Description
The paper has two-fold purpose: it seeks to bring emancipation at the fore and/but it seeks to redefine emancipation. The paper begins by addressing the question: why are certain alternate narratives marginalised and silenced in International Relations? The discipline of IR undermines any effort of engaging with certain alternate narratives due to which its scope, applicability and reliability remains narrow. This further facilitates the perpetuation and sustenance of exclusion and maintenance of hierarchies. The paper focuses on alternate narratives of select caste-based minorities in India that are excluded from the dominant narrative. It locates the perpetuation of exclusion by identifying sustenance of ‘epistemic violence’ at two levels: first through colonial practices where caste was solidified through naïve archival process; second by the hegemonic Hindu social order that denied the so-called low caste people of any agency.
Theoretically, the paper is rooted in critical-theoretical understanding but seeks to redefine the idea of emancipation. The contours of ‘security as emancipation’ is also Eurocentric and it ignores the social bearings of marginalisation. The paper favours a standpoint theorizing to present the idea of ‘dignity as emancipation’. It uses the writings of Ambedkar and Periyar alongside the untold stories from the margins to redefine emancipation and counter social hierarchies.
