Karukku” is an experience of a Dalit woman

      “Karukku” is an experience of a Dalit woman, a long ordeal, through which she could
identify herself. Bama did not only create a space for her caste but also for women who
were the victims of two-fold hierarchy. Dalit women were victims not only of caste but
also of patriarchy.  In the novel she has shown the plight of a Dalit women, their
sufferings and  discrimination at the hands of their patriarch, but through her own story
she has evolved herself as a role model for the rest of Dalit women. Although she was
born in a Pariah community, it was through her hard work and zealous interest that she
could establish a place for herself in her community. In a society where women were
paid lesser wages than men for the same amount of work, had to do the household
chores, were beaten up by their husbands and not allowed to go to school, Bama was
able to fight the odds. She carried on with her higher education, and also at times
thought about the ways in which the Dalit children could be educated and treated better.

“In the face of such poverty, the girl children cannot see the sense in schooling, and stay
at home, collecting firewood, looking after the house, caring for the babies, and doing
household chores.” (Bama 68)

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 There were many Dalit communities in India which converted to Christianity due to the
humanitarian efforts of the missionaries. Many thought that conversion into Christianity
would bring about liberation from the clutches of the caste system. The Gospel was also
preached and promised to dissolve inequality and oppression in the society. And for the
first time, by converting to Christianity they could acquire a holy book and read it,
because so far, the Muslims had the Koran, the Hindus had  the Bhagavad Gita, and the
Sikhs had the Guru Granth Sahib but the Dalits had none. Baburao Bagul a noted Dalit
writer felt that unlike the Bible, holy book of the Christians, the holy book of the Hindus
could not accept the Dalits. He writes:
"In spite of the division between the rich and the poor, between the haves and the have-
nots, there is a place for the most unfortunate and the most miserable sections of the
masses in Christianity and its literature. As against this, the Shudras and the
Athishudras — the lowest of the castes and those who were kept totally outside the caste
framework — failed to find place in the religious and secular literature of the Hindus."
(Christopher 9)  

     In the extract, one can see the life of the Dalits and their expectations from the
newly acquired religion. On Christmas Eve, all the Dalit Christians used to rejoice, cook
good food, eat beef; they spent on the extravagances for one day. One reason why the
Dalits were categorised as untouchables was because they used to eat meat, especially
beef. P.N Chopra writes about the Mahars one of the low-castes and also about the
cause for their degradation. The Mahars had consumed beef during the Mahadurga
famine and for this reason they were degraded and treated as a low caste (Chopra 145).
Bama has also written about a similar incident when the Dalits were called low-castes
because of their meat eating habits. A character called Michael-amma complains “So
many people buy and eat beef on the quiet these days, it’s getting more and more
difficult for us to get any meat. All of them eat their fill, but see, it’s only we people who
are called low-caste.” (Bama 55)

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   Although the “Untouchability Offences Act” was passed in the year 1955 yet, caste
discrimination never stopped. Converting oneself too did not bring respect for the Dalits,
they were still discriminated and dehumanised. The church people also mistreated the
newly converted Dalits and treated them as the upper caste Hindus did. Bama’s
“Karukku” also shows us the disillusionment of the Dalit Christians. Throughout the
novel, one can see instances of Dalit Christians complaining against the church and its
authorities.  On joining the convent Bama also realises that the nuns and the priests
were biased and only treated those children who were from the upper castes. On one
occasion, when people in the locality goes to Reverend Mother to ask for pictures she
chases them away saying “ Have you given me some money in order to buy you holy
pictures? Very well, now, you may all go home quickly without leaning on the walls or
touching anything.” (Bama 58) So, we can see the untouchables were disregarded not
only by the Hindus but also by those people who converted them on the promise of a
casteless system. Their touch which was looked upon as defiling by the upper caste
Hindus was also avoided by the Church authorities.

       
The Dalit Christians in the extract are shown as ignorant people. They were either
disillusioned or were suffering while converting themselves. The writer shows how the
Dalit Christians had no idea about Christmas or New Year. The stories which prevail
regarding conversion tell us that the Dalits converted themselves because of the
humiliation they received in their former religion, and also they were poor, and the
missionaries who converted them promised a good life, and also financial stability.
Therefore, in the extract we can see how the Dalit Christians celebrated Christmas, for
them it was not the day that they remembered as  Christ’s birthday but as “a day of
liberation”. For them, Bama writes, “At Christmas, Easter, and New Year’s day, people
hang up posters of Rajnikant and Kamalhasan here and there. Nobody seems to know
what the festival is really about, or what it is celebrating.” (Bama 60)

    
  Bama writes about her own father visiting home with lots of gifts and eatables, but it
was only during this time, she could enjoy good food. On other days she had to eat
simple food and face the hardships of life. She writes about the custom when they had to
buy gifts and fruits for the priest and Mother Superior on New Year. The Dalit Christians
“went through every effort to buy the fruit for the church elders; they made their
offering, knelt before them in all humility and received the sign of the cross on their
foreheads.” (Bama 56)  In the whole novel, Bama writes about her transformation, how
she came to know about the caste bound society and what she did to change the social
malaise to some extent. Bama became a nun to help or guide her own people when she
saw how they were  being mistreated by the church people. Although, later on, Bama
leaves the convent and comes back home to the same drudgery after experiencing
injustice there as well, but at least, she could understand the mechanism of the world.

    The Dalits also maintained a hierarchy among themselves, which Bama  thought was
taken as an advantage by the higher castes. (Bama 41) There were many castes which
were called untouchables but even among the unctouchables they practised
untouchability. Among the untouchables too, they maintained a caste hierarchy, which
further helped the upper castes to divide them. There were instances where the
untouchables of different castes fought and avoided each other. The lower caste girls
were allowed to marry the higher castes but not vice-versa. In the essay “The ‘Dalit’
Category and its Differentiation” AM Shah writes how the Dalits divide the parganas
according to their castes. In Gujarat the higher castes among the untouchables like the
weavers have taken thirty-three parganas, and chamars and bhangis have taken
thirteen parganas each. (Shah 1317) So we can see that the untouchables themselves
were not united, hence, it was difficult for them to fight the upper castes.

    With the formation of DCLM (Dalit Christian Liberation Movement) in Tamil Nadu the
Dalit Christians’ fight for equality and justice could be seen as a reality. Some of the
points submitted in the manifesto of DCLM in the Tamil Nadu

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Karukku is an autobiography that chronicles Bama’s life, from her childhood to her early
adult life as a nun, and beyond. The book was originally written by her in Tamil in 1992 and
translated into the English version that I read by Lakshmi Holmstrom in 2000. Karukku is one
of the first autobiographies of a Dalit woman written in Tamil.

It was in 1992 that Bama left the convent that she had been a member of for seven years. As
she writes, “That book was written as a means of healing my inward wounds; I had no other
motive.” We see Bama, standing at this moment in her life, trying to make sense of her many
identities; as a Dalit, as a Christian, as a woman.

Unlike most autobiographies, Bama’s narrative is not linear. She does not describe events
only in terms of the impact they had on her later life, but writes of the experiences she had as
moments of oppression that composed her daily lived reality. In the book, one sees Bama’s
quest to understand and present how her multiple identities as Dalit, Christian and woman
have impacted her oppression.

Karukku is an elegy to the community Bama grew up in. She writes of life there in all its
vibrancy and colour, never making it seem like a place defined by a singular caste identity,
yet a place that never forgets, and is never allowed to forget its caste identity. She writes
simultaneously of humorous incidents she remembers from her childhood, the games she
used to play with her friends, good meals with her family and the oppression of her
community by the police, upper-castes, and the convent. In this manner, she presents the
pervasiveness of caste oppression – how it not only punctuates everyday life, but is an
integral part of it, even in the memory of a community.

As Ambedkar writes, “Caste is not just a division of labour, it is a division of labourers.”

Bama’s work speaks to this statement as she describes the servitude with which her family
members were bound to the upper-caste families they worked for, including the beseeching
obedience they had to show to them. “All the time I went to work for the Naickers [upper-
caste] I knew I should not touch their goods or chattels; I should never come close to where
they were. I should always stand away to one side. These were their rules. I often felt pained
and ashamed. But there was nothing that I could do,” she writes, of her experience working
for a Naicker household in high school. “To this day, in my village, both men and women can
survive only through hard and incessant labour,” she notes.

Bama also speaks of the humiliation she experienced in high school, being Dalit and poorer
than her classmates. What struck me, in particular, is the symbolic importance of clothing as
a marker of social capital that she writes of. She describes a college party that she did not
attend because she could not afford to buy a new saree, hiding in the bathroom until it was
over. While education spaces are supposed to be emancipate, free of all markers of identity
and privilege, equalising spaces, they are anything but. The same oppression that Bama faced
outside, she faced in school and college, making it all even harder to pursue an education she
could barely afford and that she had to fight hard for as a woman. Her narrative is nuanced in
exploring her intersecting identities as Dalit and woman in detail. As Bama says in this
interview with Githa Hariharan, Dalit women are exploited ‘thrice,’ on account of their caste,
class and gender – ‘triple monsters.’

The book is also Bama’s story of looking for a sense of belonging and connection to
something meaningful, which she finds lacking in her community at home. She leaves home
to join the convent in her twenties, after working for a few years as a teacher, hoping to
contribute to a cause larger than caste, class and identity. However, she finds the convent in
not such a sanctuary and is just as oppressive as the spaces outside.

Also Read: The Truth About Fiction: Looking At Caste, Gender And Dissent In Urmila
Pawar’s Short Stories
Her illustration of culture within Christian convents is shocking. She writes of the oppression
she faced within the convent to practice her religion and daily life in a particular manner. She
recalls how she was treated differently from others as a Dalit woman and admonished harshly
every time she tried to stand up for herself, think for herself or speak on behalf of those the
convent was actually meant to serve. Even leaving the convent proved a Herculean task as
she was constantly stopped by the more senior nuns.

What I loved the most about the book is how Bama writes an honest, vulnerable version of
herself in it. Its nuance is incredible, as she describes not only her experiences as Dalit and a
woman, but also the loneliness of her everyday life. In the end, she writes about life after
leaving the nunnery. “Yes, after I found a job, I would be alone. And yes, that is how it had to
be. It is now, for the very first time that I must learn to be truly alone.” I find courage in her
resolute acceptance of loneliness because of the lack of community she can experience in an
urban place like Madurai, where life is not formally divided according to caste, but still
performed the same.

I have always loved reading about the emotionally open and evocative relationships that
women share with themselves, their bodies, their several identities. This is what drew me to
Karukku and this is why the book will stay with me. Bama is unabashed with her admissions
and her random musing in her writing. Never does she attempt to tie all the loose ends of her
self, her life or her view of the world together. The power of her narrative is in that she leaves
the question of how women, Dalits, and in particular Dalit women will ever live in an easier
world, unanswered.

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Bama is the pen-name of a Tamil Dalit woman, from a Roman Catholic family. She has
published three main works: an autobiography, Karukku, 1992; a novel, Sangati, 1994; and a
collection of short stories, Kisumbukkaran 1996.

Karukku means palmyra leaves, which, with their serrated edges on both sides, are like
double-edged swords. By a felicitous pun, the Tamil word Karukku, containing the word
hare, embryo or seed, also means freshness, newness. In her foreword, Bama draws attention
to the symbol, and refers to the words in Hebrews (New Testament), "For the word of God is
living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and
spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart."
(Hebrews, 4:10)

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Karukku is the first autobiography of its kind to appear in Tamil, for Dalit writing in this
language has not produced the spate of autobiographies which have appeared, for example, in
Marathi. It is also in many ways an unusual autobiography. It grows out of a particular
moment: a personal crisis and watershed in the author's life which drives her to make sense of
her life as woman, Christian, Dalit. Many Tamil authors, both men and women, use the
convention of writing under a pseudonym. In this case, though, this convention adds to the
work's strange paradox of reticence and familiarity. It eschews the "confessional" mode,
leaving out many personal details. The protagonist is never named. The events of Bama's life
are not arranged according to a simple, linear or chronological order, as with most
autobiographies, but rather, reflected upon in different ways, repeated from different
perspectives, grouped under different themes, for example, Work, Games and Recreation,
Education, Belief, etc. It is her driving quest for integrity as a Dalit and Christian that shapes
the book and gives it its polemic.

The argument of the book is to do with the arc of the narrator's spiritual development both
through the nurturing of her belief as a Catholic, and her gradual realization of herself as a
Dalit. We are given a very full picture of the way in which the Church ordered and influenced
the lives of the Dalit Catholics. Every aspect of the child's life is imbued with the Christian
religion. The day is ordered by religious ritual. The year is punctuated by religious
processions and festivals which become part of the natural yearly cycle of crops and seasons.
But parallel to this religious life is a socio-political self-education that takes off from the
revelatory moment when she first understands what untouchability means. It is this double
perspective that enables her to understand the deep rift between Christian beliefs and practice.

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Bama's re-reading and interpretation of the Christian scriptures as an adult enables her to
carve out both a social vision and a message of hope for Dalits by emphasizing the
revolutionary aspects of Christianity, the values of equality, social justice, and love towards
all. Her own life experiences urge her towards actively engaging in alleviating the sufferings
of the oppressed. When she becomes a nun, it is in the stubborn hope that she will have a
chance to put these aspirations into effect. She discovers, however, that the perspectives of
the convent and the Church are different from hers. The story of that conflict and its
resolution forms the core of Karukku.

In the end, Bama makes the only choice possible for her. But she also sees the beginnings of
an important change, if not in the Church's practice, yet in the gradually growing awareness
among Dalits, of their own oppression:

But Dalits have also understood that God is not like this, has not spoken like this. They have
become aware that they too were created in the likeness of God. There is a new strength
within them, urging them to reclaim that likeness which has been repressed, ruined and
obliterated; and to begin to live with honour and respect and love of all humankind. To my
mind, that alone is true devotion.

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Clearly she understands that her own experience is part of a larger movement among Dalits.
Yet, it is interesting that she appears to come to this awareness of her own accord. She does
not, for example, seem to have access to liberation theologians (as does Vidivelli, in a parallel
autobiography, Kalakkal.) She refers neither to Ambedkar nor to Periyaar, who not only
attacked the caste system, but whose remarkable speeches and writings against the oppression
of women were published in 1942 under the title Pen Yenh Adimaiynanat? (Why did woman
become enslaved?) Nor indeed does Bama — again unlike Vidivelli — make a connection
between caste and gender oppressions. Not in Karukku at any rate; she does so, abundantly,
in Sangati and elsewhere. Karukku is concerned with the single issue of caste oppression
within the Catholic Church and its institutions and presents Bama's life as a process of lonely
self-discovery. Bama leaves her religious order to return to her village, where life may be
insecure, but where she does not feel alienated or compromised. The tension throughout
Karukku is between the self and the community: the narrator leaves one community (of
religious women) in order to join another (as a Dalit woman). Sangati takes up the story of
that new community.

Dalit writing — as the writers themselves have chosen to call it — has been seen in Tamil
only in the past decade, and later than in Marathi and Kannada. It has gone hand in hand with
political activism, and with critical and ideological debate, spurred on by such events as the
Ambedkar centenary of 1994, and the furore following the Mandal Commission report.

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The Tamil equivalent of the Marathi "dalit" is taazhtapattor, used in this specific sense by
Bharati Dasan in the 1930s, when he was working for the Self Respect Movement. He uses it
in the poem Taazhtapattor samattuvapaattu ("Song for the equality of the oppressed").
Indeed the new Tamil Dalit writing constantly refers to the anti-caste, anti-religious speeches
of E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker (Periyaar), founder of this movement. All the same, although
the Tamil words taazhtapattor or odukkappattor are used in much of the literature by both —
writers and critics, it is significant that the preferred term is Dalit, implying militancy, an
alliance with other repressed groups, and a nation-wide — or even universal — identity.
("Who are Dalits? All those who are oppressed: all hill peoples, neo-Buddhists, labourers,
destitute farmers, women, and all those who have been exploited politically, economically, or
in the name of religion are Dalits." from the 1972 Manifesto of the Dalit Panthers, quoted in
Tamil translation in Omvedt 1994).

More recently, Raj Gautaman (1995) points to the different functions of Tamil Dalit writing,
and the different local and global readerships it addresses. First, he says, it is the function of
Dalit writing to awaken in every reader, a consciousness of the oppressed Dalit, and to share
in the Dalit experience as if it were their own. (Karukku, he says, is a singular example of a
piece of writing which achieves this.) At the same time, according to Gautaman, the new
Dalit writing must be a Tamil and an Indian version of a world-wide literature of the
oppressed; its politics must be an active one that fights for human rights, social justice and
equality .

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I think that it would also be true to say that while much of the new Tamil Dalit writing does
indeed function as Gautaman claims, and is centrally concerned with raising an awareness of
the Dalit experience, Bama's work is among those (like the work of Vidivelli, Imayam and
Marku) that are exploring a changing Dalit identity. There is, in this writing, a very powerful
sense of the self and the community as Dalit, which rejects outright the notion of varna; and
which on the other hand refuses to "sanskritize," to evaluate Dalit life-style according to
mainstream Hindu values. But there is also a powerful sense of engagement with history, of
change, of changing notions of identity and belonging. Bama captures a moment that contains
a paradox: she seeks an identity, but seeks a change which means an end to that identity.

I must conclude by commenting briefly on Bama's use of language. Bama is doing something
completely new in using the demotic and the colloquial regularly, as her medium for
narration and even argument, not simply for reported speech. She uses a Dalit style of
language which overturns the decorum and aesthetics of received upper-class, upper-caste
Tamil. She breaks the rules of written grammar and spelling throughout, elides words and
joins them differently, demanding a new and different pattern of reading. Karakku also, by
using an informal speech style which addresses the reader intimately, shares with the reader
the author's predicament as Dalit and Christian directly, demystifying the theological
argument, and making her choice rather, a matter of conscience.

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As well as this subversion of received Tamil, all Dalit writing is marked by certain other
characteristics. It reclaims and remains close to an oral tradition made up of workchants, folk-
songs, songs sung at rites of passage, as well as proverbs—and some of this tradition belongs
particularly to the women's domain. Karakku, very interestingly, also tells a story of Tamil
Dalit Catholicism in the vocabulary that it uses, particularly in the central chapter which
describes her spiritual journey from childhood faith to her return home after departing from
the convent. There is often a layering of meaning in certain words, where a Tamilized
Sanskrit word is given a new Catholic meaning. For example, Tamil mantiram (sacred
utterance, but also popularly, magic charm or spell) from Sanskrit mantra becomes
"catechism" in Catholic use. Hence often there is a spin or a turn-around of meaning; a
freshness in some of the coinages, and different routes and slippages in the way Catholicism
has been naturalized (and sometimes not) into the Tamil of the text. It is also important to
note that Bama consistently uses the language of popular Catholicism, eschewing very
largely, the terminology of theologians.

Bama's work is not only breaking a mainstream aesthetic, but also proposing a new one
which is integral to her politics. What is demanded of the translator and reader is, in Gayatri
Spivak's terms, a "surrender to the special call of the text."

This is certainly not comfortable reading for anyone. Bama is writing in order to change
hearts and minds. And as readers of her work we are asked for nothing less than an
imaginative entry into that different world of experience and its political struggle.

A part of chapter three, and an earlier version of the introduction appeared in Kunapipi,
volume XIX, number 3, 1997, edited by Dr. Shirley Chew. My thanks to the author Bama,
and to Sr. Dr. Alies Therese of Quidenham, Norfolk, for reading this translation and
commenting on it in detail.

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Bama's 'Karukku' as a Subaltern Testimonial Autobiography

By Rini Reba Mathew, 8th Sep 2012 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL
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Posted in Wikinut>Reviews>Books>Biography

Bama wrote her autobiography quite differently from the usual style. What makes an
autobiography different from a testimony is that the former is merely talking about the events
in life while the latter is written with a purpose. Bama weaves the two together and it resulted
in a testimonial autobiography. It is relevant to study a text which records the oppression
faced by a subaltern Dalit woman and how Karukku can be treated as a subaltern testimonial
autobiography.

 Chapter 1- An Introduction
 Chapter 2-Subalternity: Phases of Oppression and Celebration
 Chapter 3- Karukku as Subaltern Testimonio
 Chapter 4- Autobiography: With A Purposeful Uniqueness
 Chapter 5- Conclusion
 Bibliography

Chapter 1- An Introduction

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the
division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of
the heart. (Hebrews: 4:10)
Bama, the Tamil Dalit woman writer, in her foreword to Karukku, her autobiography
published in 1992, presents the text as a double-edged sword before the reader. Hailed as the
first Dalit woman writer in India, Bama’s Karukku is the first autobiography of its kind in
Tamil Dalit literature. Her family was converted to Christianity way back in 18th century.
Bama began to be noted as a writer with the publication of Karukku, her debut work, in
1992.It was immediately translated into English by Lakshmi Holmstrom in 2000 and won the
Crossword Award in India in 2001. The works of Bama voiced the emergence of Dalit
Literature. Bama is the pen name of Fausthina Mary Fathima Rani. In Tamil, Fathima is
pronounced as Bathima and from that name, ‘Bama’ comes. As Bama indicates:
Mary is overtly Christian, Fathima could also be a Muslim name and Rani means ‘queen’
which does not appeal to me. I wanted a different sort of name, so I took the first and last
syllables of Fathima and made of this name Bama.
It is said that in the manifesto of Dalit Panthers in 1972, “Dalits are all those who are
oppressed, hill people, neo Buddhists, labourers, women, destitute farmers and all those who
has been exploited politically, economically or in the name of religion”(Holstrom xviii-xix).
BharatiDasan used the Tamil equivalent of Marathi “Dalit” as “taazhthapattor”, when he was
working for the Self Respect movement. He uses it in the poem
TazhthapattorSamathvappattu(Song for the equality of the oppressed). The new Tamil Dalit
writing constantly refers to the anti-caste, anti-religious speeches of
E.V.RamaswamyNaicker, founder of this movement. And it is centrally concerned with
raising an awareness of the Dalit experience; Bama’s works are among those that are
exploring a changing Dalit identity. She, in her works, evaluates the Dalit life style. “Bama
seeks an identity but seeks a change which means an end to that identity” (xix).
Literature produced by the members from the elite classes in the society present ideas from
their so-called high perspective. Those literary productions would certainly exclude the
people from lower classes. The subaltern people usually were not given enough space to
represent their ideas and literary creativity. In such a context, the upcoming genre of
testimonial literature became the refuge of subalterns. The testimonios became an instrument
of retrieving and registering the presence of the subaltern. Usually the image of Dalits, the
subalterns, are presented or constructed by the higher classes and therefore testimonios tries
to deconstruct that image and creatively picture subaltern life experiences and events. The
testimonial literature gain prominence when there is an urgency to communicate, a problem
of poverty, subalternity, imprisonment, struggle for survival and so on. Bama’s Karukku
becomes a testimonial literature since it handles the issues of oppression faced by the Dalits,
especially in Tamil Nadu. When Bama speaks as the representative of the subaltern
community, Karukku becomes the testimony which accounts not only her life but also the life
of the Dalit community into which Bama belongs. Bama’s unusual way of writing her
autobiography demands the immediate response and attention from the readers. Her
deliberate attempts to break away the so-called style and diction of autobiographies made it
unusual and thereby appreciative.
Karukku can be considered as the childhood memoir written by Bama, which voices the joys
and sorrows of her people, oppressed by the higher castes in India. The book reflects the
various events happened in her life. She was born into a poor Dalit family. Her grandmother
and mother toiled in the fields and the homes of the Naicker landlords. Despite the misery,
she had a carefree childhood. Her brother, Raj Gauthaman, also a writer, introduced her to the
world of books and inspired her to write. In college, she used to write poetry. Later she turned
into writing fiction. After education she became a schoolteacher. Bama portrays the
oppression she faced as a student and a teacher. She said that, because she was bright in
studying and teaching, she managed to escape from the violent oppression to a certain extent.
Her life took a big turn, when at the age of 26, she took the vows to become a nun. But in the
seminary and later in the convent, Bama realized the bitter truth that the situation of Dalits
will always be the same. Thus seven years later, in 1992, Bama walked out of the convent.
Outside the convent, she faced lots of questions arrowed upon her. It is her decision to
account the experiences in the form of her autobiography that saved her from ending her life
in the midst of all that struggles. Thus with Karukku, Bama shot into immediate fame and
was discussed in higher literary circles.
The dissertation entitled “Bama’s Karukku: As a Subaltern Testimonial Autobiography” is
intended to study the text as the testimonial expression of a subaltern. As a woman and as a
Dalit Christian, Bama’s act of expression can be viewed as a subaltern expression. It came
out as a resistance against the ongoing caste and gender oppression. Also the book becomes
the testimonio of a Dalit Christian woman’s bitter experiences. Her act of witnessing turned
out to be a source of inspiration to her fellow-beings. Bama’s way of writing her
autobiography is quite different from the usual style. Her deliberate attempts to deviate from
the usual style of autobiographies resulted in a subaltern testimonial autobiography. So it is
relevant to study a text which records the oppression faced by a subaltern Dalit woman and
how Karukku can be treated as a subaltern testimonial autobiography.
The dissertation is divided into five chapters. This first chapter explains the origin of Dalit
and movement and introduces the Dalit writer, Bama. It also contains a gist of the text. The
second chapter reveals the condition of Dalits in Tamil Nadu and the celebration of Dalit
identity and their cultural life. While the third chapter pictures the author’s personal
experiences and thus upholding the notion of considering Karukku as a testimonio, the fourth
chapter presents the features of the text as an autobiography. It points out the deviations from
the usual style; Bama knowingly made in her work and her contribution to a new genre,
Testimonial autobiography.The fifth chapter sums up all the ideas explored in the four
previous chapters and concludes that Bama’s Karukku is a subaltern testimonial
autobiography.

Chapter 2-Subalternity: Phases of Oppression and Celebration

Dalits are a bloc of castes in the lowest rungs of social hierarchy that stand condemned as
untouchables. As published in The Hindu, “every sixth person in the world as an Indian,
every sixth Indian is a Dalit. In spite of the guarantee of civil rights and the special law
enacted (in 1989) to prevent atrocities against them, the Dalits continue to be the victims of
social discrimination and oppression across the country” (15). Dalits are categorized as the
subalterns. Different kinds of synonyms are used for the word subaltern, like; common
people underprivileged, exploited, weak, inferiors etc. It also means overlooked, neglected,
disregarded, and treated with unconcern and indifference. Dalits, in India are also seen
indifferently and were denied all opportunities enjoyed by the upper castes.As Bama
says:“Many say that Dalits are supposed to live like this and that. Dalits are impure people.
They are drunkards. They have no culture. Any interaction with them will defile the body and
souls”.
This is the very situation that every Dalit has to pass through in his or her life. They never
enjoy freedom in its right sense. Dalits are always under the massive weight of caste and
other institutions. The church and its activities play an important role in the community life of
Dalits in modern India, especially in Tamil Nadu.Dalit life is excruciatingly painful, charred
by experiences: experiences that did not manage to find room in literary creations.
Bama’sKarukku discusses various forms of violent oppression upon Dalits, especially on the
Paraiyar caste. A significant aspect of the work is the oppression of Dalit Christians at the
hands of the church. The religion discriminates Dalits which directly opposes to what they
believe and preaches. While Christianity unlike Hinduism does not recognize caste divisions,
church in India is casteist in its dealings. Karukku depicts how Dalits are not allowed to sing
in the church choir, are forced to sit separately, away from the upper caste Christians, are not
allowed to bury their dead in the cemetery within the village, behind the church, but are made
to use a different graveyard beyond the outskirts. As Bama says in an Interview:
When foreign missionaries came to India they treated us equally. Things took an ugly turn
after the Indians took over. So we became Christians, but the caste did not go off. Even today
Dalits are not allowed to sit with other castes inside the churches in Kanchipuram district.
Even the graveyards are separated.
The Paraiyars who converted to Christianity in order to escape from the caste oppression in
Hinduism were greatly shocked to experience the oppression within the church. Further,
reservations benefits were not granted to Dalit Christians as theoretically, Christianity does
not recognize caste. The government’s reservation policies fail to take into account the gap
between the belief and practice and Dalit Christians face the brunt of it. Bama, personally,
was against the reservation system. She says,
Reservation actually dehumanizes us rather than solving our problems. It aggravates our
situation. We are objects of contempt in public places. People say, he or she doesn’t have any
talent or merit. He or she has found a way in through a quota set aside for him. It shocks us to
be addressed as scheduled castes and not as Dalits, as the former is derogatory.
Karukku deals with the Dalit people in Tamil Nadu. Bama expresses her grief over the
pathetic and helpless condition of Dalits. Dalit women are easy targets of the non-Dalit men
for sexual harassment, mental torture and education. Conversion to Christianity has not
reduced the pathetic state of Dalits. The non-Dalit Christians never assimilate the Dalit
Christians into their fold. In India, Christians also follow the same caste system of Hinduism,
resulting in caste hierarchy, caste subordination and exploitation. Above all, spousal
exchange between Dalit Christian castes and non-Dalit castes is very rare. Karukku, among
other things, depicts the casteist practices of a Christian priest who shows preconceived
notions about Dalit Christians:“The priest’s first response was to say, ‘After all you are from
the Cheri (Dalit colony). You might have done it. You must have done it’”. (Bama 19)
Life as a Paraya is hard to live from the very childhood. Everyone has to work in order to
earn their living by laboring either for the Naickers or in the fields. Apart from this, they
work as construction labourer by digging wells, carrying loads of earth, gravel and stone and
even if this work is not available they go to the hilltop to gather firewood. Each Paraya family
is attached to a Naicker family as bonded labour. There are Nadar men who have shops in the
Paraiyar streets. Paraiyars would exchange the goods, which are brought to them and in
return Nadars used to give what the Paraiyars needed. The Paraiyars are badly cheated during
their bartering session. They exchange the harvest grain, cotton pods. Every time they take
the advantage. But the Dalits are the ones who toil hard to make good.
In the churches, Dalits are the most, in numbers alone. In everything else, they are the last. It
is only the upper caste Christians who enjoy the benefits and comforts of the church. Even
amongst the priests and nuns, it is the upper-castes who hold the high positions, show off
their authority and throw their weight about. And if Dalits become priests or nuns, they are
pushed aside and marginalized first of all, before the rest go about their business. It is because
of this that even though Dalits might take up the path of renunciation. As Ajay Kumar
observes:
The condition of a Paraiya under Catholic Church is not different from the ill treatment that
he or she suffers within Hindu society. Irrespective of their religious affiliations or even
financial position the lower caste people suffered humiliation from the dominant sections of
the society.(131)
The Tamil Paraiyar nuns are considered lowest of the low. The Paraiya caste nuns are not
given any kind of respect and positions in the convent. It is a kind of artificiality. Their
treatment is different towards Dalit nuns. They do not consider Dalits as human beings. Dalit
Christians are fighting against this partiality. The Christian Dalits formed Christian Dalit
movement and now they demand equality with upper caste Christians. In Tamil Nadu, eighty
percent of the Roman Catholics are Dalits. But in the Tamil Nadu Catholic Church, Dalits are
not given high positions.
GayatriSpivak’s, Can the Subaltern Speak? , a seminal work in the theory of Subalternity,
discusses the need for a voice of the radical Other to express their experiences. The
Subaltern, in her opinion, is one who has no position or sovereignty outside the discourse that
constructs him or her as a subject. She argues that one cannot access a ‘pure’ subaltern
consciousness because the subaltern cannot speak in a discourse in which he or she has little
or no control. And hence there is always someone who is spoken forthe Subaltern. It is
through the West’s acknowledgement that the subaltern finds an identity. But Spivak is
against this attempt of recovering the voice of the Subaltern by intellectuals because in such
an attempt, the intellectual is only a transparent medium through which the subaltern’s voice
emerges. Only a subaltern can speak about their bitter experiences in full measure and when
others talk about them, which will cover only half of their life. There is an urgent need to
create an ethical response to the voice of the subaltern, Spivak argues. She proposes that the
subaltern can be represented only in an ethical relation where there is the deliberate creation
of a room, a space for the voice of the radical Other(171-172). And here, in Karukku, Bama
emerged and established herself as a powerful voice of the subaltern woman. Thus in
karukku, it is the “subaltern who speaks”. Bama successfully pictures the cultural, social and
familial life of Dalits. It does not confine itself to the oppression and the harsh realities faced
by Dalits. It elaborately describes the daily life, language, naming conventions, religion,
culture, festivals, food habits, entertainment, games, teasing songs and kinship in the Paraya
community. About the religion she talks of the cultural significance of drumming which is
highlighted in the way they celebrated the “Pusai”:
During the Pusai, there was only one man who sang out loudly, while quite a few others
accompanied him by beating out the rhythm on all sorts of objects. (Bama 66)
Bama pictures the celebrations in her community as: “There were celebrations for Christmas,
New Year, Easter and for the Chinnamalai festival” (64). She invites the reader to the food
styles:
Usually we had rice and kuzhambu….To go with the kuuzh there would be something or the
other-onions, groundnuts, moulded jiggery, green chillies….there might be a side dish of
roasted and ground gram, or a pickle from the Nadar shop.(71)
Bama’s portrayal of the games which they usually played is a note of significance and the
teasing songs that they sing attracts the attention of the reader:
There were a few games that we played most frequently….we’d play at giving circus shows,
or kuuthu performances; sometimes we danced or did a kummi….then we played kabaddi as
well….the older girls would play dice games….or other indoor games….and other board
games like pallaanguzhi and thattaangal….catching games, games with sticks, spinning tops,
marbles.(56-57)
They sang teasing songs to the bride and groom who were usually cross-cousins: ‘As I was
grinding the masala, machaan
You peeped over the wall
What magic powder did you cast upon me?
I cannot lift the grinding stone any more’.(63)
In this fashion, the book talks about Bama’s Dalit experience which celebrates a subaltern
identity in different areas of her life. There are places where she is proud and happy the way
she is, but is angered by the treatment given to her. With the portrayal of the cultural and
social life of Dalits, Bama takes the Dalit identity to glorious heights and thus celebrates the
Dalit life and its culture. Along with this she deliberately raises her voice against the
oppression faced by Dalits. The Dalit world finds their voice proclaimed, in Bama.

Chapter 3- Karukku as Subaltern Testimonio

Testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. The words "testimony" and
"testify" both have a root in the Latin testis, which is normally translated “witness”. Some
published oral or written autobiographical narratives are considered as "testimonial literature"
particularly when they present evidence or first person accounts of human rights abuses,
violence and war, and living under conditions of social oppression. As stated in the site
Worldlitonlinenet,George Yudice defines Testimonio as “an authentic narrative told by a
witness who is moved to narrate by the urgency of a situation like war, oppression, revolution
etc”. This usage of the term comes originally from Latin America and the Spanish term
"testimonio" when it emerged from human rights tribunals, truth commissions, and other
international human rights instruments in countries such as Chile and Argentina. The
autobiography of Frederick Douglass can be considered among the earliest significant
English-language works in this genre. Testimonios bridge different histories and origins,
building cross cultural coalitions and personal relationships. It is also a site of intersection of
ethnicity, nationality, race, class, gender, sexuality, age and other markers of diverse
identities and communities.
Bama’s Karukku, apart from being her autobiography, becomes the testimonio of a
community. Her personal experiences reveal the life that a Dalit has to lead in a caste based
society. This chapter talks about the experiences that Bama had in her Dalit life and discusses
how Karukku becomes a testimonio of Dalits. Karukku focuses on two essential
aspectsnamely: caste, and religion that cause great pain inBama’s life.Bama has bitter
experiences at the school: One day Bama and her friends were playing at the schoolin the
evening. At that moment somebody has stolen the coconut. The guilt is thrown on her.
Everyonesays that it was Bama who had plucked the coconut.Actually she was not guilty but
the headmaster treatsher badly. He scolds her in the name of caste. Whenshe protested, the
head master tells her: “You thepeople of low caste like the manner you have…we cannot
allow you inside this school. Stand outside” (Bama 19).Because of this incident Bama is in
agony. She hasbeen ashamed and insulted in front of all the children.After that she gets
suspended from the school. Whenshe is crying, a teacher advised her to meet the
Churchpriest for an apology letter. When she enters the classroom with the recommendation
of the priest, the entireclass looks at her in a strange way. She expresses:“When I entered the
class room, the entire class turnedaround to look at me, and I wanted to shrink into myselfas I
went and sat on my bench, still weeping” (19).
It isvery shocking incident and she is confused bylistening to the caste name particularly
when she isnot mature enough to understand it at all. She does not keep on talking about the
humiliation. In the very act ofremembering the scene, she has encoded the mode ofresistance
that constructs her in opposition to thehegemonic structure of the caste system.
Bama has never heard of untouchabilityuntil her third standard in school. The first time
shecomes to know her community’s pathetic state, whichis ironically tinged with humour. As
Bama wasreturning from school, she finds an elder from her street. He was holding out a
small packet of snacks.This packet of snacks is tied in a string. The elder wasbringing the
snacks by holding the strings withouttouching the packet and was giving it to a Naicker inthe
village. Bama was unable to control her laughing,looking at the funny sight. Bama says: “Just
then, anelder of our street come along from the direction of thebazaar. The manner in which
he was walking alongmade me want to double up” (15). The self-questioning hasbegun in
Bama with wonder. Bama writes:
What didit mean when they called us ‘Paraiya’? Had the namebecome that obscene? But we
too are human beings.Our people should never run these petty errands for these fellows. We
should work in their fields, take homeour wages, and leave it at that. (16)
Bama starts tolook out for means to uplift herself and her community from this pathetic
existence. Her elder brother showsher the right path and tells her that education is theonly
way to attain equality. Bama’s elder brotheropines:
Because we are born into the Paraiyajati, weare never given any honour or dignity or respect.
Weare stripped of all that. But if we study and makeprogress, we can throw away these
indignities. Sostudy with care, learn all you can. If you are alwaysahead in your lessons,
people will come to you oftheir own accord and attach themselves to you. Workhard and
learn. (17-18)
Bama’s elder brother’s counsel makes a very deepimpression on Bama. She wants to prove
herself. Eversince her brother speaks to her, she studies hard withall her breath and being.
Bama takes her studies veryseriously. She sees to it that she always stands first inthe class.
Bama writes: “In fact, because of that, many people become my friends, even though I am
aParaichi.” (15).Throughout her period of education, Bama findsthat wherever she goes, there
is a painful reminder ofhercaste in the form of untouchability. Thegovernment offers the
financial grants and specialtuitions to the Harijans. These grants and tuitions weremore of
humiliation than consolation, mainly becauseit singled out her caste identity. Once the
identity isrevealed, Bama opines: “Among the other students, asudden rustling; a titter of
contempt. I was filled witha sudden rage.”(19). It was against the odds that Bamacompletes
her under graduation and B.Ed.Subsequently, she decides to become a teacher. Sheworks in a
convent. Bama finds that the nuns workingthere constantly oppress the Dalit children. When
sheis in the hostel after completion of her eighth class, Bama painfully recalls the nuns
commenting on the Dalit children. Bama expresses her grief:
The wardensisterof our hostel could not abide low-caste or poorchildren. She’d get hold of us
and scold us for norhyme or reason. If a girl tended to be on the plumpside, she’d get it even
more. These people get nothingto eat at home; they come here and they grow fat, shewould
say publicly. When we returned to the schoolafter the holidays, she would say, look at the
Cheri children! When they stay here, they eat the fill andlook as round as potatoes. But look
at the state inwhich they come back from home just skin and bone. (17-18)
In fact, Bama is very happy teaching the childrenbecause most of the children in the convent
are Dalits.She enjoys teaching with some skill and success. Nunsused to suppress Dalit
children and Dalit teachers verymuch. On seeing the oppression at convent it is Bamawho is
suddenly struck with the idea of becoming anun. She decides to sacrifice her life, help the
poorand Dalit children. “I wanted to be like her, living onlyfor the poor and down trodden; so
I entered thatparticular order.”(20-21). The Paraiya caste nunsare not given any kind of
respect and positions in theconvent. Bama notices the casteism in the convent.She thought
convent is the only exceptional place.She starts realizing that one can tolerate
outsidediscrimination from society. But it is very hard to facepolitics and casteism inside the
convent. Because ofthe purpose of her survival, she has to pretend there.Though the crucial
circumstances are like this inthe convent, Bama continues to stay in the conventbecause of
her strong determination and perseverancetowards the poor and the Dalit children. Those
whoare taking training with Bama to become nuns areanxious to find out to which caste
Bama belongs.Whoever asks Bama about her caste, she answers honestly without any
hesitation. The religious orderitself has its own reservation about the Harijan womento
become nuns. In a particular class a sister tells Bamathat there is a separate religious order for
Harijan womento become nuns. Sister says: “They would not acceptHarijan women as
prospective nuns and that therewas even a separate order for them somewhere.” (22).Bama is
admitted in the religious order only after shegets confirmation from the convent. The convent
has asked for her services. The nuns in the conventconstantly threw insults and abuse against
the Dalitstudents. Christianity stands for love, service and helping others. Convents are
service oriented but theirorientation is different towards upper castes and Dalits.They could
not admit Dalit students in their conventschool. Because their standard will fall.
Theymarginalize all Dalits as poor quality. The nuns in theconvent speak very insultingly
about low caste people.They speak as if they do not even consider low castepeople as human
beings. About low caste people thenuns’ notions are: “Low caste people are all degradedin
every way. They think we have no moral disciplinenor cleanliness nor culture.” (22–23)
Bama’s shared testimonio typically unfolds her growing up story in episodes and throughout
she displays indomitable courage, conquering the dominant forces. Bama explains even the
minute experiences that she had throughout her life. She constantly speaks about “dying
several times within” (28). The feeling of indifference that she received at school, college,
workplace, and convent and in the society as a whole, set fire in the heart of Bama and filled
it with a conscious desire to fight against the system. Karukku became her testimony; and
thereby a subaltern’s testimony of being a Dalit.

Chapter 4- Autobiography: With A Purposeful Uniqueness

Bama’s Karukku made a profound change in the concept about autobiography. It crushed
away the so-called rules of autobiographical writing. Many Tamil authors, both men and
women, use the convention of writing under a pseudonym. In this case, this convention adds
to the work’s strange paradox of reticence and familiarity. Unlike the usual autobiographies,
it leaves out many personal details about the author and her life. The protagonist is never
named. The events in Bama’s life are not arranged according to a simple, linear or
chronological order, as in most autobiographies. But it is viewed from various perspectives,
repeated many times, grouped under different themes like work, Games, food habits etc. As
Bama says:
There were many significant things I chose not to recall in Karukku. I was witness to many
violent incidents related to caste conflicts. I left them out from my first book because I felt
that would deviate from the issues that I wanted Karukku to focus on.
Dalit writers have rejected the standard language which has a definite class. Dalit writers
assert that their literature conveys the life that they lived, experienced and seen. A new
human being has been revealed in literature for the first time with the emergence of Dalit
writing. The reality of Dalit writing is distinct and so is the language of its reality. It is the
impolite spoken language of the Dalits. Even though the culture people have chosen the
standard language for their writings Dalit writers considers it as arrogant. The language of the
Basti seems more familiar than standard language to them. “Bama is doing something new in
using the demotic and the colloquial regularly, as her medium for narration and even
argument, not simply for reported speech. She used the Dalit style of language which
overturns the decorum and aesthetics of received upper-caste Tamil” (Holstrom xix).
AsBama says about her use of language:
One thing that gives me most satisfaction is that I used the language of my people- a
language that was not recognized by the pundits of literature, was not accepted by any literary
circle in Tamil Nadu, and was not included in the norms of Tamil literature.
In Karukku, Bama deliberately breaks away from the usual style of writing an autobiography.
Her intense urge to save her people from the clutches of caste oppression is evidently
reflected in the work. The style and language she used proves the arrogant attitude that Dalit
writers possess towards the standard language and diction. Bama thus became a
representative writer of Dalit literature. She thus casts away the bonds made by the upper
literary world.
Bama breaks the rules of written grammar and spelling throughout, elides words and joins
them differently, demanding a new and different pattern of reading… by using an informal
speech style which addresses the reader intimately… As well as this subversion of received
Tamil…an oral tradition made up of work chants, folk-songs, songs sung at rites of passage,
as well as proverbs…there is often a layering of meaning in certain words…often there is a
spin or a turnaround of meaning, a freshness in some of the coinages…breaking a mainstream
aesthetic….proposing a new one which is integral to her politics.(Holstrom xix-xx)
Karukku was well received by readers and critics alike. It begins with the first person
narration. The narrator moves from the past to the present in exploring the varying manifold
sets of different incidents, which have taken place in her life. Bama wants her autobiography
to be a “two-edged sword”. While on the one hand, it challenges the oppressors who have
enslaved and disempowered the Dalits, on the other hand, it reiterates the need for a new
society with ideals such as justice. Bama didn’t make a militant kickback in her work through
questioning the oppressors; instead she seeks to emphasize on the importance of education,
moral values and unity and to establish a better society for Dalits.
The story is not her own but that of others too. In Bama’s case nobody can interpret her story.
It is something that is very personal. Her life is related to her people. She had the opportunity
to tell something that others in her community did not have. She documents the reality of the
whole people of her community who were not allowed to voice their own story.The act of
naming is considered as an exercise of power. So she deliberately does not name her village,
the priests, schools and colleges, the nunnery the Dalit headman etc. the lack of
distinctiveness harmonizes better understanding of the message. Bama’s text is also marked
by absence of adherence to grammatical rules. She conveys a sense of remorse and guilt
when she talks about the material benefits she had enjoyed, an elusive dream for others in her
community.
Usually, an autobiography present or narrates the author’s life in full detail. It includes his or
her personal details, life experiences, relation with others, influences, activities, and so on.
But Bama makes her autobiography unusual by deviating from the usual methodologies. She
sees autobiography primarily as a weapon for the resistance struggle she is engaged in. Dalits
are oppressed all the time and they are not supposed to raise their voice against it. But Bama
courageously took that responsibility to save them from the shackles of oppression and
carved out a space for Dalits in the literary and social world. Secondly she views it as a
means to convey message to her fellow-beings. Through her work, she gives hope to the Dalit
community that they can develop dignity in their own identity. It is also a message that gives
them comfort since they are dismayed with the experiences that they received throughout the
life. Finally it is used as a means to strengthenthe Dalits. The text is a message to make them
fight against the ongoing caste oppression and gives them hope and courage for that struggle.
Thus Bama’s autobiography works through this manner to make Dalits empowered and
developed.
Karukku is not merely a militant voice seeking to liberate the Dalits from oppression. It also
does the function of a memoir that has a great cultural value. The book gives an identity to
the Dalits by proudly recollecting, the cultural significance of being a Dalit, in the remnants
of memories. The very fact that the author is a Dalit who decentralizes the established
structures proves that half their victory is won. The book therefore becomes the harbinger of
an awakening and a reiteration of the Dalit’s freedom to question, rebel and reinterpret. As
Lakshmi Holmstrom puts it,“…Bama’s work is among those that are exploring a changing
Dalit identity…” (Holstrom xix)
Bama is not merely trying to politically influence the power structures but wants to
communicate with the readers at a deeper level. As readers, we are expected to travel into her
reality and empathize with the condition of the Dalits. Karukku is indeed the “two-edged
sword” but only mightier. Dalit autobiographies must be treated as testimonio, atrocity
narratives that document trauma and strategies of survival.It analyses the strategy of
witnessing in Bama’s narrative, arguing that she functions as a witness to a community’s
suffering, and calls upon readers to undertake “rhetorical listening” as secondary witness.
Bama’s autobiography is uniquely written with a burned purpose in her mind. It is for the
fulfillment of that purpose that she overthrows the established conventions for writing, as
dictated by the upper castes.It is neither a pleasure giving work of fine sentiments and refined
gestures, nor a narcissistic wallowing in self pity. Being “purposive”, Karukku is, to use an
old phrase, “a literature of commitment”. Thus Karukku proves to be a testimonial
autobiography of a subaltern.
Chapter 5- Conclusion

At the end of the book, is an Afterword written by Bama, seven years after she wrote the
book. She says,“It is a great joy to see Dalits aiming to live with self-respect, proclaiming
aloud, ‘Dalit endrusollada; talainimirndunillada’. You are a Dalit; lift up your head and stand
tall”. (Bama 138)
Thisis probably what the author aimed for when she wrote her experiences down. Bama’s
texts have never worked on the victimhood of Dalits. The agency of Dalits has been
powerfully presented in all her writings. Her works lay a lot of emphasis on empowerment of
Dalits through education. Karukku is an activist intervention in literary domain and renders
Dalit writing as essentially an act of political exercise. As Bama says in one interview about
her immense joy that is brought by Karukku: “it is using at the Theological College in
Bangalore. That is a matter of great triumph”.
The life portrayed in Karukku throws light on the most agonizing and hapless lives of the
Dalits. Bama’s portrayal needs to be understood as representative of the experience. The
unpleasant experience and an oppressed soul have to compulsorily undergo a traumatic
change. That change had occurred through Bama’s narrative of resistance, Karukku. She
introduced a new genre, testimonial literature, through which she make others aware of the
situation that is faced by Dalits, especially in Tamil Nadu and also make her people ready for
the struggle. She presents her autobiography in a unique way that it might change the
condition of her fellow-beings, that it might create a revolution of change. Bama, herself talks
about the change happened to her: “I described myself in Karukku as a bird whose wings had
been clipped. I now feel like a falcon that treads the air, high in the skies”(Bama xi)
Through Karukku, she is not just revolting against the caste oppression, but celebrating her
Subaltern identity also. In the beginning, Bama was ‘nurtured as a Catholic’ but ‘gradually
realized herself as a Dalit’. She later became aware of her Dalit identity and began to
proclaim it before all. She gives a testimony of her life and for that she breaks the style of
autobiographies.Karukku became her testimonial autobiography which enjoys the
Subalternity in her and at the same time, boldly and poignantly rises against the upper castes
for their indifference. “Bama is writing in order to change hearts and minds”.The reader is
supposed to ‘surrender to the special call of the text’”(Holstrom xx). The Dalits are inspired
to mark a change upon their lives. Karukku thus asserts itself to be a subaltern testimonio in
the form of an autobiography.

Bibliography