Dalits as Homines Sacri: The Politics of Inclusive Exclusion in Select Dalit Poetry

The paper entitled “Dalits as Homines Sacri: The Politics of Inclusive Exclusion in Select Dalit Poetry” is an attempt to read select Dalit poetical texts from an Agambenian perspective and thereby exploring the political underpinnings of inclusive exclusion suffered by dalits. Homo sacer is a Roman outlaw who is included in the juridical order in the form of exclusion; a figure that questions the nature of law and power. Agamben considers politics as the space where you translate your bare life (zoe) to good life (bios). Dalit poetry can be regarded as a scathing remark on the vicious politics that constitutes their identity through an exclusion of bare life and they are concrete historical evidences of the production of a group of homines sacri which describe the transformation of their human life into “sacred”. Hence, dalits as a group, experience an inclusive exclusion and their poetry offers the key by which the codes of political power unveil their mysteries. By analysing the poetical texts, the paper thus tries to expose the decadence of the political realm that imprisons the dalits in a state of inclusive exclusion.