Abstract:
Literature is a means of registering human experiences and the protest against deep forms of humiliations and injustice perpetrated around the world. It is also an effective tool to voice the untold sufferings and agony of the marginalized that are relegated to the fringe of society and denied all rights. This paper tries to analyze the fragmented selves and the destabilizing identities of the Dalits as portrayed in the autobiographical novel Karukku written by Bama.Her conflicts and the long struggle to come into terms with her multiple identities of that of a woman, Christian and a Dalit is portrayed in the novel.
Key Words: Destabilizing identities, subaltern, subjugation, fragmented selves
Bama Faustina Susairaj, known as Bama has carved out a unique niche for herself in the literary arena with her debut novel Karukku. She was born in 1952 in a Roman Catholic Christian family which belonged to the paraiyar community in Puthupetti, Tamil Nadu. Her conflicts and the long struggle to come to terms with her multiple identities of that of a woman, Christian and a Dalit is portrayed in the novel. Her novel Karukku was published in 1992 in a dialect of Tamil unique to her community. This novel was later translated to English by Lakshmi Holmstrom in the year 2012. Bama explains that she had to write this novel since she had no other ways to heal her wounds. She writes unabashedly about her experiences and the institutions which had rendered her life miserable.
The caste system which is a classification of people into several categories based on their occupation also determines their access to wealth, power, and privilege. In her autobiography, Bama talks about the victimization, the oppression that she had to suffer on account of her social status as a Dalit woman. Her fragmented identities and subaltern life rendered peaceful life a distant dream. It is interesting to note that the events in the novel do not follow a linear chronological narrative style but are interspersed with different incidents viewed from different perspectives and grouped in unique ways.
Dr B.R.Ambedkar, the valiant fighter and crusader against the caste system practiced in India has stated that caste is not only a division of labour, but it is also a division of labourers. To ensure equality and fraternity among the diverse communities and ethnic groups in India, the annihilation of caste, especially its hierarchical structure is inevitable. The predicament of Dalit Christians and the inhumane treatment meted out to them by the casteist society is a recurring theme in the novel Karukku. She also describes some humorous incidents which happened in her life during her childhood days which, when subjected to close reading delineates the complex hierarchical structure of the Indian caste system. Her protest is not only against the incessant subjugation that she had to endure as a Dalit but also the discrimination and segmentation experienced as a woman in a patriarchal society. As Vijay Kumar points out in his article Three-fold subjugation and oppression: A study of Bama Faustina's Karukku "Bama raises her voice, representing her community, against the subjugation of women in every sphere of life, their resistance and call for action".(Kumar 4)
The present study highlights the problem of destabilization of identities and the resultant fragmentation of selves among the underprivileged and subjugated who live in the margins of the pluralistic and complex Indian social order. The onset of liberal progressive ideas which is paradoxical has only nominally liberated them from the oppression and exploitation that they have been undergoing for ages. In her novel, Karukku Bama also states about casteism and the tyrannical practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Bama's grandfather had converted to Christianity to escape the abuse and the subjugation of the Dalit community in the Hindu religion. But later when Bama joined a nunnery she soon realized that her faith does not emancipate her, assuage her worries and alleviate her sufferings as she had expected. As we delve deeper into her psyche it is evident that even such a transformation has failed in enabling her to establish a firm sense of self and a sense of dignity and self realisation over time. Individuation is the development of a distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity. But such a sense of uniqueness and affiliation is bound to fluctuations that gradually hinder them from self realisation and self actualisation. Such fluctuations will eventually lead to the destabilisation of identities, an attribute that can be traced out in the female protagonist of the novel. As pointed out by Jasbir Jain in her article Negotiations with Faith: Conversion, identity and historical continuity published in the book Dalit Literatures in India,“Histories of conversion, of personal struggles and the creation of new heroes, myths and legends are recorded not only in official reports but also in auto/biographical narratives, fiction and poetry. The anguish, humiliation and memory of indignities suffered, as well as the sense of being peripheral, are reflected in them as their daily experience of life continues to reinforce this sense of marginality. (Jain 126)
Bama narrates a variety of experiences in her novel including many experiences during her upbringing which made her feel ashamed of her Paraiyar ancestors. She is enraged by the inhumane treatment of the lower classes by the people who belong to the upper strata of society. She had been aware of the dominance since she was a child. The essential thing to remember is that her school was not the only place where she had to endure this injustice. It was all over the place. When Bama was in high school, she went to a nearby town and she had to stay at a hotel. Her hostel warden, a sister, could never tolerate low-caste, underprivileged children and always blamed them for everything they did. She also recalls her skipping a college party because she couldn't afford a new saree and hiding in the toilet until it was finished. While educational environments are intended to be emancipatory, devoid of any marks of identity and privilege, Bama encountered the same discrimination she had faced outside the school and college there, making it much more difficult to succeed. At the age of twenty, she joined a nunnery with hopes of equality and justice. But she was again disillusioned. Soon the realization came to her that it is equally oppressive and that she was being treated differently from others as a Dalit woman. Even her decision to leave the convent was accepted only after much commotion and distress. Eventually, she decides to be alone.
In the context of the heterogeneous Indian society, the complex situations in which women are placed and their ardent struggle to segregate themselves from other overpowering identities have to be analyzed in detail. Karukku is a revelation of Dalit women's inherent power and energy, as embodied by Bama .She is not a passive sufferer. She is the victim as well as the victor. Her experiences provide Dalit women with new insights. She makes it clear that centuries of oppression have not been able to drain the vitality and inner power of the people and that they have tremendous power and vitality to overcome any odds. Karukku is noteworthy because it brings humiliating secrets into the public eye. In reality, Bama shatters the silence surrounding caste discrimination, social inequity, and prejudices in her novel. After leaving the convent Bama decides to live alone asserting her Dalit identity. She realizes that education is the only way of empowerment for the downtrodden and the underprivileged. Education provides her liberty and the economic freedom she much longed for. She states in Karukku:
I could go about independently, as I pleased. I could buy a sari or jacket that took my fancy, and wear it. I could go wherever I wanted to go. I could buy and eat what I liked. I could even have a few pieces of jewellery made for myself. I became aware that if you have little money in your hands you can gain some status, and prestige. And I realized that those who have the cash to spend can always live in comfort. (Bama 66)
Bama has also experimented with language in her novel. She opts for innovations by regularly making use of the colloquial and vernacular expressions for narration. She employs a Dalit dialect that defies upper-caste Tamil etiquette and aesthetics. Throughout the novel, she defies written grammar and spelling conventions, elides words and connects them in unusual ways, and baffles the reader. The author's predicament as a Dalit is communicated to the readers even by the language she uses to describe them. Discrimination based on gender is a global issue. Regardless of nationality or religion, in all civilizations, the practice of gender inequality is common. The Dalit status of such women only worsens this victimization. As women, they become victims of patriarchal social structure in their own families and society. The entire progression of the protagonist in the novel is a trial of self discovery. When Bama realizes that even Christianity does not offer the Dalit a dignified and respectable life as preached by the missionaries she decides to reassert her identity and liberate herself from the class based social structures:
Each one of us has to wake up from slumber. Instead of accepting our lot as our fate, we should reject this bondage, this unjust system. We must be brave and stand up for ourselves. Break up caste barriers and biases and prove to the world that no man is inferior to another. Those who have prospered by suppressing us would not give up their hold so easily. But we need to show them their place, show them that all are equal and change this society (Bama 23)
Bama stands unique among the other Dalit writers since her novel Karukku is the first of its kind in many ways. Bama's relevance in Tamil Dalit writing cannot be overlooked. She has a distinct place in its brief history. One reason for this is the shift from emphasising Dalit victims to focusing on the Dalit community as a whole. Her novel has been hailed as an epochal work in Dalit literature. Her work explores the connections between caste and patriarchy and embodies a very strong denial of passive submission to the discriminating practices of society. It is a powerful and painful narrative of living outside the mainstream Indian thinking and function. It is also the first autobiography by a Dalit woman writer and a classic of subaltern literature. Dalit women are oppressed on several levels, including racial and gendered oppression. Karukku can be viewed as a text written by a woman from the Third World, one who is attempting to survive in a world that dominates women and segregates people according to their caste. Bama serves as a mirror for other women who have been silenced. Bama's writing honours Dalit women's resistance against oppression through subversive tactics. Women of the novel struggle with their male partners. They act shrewdly and overpower their drunk, violent husbands with their verbal onslaught, avoiding physical assault. Apart from this several of them have chosen to leave their controlling spouses. But a sense of precarious existence lacking in predictability rules over their lives and it leads to a fragmentation of themselves. Subaltern women are always subjugated and face incessant oppression of caste, gender, caste and class. Gaytatri Chakravorty Spivak states in her seminal work, Can the Subaltern Speak?
Within the effaced itinerary of the subaltern subject, the track of sexual difference is doubly affected. The question is not of female participation in insurgency, or the ground rules of the sexual division of labor, for both of which there is ‘evidence.’ It is, rather, that, both as object of colonialist historiography and as subject of insurgency, the ideological construction of gender keeps the male dominant. If, in the context of colonial production, the subaltern has no history and cannot speak, the subaltern as female is even more deeply in shadow. (Spivak 83)
It can be concluded that in her novel Karukku Bama has given expression to her relentless struggle and unflinching determination to resist the social evils that plague Indian society. Caste is strongly entrenched in our society and it hinders the process of development to a considerable extent. As her novel draws to a close, she makes a passionate plea to her readers to assist in building a just and equitable society by eradicating caste, class, and religious inequalities.
Works Cited:
- Bama. Karukku. Trans. Lakshmi Holmstrom. Chennai: McMillan Indian Ltd. 2000.
- Jain, Jasbir. ‘Negotiations with Faith: Conversion, Identity and Historical Continuity’. Dalit Literatures in India, Routledge India, 2018, pp. 103–17.
- Kumar, Shiv. "Precarity Redefined: A Reading of Bama‟ s Karukku and Gaikwad‟ s Uchalya: The Branded."
- Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "Can the subaltern speak?" Die Philosophin 14.27 (2003): 42-58.