Impact Factor: 8.21 | UGC Journal Quality Index(UGC-JQI): 88.0
    Email Id: chiefeditor.ijeel@gmail.com Copy
    Impact Factor: 8.21 | UGC Journal Quality Index(UGC-JQI): 88.0
    Email Id: chiefeditor.ijeel@gmail.com Copy

    The Aesthetics of Testimony: A Comparative Study of Caste, Spatial Violence, and Subaltern Agency in Omprakash Valmiki’s Joothan and Bama’s Karukku

    Journal Article
    Author(s)
    Dr. Abhilasha Rohilla
    Keywords
    Dalit literature, Joothan, Karukku, Testimony, Caste hegemony, Symbolic violence, Subaltern agency, Intersectionality, Reclamation, Literary forms, Counter-hegemonic assertion.
    Abstract
    The present research paper provides a comparative textual and sociological analysis of Omprakash Valmiki’s Joothan: A Dalit’s Life (1997) and Bama’s Karukku (1992) to examine how Dalit autobiographical narratives undermine canonical aesthetics and construct a politics of subaltern resistance. Set in disparate linguistic, geographical and cultural settings–a Valmiki (Chuhra) community in rural Western Uttar Pradesh and a Paraiyar Catholic community in Tamil Nadu–both texts eschew individualistic Western autobiographical conventions, and instead function as collective testimonies of institutionalised humiliation. Dalit literature highlights the intense suffering and marginalisation of Dalits in a feudal society based on caste which outcasts an entire community of people by birth. The shocking tradition of upper caste oppression of the Dalits, raping their womenfolk, burning their houses, whipping them at will, throwing stones at their houses to ‘teach them a lesson’, humiliating them and forbidding their presence in public places is the sorry truth of Indian society even today. By analysing the intersections of caste, religion and institutional pedagogy, the paper demonstrates how the school and the church operate not as neutral spaces of social mobility, but as apparatuses of systemic exclusion. Furthermore, the paper compares the gendered aspect of caste violence in Karukku with the occupational and physical indignities in Joothan, pointing out Bama’s navigation of the ‘double marginality’ of being Dalit and female within institutional religion. Using theories of B.R. Ambedkar, Pierre Bourdieu (cultural capital and symbolic violence), and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (subaltern agency), this study claims that the reclamation of non-standard, vernacular registers and the documentation of bodily trauma are radical epistemic breaks from mainstream literary forms, reconfiguring life writing as an archive of counter-hegemonic assertion.
    References

    Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Toward an Investigation).

    Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, translated by Ben Brewster, Monthly Review Press, 1971, pp. 127–86.

    Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji. Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition. Edited by S. Anand, introduction by Arundhati Roy, Navayana, 2014.

    The Essential Writings of B. R. Ambedkar. Edited by Valerian Rodrigues, Oxford UP, 2002.

    Bama. Karukku. Translated by Lakshmi Holmström, 2nd ed., Oxford UP, 2012.

    ---. Sangati: Events. Translated by Lakshmi Holmström, Oxford UP, 2005. Beverley, John. "The Margin at the Center: On Testimonio (Testimonial Narrative)." Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 35, no. 1, 1989, pp. 11–28.

    Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Forms of Capital." Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson, Greenwood Press, 1986, pp. 241–58.

    ---. Language and Symbolic Power. Edited by John B. Thompson, translated by Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson, Harvard UP, 1991.

    ---. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice, Cambridge UP, 1977. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color." Stanford Law Review, vol. 43, no. 6, 1991, pp. 1241–99.

    Dangle, Arjun, editor. Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature. Orient Black Swan, 1992.

    Dumont, Louis. Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications. Translated by Mark Sainsbury, Louis Dumont, and Basia Gulati, complete rev. English ed., U of Chicago P, 1980.

    Gutiérrez, Gustavo. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. Translated by Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson, 15th anniversary ed., Orbis Books, 1988.

    Holmström, Lakshmi. "Introduction." Karukku, by Bama, translated by Lakshmi Holmström, 2nd ed., Oxford UP, 2012, pp. xi–xxii.

    Ilaiah, Kancha. Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy. Samya, 1996.

    Limbale, Sharankumar. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and Considerations. Translated by Alok Mukherjee, Orient Longman, 2004.

    Mukherjee, Arun Prabha. "Introduction." Joothan: An Untouchable's Life, by Omprakash Valmiki, translated by Arun Prabha Mukherjee, Columbia UP, 2003, pp. ix–xliii.

    Omvedt, Gail. Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial India. Sage Publications, 1994.

    Rege, Sharmila. "Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of 'Difference' and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position." Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 33, no. 44, 1998, pp.

    ---. Writing Caste, Writing Gender: Reading Dalit Women's Testimonios. Zubaan, 2006.

    Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, U of Illinois P, 1988, pp. 271–313.

    Valmiki, Omprakash. Joothan: A Dalit’s Life. Translated by Arun Prabha Mukherjee, Columbia UP, 2003. ---. Joothan [जूठन]. Radhakrishna Prakashan, 1997.

     

    How to Cite
    Loading APA citation...
    Article Details
    Published 15 Oct 2026
    DOI 10.22161/ijeel.5.5.6
    Pages 51-69
    Views 10
    Downloads 1
    Full Text Access