Dalits are the broken-down, depressed, oppressed and backward people. They have been under the suppression and oppression of the upper caste people since centuries. Many Dalit women have written their autobiographies so that other people also know their saga of sorrows. Phoolan Devi also has been an illiterate Dalit woman who could neither read nor write. Her autobiography I, Phoolan Devi: The Autobiography of India’s Bandit Queen is a heart-rendering story of her life.
But the situation of Dalit women, which earlier referred to 'untouchables ', made the case worst as they were mostly neglected by the society and forced to work as prostitutes. The scenario in modern world did not made any difference to Dalit women and they are still being discriminated and forced to work as prostitutes, also involved in human trafficking etc. According to 2010 survey, every 18 minutes, Dalit women are becoming victim of forced prostitution, murder, rape etc2. Also, not only they are abused and discriminated by upper caste of the society but also they are being abused by Dalit men also. The triangular combination, (being women, lower caste and Dalit), have made the scenario worst for Dalit women.
Jaideo Gaikwad (1995) in his article "The Dalit women 's dual flight: fight for caste eradication and fight for women 's liberation", argues that Dalit women 's assertion will challenge the multiple exploitations based upon caste, class and gender in all castes and communities by assimilating the Phuleite and Ambedkarite ideology. Neelam Gorhe(1995), in her article "Social Devolvement and Dalit Women", argues that Dalit women are sidelined in the process of development due to the oppression based on caste and gender. Dalit women have to confront day-to-day atrocities because of their lower status and gender within the caste
Exploitation of Dalits Introduction: Dalit- The term has been derived from Sanskrit word dal, meaning broken and downtrodden. It shows the exploitation and inequality in the hierarchical system of India. They have been considered as polluting and hence have been excluded from society since times immemorial. Dalit is a word which came into being recently. Earlier, they were classified as acchut, untouchable, chandals, harijans and many such terms.
A Dawnless Night – Touch-Me-Notism as one of the Dimensions of Anthropocentrism: A Study of Bama’s Karukku M. Divya, Assistant Professor of English, Dr. G. R. Damodaran College of Science, Coimbatore Dalit is a Marathi word, “dala” meaning “of the soil or the earth”. Another meaning is “that which is rooted in the soil”. Dalit is a self designation for a group of people of South Asian descent who were traditionally regarded as untouchables or low castes. Dalits are those who are oppressed like the hill people, neo-Buddhists, labourers, destitute farmers, women and all those who have been exploited politically, economically in the society. There are separate streets for each community which says that different caste people lived there.
This is a gap that is seen between the Indian elite and the majority of Indians, but it becomes an even wider gulf when the Dalit elite is juxtaposed with the average Dalit. The audience of all Dalit literature is predominantly non-Dalit. Dalit writing today is extremely varied. Apart from the realistic, non-realistic, naturalistic and quasi-journalistic fiction that constitutes the staple of Dalit prose writers, there are surrealistic and expressionist poets among the Dalit whose writing is extremely sophisticated or avant-garde. The Dalit poets like Namdeo Dhasal and Aijun Dangle have created an alternative poetics that throws overboard classical values like propriety, balance, restraint and understatement.
She also reveals the dark face of so-called civilized society through a narration of the untold sufferings of a tribal woman. As a social activist, she has spent many years crusading for the rights of Dalit. Since Mahasweta is an obsessive activist and writing come to her as an instrument in her battle against exploitation, and marginalization of tribal. KEYWORDS: Dalit, Tribal, Humiliation, Exploitation, Equality, Discrimination, Freedom. INTRODUCTION Even after sixty six years of independence, India’s rural poor and tribal’s are lamenting under the curbing effects of destitution, unemployment, undernourishment, illiteracy and human trafficking.
This term specifies the outcastes and despised community. During the 1970’s, the Dalit panther movement of Maharashtra described it more broadly as “members of Scheduled caste, Scheduled Tribe”, Neo-Buddhists, the working people, the landless and poor peasants, woman and all those who are being exploited politically, economically and in the name of religion”. So Dalits are exclusively the socially marginalized people of
A lexicon rich in community dialects, slang and rarely known usages and sayings made bizarre feeling to the so called elite group. Dalit writers of fiction and autobiography have redrawn the entire scenario of Indian literature and discovered and explored many so far unlit areas of experience. They rewrote everything in the marginalized character’s perspective, forcing the rest of the society to look critically at their own traditions and practices. “The lack of art and artifice in Dalit literature compensated for by the lived reality and candid expression directed at the polite conscience of high society, high literature and high theory (Abedi 140)”. Dalit literature is based on anubhava and not anumana.
The sacred books of the Hindus contain no uniform or consistent account of the origin of castes, but offer mystical, mythical, and rationalistic explanations of it, or fanciful conjecture concerning it. Etymologically, the word ‘Dalit’ is derived from Sanskrit word ‘Dalita’ - means 'oppressed '. In great Indian social-cultural context they were untouchables, depressed and the lower then the Brahmin, Kshatriya, and Vaishya. The untouchables were referred as ‘Chandala’ or ‘Avarna’ in ancient period. The words ‘Untouchable’ or ‘Harijan’ used by Narasimha Mehta and Mahatma Gandhi during 20th century.