Representation and resistance: Strategies in Bama’s Karukku and Raj Gautaman’s Siluvai Raj Sarithiram

Abstract

The social structure of caste in India has assigned Brahmins to the apex and Dalits to the bottom of the caste system and, importantly, has also attained religious sanction, since the sacred Vedic texts served to perpetuate such stratifications among Hindus. The social institutions of religion, law, politics, art and literature thus reflected the dominant ideology of the Caste Hindus. But, after centuries of suppression, Dalits are now finding their voice, in literature as well as through political activism. In many ways an “arm” of Dalit politics, such literature has become an effective tool in expressing the protest of this community against the domination of Caste Hindus. Dalit literature as a genre was established in the 1960s and 1970s when a body of Dalit writing was published in Marathi and Gujarati, followed, nearly two decades later, by Tamil Dalit writing. Although caste oppression and discrimination are common elements in most Tamil Dalit literary works, their widely differing contexts range from Srilankan Tamil Dalit to Tamil Dalit-Christian communities. Bama’s Karukku (1992) and Raj Gautaman’s Siluvai Raj Sarithiram (2002) bring to light the discriminations prevalent within Tamil Christian communities. The protagonists of these novels take the radical step of rejecting Christianity and identifying themselves primarily as Dalits. Through an analysis of these two texts, the article discusses the caste hierarchy prevalent in Tamil Christian communities, while also exploring larger ambiguities in the construction of pan-Indian Dalit identity.