RETRIEVAL OF DALITS IN THE LITERARY INTERPRETATIONS OF MULTILINGUAL INDIA

Abstract

Dalit Writings in India problematize displaced socio-historical space of marginalized, essentialized category of people belonging to caste-ridden Hindu society of India. Their multiple subjectivities reclaim semiotic literary interpretations as regards their contestations, violated and fragmented self. At the same time emerging Dalit writings have posed categorically their daily realities in context of dismemberment, disablement, deprivation, discrimination and disembodiment in the socio-cultural privileged hegemonic caste system. The writings of dalits such as Joothen by Om Prakash Valmiki, Untouchables by Mulk Raj Anand, An Anthology of Dalit Literature edited by Mulk Raj Anand and Elleanor Zelliot, Poisoned Bread:Translations from Modern Marathi Literature by Arjun Dangle, The Exercise of Freedom: An Introduction to Dalit Writing by K. Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu, Dalit Hindu Narratives by Manohar D. Murali, The Oxford Anthology of Tamil Dalit Writing by Ravikumar and R. Azhagarasan,  Black Lilies: Telugu Dalit Poetry by K. Puroshattam, Surviving in My World: Growing up Dalit in Bengal by Jaideep Sarangi  etc. have raised consciousness against dalits’ alienation, excommunication and ideological distancing, inflicted upon them due to cultural hegemony and relativistic idea of polemic theology practised in Brahmanical Hinduism. In addition to violence done to dalits at language, socio-cultural, literary, aesthetic and political level, the marginalised discourse have addressed issues related to countering gender-caste nexus, colonialism and nationalism and last but the most important relating to identity and self-expression. Similarly dalit women’s writings such as Ants Among Elephants by Sujtha Gidla, Rudaali by Mahasweta Devi, Grip of Change and Taming of Women by Sivakami, Sangati and Vanmam by Bama,Bay Kamble’s The Prison We Broke, Urmila Pawar’s The Weave of My Life, Susheela Takbaure’s Revenge articulate new found political awareness and self-respect as regards their exploitative embodiment within their marginalized community and in Hindu society. In my research paper the study aims to sensitise the autobiographical memory of a hateful past and their desire of resurging from the lost socio-historical-cultural space. The study will attempt to explore the emotional register, cathartic release of inequalities and flight from weak boundaries of marginality.