In the coercive suffocation and political instability of the 1960s when Little Magazines and Dalit Panthers (1972)began torebel against the established savarnaliterary, linguistic, formal and cultural conventions, Baby Kamble’s autobiography The Prison We Broke (original JinaAmucha in Marathi,translated by Maya Pandit: 2009)came out as a direct self-assertion as a first Marathi Dalit woman’s autobiography in its type. Dalit writing proceeds from a unique Dalitness experienced by a Dalit writer.The usual classic paradigm ofany Dalit autobiography is torn between two extremities of grinding poverty and inhuman casteism. In the narrative ofher autobiography,Baby as a Dalit woman reminisces the life and living of her village Veergaon and unravelsan‘other’ layer of discrimination, i.e. gender discrimination. This additional intra-familial struggle against Dalit Patriarchy has made Dalit women doubly oppressed among the oppressed Dalits in India. These three-tier experiences of discriminations in terms of caste, class and gender is captured in the discourse of this Dalit text. Blurring the distinction between Individual autobiography and collective biography, The Prisons We Broke comes out as a complete register of Dalit liberation movement where each single Dalit-man or woman- becomes the votary of Ambedkarite principles of “Educate, Agitate and Organize1” to secure the Dalits human rights.
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Author Name: Jayanta Banerjee
URL: View PDF
Keywords: Department of English, Ph.D
ISSN: 2321-7065
EISSN: 2321-7065
EOI/DOI: 10-12-2014
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