Subalternity in the context of Patriarchy and Myth

Subalternity in the context of Patriarchy and Myth

Dalit literature is a post-independence phenomenon. India being the largest  democracy of the world still holds the indifferences in terms of caste which is a credo of  major Indians. Indeed, the term “Dalit” refers to the oppressed which is a self-chosen political  name of castes. It is very difficult to distinguish the Dalits from the others in India. The  complex Indian constitution approves the scheduled caste as Dalits. But this segregation  doesn’t fully penetrate into the pith and core of Dalit identity. However, “Dalits” or the  “Untouchables‟ share a large segment of India’s population i.e., nearly 20%. “Dalit” the term  having been used by Jyotiba Phule for the first time in 19th century has widened its use in  subsequent years. The origin of Dalits as a clan can be traced back to the Rigveda. Varna’s  known as castes are of ancient origin. Manusmrits is considered to be a legal text among the  religious texts of Hinduism defines it with clarity and precision. Brahmins,  Vaisyas, Kshatriyas and shudras are the primary varnas that existed but later divided into  many. However, Brahmins are considered as savarnas and Sudras are asavarnas. The  discrimination between these two has been an age-old phenomenon.  Indeed, “Dalit Literature” in India emerged as a voice of protest by the oppressed  group against the atrocities and injustice caused by the dangerous caste system. Dr. B.R.  Ambedkar as one of the torch-bearers of this Dalit movement not only popularized it but was also instrumental in awakening the revolutionary spirit among destitute / subalterns to rebel  against the upper class society. However, Dalit literature emerged out of racial discrimination and exploitation caused by the higher caste people. Dalit writers were influenced the philosophy of Goutam Buddha, Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and so on. Dalit literature appeared in 1958 in Maharashtra as a protest against the tyranny of so called upper class people. The writers of Dalits have seen and experienced it all: the brutality of the higher class people, censorship, exploitation, ruthlessness, discrimination. They have been a part of it all with just pens in their hands. Not just pens but the sentinel of their conscience, voice for the speechless

Meena Kandasamy (1984-) is also one of the women poets who has been instrumental in  giving new trends in poetry. Her poems bring into focus caste annihilation, feminism and linguistic identity. One of her first poetry collections, Touch was published in August 2006, with a foreword by Kamala Das. It was translated into five different languages upon publication. Her second poetry Miss Militancy was published the following year. Other works such as Mascara and My Lover Speaks of Rape won her the first prize in all India Poetry. Her books Touch and Ms. Militancy were reviewed by the New Indian Express. Touch was criticized for its English language errors, though its challenging themes were described as "interesting". Ms. Militancy was described as an improvement in her use of the English language but "disastrous, if not worse" in terms of themes and content. A review in The Hindu put the negative criticism into context, describing Meena's work as difficult for anyone whose politics were "mainstream". Her poetry is "about the female self and body in ways not 'allowed' by this discourse". Poems of Meena Kandasamy are definitely standing very strong against the subjugation of  women. They motivate the women to come out of their shell and carve a place for themselves in the society. Understanding the information of an expression is one-step and understanding the meaning is another. The meaning turns out as knowledge when one brings the meaning into habit or practice. In “Dead Woman Walking” by Meena Kandasamy explored the meaning of ‘Dead Woman’ as follows:

I am a dead woman walking asylum corridors,

with faltering step, with felted, flying hair,

with hollowed cheeks that offset bulging eyes,

with welts on my wrists, with creasing skin (1-4)

In nutshell, these three Indian poets Sujata Bhatt, Meena Kandasamy and Smita Agarwal have great contribution in the progress of Indian English poetry and these poets have been rich in their unique ways of presenting human feelings and emotions. Their poems along with romantic elements also consist emotions of nationalism, mysticism and other divergent trends. The women poets also use autobiographical medium and their experience in there poetry. There are use of multiple themes in a single poem. Although there are recurrent themes ofdespair in their poetry, the note of optimism cannot be ignored. They harp on their vision and make all attempts to integrate tradition with modern outlook and endeavor the poet play a leading role for her original imagination and thought. The feelings of diaspora and nostalgia are also the major trends of their poetry. Use of language and diction in a peculiar manner with neologism and having  technical and modern slangs is new and different major trend of these women poets. Love, beauty images of  love are also the subthemes of their poems and they mostly do not imitate others’ works and stamp a mark of their own style. They depict their original thoughts, experience and techniques and that becomes the trend of the time making them the trend setters in the realm of post-independent women poets of India. Kandasamy herself demands from a woman that when she has to stand up to any injustices she has to do so. The poet is portrayed as an example for subjugated women to look up to as she has given voice to the voiceless through her lines. Just like Mahasweta devi does to her characters, giving voice to the unnoticed. Ms. Kandasamy takes up the main characters of epics and brings them as common people and highlights the quality which makes them to stand out of the crowd. Kandasamy herself has got a powerful voice which is capable of breaking boundaries and shattering walls. She does her best to uplift her community. Her poems are a reflection of her strong rootedness to Indian English and Dalit Literatures. Likewise, in “Six-Hours of Chastity”, the poet renders an alternative reading of the myth of Nalayani, Rishi Maudgalya’s devoted wife who is considered the epitome of chastity. According to the myth leprosy ridden Maudgalya’s commands his wife to take him to his chosen prostitute. So the ever obedient wife bundles up the decrepit body of her husband in a big basket and exhibiting unflinching devotion, carries him on her head to the house of the prostitute, midst the disdainful snigger of the bystanders. Kandasamy imagines the events that unfold as Nalayani waits for her husband outside the house of the prostitute. She plays along when ‘[s]someone who saunters in mistakes the devout / [w]ife to be mistress of guilt, a woman of night.’ She spends the night indulging in sexual fervor with strangers; with ‘[s]ix men, one for every hour of night’ ( Militancy 49). The implication being, she doesn’t wait for her husband to grant ‘the boon’. Exhibiting agency, she manipulates the situation to overcome the circumstances and enjoys sexual gratification, thereby averting the fate of being born as ‘Draupadi’.  Ranjit Haskote interprets the poems in Ms. Militancy as a ‘series of self- dramatization . . . [of] subversive mythic exemplars . . . [and] heterodox woman saint-poets from the Bhakti teaching lineage.’ I extrapolate this impersonation as the performance of the ‘gender acts’ with the subversive potential of ‘drag’; where by the poet persona assumes subjectivities, miming as well as displacing the conventions and cultural norms. In the introduction to Miss. Militancy, rather cheekily titled “Should you take offence,” Kandasamy proclaims the motivation to her enterprise.

 Female desire is almost always a matter of scrutiny, and Meena uses it to inaugurate her book. In the very first poem called ‘A Cunning Stunt’, she speaks of the brunt of family and community honor a women’s sexuality has to bear, and that her choices should benefit everyone in the society but herself:

“cunt now becomes seat,

abode, home, lair, nest, stable,

and he opens my legs wider

and shoves more and shoves

harder and I am torn apart

to contain the meanings of

family, race, stock, and caste

and form of existence

and station fixed by birth”

The poem ends with the emergence of the woman’s ‘cunningness’ as she starts pretending in an attempt to not displease the man. “I am frightened. I turn frigid. I turn faker.”

There is a violent seduction in her words, aiming to make the reader uncomfortable, and rattling them towards an ugly reality. She uses themes in contexts often conflicting with the original, which might sound blasphemous to some. She particularly takes on Hindu and Tamil epics, where women are attributed a virtuous and uncorrupted status, which confines their desires and abilities, putting them at the disposition of men to ‘save’ and ‘take care’ of them. Like in ‘Backstreet Girls’, she challenges the chastity forced upon them:

“Tongues untied, we swallow suns.

Sure as sluts, we strip random men.

Sleepless. There’s stardust on our lids.

Naked. There’s self-love on our minds.

And yes, my dears, we are all friends.”

The stanza concludes with the sense of solidarity between women who refuse to fit into the archetype and stand together to fight opposition.

Venturing further into her world of irreverence, she uncovers the cravings of self-righteous men who often mask themselves in piousness in order to maintain their holy position. The human-ness that they hide to portray themselves as higher beings is knocked down in her poem ‘Six Hours Of Chastity:

In the darkest hour before dawn, the priest enters there,

Enters her, to make love to her leftovers, fidgeting in his

Guilt and cowardice, like the clinging of holy cymbals.”

A priest visiting a whorehouse is unthinkable but real, and Meena affirms this. The apparent holiness in humans is a sham. No one is spared of their weaknesses, not even the Brahma who is considered one of the sacred trinity of Hinduism as she speaks to that ‘villain’ in ‘Prayers To The Red Slayer’.

She calls Brahma out on his self-proclamation of the creator and a father-figure, despite the existing narrative of him raping his own daughter. “If you’ve ever called to pose for the camera, or give interviews, drop that pen and stop writing our story as if it were your own.” She snatches away his entitlement over people’s lives, of deciding their future.

Moreover, she portrays the women of these myths as self-determined and making decisions on their own terms. For example, Sita from Ramayana is shown refusing to succumb to her husband’s flickering attitude towards her in ‘Princess-In-Exile’:

“Years later, her husband won her back

but by then, she was adept at walkouts,

she had perfected the vanishing act.”

Sita was abandoned when her husband questioned her chastity, but came back to claim her after some time. But she rejects his call, and decides to never go back with the person who doubted her at the first place.

Another example of Sita putting herself first is illustrated in ‘Random Access Man’. Here, tired of waiting for her husband to come to her, she chooses a random man to satisfy her. The poem concludes by giving the reader an insight into her perception of masculinity.

“By the time she left

this stranger’s lap

she had learnt

all about love.

First to last.”

Along with desires, this poetic collection also advocates Dalit feminism and the atrocities of caste system. Meena lays bare the obstructions and impediments lower-caste women often have to bear as they stand at the intersection of two marginalized identities. In Once My Silence Held You Spellbound, she writes:

“You wouldn’t discuss me because my suffering

was not theoretical enough.”

Here, one can locate the powerlessness of Dalit women as they are unacknowledged not only because of their gender and caste, but also because of their inability to voice themselves in the upper-caste dominated academia Perhaps one of the most compelling poems which vigorously exposes the structured subjugation of our society is One-Eyed:

her left eye, lid open but light slapped away,

the price for her a taste of that touchable water.”

The brutal  discrimination and suppression faced by a little girl means different things to different outfits. While the inanimate well of water only sees a thirsty child, as we move forward towards human establishments, her act starts taking shape of an infringement. This is used for self-interest, as the school attempts to uphold its reputation, and the press sensationalizes it to make money. But for the girl, this episode is only a reminder of a prejudiced world.

 One important aspect in the poetry of Kandasamy is the discussion and resentment  directed at the sexual exploitation of women. Women in general are already viewed as the “other” and the Dalit women exist as “others within others”. The exploitation that these women are subjected to deprive them of the very basic right to survive with dignity. They are a constant subject for torture and maltreatment both within as well as outside the domestic sphere. They are always seen as silent sufferers lacking the power to resist, to assert and to live by choice. Meena, however, emerges as an open rebel refusing to surrender to the dictates and constructed norms. She speaks as a lover: When you called me to light up your life I could never refuse… Love I can’t be a candle for I know it’s an ancient lie. The candle is for the solemn…for those who yearn a slow and Tenderness/Not for us… (Kandasamy,2006)“Moon-gazers” depicts the unquestionable superiority of non-Dalits over the Dalits the poet brings in a class room situation in which the teacher talks about a bird that watches the moon through out the right when a girl questions that the bird does on new moon days. She is seen as impudent and is mocked at. She sinks into the teachers limitless eyes without ever reaching the surface. This is the common fate shared by all the Dalits. They are force to oblige without any questions and made to lead a passive life devoid of any sign of existence.

“Ms. Militancy” the title poem of the volume is based on Kannaki, the heroine of  the Tamil Classic silapathikaram.The very first stanza of the poem has a pathetic tone:

 

She thought she was dying- ants crawled

under her flaking skin, migraines visited her

at mealtimes, her tender –as-tomato breasts

bruised to touch, her heart forgot its steady beat.

( kannika)

   This poem is a call to women to be revolutionary and courageous like the heroine herself. Though Kannaki is deeply effected by her husbands betrayal. She readily accepts him when he returns from his dancer mistress’s lap. She supports him by giving him one of her anklets to start a fresh life. The Kannaki in the first part of this poem is very devoted and loyal when judged by the standards of Tamil culture which advocates patriarchal dominance. But the rage she displays at the death of her husbands shows that she is not a passive, submissive Kannaki but a bold, assertive, revolutionist she gains the justice which her husband, a patriarch at figure failed to get. Justice alone can suffice her anger and she burns down the entire city by – “a bomb of her breast .....” 

Such is faith in her self and in woman by coming to the free front and voicing her protest at a very young age. She has set herself as a model for down subjugated women. Kandasamy gives an example of various atrocities committed against the Dalit women in her short poem “One eyed”. The poet, the glass and the water she the thirst of a person but he the teacher the doctor the school and the press the violation of rules and are indifferent to the needs of people. Human beings fail to understand their follow beings what the inanimate things where able to comprehend. Dhanam‟s world was „Torn in half”. When she lasted the forbidden water at the cost of her left eye. “Princes of Exile” is about Sita. Kandasamy‟s Sita is no longer of chaste women. She doesn’t want women to follow the rules laid by the patriarchal society. Her Sita has perfected the art of vanishing from the day she was kidnapped. Her constant walkout is her way of taking revenge on her husband who was not careful enough to protect her or even to rescue her within a short time span. Kandasamy fearlessly with her trashing words attack the superstitious and the age old orthodox beliefs forced upon the lower caste women by the patriarchal society. 

Commending on her poems Meena Kandasamy ones says that: I work to not only get back at you. I actually fight to get back to myself. I do not  write into patriarchy. My Maariamma bays for blood. My Kali kills. My Draupadi strips. My Sita climbs onto a strangers lap. All women militate. They brave bombs, they belittle kings Meena Kandasamy is one among those few Indian poets who have managed to convert their deepest anguish into brilliant poetry. The poet herself has a militant spirit. She takes up myths and characters from Tamil Classics and demystifies them by providing them with an identity entirely different from their original one. As a woman, she has forced her way to the forefront to represent her community through her powerful language and rebellious writing. Her voice is like the voice of her African-American counterparts. Her soul is endlessly search for an voice. Most of her themes and her choices of diction are taboos in the cultural context of India. This can be justified because crude realities cannot be explained in sophisticated forms and language. As Ranjit Haskote puts it in his review of “Ms. Militancy” in The Biblio, “There is considerable current of surprise and elusiveness that does battle with the strain of predictability in Kandasamy‟s poetry; even when she rehearses a well established choreography of feminist self-assertion, she does so with a sharp eye for detail, a grasp of worldly insight, and an appetite for phrasal shape-shifting.

There can be an inquiry as to what validates, or rather, how validated is Kandasamy”s perception of the reality of Dalit women; also, the reality of her own Dalit feminine self. Antonio Gramsci had argued that ‘the perspective of the dominated is necessarily contradictory and fractured; a doubled or negative consciousness that must both acknowledge the force and power of elite domination in real and symbolic terms (in this case- patriarchy, classism and castism), while struggling to maintain the critical distance necessary for defining oneself againstsuch homogenizing attempts.’ When we consider Meena Kandasamy as a female Tamil Dalit poet writing the kind of provocative performance poetry that she does, we notice that she rules out the assumption of any risk.

Conclusion:-

Given that their gender as well as their caste and class identity causes the Dalit women  to talk differently – it is their experiences which show that what Dalit women need most are  localized and specific forms of resistance. That is, to resist formation of a sisterhood that is based on gender, and not forged in concrete, historical and political practice and analysis. For that matter, male violence must also be theorized and interpreted within such specific societies for a better understanding of the role(s) of oppressor(s), oppressed and the layers of oppression involved between them; as well as for better organization that leads towards a required change. Kandasamy”s poetry does not plainly demand a social inclusion of Dalit women. It seeks for an analysis of gender relations as they are inflected by multiple and overlapping patriarchies of caste communities that produce varying registers of vulnerability.