Human Rights Singular-Plural: Translating Dalit Autobiography from Hindi

I focus on the English translation of the first-person narrative Joothan by Dalit Hindi writer Omprakash Valmiki to ask how we read accounts from the "downtrodden" across languages and cultures. I argue that the Dalit atmakatha posits a different relationship between self and society than most autobiography in English, and so puts productive pressure on the generic expectations used to assess human rights.