Becoming Dalit Women’s Voice: Engaging with Self-reflective Narrative in Bama’s Karukku

Abstract

Dalit writings are considered to be centred on the issue of identity politics. Most analysis rests on their claim of identity as fixed and static. They ignore an embedded process of various spatial implications, characters’ interaction with it, and a self-reflexive narrative gaze that most of the prominent Dalit writers present through their autobiographical narratives. Concentration on these concepts provides a fresh perspective to critically analyse Dalit writings and presents a different understanding of identity formation. This article proposes to unearth this process through a reading of Bama’s Karukku (2012), in English translation. It attempts to establish that identity formation in Dalit writings is a process that is based on various kinds of spatial experiences that could be divided into three stages of development. This process culminates in transforming a character into a politically conscious Dalit figure. Also, this article attempts to chart a character’s development that corroborates to body’s spatial-cultural location and its response to/within that space. It is an attempt to understand various spatial ramifications that the character experiences in an attempt to forge an identity outside the traditional definition.