The case of English translation of Dalit literature in India has been complicated by several contesting discourses. In this discursive universe, the logic of the market and dominance of Savarna literary culture tend to shore up caste ethos and structural discrimination in contradistinction to Dalit literature, which is grounded in alternative social imaginary and discursivity. The mission of the Dalit literature is to fashion oppositional identities by inscribing experiences of pain and suffering inflicted by the exploitative socio-cultural structures and raise the consciousness of readers. As a Savarna translator approaches a Dalit text, this dichotomy is intensified further due to the (im)possibility of inhabiting Other’s experience and an alternative social. In addition to the questions of negotiating Dalit experience, epistemology, and esthetics, the very act of translation throws up the challenge of representation and cultural citizenship. In this paper, I probe the ways in which a Savarna translator of Dalit texts can carve out a space of agency without being overwhelmed by a burden of anxiety.

This paper provides a revised history of an understudied event in the trajectory of Indian political modernity - the moment of the legalization of abortion in 1971. The existing scholarship on the event reads it as one that was motivated purely by a developmentalist vision of a modernizing postcolonial elite, to the extent that the latter regarded increases in human numbers as hindrance to economic growth and identified abortion-legalization as a key solution to this quandary. While merited, such interpretations do not account for the varied techniques of persuasion mobilized by the parliamentarians/ lawmakers responsible for debating the laws. With the help of extensive archival analysis of the parliamentary debates, the paper shows how the modes of reasoning put forth in these debates were not always pegged to a developmentalist paradigm but rather made unequivocal use of a heterogeneous idiom of “compassion” for the woman, victimized by male irresponsibility, to ground its case. The lawmakers’ mobilization of this concept further recognized that the victimized pregnant woman’s standpoint is epistemically inaccessible/ incommensurable to those who are responsible for adjudicating on the act of abortion. An acknowledgement of this incommensurability between the knowledge that the two parties hold, became the foundation for compassion. In the process of elucidating the use of the idiom of compassion broached in these parliamentary debates, the paper broadens our interpretations of global histories of welfare feminism in general and reproductive justice in particular.

This essay explores the affective and spatial relations shaping the cinematic world of the film Geeli Pucchi, directed by Neeraj Ghaywan for the Ajeeb Dastaans anthology on Netflix. I analyze the spatial arrangements and affective economies moving the characters Priya Sharma and Bharti Mondal toward and away from each other. I aim to speak about how rage plays a role in how Bharti negotiates her relationship with Priya, which involves how her righteous rage helps her (a) stand up for herself, (b) have a more progressive imagination and desire friendship/relationship rebelliously (c) recognize how she has to fight for herself versus fighting for Priya’s entitled, caste-enclosed demands of her. This essay is written in solidarity with all those raging Dalit queer folks and women, who generate their rage against the savarna capitalist machine. I will also note how Dalit rage becomes a part of a rebellious mode of and a liberatory vision of life itself which also constitutes of acts of looking out for oneself and one’s community, making one’s place in the world more livable, and pursuing joy in a difficult world, where raging does not always translate to, even as it includes, scenes of visible anger.

The proposed paper attempts to situate the layered stakes involved in translating Dalit literature from Malayalam to English. Dalit writers while envisioning their literature as a mode to establish their visibility and dissent have also observed how language itself has limitations in conveying their radical politics. Their counterhegemonic writings are often ignored or labeled “uncouth” for the literary public. Through a reading of Pulayathara (1962), we examine the following questions – Do errors in the English translations of Dalit literature always result in what Venuti calls, the “ethnocentric violence” of a culture? How does the lack of cohesive readership, given the fact that the target audience can be both foreigners and a wide cross-section of heterogeneous Indians, complicate the translator’s job? We argue that translations of Dalit literature from Malayalam to English contest caste-determined regimes of writing and reading, making the project a subversive force that challenges established power structures.

Hariprabha Takeda’s intimate first person account of her voyage to Japan was first published in 1915 from Dhaka, titled Bongomohilar Japan Jatra (A Bengali Woman’s Voyage to Japan). She was married to a Japanese entrepreneur in Dhaka and the journey was undertaken to meet her husband’s family. Without knowing a word of Japanese and against the misgivings of her family and friends, Hariprabha Takeda embarks on this travel that is both a discovery of a new land and of herself. On board the ship that takes her on an arduous journey across the oceans, Takeda keeps a journal about what she sees and the places that she visits. Subsequently, she visits Japan again during the World War II that results in another memoir called Juddho Jorjorito Japane (In War-ravaged Japan) that vividly describes her experiences of living in Tokyo during the American bombardment. The paper looks at the ways Hariprabha Takeda’s travels enable her to assess national and cultural formulations that govern gendered experiences as she seeks to understand and compare Japanese and Indian society at the turn of the twentieth century. Belonging to the Brahmo Samaj, Hariprabha Takeda is greatly curious about Japanese life and culture. Her first memoir, especially, is replete with the domestic and social dynamics of women’s lives both in Japan and in India as she looks at the cultural spheres that women occupy. Her remembrances are fraught with the ways in which she herself negotiates issues of language, identity and race to problematize her own gendered experiences of crossing the kala-pani.

This study explores the intersecting factors contributing to violence against women in Pakistan as depicted in contemporary literary works by women writers. Drawing upon Johan Galtung’s typology of violence, we aim to examine the dynamics of direct, structural, and cultural violence within Fatima Bhutto’s The Shadow of the Crescent Moon (2013). The novel is particularly suited for this analysis as it delves into the lives of Pakistani people amidst war, political turmoil, and societal repression. We argue that Bhutto’s novel underscores the cyclical perpetuation of oppression and the reinforcement of societal norms. This is achieved by illustrating how violence is perpetrated across micro, meso, and macro dimensions, and how intersecting identities shape women’s experiences of violence. Through the experiences of female characters like Mina and Samarra, the novel elucidates the complexities of violence by expanding its scope beyond physical abuse to encompass psychological trauma, societal discrimination, and political exploitation. Moreover, the interplay between cultural norms, structural inequalities, and violence against women is reflected in how direct violence—ranging from physical abuse to sexual assault—permeates the lives of female characters and is normalized and justified by the insidious nature of cultural and structural violence.

This paper presents an analysis of Meera Syal’s The House of Hidden Mothers (2015), delving into the concept of biological citizenship and its implications for intended mothers. The study investigates how intended mothers step into the position of bioconsumers within the surrogacy industry, actively pursuing assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) like commercial gestational surrogacy to accomplish their fixation for biological parenthood which empowers them to assert their agency. Through the novel’s narrative construct, the plight of intended and surrogate mothers is heightened, providing an understanding of the complexities of tenuous maternal roles that surface when engaging in ART practices to construct families. The paper examines the constraints and hurdles encountered by intended mothers and surrogates as they endeavor to extricate themselves from the entanglements of patriarchal heteronormative expectations that enshroud motherhood. These challenges stem from greatly entrenched societal expectations, gendered roles, and the construction of motherhood as the supreme embodiment of femininity. The study offers valuable viewpoints on the intricacy of reproductive choices, maternal agency, and the more comprehensive implications of ART in shaping concepts of motherhood and citizenship.