Unheard Voices of the Voiceless: A Study on Urmila Pawar’s Autobiography The Weave of My Life : A Dalit Women’s Memoirs

Abstract

Dalit literature has acquired a space of its own amidst the major literary canons. They
speak of the umpteen numbers of atrocities and humiliations meted out towards them. A fair
representation of the dalit life has been given by the tales narrated in dalit autobiographies.
But seldom do they give a fair account of the life of dalit women. Dalit women are ignored
even by the feminist movements that championed the cause of women. So a true and realistic
portrayal of the lives of dalit women are featured only in the dalit women autobiographies.
This paper sets out to analyse the autobiography (The Weave of My Life) of the dalit writer
Urmila Pawar and examines how the incidents of her life have shaped and steered her
personal and creative life.