Chanchal Kumar
Those who have read Ursula Le Guin’s short story Those Who Walk Away from Omelas, might be in a fix as to the ways in which the story can be interpreted. How to apply it to the world in which we live in? In this essay I will try to look at the story with an Ambedkarite lens.
Many of my Dalit friends have left the country to pursue their higher education in elite institutions abroad. While reading Guin’s story, the thought struck me that the imprisoned, discarded child in the story could be Dalit. More specifically, it could be manual scavengers who teeter at the edge of Hindu society. Like the condemned child, they remain at the boundaries of society who do not know if, waking up on any particular day, it will be the last day of their lives. The only difference being that while the child in the story is kept alive and not allowed to die, Dalit scavengers are pushed to die forcefully. However, the similarity is that both are not given a chance to explore possibilities in their lives. Although there is little about the past of the unlucky child in the story, it could be imagined that there might be some sort of arrangement not unlike the caste system wherein the child is selected to pay for the almost utopian existence of the people who live in the city of Omelas. Nobody sees the suffering child as a human being. Nobody comes to his rescue or asks questions about his well-being. Just like in the Indian casteist social system, everyone turns a blind eye to the child’s misery.
In the story, it’s mentioned that in Omelas, when a person comes of age, they are led to visit the child and the person realizes that for Omelas to exist, it is necessary that the child remain in the condition that he is. There are exceptions though. Once in a while, it happens that those who see the child, refuse to participate in the reality of the society of Omelas. They just walk out, never to return again. Now, could it be possible that somehow these people know about the child or share a past with him? Somehow, before they visited him, did they know about his existence in Omelas? If they did, could it be argued that they are the ones deciding to not be part of Omelas anymore? I begun this essay mentioning Dalit-Ambedkarite students who leave the country to study in universities in other countries. My point here is, talking about Le Guin’s fictional city, if India is Omelas, then young Ambedkarites are the ones who leave the country. It does not sit right with their conscience to be part of a society which treats their members inhumanely.
It is mentioned in the story that those who leave Omelas never return, and here is where the similarities between Omelas and India end. Ambedkarites who leave the country to study in better colleges in America, Europe etc, do return without fail. They do not forget their history. Like the path shown to us by Babasaheb, these young scholars and researchers return to keep the fight on. They never disown their families and friends to lead a comfortable life in places which have a higher standard of living. They know that the knowledge they earn will be helpful in fighting the many headed monster of caste. And they cannot buy the love they will receive from fellow Ambedkarites anywhere in the world.
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References
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula Le Guin
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Chanchal Kumar is from Jharkhand and currently lives in Delhi, India. His poems have previously appeared and awarded in The Sunflower Collective, Hamilton Stone Review, Welter Journal, Name and None, Young Poets Network, UK including others. Recently, his poems were translated to Bengali by Harakiri Journal. He is pursuing M.Phil at University of Delhi.
