Storied memories: gendering Dalit memories in Urmila Pawar’s The Weave of My Life

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present article intends to explore how gendered Dalit 1 memory enables one to reclaim the female ‘self’, more explicitly female subjectivity through Urmila Pawar’s The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs. Taking cues from the theoretical framework of Uma Chakravarti Guru, and Sharmila Rege, it will interrogate the contentions about the construction of a casteist gendered body. Further, it will substantiate the delineation of memory in the form of text as a social resurrection that builds resistance towards social exclusion and injustice. The literary representation of caste and gender has emerged as a new trend in Dalit women’s memoirs and autobiographical narratives in contemporary India. The long-silenced voices become visible through the intersectional private and public memories reconstructing their caste identity from a feminist perspective. Such gendered narrative perspectives articulate the lived experiences of the Dalit women within and beyond marginality. It further recreates alternative understanding of gendered Dalit ‘self’ as well as community.