Jithinlal n r is an artist and an illustrator based in Kochi, Kerala. While growing up, his correspondence with Art was nonexistent.  Coming out of servitude and extended slavery, his grandfather was the first generation who went to school. The land reform movement furnished them with banded settlements. But with Jithin, the emancipation of the Dalit identity was never a concern. Instead, his marginal existence lacked tribalism. Or is it the sheer non-identity of the Dalit presence that injects conformity in behavioral attitudes? Who am I to judge? But I remember Jithin telling me that he could not check himself in any of the listed and siloed backgrounds. One yellow afternoon I asked him, How becoming a Dalit impacted your life? His answer was crisp, “Becoming Dalit’ from ‘a slave self’ have given me an agency! An agency that was denied for thousands of years, a sense that we are human, like any other human beings, and no one for any reason can humiliate us of our pride.” And that, “a brahmin and an untouchable are equal beings and its ‘the society” that have constructed the norms of the caste system.” So, it can be “deconstructed.”

As a blank canvas is often confused and seeks paints to unfurl its potentials, Jithin’s confused identity started to find an expression in Art. He moved to Baroda, where he began sharing studios and sharing the Dalit identity. He realized that the discourse of Dalit identity varies across India. It took him to come out of Kerala to find the same. To him, today, Art is about how he sees the world. In his own words, as an artist, “I would say…,” “I like to do some sensible work that would move people.” But at the same breath, he acknowledges, “this can be an ‘overrated’ statement,” especially in the “present condition of the art world and the time that we are living in.” One cannot neglect what Art has become in this late capitalist world that we live in. Jithin thinks, “Art has merely become a commodity to be sold and bought in this phase of competence, fame, money, and stardom. The authenticity of Art itself is questioned!” As far as Jithin is concerned, an artist’s future also depends on his/her ability to anticipate what the future would be and constantly be critical and generate a discourse around his actions. When asked about his expectations from his Art, Jithin says, “So maybe I can’t say there is a fixed expectation that I have from Art. Maybe there are many futures. And a number of achievements awaiting…”