalit perspective, as is written by Sujatha herself. Sujatha is a Christian, so her writing was influenced with her Christian background. She went to Missionary school in Andhra, which further influenced her work.

The stories she told were her personal experiences in school, in college and in New York. It is not just a historical account but a portrayal of the Indian society as subject to the upper caste dominance. It is also takes a political perspective, more of a Marxist point of view, as her Uncle was the founder of the Maoist guerrilla group, and she was influenced by that school of thought. She also draws relativity between the blacks in America and the “untouchables” in India, which gives it a global perspective as well. It also talks about the concept of intersectionality. Intersectionality means the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

Sujatha was a female Christian Dalit and was subject to the society dominated by say, male Hindu Brahmins. The story is told through late colonial and the early independent era. The author is seen as a child in the early parts of the reading and then is encountered as an adult. She receives an education through college in India and the moves to US for graduate school.The writer reflects upon her past. The description of the early life years of her mother and her uncle is based in the pre independence era.

The Ants and Elephant is a historical description of modern India but what makes it even more interesting is the personal realities attached to it. Gidla eloquently weaves together her family narratives with Indian politics, specifically focusing on the practices and consequences of caste inequality. She writes such heavy topics with presence of relativity with the personal lives of the members of her family and that of herself.

The text is based on personal experiences. The research accounts for observations, interviews and personal narratives. Sujatha’s mother used to help her in knowing the stories of her family. She looked into the stories of her ancestors. She got in touch with Satyamurthy who being older than her mother was more in touch with the earlier generations, and knew more about their history. Sujatha used to record the stories on tape Satyamurthy used to tell. As his uncle was mostly underground, Sujatha used to wait for his uncle to get back in contact. She used to travel to places to meet him person. The data collected was through her uncle was backed with evidence mostly books. Sujatha had received copies of all the written material from her Uncle, who was using it for writing his autobiography.

Sujatha talked to people her subjects of the story had known, including some relatives living in remote villages she had never seen before. She visited all the places where her family’s story had taken place. She used the material from the interviews, the people she met, the stories her mother and uncle told. There were certain problems Sujatha faced in writing the text. The people she needed to speak were too old, and many of them were impoverished and in poor health. This included her uncle Carey who was too self conscious and usually too drunk to be of any use. There were many people who died before she had finished talking to them.