Sharan Kumar Limbale’s novel ‘Hindu’ is a significant addition to the process of reformulating a new aesthetic rubric of Dalit literature. Moving away consciously from the mode of sentimentality, binaries and universality, Limbale’s novel attempts to negotiate a new artistic vocabulary for the Dalits in a fast changing world where old certainties are vanishing at a mind numbing pace. ArunPrabha Mukherjee,in her introduction to the novel points towards the significant departure that Limbale’s novel articulates, by undermining several practices of burgeois narrative technique. Both Limbale and Mukherjee seems to assert that in a complex and dynamic world of dalit realities, experiences and corresponding techniques of representation should be recalibrated to bring out the intricate nuances of the specific life-world of the erstwhile ‘untouchables’.
Limbale’s novel traces not a romantic story or an autobiographical trajectory of an exploited dalit. Instead it attempts to look objectively at the socio-political ramifications of the category of ‘dalit’ as a community. In the complex world of Bhimnagar in the novel’s landscape the reader encounters a plethora of dalit and non-dalit characters, each individualistic in their significant ways and each conscious of their individual political standing. Limbale’s novel presents a world in transition where the old world exploitative mechanism was metamorphosing, keeping up with the demands of a constitutional democracy.Hindu becomes the microcosm of a nation grappling with social upheaval on the heels of political demands at a particular historical juncture of its existence.The setting has all the specificities of the Indian society in the 1990s and the narrative almost emerges as a yardstick t...
... middle of paper ...
...ld: A Derivative Discourse? London: Zed Books, 1986.
Dangle,Arjun, ‘Dalit Literature:Past, Present and Future’ ,trans. Avinash S. Pandit and Daya Agarwal, in Arjun Dangle (ed.)The Poisoned Bread:Translations from Marathi Dalit Literature, Bombay: Orient Longman, 1992, intro.Print
Ganguly, Debjani, Caste and Dalit Lifeworlds, Postcolonial Perspectives, Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2005.Print.
Oddie,A. Geoffrey. ‘The Depressed Classes and Christianity’ in Hindu and Christian in South East India. London: Curzon Press, 1991.p.158
Jayakumar, Vijayalayam, Sree Narayan Guru: A Critical Study,tr.Sadanandan K ,Delhi: D.K Printworld, 1999. Print.
Kosambi, Meera. ‘Indian Response to Christianity,Church and Colonialism’ in Economic and Political Weekly. October 24-31 ,1992.p.WS- 61.
Limbale, Sharan Kumar, Hindu. Tr. Arun Prabha Mukherjee. Kolkata:Stree and Samya books. 2010 .Print
Fuller, C. J. The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and Society in India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2004. Print.
Narayanan, Vasudha. “Hinduism.” Her Voice, Her Faith: Women Speak on World Religions. Ed. Arvind Sharma and Katherine K. Young. Boulder: Westview Press, 2003. 11-57.
Nicholas B. Dirks. (2011). Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton University Press
The novel shows how secularism is one of the most abused words in Indian politics. It has become pseudo-secularism. Pseudo means false. It results into appeasement of some particular opinion or group for immediate social and political gains. It results into the grievances of Hindus towards their government in India and enhancement of their animosity towards their fellow beings. Having been brainwashed by the rhetoric of the “heroic heritage” of the past and the “pathetic situation” of the present, the “Hindu” youth are made to feel intensely the need for shunning “impotence” and “weakness”. The novel clearly depicts that sufferings of Hindus and fears of Muslims in the novel is the result of politics being played out by politicians to meet their own selfish
Fort, Andrew O, and Patricia Y Mumme. Living Liberation in Hindu Thought. Albany, NY: State Univerasity of New York Press, 1996.
Presenting an authentic portrait of contemporary India during the Emergency era imposed by Indira Gandhi, India in the novel is bound with its timeless chain of caste exploitation, male chauvinism, linguistic strives and communal disharmony. Further the tyranny of the power - hungry politicians over the poor – hungry citizens is unveiled as Mistry depicts the humiliating condition of people living in Jhopadpattis, deaths on railway tracks, demolition of shacks on the pretext of beautification, deaths in police custody, lathi charges and murders in the pretext of enforcing Family Planning.
There is no question that Mulk Raj Anand has fashioned with Untouchable a novel that articulates the abuses of an exploited class through sheer sympathy in the traditionalist manner of the realist novel He is, indeed, the "fiery voice" of those people who form the Untouchable caste. Yet if the goal of the writer, as Anand himself states, is to transform "words into prophecy," then the reader's struggle for meaning in the closing scenes of the novel become problematic and contestatory. It is reasonable to assume -- and as I would argue, it is implied -- that Anand has ventured to address a specific question with writing Untouchable; this is, how to alleviate the exploitation of the untouchable class in India? He then proceeds to address this question through the dramatization of Bahka, the novel's central character. Having said this -- and taking into account Anand's notion of the novel as prophesy -- I will argue that the author has failed to fully answer the question he has set before him.
The novel also records the heinous system of caste discrimination practiced in Indian society. The caste system was a brutal oppressive mechanism that branded an unfortunate section of the society as untouchables and thrust them to the periphery. For several millennia caste constituted the core of social life in India. It dictated the occupation and the social interaction of a person. Nicholas Dirks in his introduction to Colonialism and culture remarks, „…. Culture in India seems to have been principally defined by caste. Caste has always been seen as central in Indian history and as one of the major caste is today- as it was throughout the colonial era – the major threat to Indian modernity.‟Describing the caste system in India Amdedkar
Girish Karnad’s dramatic themes focus on the basic issues that concern the existential problem of an individual in the postcolonial modern Indian society. Gender and culture are two important social constructs that keep on modifying the existential space of an individual. These various class identities often identify the individual as a marginal ‘other’. This concept of the ‘other’ superficially seems to lie within the class constructs that are governed largely by the concepts of gender and culture. By deconstructing the class constructs we can identify and understand how gender and culture subjugate the individual and make him/her the ‘other’ thus creating subclasses within a class and locating the margin within the centre. Girish Karnad’s three plays Yayati, Hayavadana and Naga-Mandala focus on the gender narratives and their presentations through cultural perspectives that try to locate the individual within the constructs of class narratives as a marginalized other.
Of the themes which dominate the representative writings of the forth world literatures include the theme of resistance, rebellion, opposition, assertion, challenge, sacrifice, suffering and displacement. All these general ideas are interconnected with the common concept of ‘freedom’ and an aspiration for which is truly a driving force for the indigenous people. In this paper an attempt has been made to look into the theme of resistance and how it contributes to the development of the spirit of self-determinism as it is reflected and re-presented in the Fourth World literatures with special reference to dalits’ writings in India in order to appreciate and advance the common cause of freedom in the larger interest of Humanity.
Mahasweta Devi, always writes for deprived section of people. She is a loving daughter, a clerk, a lecturer, a journalist, an editor, a novelist, a dramatist and above all an ardent social activist. Her stories bring to the surface not only the misery of the completely ignored tribal people, but also articulate the oppression of w...
Dalit movement began in Maharastra during the seventies of the twentieth century, witnessed the emergence of Dalit literature. The translation of such literature proclaims the problems of Dalits, the voiceless to the world. The first wave Dalit writers have shown Dalit women characters as victims not as fighters, whereas the second wave, attempted to portray women as real: heroic, audacious and self-respecting, began placing them in the battle field for fighting against atrocities. One such Dalit writer is Bama, well-known for her novels Karruku (1992), Sangati (1994) and Vanmam (2002), belongs to paraya community. Holmstrom commends in the introduction of Sangati that, “Bama was already formulating a ‘Dalit feminism’ which redefined ‘woman’
Aravind Adiga’s debut novel The White Tiger published in 2008, and a winner of Booker Prize examines the issues of religion, caste, loyalty, corruption, urbanization and poverty in India. The novel besides receiving critical acclaim was also lambasted by some in India for giving in to western prejudices and playing up to their image of a poverty stricken, slum governed country. Some even went to the extent of calling it a western conspiracy to deny the country’s economic progress. It seems ...
My primary concern is to bring out the Voices of Subjugation and Hegemony in the works of Omprakash Valmiki, Sharan Kumar Limbale, Bhama and Baby Kamble. Dalit literature has occupied a significant role in the world literature. It has clearly exposed the torments faced dalits by so called upper caste people in the society. Dalits have undergone pain, humiliation, discrimination, subjugation and hegemonic control because of foolish customs laid by chaturvarna system in Hindu relilgion. Chaturvarna functioned on the basis of dividing people on caste and their occupation. The Chaturvarna system has caused discrimination among human beings because it has created a society that is based on cast hierarchy. The people who are in
Sarah’s novel ‘Othappu’ discloses the ubiquitous forces within catholic practices that make such proactive faltering a heretical imperative. The novel gives us rare glimpses of Malayali Christian society peppered and layered with Biblical quotations and allusions and carrying echoes and subtexts that parallel events in the New Testament. It dares to explore the role of spirituality, sexuality and the freedom of the self in a self-consciously religious society. ‘Othappu’ unfolds at many levels to critique notion of class, caste, antiquity and prestige that have, over time, eroded the powers of the church. The novel is not only limited to the Christian community but also to our entire cultural terrain.