REFLECTIONS OF DALIT FEMINST VOICE IN BAMA'S KARUKKU AND SANGATI (original) (raw)

Dalit is not a caste but a realization and is related to the experience of joys and sorrows and struggles of those in the lowest stratum of the society'. -Arjun Dangle The forces of Post-modernism that are simultaneously operative in the social scenario are based on a contrary position-that of projecting difference and alteriety, delving into the fractures and fragments, throwing further margins and boundaries. Seen form a deconstructive/reconstructive perspective, there arise conflictual relations of indeterminacy and determination. Therefore, along with renewed geographic locationing there is a call for polyphonous social navigations-not only are the pressures from outside inundating space but the pressures from within are calmouring to break the margins and emerge as equitable/equating forces. All this has resulted in a deconstruction of dominant hegemonic discourse to subvert boundaries from bottom up. A significant shift in the feminist thought of the 80's and 90's was brought on by the increasing visibility of black and third world feminist work. There has however, been a reluctance on part of white feminists to confront the challenges posed to them by black and third world feminism. Often, this reluctance has been justified in terms of white feminists refraining from an appropriation of the voices of black and third world women. Vol. 1 | No. 6 | December 2012 www.garph.co.uk IJARMSS | 183 In the Indian context, the political pit falls of the ever increasing impact of postmodernist and post-structural approaches in terms of the rise of 'culturological' and communitarian approaches; the rise of the 'later subaltern subject' and the post-colonial subject have been noted. In the framework of post-orientalism studies, the focus remains of colonial domination alone, thereby the pre-colonial roots of caste, gender, and class domination come to be ignored. The application of Saidian framework, therefore, presents a problem, especially when applied to the non-Brahman movements and movements by or on behalf of women since both these had utilized and the colonial law, justice and administration as major resources. Recent feminist scholarship in adopting the Saidian frame work not only falls into the above mentioned traps, but ends ukp with a frame that completely overlooks the contributions and interventions of women in the non-Brahman movement. The invisibility of this lineage has led scholars to conceive the recent autonomous assertion by Dalit women as 'a different voice'. Women have only recently become part of intellectual narratives, having had their traditions deemed 'unworthy' for centuries by patriarchal societies engaged in the task of constructing and deconstructing identities. While the question of gender is being engaged with at a consistent level today, there is a need to focus on the identity and politics of dalit women. An understanding of the dynamics of caste illustrates how gender equations are determined and influenced by caste. In the Indian context in general, the notion of a Dalit woman has to be understood in the framework of 21 st century cultural politics. The notion of a complete monolithic Indian society connected through religion is completely broken by the caste system. The context of the Dalit woman needs to be understood not only from the overall perspective of women but also that of caste. The existence of the Dalit woman cannot be recognized similarly like upper caste woman simply because the values of feudal society are deep-rooted in caste. To perpetuate sexual harassment, some feudal communities chose to keep the Devadasi tradition going, so that sexual assault could take place in the name of god and therefore legitimized. If for the upper class, caste women, sexual oppression could take place within the framework of family and caste, for the Dalit woman, the entire male society competed to make sexual assaults on her. In fact, female goddesses were created simply to carry on with sexual oppression, and Feudal society has inflicted as much violence on women as the Vedic traditions have. Though these values Vol. 1 | No. 6 | December 2012 www.garph.co.uk IJARMSS | 184