Kalyani Thakur added “Charal” to her pen-name to make her caste identity clear, avoid repeatedly explaining it, and protest the use of community names as insults. She has also described an employment-related context for changing her name, though the available interview excerpt does not explain the relevant rule or its application.
She wanted her caste identity to be legible
In a 2025 interview with Scroll, Thakur said that “Thakur” led people to ask about her caste because it is usually regarded as a high-caste surname. Using her community identity in her pen-name, she explained, would spare her from having to answer those questions repeatedly: “If I use my caste identity in my pen-name, I wouldn’t need to explain it anymore.”
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The choice made an identity that others might ask her to explain visible in the name under which she wrote. In a 2018 Scroll interview, she similarly recalled that questions about her caste and surname led her to adopt her community name as a surname.
She used the name as a protest against caste-based insults
Thakur has also described “Charal” as a response to the way people use “charal” and other community names as everyday insults. In the 2025 interview, she said she added it to her name to shame those who use such terms that way. Her explanation therefore joins self-identification with protest: rather than leaving the word only in the hands of people using it to demean, she made it part of her public literary identity.
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The interviews connect “Charal” with “Chandal” and with Thakur’s community identity. They do not provide a full linguistic or regional history of either term, so her account should not be treated as a description of how every person or community uses them.
She began using “Charal” as a surname in 2003
The 2018 interview reports that Thakur first used “Charal” as a surname in the 2003 “udbastu” (refugee) edition of the journal Nir. It also identifies her autobiography as Ami Keno Charal Likhi (Why I Write Charal), published in 2016. These are biographical details reported in that interview; it does not establish the book’s current availability or edition.
She also mentioned a government-job context
In the 2025 interview, Thakur said she had edited a little magazine while working in a government job, which she said was legally not allowed, and added that “something else” therefore seemed to need adding to her name. This is part of her reported explanation, but the excerpt does not identify the applicable rule or document how it related to the name change. It should be kept distinct from her clearer statements about caste identity and protest.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Further reading on Thakur’s writing
Orient BlackSwan’s publisher page describes A Chandalini Speaks as essays addressing Thakur’s life and writing, Bengali Dalit women’s voices, feminism, working-class women, and caste’s ecological and cultural implications. The publisher’s description offers broader context for her work, but does not establish current retail availability: Orient BlackSwan: A Chandalini Speaks.
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