A Dawnless Night – Touch-Me-Notism as one of the Dimensions of Anthropocentrism: A Study of Bama’s Karukku
M. Divya, Assistant Professor of English, Dr. G. R. Damodaran College of Science, Coimbatore
Dalit is a Marathi word, “dala” meaning “of the soil or the earth”. Another meaning is “that which is rooted in the soil”. Dalit is a self designation for a group of people of South Asian descent who were traditionally regarded as untouchables or low castes. Dalits are those who are oppressed like the hill people, neo-Buddhists, labourers, destitute farmers, women and all those who have been exploited politically, economically in the society. There are separate streets for each community which says that different caste people lived there. The low
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She has evolved an idiom of her own, which is the Dalit spoken idiom as well. She wants to fight openly for the things happened to Dalits. So she shows her anger in her works and thereby her expressions become sharp for the cause. She also argues that education empowers the dalits to rise above the Castiest codification. The village Bama depicts with all its beauty brings out the humiliating experiences faced by her and the others belonging to her community. Though the village had a lot of beautiful places, it also projected the ugliest faces of racial discrimination. People in her village have different communities and caste …show more content…
Bama attempts to portray these issues to have a changed society and therefore uplift the status of the dalits in Tamilnadu. She documents each and every serious dalit issues inorder to throw light on those injustices. Some of the issues highlighted to show the fall of mankind are caste discrimination, child labour, humiliation of every kind, communal clashes, false accusation, injustice from higher authorities, suppression, state of poverty and denial of privileges. She calls for the young men and women to take a vow for a devoted selfless service to the poorest of the poor who are in reality not able to come out of their caste-consciousness and their predilection for luxury. Thus Bama lives a life of solitude for the sake of the downtrodden and the poor. Karukku is a cherished masterpiece of dalit writing which has the central core. It forces the reader to read and realize the narrator’s life, a texture different from that of urban, middle-class and upper-caste. The causes of caste discriminations must be regarded and it must be removed from the society only then the society can have justification for the mankind.
Works Cited:
Bama. Karukku. Chennai: Macmillan India Ltd., 2000.