Joopaka Subhadra: Coarse winnows that sift literature

Abstract

Joopaka Subhadra (1964) is a Dalit feminist poet, short story writer and essayist, who writes as a Madiga woman from Telangana region which makes her identity layered in terms of her caste, sub-caste, class, religion, gender, language and region. This essay is taken from the book Nallaregadi Sallu: Madiga Upakulala Strila Kathalu, which is edited by Joopaka Subhadra and Gogu Shyamala, another significant writer and activist who has contributed to the Dalit feminist writing from Telangana. By specifically focusing on the Madiga sub-caste women’s writing, Subhadra and Shymala have raised pertinent questions about the identity movements that tend to homogenise the identities and also about the mainstreamed women and their writings. The language that Subhadra uses in her writings is specific to Telangana Madiga working-class women. Thus, she strives to achieve specificity at every step in her writings. This essay focuses on the need to redefine feminism in the light of the oppression of women among the most oppressed Madiga sub-castes. Subhadra highlights the knowledge systems, art forms and medicinal practices of the Madigas and counters the mainstreamed systems as incomplete. She points out the loopholes in reform movement which never reached Dalit women. She firmly states that Dalit women is a political category.