Social &Political Energy and Resistant Aesthetics in the Hindi Poems of Om Prakash Valmiki. (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering (IJITEE), 2019
The major focus of this piece of writing is to bring to the light the voice of an empowered writer Omprakash Valmiki.. "Joothan: A Dalit's Life" is respectively chosen for the research as it brings out the malicious veracity of Dalit's life in an authentic way. He took Dalit literature in his hand as a gizmo to carry out his anguish as a communal trauma of his community. Today his voice has been well recognized, and it stands as a robust right for his society He describes "his" experience as a Dalit, and the twinge that he underwent throughout his lifetime. Being human one must have autonomy, deference and sanctuary; but for Valmiki, it stood as a threat in the midst of the dominant elements of society. His autobiography emphasizes the significance of literature by endowing the platform in spreading the knowledge about Dalit lives and their individual experience in this civil society. In general, a Dalit tries not to divulge his identity as Dalit in the midst of "others", but expresses his anger in clandestine space. This is due to an "intimidate syndrome" a natural outcome that a Dalit is always surrounded by. Dalit Studies are a rare glimpse that very few talk about it and dare enough to write. Omprakash Valmiki takes the smugness to bring out the marginalized issues into the world where the mainstream writers seldom mentioned the kind of turmoil in their works dealing with caste. Undeniably his writing is not a stuff of potboiler but proves to be a better medium to create consciousness in the society.
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Dalit women face endemic gender and caste discrimination and violence as a result of extreme unequal social, economic, and political power equations because of their vulnerability at the bottom of India's caste, class, and gender hierarchies. Their socioeconomic weakness and lack of political power, combined with the main risk factors of being Dalit and female, heighten their exposure to potentially violent Circumstances, hindering their rights to live with dignity and reach their full potential. The poems of three contemporary Dalit feminist writers, namely, Meena Kandasamy (1984-), Aruna Gogulamanda (1970-) and Sukirtharani (1973-) appear to be an encyclopaedia of painful catalogues, some heard and some experienced. Their witty arguments and unbashful and uncompromising writing style not only unleash the power/caste/sexual politics at hand but also suggest ways of emancipation for women and an era of liberation for them. The article aims to uncover the intersectionality of caste and gender-through a reading of select poets' works-exposing the exploitation, oppression, violence and marginalization that reflects on the Dalit female body inhibiting from and affecting the physical, psychological, economic and social dimensions. It will do so by employing various post-modern critical scholarships on caste/gender politics, politics of the body, identity, self, subjectivity, agency, and its attendant issues. Thus, by using the female body as an ingress the article through critical analysis of the select poems will showcase a paradigm shift in understanding the self via body hence suggesting ways for Dalit women's agency/emancipation. By highlighting the experiences of marginalized female voices, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of gender dynamics, caste politics within Indian society, ultimately prompting discussions on the need for caste and gender equity and inclusivity in contemporary India.
The Angry young Dalit Voice of Aesthetics Resistance in Meena Kandasamy s Selected Poems
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Dalit literature is based on Dalit consciousness and it represents the harsh lived experiences of marginalized Dalit people. Although Indian literature and culture has been following among the most ancient traditional heritage in the world, the literature rarely focuses on the problems of inequality, poverty, and pain of the down-trodden people. Indian society was very clearly demarcated through a clear gradation in the exercises of power and privilege. The reason behind this disparity is that the pen has always been in the hand of those who have wielded power and position. Dalit literature has formed an alternative culture, ruptures the structured social frames and it results in the production of counter cultural resistance to existing and predominating culture of India. The literary tradition of Indian narrative technique and language is replaced by the auto narrative of Dalit writers. Dalit literature based on the emerging Dalit consciousness of the marginalized Dalit people. As Dalit literature is primarily a literature of resistance, it generally consists of autobiography and fictionalized incidents which depict the solid reality and the struggle of their life. So usually they avoid expressing their emotions in poetic diction. That is why there are very few number of dalit poets who often echo either the agony of the repressed or the anger of the rebel is suspicious of convention and protests against the hegemony of caste and class. The expression of intense emotions in unembellished, direct language is a major characteristic of Dalit poetry. Among the major poets Meena Kandasamy is one of the eminent dalit female poets whose poetry projects the discursivity in the micro-politics of power and oppression. The attempt of this paper entails an exploration of the depiction of some recurrent themes in Kandasamy’s poetry like sexuality, gender roles, feministic approaches, and her aesthetic resistance in her angry young voice, which carries a vital importance in the critical study of gender roles within feminist discourse.
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Poetry has always been one of the most critical and vivid form of expression available to humankind, and this paper seeks to trace and explore the origin, history, diversity, and methodology of the various kinds of poetry which was used to register protest or dissent against authority figures in India, particularly through the lens of the Dalit community, Indian Muslims and Indian feminists. The research aims to trace the similarities and differences in the way each of these communities began to use the creative medium of poetry to lodge their disagreements with the regimes, social order, or socio-political norms at various junctures of India’s history, from the colonial past to a thriving democracy, while also exploring the contrast between relatively older instances to the concurrent times. Eminent poets whose works have had a lasting impact on the social and political movements of their communities have found a place in the article as well, with snippets of their work showcasing ...
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A Cultural Psychological Reading of Dalit Literature: A Case Study of Joothan by Om Prakash Valmiki
Brandeis University USA, 2020
Dalit literature has been a major cultural artefact in struggles against caste-based oppression and discrimination. It not only negotiates a collective identity for Dalits but also introduces variability in negotiations for the same. This paper focuses on the nuances of one such negotiation-the making of a Hindi Dalit writer. At the theoretical backdrop of cultural psychology, utilizing the conceptual machinery of Zittoun, the paper analyzes the autobiographical narrative of Om Prakash Valmiki. It identifies the ruptures and the transitional processes in Valmiki's life. These processes of transitions include identity redefinition, knowledge and skills; and meaning making. These processes were facilitated by varied resources: social, cognitive and symbolic. Valmiki's relocation to a city led to the change in his frame of activity. Thereafter, at each stage of his life, his social circle widened, his cognitive skills got enhanced and symbolic resources were used at progressively higher level of reflexivity. The major social resources were found to be the people with whom he came in contact after relocating to the city. The cognitive resources were found to be Hindi mainstream literature, Marathi Dalit literature, and theatrical devices. The symbolic resources were the works of Phule, Ambedkar and Marx. Accessibility and utilization of all these resources eased the reconfiguration of the semiotic prism reifying his identity as a Hindi Dalit writer enabling him transform the caste-based experiences on the plane of fiction challenging the power hierarchy embedded in social reality.
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Venomous Touch: Meena Kandasamy and the Poetics of Dalit Resistance
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