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Voicing the Dalit Woman: Gender, Caste, and Rebellion in Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke

 


Voicing the Dalit Woman: Gender, Caste, and Rebellion in Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke

Manavee Singh & Dr Prachi Priyanka,

Sharda University,

Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India.

 

Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke (2008), originally published as Jina Amucha in Marathi, is widely recognized as the first Dalit woman's autobiography in Indian literature. Kamble’s portrayal offers a radical approach to the autobiographical form, focusing on the shared past of the downtrodden Mahar group while highlighting the linked experiences about caste, gender, and class. Kamble while telling her life story through this text also offers a harsh critique of the old Brahmanical and Patriarchal systems that oppresses the Dalit community. This chapter explores the interwoven themes of identity and agency in Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke, a seminal Dalit feminist autobiography originally written in Marathi as Jina Amucha. The study situates Kamble’s narrative within the socio-political and historical frameworks of caste, gender, and class oppression, foregrounding how Dalit women’s autobiographical writing becomes a tool for both resistance and self-representation. Drawing from critical scholarship and intersectional theory, the chapter examines how Kamble reconstructs a collective Dalit identity through memory, challenges Brahmanical patriarchy, and asserts the transformative potential of Ambedkarite political consciousness. By analyzing the text’s engagement with cultural rituals, caste-based violence, and the gendered subjugation within and outside Dalit communities, the chapter demonstrates how The Prisons We Broke emerges as a revolutionary narrative of empowerment. It further explores the performative role of language and translation in articulating subaltern agency. Ultimately, this research underscores Kamble’s contribution to Dalit literature and feminist discourse, positioning her work as a vital text in reimagining the contours of marginalized identities in India.

The socio-political philosophy given by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar inspired the Dalit literary movement and new forms of expression arose from the movement, among which autobiographies were the most powerful. Dalit autobiographies act as a political tool, giving voice to suppressed histories as well as identities which is different from upper-caste autobiographies that have an individual orientation (Samson & Vinayakaselvi, 2018). Through Kamble’s gendered perspective the ‘triple burden’ that Dalit women face that is oppression due to their caste, gender, and class is thoroughly discussed in this text (Vishwakarma, 2022).

This paper analyses how identity and agency are discussed in The Prisons we broke by Baby Kamble. It explores Kamble's use of collective memory and education to rebuild a Dalit identity, her depiction of intersectional oppression, acceptance of Ambedkarite activism, and her criticism of Brahmanical dominance. It depicts how Kamble views Dalit women as change makers thus contributing to the Dalit feminist viewpoint. Kamble’s narrative structure opposes Western autobiography standards through prioritizing communal experience over self-contemplation. Kamble melds memory, culture, with history into a political instrument for resistance, enabling this transformation of an autobiography to a ‘socio-biography’ and her consistent use of ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ situates her life story inside the Mahar community's broader historical trajectory. She starts by depicting the wretched living circumstances of Mahars in Maharwadas. They had to live in makeshift shacks, surviving on foraged food, and were ensnared by myths and superstitions. Her vivid imagery represents ingrained dehumanization of Dalits: “people covered in thick layers of dust and dirt…wearing tattered clothes” (Begum, 2018). These depictions help reconstruct the Dalit identity as impacted by caste violence and also shed light on the manner this violence became ingrained and normalised through rituals and customs.

The text represents pre-Ambedkarite identity as something defined by superstitions. Such convictions included sacrificing children to divinities or embracing karma's inevitability. Kamble critiques such convictions and terms them as tools used by Brahmanism to sustain the caste hierarchy. Her rejection of such ideologies shows an emerging self-consciousness and awareness intending to redefine Dalit-ness not as a cursed identity, but as a force of resistance and self-respect. Her story retrieves identity through her political cognizance. Kamble calls herself “a product of the Ambedkarite movement,” and by stating that she presents herself to have evolved beyond passively experiencing caste and instead becoming an active agent of change (Begum, 2018).

Nationalist historiography and mainstream feminist discourse have historically ignored or have silenced the narratives of Dalit women. Anandita Pan (2015) argues that Dalit women are the ‘Dalits among Dalits’, located at the lowest rung in India’s socio-cultural hierarchy. Structural violence intersects with intimate forms of oppression, so Kamble’s autobiography emerges from that intersection, highlighting Dalit womanhood’s lived reality in a world where survival resists. To be dominated is to be a woman in Kamble’s world; also, to be dehumanized is to be a Dalit; and to be nearly erased is to be both of them. Yet through the course of her voice and also her pen, she rewrites this erasure into an assertion, and she uses education as a tool that is of awakening and literature as a space that is of transformation.

The social structures dominating Baby Kamble’s world constitute represented realities as opposed to abstract systems manifested via labor, dress, diet, language, the body, and accessible spaces for the Dalit woman. In The Prisons We Broke, the author depicts a firm portrayal of existence in Maharashtra's Maharwada Dalit settlement where Dalit women resided in intense destitution as well as inhumane circumstances, bounded by cultural decadence and caste- implemented prohibitions. The autobiography reveals how structural exclusion commences from birth and is present throughout every sphere as Kamble recounts with large clarity, ignominy and inadequacy were internalized even during childhood. She articulates, “We, the daughters of the activists in the movement, were enrolled in school no. 5 for girls. It was basically a school for Brahmin girls, with a few girls from other high castes. There were some ten or twelve Mahar girls spread over in various classes. So each class had only a sprinkling of the polluting Mahars. All the girls in the class had benches to sit except us Mahar girls. We had to sit on the floor in one corner of the classroom like diseased puppies... We were like fiery godflies burning for vengeance” (Kamble, 2008, p. 62). This strong metaphor depicts caste- based segregation and imposes psychological abasement via the school room's spatial and concrete layouts. The classroom, theoretically a place for liberation, turns into a mechanism of trauma and control for Dalit girls.

Kamble shows Dalit women are trapped within a complicated network of subjugation. These women are in no way represented as being passive victims. Caste-based exclusion is intimately linked to gendered dehumanization since Dalit women are untouchable to upper-castes, and men in their own communities may treat them as subhuman. Kamble’s account represents the dual marginalization as well as depicts precisely how it engenders trauma that is not sufficiently addressed in feminist or Dalit movements. They articulate that caste thoroughly marginalizes Dalit women initially, and gender also does so subsequently, with such oppression rendering their bodies as sites for systemic violence (Komal & Pareek, 2024).

Kamble’s particular narrative constitutes violence towards Dalit women. Beyond physical violence, structural violence is also clear. Being denied basic rights to freedom, autonomy, or education, young girls were expected to serve, clean, cook, and bear children upon being married off at the ages of nine or eight, Kamble recollects that an individual would merit a thrashing from family patriarchs by not successfully preparing bhakris (Kamble, 2008). Patriarchy inside of Dalit families mirrors normalization along with weaponization so as to oppress any form of individuality amongst females. Kamble offers a critique of upper-caste oppression that is observed throughout the entirety of the text, and of domestic patriarchy within the boundaries of her community. Her vocalization attains individuality and potency via this twofold analysis. As Dr. Amit Kumar (2015) elucidates, “The two factors of ‘caste and patriarchy’ are quite dominant in the lives of Dalit women all over India… Dalit women have to face both Brahmanic also Dalit patriarchy” (p. 174), Kamble's autobiography consequently does not simply indict the upper-caste system it thoroughly interrogates the internal power structures of the Dalit community that subjugate their women.

Kamble existed within an ideological framework that indoctrinated her into inferiority from her life's beginning. Customary beliefs, along with rituals and also caste taboos, that were designed in order to maintain social stratification and perpetuate Brahmanical hegemony, were deeply ingrained. ‘A system designed to internalize the wretched life condition among the untouchables through making them believe that everything throughout life is predetermined via deities’ was written concerning such observances by Dr. Shameemunnisa Begum (2018). Kamble associates this sense of fatalism alongside the Brahmanical manipulation regarding religion so as to indicate caste oppression, critiques concerning which happen to be discussed (272). Her narrative dissolves this illusion while it exposes caste as a human-made injustice instead of divine order.

Kamble elucidates the manner in which Dalit identity was degraded by religious festivals and also customs in a most radical of moves. Upper-caste Hindus observed several rituals that abased the Mahars, even as they relied on their presence and work. Many Mahars engaged in several rituals. Subsequently, the rituals served to normalize the Mahars' subjugation. Comprehending the wide-ranging depth regarding caste conditioning, coupled with the vital necessity for education so as to dismantle it, mandates Kamble’s key dissection pertaining to such a cultural machinery involving humiliation.

Her assessment elucidates a further central motif: the function of ingrained casteism. The text elucidates that hierarchies in the community that Dalits formed were dependent upon the count of gods worshipped, deity platform dimension, and women's attire. The oppressed people assimilated into the dominant caste culture, and this internal ranking mirrored that assimilation. It constituted a method by which they could forge untrue superiority. Kamble uncovers these tendencies and comprehensively reconsiders identity grounded in dignity and equality.

The social reality for Dalit women is further complicated by the economic system reinforcing their immobility. The Watan system frequently tied many Dalit families, which forced various entire communities into hereditary servitude and institutionalized caste-based occupations. Begum (2018) notes, “Due to the fact the Watan system existed, the Mahar community depended entirely on the mercy of Hindus” (p.273). This kind of economic dependency meant that for accessing education it was not just difficult people saw it as irrelevant, or as even threatening to the social order.

However, Kamble breaks through this narrative by showing education ignited a larger resistance fire despite these constraints. Her father, just one of the few men in the community, had valued schooling for girls. The neighbours ridiculed this decision, and they thought that education would corrupt the women. They also believed education would challenge the common male authority. Putting a girl in school, exactly this act, was what created patriarchy's caste walls initial rupture. Kamble transforms her own life into more of a political statement through narrating these experiences. She witnesses structural oppression, and through her writing, she exposes and critiques it. The personal is in no way merely personal inside of The Prisons We Broke. It acts as a channel in order to unveil Indian society's patriarchal as well as casteist foundations.

Education in Baby Kamble’s life is not represented as merely a privilege, nor just as a means to employment or to social mobility, but it does act as revolutionary resistance. Dalit women had been expected to remain fully illiterate as well as voiceless within their own world, but she insisted upon both reading and writing. Her documenting of her experience ultimately rebelled against centuries of caste-based subjugation. Kamble experienced some amount of education and this became a certain motif of liberation. It shows up in all of her writing.

The caste hierarchy was disrupted through the very act of just being present in any classroom, although the formal schooling was often quite hostile and discriminatory. Humiliation marked her early days inside school, as Kamble recounts, where the Mahar girls were quite demeaned as well as upper-caste students were openly favoured by Brahmin teachers. “Each of the girls in that class had benches for sitting except for us Mahar girls, and we were to sit on the floor in a corner of the classroom, like diseased puppies; we truly were like fiery godflies burning for vengeance” (Kamble, 2008, p. 62).As shown by the vivid metaphor, these girls cultivated resistance and righteous anger even after dehumanization. It reflects the way education ignited a fresh consciousness inside them upon realization of their ability to defy social norms.

Kamble became politically aware as well as made her schooling more than simply an academic exercise because her classmates were conditioned to treat her with some contempt. Ambedkarite movements in Maharashtra advocated for the annihilation of caste through education as well as social reform coinciding with her attendance at school. Listening to Ambedkar’s speeches or reading his publications made Kamble feel a certain inspiration and excitement, she describes. Education became to be viewed, using Ambedkar’s phrase, as “a sword in the fight for equality” by both her and also other young Dalits. Kamble acknowledges herself as “a product of the Ambedkarite movement” (Begum, 2018, p. 273). A collective political awakening had been tied inextricably to that of her personal success. Learning as well as emancipation do indeed connect. Education for Kamble and her community heals and resists, especially as it allows them to challenge internalized inferiority. Kamble’s text increases, contextualizes, and politicizes with the voice of a Dalit woman refusing silence (Pareek & Pareek, 2024).

Kamble’s embrace of Ambedkar’s ideology marks a deep break away from the fatalism and internalized oppression shaping Dalit communities for years. Ambedkar’s teachings are rooted in rationalism, education and resisting caste hierarchies, to offer a radically new vision of selfhood for people historically denied personhood. For Kamble this ideological shift was not abstract but a lived reality. As she recounts it, the exposure to the political writings of Ambedkar and also his social movement awakened a consciousness that then allowed her community to reimagine themselvesas agents of social change, rather than as passive victims of divine will. Ambedkar moved Dalits to organize politically then pursue education plus reclaim their dignity when he catalyzed the empowerment through civic participation. Kamble credits specifically the movement because of the fact that it did allow her to have access to schooling and to participate within political gatherings and begin a small business with her husband, a strikingly radical endeavor inside a social order in which both caste and also gender heavily restricted public roles for women (Begum, 2018).

This ideology awareness was transforming Kamble personally and also powerfully manifested when Kamble decided to write. Her writing functions as an act beyond political defiance and assertion. It is a challenge to centuries of forced silence. Kamble stated to Maya Pandit her translator, “I wrote about what my community experienced”. She added, “The suffering of my people became my own suffering” (Samson & Vinayakaselvi, 2018,). This statement shows the ethics of solidarity along with representation that support her autobiography. Kamble's life narrative turns into a vessel for her own story and a voice for countless Dalit women because their suffering was made invisible under Brahmanical patriarchy. Kamble documents just how women of her Mahar community labored without stopping to support their own families, even often when they were extremely deprived. They bore the emotional and physical weight from care giving while working in homes, fields, and factories. In daily life, these women made conscious decisions so as to send their children to school, resist humiliation, and assert their dignity, despite being denied education and confined within domestic roles. Kamble recalls how some women continued toward attending Ambedkarite meetings and educating themselves in social matters, despite being taunted or even physically abused for attempting to cross caste boundaries or express political views (Pareek & Komal, 2024).

Kamble subverts those elitist conventions of the autobiographical genre by the act of writing. In India, autobiographies customarily were written by upper-caste men, often to present spiritual, political, or moral authority. In contrast, Kamble reclaims the genre for the marginalized because she turns it into a space for trauma, resistance, and collective memory articulation. Her narrative is one that does not focus on how an individual triumphs or introspects but instead dissolves the boundary between that which is personal and that which is political since it foregrounds shared experiences of oppression and a collective will that resists. As Shah (2024) does argue, Dalit women’s autobiographies such as Kamble’s function not just as testimonies for survival but as ‘blueprints for social change’ because they carve out a space within a literary discourse for the subaltern woman, and they demand that her lived experiences be recognized as legitimate knowledge.

Furthermore, the use of autobiography by Kamble is prominent as it challenges the very knowledge production hierarchy. She asserts that Dalit women's oral traditions, memories, and lived experiences are just as important if not more important than historical accounts and canonical texts written by elites. Her work speaks to the reader directly with unembellished honesty because it invites engagement with raw truths that official histories often omit. Kamble resists caste oppression also dominant literary cultural institutions perpetrating epistemic erasure doing so.

Kamble’s life story turns into a declaration and represents Ambedkarite thought in action. Her pen is just as much of a tool for resistance as any political slogan or any street protest is. Kamble narrates the injustices her community faces along with educational discrimination and patriarchal violence and therefore upsets social structures dependent on silence and submission. Her text is a call for solidarity because it urges both Dalits and non-Dalits alike to confront all of the embedded inequalities of Indian society as well as to participate within the active battle for justice, dignity, and equality. Kamble asserts agency through her writing and expands that potential to future generations of Dalit women after her.

Kamble does not view suffering romantically and instead honestly acknowledges that these acts of survival are what form the resistance's foundation. She represents these women as defiant, morally courageous and socially aware often more than their male counterparts who were complicit within the perpetuation of patriarchal norms. Such defiance is significant within settings when women had been often silenced and treated as sub humans. Kamble asserts that resistance is not limited to grand gestures or even organized protest it can be embedded in acts of care, choice and self-preservation.

Kamble's own life powerfully symbolizes such resistance. She went from being abused by her husband to being a writer, social reformer and founder of an orphanage and she considers her success a part of a larger trajectory of Dalit women’s awakening. She insists that her story isn’t inseparable from that of the community's. Her openly voiced pride regarding her Mahar identity comes not from essentialism but from recognition of the moral, spiritual, and cultural power her community obtains from unity and years of survival. Kamble reframes caste identity and moves through humiliation toward collective resilience to get her with political agency (Narula, 2023).

Dalit feminist thought centers itself on this redefinition of radical agency. Dalit feminism is theorized by activists and scholars as an understanding of caste, gender and class which hold be viewed as connected structures of domination. Kamble shows that Dalit women cannot be subsumed within generalized categories such as ‘woman’ or ‘subaltern’ without erasing specific histories of their exploitation (Kumar & Yogisha, 2017). Kamble's depiction complicates victimhood and heroism's dichotomy. Her women are not super human figures of resistance but flawed, vulnerable and real. Their agency is forged through that suffering but also through relationships and deep desire for a change.

The Prisons We Broke functions more as a collective biography of Dalit womanhood than just an autobiographical account. It chronicles all of the chains of both caste and patriarchy along with all of the moments those chains fracture under a collective will and feminist consciousness. Ultimately, Kamble’s narrative serves both as a tribute for Dalit women’s enduring strength and a blueprint towards their emancipation.

 

 

Works Cited

 

Begum, S. (2018). “Prisons We Broke: An Expression of Change.” Veda’s Journal of English Language and Literature, 5 (2), 271–280.

Kumar, A. (2015). “Caste and patriarchy dominate the lives of Dalit women in Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke.” Research Scholar: An International Refereed e-Journal, 3 (3), 174–175.

Kumar, N., & Yogisha. (2017). Resistance and Recuperation: Developing a Dalit Feminist Standpoint in Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke. Contemporary Voice of Dalit, 9 (2), 214–223. https://doi.org/10.1177/2455328X17722683

Narula, A. (2023). “Exploring the Horizons of Change: A Study of Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke.” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention, 12 (10), 56–64.

Pareek, S., & Komal. (2024). “Breaking Chains and Healing Lives: A Study of Dalit Women’s Health through Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke.” Literature & Aesthetics, 34 (1), 138– 144.

Samson, J., & Vinayakaselvi, M. A. (2018). Reclaiming Personal Identity through Political Assertion: A Reading of Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke. IMPACT: International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Literature, 6(12), 81–90.

Shah, Y. A. (2024). “Feminist Autobiographical Denotations of Doubly Downtrodden Dalit Identity: Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke as Indian Casteist-classist Liberatory Knowledge System.” GAP Bodhi Taru, 7(2), 349–355.

Shanthi, P. (2018). Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke: An Articulation of Self-hood and Subjectivities. Suraj Punj Journal for Multidisciplinary Research, 8(12), 1–5.

Verma, P., Saraswat, S., & Datta, A. (2024). “The Humble Mahar women fall at your feet, master”: Portrayal of the Psyche and Suffering of Mahar Women in Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 16 (2). https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v16n2.27g

Vishwakarma, A. (2022). Depiction of Plight and Subjugation of Dalit Women in Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke. The Creative Launcher, 7 (3), 109–116. https://doi.org/10.53032/tcl.2022.7.3.1