The Dissenting Voices of Dalit Women Writers: Breaking Away from Narratives of Victimhood
From the late 19th century onwards, the Indian nationalist movement offered a seemingly inclusive, yet Hindu-dominated image of the nation and so did Indian national historiography for four decades after independence. This vision was challenged in subaltern studies, in the Partition literature of th...
Enregistré dans:
| Udgivet i: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/archipelies, |
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| Hovedforfatter: | |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Sprog: | Anglais |
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Archipélies
2024
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| Fag: | |
| Online adgang: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Summary: | From the late 19th century onwards, the Indian nationalist movement offered a seemingly inclusive, yet Hindu-dominated image of the nation and so did Indian national historiography for four decades after independence. This vision was challenged in subaltern studies, in the Partition literature of the early 1980s, and in the feminist historiography of the 1990s. Dalit literatures, which timidly appeared internationally then, perfectly illustrate Jacques Rancière’s analysis of the literary as a realm of ‘‘dissensus’’ that can disturb and redefine systems of divisions and hierarchies of the aesthetic-political sphere. Dalit literatures emerged as a political tool, but they have been accused of promoting a culture of sentimentality for political gain and of homogenising Dalit identity. I study the dissenting voices of three Dalit female writers whose works undermine intersecting caste and gender discriminations. The article examines the literary specificities, in both form and content, of the texts under scrutiny. Faustina’s Sangati, Sivakami’s The Grip of Change and Shyamala’s Father May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But… break away with tales of oppression and refuse to confine Dalit women to the role of victims given to them both by Hindu nationalist and Western orientalist discourses. Instead, they place marginalised Dalit women at the centre of at times crude, at times astonishingly humorous narratives. |
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