Feminist Atrocity in Minoritized literature

Abstract

Abstract

This paper analyses how through the genre of Dalit stories that Dalit women write and bring forth their two-fold agony, one as a Dalit and another as a female. Dalit women suffer an additional layer of discrimination and violence on the basis of gender both by people of higher castes and within their own communities. The Dalit woman, as enfigured in the writings of Babytai Kamble, Janabai Girahe, Kumud Pawde, Shantabai Dani, Bama , and Viramma is the one who is hard-working, solitary, oppressed being, one who has to survive in the high-caste society as well as her own poverty-ridden, filthy, superstitious social environment. In this paper, I examine Eight Dalit women’s stories from Pan On Fire by Sumitra Bhave’s in Marathi and which are available in English translation by Gauri Deshpande. It discusses how these life stories could be used for our understanding of their challenges against upper caste social order. The paper would also touch upon the violation against Dalit women in the culture of globalization with detailed analysis on their socio economic condition, including the question of their right to livelihood. And lastly; the paper would describe incidents as well as local problems of Dalit women. Specifically, this study explores the nature and role of education and its relationship to empowerment on rural Dalit women. They are doubly oppressed by a patriarchal