The Politics of Form in Dalit Fiction

Abstract

This article examines two Dalit novels, Bama’s Sangati and Sivakami’s The Grip of Change. It argues that the two novels hybridise the very novel form through the appropriation of different registers, the mythic, the historical and the immediate. It argues that this narrative hybridisation is a political project, reflecting a radicalisation of consciousness itself. Bama and Sivakami, I argue further, transform folkloric and local-mythic language and narrative by infusing into it the language of rights, Ambedkarite philosophy, dignity and the law. The language of the law and rights, I suggest, have entered common usage and thus results in a radicalising of the common sense, so that folkloric language itself becomes a language of protest and political challenge.

Dalit Textuality and Sexuality: Narrative and Gender in Tamil Women’s Writing

“…One way Bama rewrites the ‘novel’ is by using non-literary and non-standardised storytelling forms such ‘oppaari’ (dirge), ‘kulavai’ (ululation), ‘chellaangucchi’ (village game) and ‘roraaathu’ (lullaby). ‘ Sangati is built around women’s conversations—events are narrated through women’s stories and opinions delivered through them, a feature that produces a ‘dramatized audience’ that foregrounds the experience of specific Dalit Women’ (Nayar, 2011, pp. 369–370).…”