Book Review

Y. T. Vinayaraj, Re-Visiting the Other: Discourses on Postmodern Theology, Thiruvalla: CSS, 2010.

Y. T. Vinayaraj is an eminent dalit theologian, theologising the present day struggles of the dalits to reimagine new communities and social practices that reposition them in the civil society as democratic social partners than merely as the constitutive other. He was the first to publish a book in Malayalam introducing the dalit theological methodology titled Dalithanubhavangalude daivasastram (The theology of Dalit Experiences) way back in 2000. Since then his presence in the public theological deliberations on dalit experiences and dalit politics was very much critical, charting a new course for the dalit struggles informed by the postmodern epistemological shift. His agenda of envisaging a new vision for dalit liberation by re-imagining the dalit history, theology and Politics as differently from the dominant conventional methodological modalities of history, theology and politics, where the dalits are simply represented as the constitutive other, is very well articulated in the book Dalit Darshanam: Charithram Daiva Sastram Rashtreeyam (Dalit Vision: History, Theology and Politics, 2002). He continued to be in the discourses on dalit theology and politics through his contributions to the field of study in the following years through the publications of Kunjdukalude Daivam (God of Little Lambs, 2004) and Re-imagining Dalit Theology: Postmodern readings (2008). He is an ordained minister of the Marthoma Church, currently a research scholar in the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago in United States.

The book under review is an anthology of different papers the author has presented in various seminars and consultations as part of his untiring engagements to problematize the “dalit dilemma” within the postmodern epistemological framework. It marks a vivid departure from the modern liberational paradigms of dalit discourses which always deliberated through the sustenance of a “self-other” dichotomy. The basic presumption of the book is that the universalistic methodological approach of the dalit liberational paradigm is not adequate to realize the dreams of dalit liberation. Metropolitan Geevarghese Mor  Coorilos Nalunnakkal, who has written a foreword for this book identifies the important methodological shifts that happened in the dalit theologising endeavors in the past three decades since its introduction in 1980s. The Metropolitan speaks about dalit theology drawing methodological insights from the Marxian and Ambedkarian thoughts and ending up as a ‘theology of lamentations.’ Throughout these efforts it remained as a project of modernity, always constructing certain metanarratives which were believed to represent all the subaltern socio-political and cultural concerns. Sathianathan Clarke in Dalits and Christianity identifies the earlier two important models of doing dalit theology in India. The earliest one was in line with the conventional Indian Christian theology trying a parallel sanskritisation in Christian sense by accommodating the subaltern into the elite theological discourses. The second one is that of liberationism that worked upon universal notions of justice and freedom in socio-economic and political dimensions of life without being mindful about the religious and cultural or in other words the symbolic dimension. Clarke proposes the constructive model as the way forward, which is informed by the constructiveness of subjectivity and reality. Mor Coorilos identifies the initiatives of the author as a seminal effort to redeem the Indian Christian Theology, especially dalit theology from the confines of modernity.  The author as a dalit theologian and activist is overwhelmed by the reality of a kind of stuntedness in the dalit liberative movements in the world of today, which he calls the “dalit dilemma.” The author proposes a new methodological approach for dalit theology, which is at the same time sensitive of the discursive field which forms the subjects in a given socio-cultural matrix and also self-reflexive in its socio-cultural and theological practices.

In the third chapter of the book the author cogently delineates the postmodern methodology of doing theology. Postmodernism as a method of doing theology rejects the unitary theories of modernity like Scientism, Liberal Humanism and Marxism projected as pertaining to the explanation of every aspect of reality. In short it is a rejection of epistemological foundationalism and substantiates epistemological and cultural pluralism. According to the author this methodological approach gives room for the emergence of hyphenated theologies (theologies with prefix) like dalit theology, which contest the modern notion of theology as a metanarrative or a comprehensive explanatory framework. Further he draws insights from the Foucauldian notion of “genealogy of knowledge” and the notion of “contested knowledge” proposed by Steven Seidman to suggest that the dalit theology is a contested knowledge; as it was a historically subjugated and hierarchically down-graded knowledge system now trying to reposition itself in the discursive field of self formation by challenging the “ontological Discrimination” sustained by the casteist epistemology. Thus the dalit way of theologising is an anti-essentialist process which challenges the essentialism embedded in the modern humanist theological paradigms. Here subjectivity is seen as the temporary stabilization of meaning in the never ending process of reconstitution of subjectivity in accordance with the changes in the discursive field of self formation. The author contends the fixed notion of identity proposed in the modern humanist theologies by suggesting that “subjectivity is capable of being other than this.” Thus by using affirmative language and engaging in constructive discourses the subaltern can change their subjectivity. Here the dalit body is an important hermeneutical key helpful in building renewed relationships with other social groups in Church and Society.

The first chapter of the book is an attempt to review the so called “dalit dilemma” in the postmodern socio-theoretical and epistemological framework. According to him the dalit dilemma lies with the caste epistemology that embodies certain social practices which give the dalits a slave habitus. Modernity tried to explain the dalit crisis by putting up a universal essentialist-liberal humanism which was not mindful of leaving the room for any “politics of difference”. The theological and political engagements in the paradigm of the modernity was to patronize the dalit communities as it happened through the creation of “harijan” and “scheduled caste” colonies like the sachivothamapuram in Kottayam district in Kerala. The initiatives of the Marxist movements had no space left for accommodating the political differences and the social imagination of the dalits. They were categorized generally as pattika jati (scheduled caste), karshaka thozhilai (farm labourer) etc. What all these approaches missed perilously was the understanding that caste cannot be reduced simply to a social system but it is very much a knowledge system too. The historical discrimination meted out to the dalits was not only physical but also epistemological. The epistemological aspects of the discrimination touch the formative processes of subjectivity of the people as well as the social positioning of those subjects. Thus the challenge before the dalit theologian, to have a way forward from this situation of a dilemma, is to deconstruct the said formative processes of the subjectivity and social positioning.  The author also assesses the effects of globalization on dalit bodies and subjectivity as it drained the resources of the people through the intensification of their alienation from the land, self and divinity.

The author sees the Chengara land struggle by the poor landless dalits and tribals as a symbol of the postmodern dalit/tribal engagement with the epistemology that formed their subjectivity and positioned them socially and politically. It also problematizes the way the resources like land, education and political power are distributed among different peoples. The dalits must renounce all sorts of patronizing relationships that dictates terms and grow to the status of social partners as part of a democratic civil society.

The second chapter starts with a critique of the liberative theological traditions in Kerala. The faith movements (viswasa vimochana prasthanangal) initiated on the liberational paradigm in Kerala in the 1980s and following, positioned the dalits as victims, poor and warriors of rights, but they failed to map the epistemology of caste that kept their slave habitus intact. The modern sense of mission and solidarity were also accompanied by patronizing practices that constantly ascribed the missionised the status of victims. Modern societies are organised on homogenizing contracts which denied the space for interaction and pluriformity and prevented the people from developing from the status of constitutive other to social partners in a democratic civil society. The author suggests a reimagination of community as the only way forward. The postmodern epistemology gives impetus for this reimagination of community and invites the social agents for a reconstitution of their subjectivity. A reimagination of the stories of the dalits to differently construct their subjectivity and a new and politically relevant social positioning that revisits the dominant hegemonic power discourses is critical in this process.

An important step towards the reimagination of community for dalits is to take stock of the biblical and theological resources available. The author quotes from the writings of Brueggemann to suggest that the Bible locates itself as a specific theological logic of an imagined community. The stories of the people as their history are told and retold to reimagine the social position and subjectivity of the people as God’s agents of transformation. Israel, the people of God, consciously constructed the counter liturgical traditions as a methodological tool to engage with the hegemonic liturgical discourses of Pharaoh.  The retold stories and the counter liturgical practices contend the totalizing power and way of explaining reality in the symbolic world constructed by Pharaoh by putting up the possibility of a counter-imagination. Moreover it has provided the people with a very distinct community logic and ethic. Therefore Exodus as a “new way” as the literal meaning of the word indicates was an experience of resetting the relationships and reimagining subjectivity and social position. Solidarity here means a reimagination of us; in other words it is the reimagination of our faith, theology and ontology. Any reference to our faith, theology and solidarity points to our commitment to a just, dialogical and democratic community.

The fourth chapter of the book is an attempt to develop a postmodern mission theology. The modern missions aimed at the evangelizing of the “aboriginals” in Asia and Africa were projects of colonial modernity rode over the Eurocentric binaries which saw the non-Europeans and their cultures as derivative or subordinate. The author draws from the insights of the postmodern thinker Jacques Derrida, which shook the Eurocentric epistemic foundations to destabilize and deconstruct the binaries that fixed the identities of the missionising agents and the missionised in the modern mission endeavors. The story of the Gerasene demoniac is reread in the perspective of “deconstruction” to sketch out the contours of the postmodern missiology. Here the discipleship to which Jesus calls the Demoniac is defined as a counter institution of a new discursive formation, which redefines subjectivity and discipleship and further thwarts the slave habitus created by the Roman Imperial discourses. Therefore discipleship is an invitation to engage with the “other” with new imaginations, practices and “dialogical fraternity” (a phrase frequently used by the author to qualify the reimagined community). Therefore mission here is understood as a dialogical engagement for alterity in the sense that it does not aim at assimilation or negation but “infinite separation” (Immanuel Levinas).

The fifth chapter is an attempt to mark the directions for the ecumenical engagement with ecclesiology, missiology and theology. After briefly marking the paradigm shifts in the ecumenical thinking from the unity of the church to the unity of the whole humanity and to the integrity of God’s whole creation, the author suggests the inevitability of a paradigm shift which may repair the damages done by the modern enlightenment epistemological foundations on which the early theological deliberations have rode in the ecumenical movement. The missiology and ecclesiology of the ecumenical paradigm for long had remained envisioning programmes to “uplift” the “weak and vulnerable” in Asia, Africa and Latin America. But even after the implementation of all the programmes of empowerment dictated from outside the internal discourses, habitus, practices and episteme of the people ever remained the same. Therefore the ecumenical deliberations on mission ecclesiology and history must take into serious consideration the epistemic shift happening in the micro politics of resistance and difference among the dalits, tribals and women to deconstruct the colonial metanarratives of social and ecclesiastical historiography. The challenge here is to admit the micro stories of their conversion and accept the epistemological shift they have acquired to position themselves differently from the conventionally assigned status of “missiological other.”

The Mission Field writing its own history is part of the project of the “politics of difference.” Here the author deals with the postmodern theoretical notions of alterity and difference that counters the unitary notions of representing the reality. Here differences of dalit and other subaltern experiences in existence are rendered as something authentic and not as binary opposites arranged in a hierarchical gradation in relation to the dominant others. In this last chapter of the book the conventional, Eurocentric and monolithtic construction of missiology and the mission historiography is contested by the author drawing insights from the postmodern theoretic and epistemological framework. What happened in the conventional mission historiography was that it considered the dalits and other culturally marginal groups as the targeted “other” of the church’s missiological engagements. Even though the mission fields were the locale of the construction and sustenance of “otherness,” they are also new social spaces offered the dalits a changed context to define their subjectivity and social position. Therefore the rewriting of the history of the mission fields in a subaltern perspective from the “mission fields” is very important to the reconstitution of the dalit social agency in India. The colonial logic of mission as emancipation and empowerment lingers around the present day missions engaged by the so called native missionaries. The problem with this is that it always locates the missionised at the receiving end by undermining their social agency. According to the author the idea of church as a reimagined community paves the way for the crumbling down of the monolithic ecclesiology and historiography.

The book certainly brings in fresh thoughts in the often monotonous world of dalit theology. It addresses a number of questions emerging in the changing socio-cultural context of India today marred by communal and identity politics. The direction of the theologising endeavors are proposed very clearly as the reimagination of a dialogical social democratic civil society, where each and every community is regarded as social partners in the process of reimagination and practices of fraternity. The originality of thoughts and the ability to relate the insights from the postmodern critical theories to problematize the local dilemmas of the dalits and other subaltern renders the thoughts fresh and lively. The book also leaves a number of questions in the minds of the reader as part of its attempt to problematize the particular historical situation of struggles of dalits for a new experience of community, which in fact leaves windows open for further researches in the field of study.