Tracing the Scars of Caste: Interpreting My Childhood on My Shoulder by Sheoraj Singh Bechain

This essay looks at Sheoraj Singh Bachain's autobiography My Childhood on My Shoulder as a powerful story of caste tyranny, resistance, and self-creation in modern India. The article uses Dalit autobiographical studies, subaltern theory, and social justice critique to look at the text and conclude that Bachain's work is an important testimony to what it is like to be a caste outsider. It puts the text in the Bigger Picture of Dalit life-writing in Hindi literature, illustrating how it breaks apart upper-caste history and gives back voice and dignity. Using academic references and comparative frameworks, the study argues that Bachain's autobiography is both a record of suffering and a call for freedom. In the end, it shows how complicated caste is as a physical weight that people carry and fight against by recounting their own stories.