feminism in bama's novels
Caste, Gender Dichotomy: a Dalit Feminist Perspective - A Study of Bama’s Sangati
“When I was born/ Mother wept, saying “A row of worries/Endless trouble.” (37)
-Imayam
Caste and gender are the two important identity building mechanisms that create a Dalit Feminist perspective. Dalit feminism redefines woman from the socio-political perspective of a Dalit, taking into account the caste and gender oppression. This critique focuses on three aspects, firstly the oral narrative style that Bama, a Tamil, Dalit writer adapts to tell the stories, secondly the legends and songs that she has woven into her text and thirdly using the food trope to narrate an alternate "her story". Though this article focuses on Sangati, her second novel, I will also refer to Karrukku, Bama's seminal first work. Born as Fatima in 1958 in Puthupatti village in Viruthungar district in Southern Tamilnadu, Bama wrote Karukku in 1992 which brought with it the force of whirlwind to whip the literary world with its quintessentially Dalit theme and language. Karukku which means the searing edges of palmyra leaves, discusses the life of a Dalit Catholic Christian woman in retrospect and focusses the caste based atrocities in her village, experiences of untouchability in the catholic convent and the final breaking away from the nunnery. Sangati, her next work bears the news of the plight of girls and women in her rural community. Kisumbukkaran and Vanmam are her other noteworthy works.
Bama does not have a defined women’s literary tradition in Tamil. She observes, “until recently women writers in Tamil have moulded their writing on the male literary tradition” (Kanal 30). Bama pioneers in the creation of a Tamil Dalit Feminist tradition. A.Marx, writer and critic feels that African Americans were brought as slaves to America before four hundred years and their literature is two hundred years old whereas Dalits belong to India and two thousand years of Indian history has denied them
“When I was born/ Mother wept, saying “A row of worries/Endless trouble.” (37)
-Imayam
Caste and gender are the two important identity building mechanisms that create a Dalit Feminist perspective. Dalit feminism redefines woman from the socio-political perspective of a Dalit, taking into account the caste and gender oppression. This critique focuses on three aspects, firstly the oral narrative style that Bama, a Tamil, Dalit writer adapts to tell the stories, secondly the legends and songs that she has woven into her text and thirdly using the food trope to narrate an alternate "her story". Though this article focuses on Sangati, her second novel, I will also refer to Karrukku, Bama's seminal first work. Born as Fatima in 1958 in Puthupatti village in Viruthungar district in Southern Tamilnadu, Bama wrote Karukku in 1992 which brought with it the force of whirlwind to whip the literary world with its quintessentially Dalit theme and language. Karukku which means the searing edges of palmyra leaves, discusses the life of a Dalit Catholic Christian woman in retrospect and focusses the caste based atrocities in her village, experiences of untouchability in the catholic convent and the final breaking away from the nunnery. Sangati, her next work bears the news of the plight of girls and women in her rural community. Kisumbukkaran and Vanmam are her other noteworthy works.
Bama does not have a defined women’s literary tradition in Tamil. She observes, “until recently women writers in Tamil have moulded their writing on the male literary tradition” (Kanal 30). Bama pioneers in the creation of a Tamil Dalit Feminist tradition. A.Marx, writer and critic feels that African Americans were brought as slaves to America before four hundred years and their literature is two hundred years old whereas Dalits belong to India and two thousand years of Indian history has denied them