Documenting
Survival Strategies: Analysing Bama’s Karukku
as Path-bearer of Dalit Survival
Dr. Rajamanikyam
Katikathala
Assistant
Professor
Department of
English
Andhra
University
Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
Abstract:
The
oppression of a particular group of people by and in the society concerns a
great deal with the connected ontological features of the people. Whenever a
particular group is marginalised and oppressed, there is the positioning of the
other group as the superior one. The Dalits in India have long been supressed
by the so called upper castes of the society which have relegated them to a
position of inferiority. If a careful study of the plights of the Dalit people
of the country is carried out, it becomes vivid that almost every form of
writing seems inadequate to document the pain and the sufferings. Karukku, by
Bama, is considered as one of the pivotal documents which lay bare the pathetic
positions which the Dalits in India have to experience in their lives. A tale
of resistance, struggle, fight and trauma, the foremost autobiographical
writing by any Tamil writer, Karukku, at once makes one comprehend the
difficult life of the Dalits. This paper attempts at the portrayal of the
strategies of survival as penned down in the text by portraying the numerous
oppressions which the Dalits have to face in the society. Casteism, this
research argues, is a curse which cripples a particular society and renders the
identity of the people subordinate in nature.
Keywords:
Dalit, identity, oppression, survival, subordinate
A particular form of
writing is always associated with the portrayal of the underlying structures of
the tenets of a particular society. Any literary piece, for that matter, tends
to uncover the inherent power-structures, the regimes associated with
oppression which divide people into two specific groups- the oppressed and the
oppressor. As far as Dalit writing is concerned, it becomes a means of
documentation of mode of their survival- to make the people contemplate the
nuances of suppression which they undergo in their lives in the society. Trauma
and resistance define their lives with fight and sufferings acting as their
tool to portray their ways and means of survival. In the general sense, the
idea of trauma can be associated with the suffering of the self of an
individual which renders the ontology redundant. But, as the notable Trauma
theorist, Cathy Caruth opines, “trauma is not simply an effect of destruction
but also, fundamentally, an enigma of survival” (58).
The
novel documents the life and the subsequent plight of a Dalit woman in an
Indian village by highlighting how deep-rooted the ills of discrimination based
on caste is in the Indian society. One can make sense of the subordinate
position of the entire Dalit communities of India through the voice of Bama in
the novel. Thus, the novel, more than individual, becomes collective in outlook
as it encompasses the Dalit communities in general. In the words of Bama
The
story told in Karukku was not my
story alone. It was the depiction of a collective trauma – of my community –
whose length cannot be measured in time. I just tried to freeze it forever in
one book so that there will be something physical to remind people of the
atrocities committed on a section of the society for ages. (“Recognition” n.p.)
Penning
down the atrocities of the Christians in relation to the Dalits, Bama hints at
the collective plight of the people in the novel. As the initial lines suggest,
“Our village is very beautiful, most of our people are agricultural labourers”
(Bama 1). In order to depict the oppressive societal structures, Bama portrays
the church which is presented as one of the most powerful regulators of the
faiths and beliefs associated with the people. It was seen that it was the
church which controlled the rituals in the society and the days of the people
were spent in accordance with ritualistic traditions of the church. The novel
wears a very poignant look with the showcasing of the realisation of the inherent
implication of untouchability by the writer. As she states, “When I was
studying in the third class, I hadn’t yet heard people speak openly of
untouchability. But I had already seen, felt, experienced and been humiliated
by what it is” (Bama11).
The
presentation of the communities of the Naickers who were the upper-castes
individual in the society is one of the chief aspects associated with the
plight of the Dalits. Bamma portrays that her grandmothers were working as
labourers in different families of the Naickers ad it was utter poverty which
structured their living from the beginning of a day to the end of it. Such was
the plight of the Dalits that, as the writers narrates, they were not even
given proper food by the upper-castes as those who worked in their families,
had to be content with the left-over food from the previous day. In order to
earn for the survival, Bama, as the readers learn, goes to a convent. However,
as poor fate espouses, she learns that “the convent I entered didn’t even care
to glance at poor children” (Bama 66). Regarding the prevalent life in the
convent, Bama makes the following remarks, “Before they became nuns, these
women take a vow that they will live in poverty. But that is just a sham. The
convent does not know the meaning of poverty” (Bama 66).
If
subjectivity of an individual is concerned, it needs to be understood that the
society necessitates an understanding of the subordinated position of the
Dalits within the very gamut of their life experiences. The readers can well
sense the exclusion of the Dalits from the mainstream society as “Exclusion
occurs when human beings are deliberately excluded from a group, locked out,
being deprived of goods of various types, and tends to be generally seen as
unfavorable treatment” (Boréus 31). The process of making the readers almost
witness the violence to the Dalits in the novel is a glaring strategy adopted
by the writer to survive and also simultaneously voice out for their
upliftment. It is the identity in the society which appears to be the root
cause of all the troubles for Bama. She also showcases her inner zeal to fight
the oppressive structures of the society so that can represent her society by
voicing out both her and the societal needs. Finding out the underlying hypocrisies
of the church, the readers learn, Bama moves out of the place. As she states
Nowadays,
now that I have left the order, I am angry when I see priests and nuns . . .
How long will they deceive us, as if we are innocent children . . . Dalits have
begun to realize the truth . . . 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 so far repressed, ruined,
obliterated: and to begin to live again with honour, self-respect and with a
love towards all humankind. To my mind, this alone is true devotion. (Bama 93–4)
The
novel blatantly rejects any kind of subjective notion of oppression as it
stands for the objective sufferings of the Dalits- Bama being the
representative. The personal accounts of pain glaringly give way to public
accounts of the society. Thus, it can very well be stated that the fact that
the personal experiences of Bama become irreducible in nature which pave the
platform for the portrayal of the communal plight. As towards the end of her
life-struggle, Bama remarks, “I have courage; I have a certain pride. I do
indeed have a belief that I can live; a desire that I should live” (Bama 04).
These remarks at the end become another significant strategy of survival in
relation to the pride in her being as one can grasp the self-affirming belief
which guides the statement. She also states, “I comfort myself with the thought
that rather than live with a fraudulent smile, it is better to lead a life
weeping real tears” (Bama 104).
Karukku,
thus, aligns itself with the mechanism of survival for the Dalits more than
acting as a document of oppression. It situates Bama in the middle of a society
which is not conducive to her in terms of carrying out her daily
accomplishments and this helps in the portrayal of the intricately connected
structures of the church, the society the upper castes- who all combine in
order to marginalise the Dalits. However, the narration of Bama has greatly
withstood the wrath of temporality as it testifies the sufferings of the Dalit
community.
Works Cited
Faustina, Bama.Karukku.
Trans. Lakshmi Holmström, Macmillan, 2000.
----. “Recognition for the Language of My People is
The Biggest Award I Can Win,”Interview, 26 April, 2001. www.ambedkar.org/entertainment/RecognitionFor.htm.
Accessed 20 April, 2005.
Boréus, K. “Discursive Discrimination and its Expressions.”
Nordicom Review, vol. 22, no. 2, 2001,
pp. 31-37.
Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed
Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History.Johns Hopkins UP, 1996, p. 58.