V. S. NAIPAUL’S ENCOUNTER WITH THE RISE OF DALIT IDENTITY IN INDIA

V. S. Naipaul is a Trinidad born Nobel Prize winning British writer belonging to Indian Diaspora. He undertook several extensive travels to India, the land of his ancestors, and wrote three travelogues which are known as his Indian Trilogy. He analyses socio-politico-cultural aspects of Indian life in these travelogues. He perceived during the last visit that India had been constantly restoring, remaking and growing itself. Naipaul felt that India was at the beginning of social, political and economic upheavals that would lead to the nation's rise at the end of the century, a million mutinies leading to a new phase of creativity and economic progress. Naipaul first witnessed this sort of awareness amongst those in whom he could expect the least i.e. in the Dalits. It was Dr. Ambedkar who sparked the sense of identity and the feeling of self-respect in the Dalit community of India. This phenomenon aroused curiosity in Naipaul about the condition of the Dalits in Hindu society, the role of Dr. Ambedkar in inspiring self esteem among the Dalits, his efforts to bring them out of the depressed status, and his call to “abandon Hinduism, which had enslaved them.