Seeking Space in Post-Partition Bengal: Reading Kalyani Thakur Charal’s Autobiography Ami Kano Charal Likhi through a Gender and Caste Perspective

Abstract

Space for Dalits is either hierarchically organized or publicly restricted or perpetually excluded from mainstream Indian society. The process of ‘Othering’ and abandonment of the outcastes for possessing a space, sanctioned by the laws of varnashrama, was subtly retained and manipulated by the new democratic Indian government during the rehabilitation process of the post-partition Bengal and thus enforced the Dalit refugees to adopt the identity of either vagabonds or delinquents. Spatial insecurity and its explicit exhibition through the emotions of the Dalit men usually suppressed the pain and suffering of the Dalit women that entailed their struggle for psychic space due to their inability to articulate their angst. This article aims to explore how both the Dalit men and women were struggling to seek a physical and psychical space and also discuss how the long-term consequence of the partition left an imprint of both the negative and positive impact on the coming generations of Dalit women with special reference to Kalyani Thakur Charal’s autobiography, Ami Kano Charal Likhi (2016) which effectively echoes the collective voice of her Namasudra community through the ‘inherited’ memory of the partition.