38. Dr. S Parvathy

Abstract 38. Dr S. Parvathy

Non-Conformity, Dissent and Assertion:
Autobiographical Narratives of Sharankumar Limbale, C.K. Janu and A.N. Sattanathan

Abstract

Self-narrative, the story of a distinctive culture   written in individual character and from within, offers a privileged access to an experience that no other variety of writing can offer. It renders the experience and vision of a person in such a markedly direct and authentic way that it is at once a discovery, a creation, and an imitation of the self.

Autobiographical narratives are one of the major forums of the marginalized to share their views and experiences, to leave a record of their struggles, to inspire future generations, and to portray the individual life as an embodiment of the larger experience of Dalits. The narrative is persistent in its portrayal of the seamier side of Dalit life—ignorance, drunkenness, sexism, violence, internal rivalry, conflict, competition for survival and so on. In the view of Alok Mukherjee, “historicity of Dalit experience is conveyed . . . through the allusive nature of Dalit writing, its strategy of liberating certain figures of history and myth from the demonizing prison-hold of upper caste literature and using them to connect the present with the past.”  Sharankumar Limbale characterizes Dalit autobiographical and fictional narratives as “purposive”, and describes its purpose variously as revolutionary, transformational and liberatory.  The personal quest for self-esteem and self-affirmation, for self-sustaining dignity and psychological stability in an alien world continues to be the basic pattern of Dalit narratives. This quest is as much an internal one as it is a physical one.

In my lecture, I attempt to analyse three autobiographical narratives— Outcaste (2003) by Sharankumar Limbale , Mother Forest: The Unfinished Story of C.K.Janu (2004), as told to and written by Bhaskaran, and  Plain Speaking: A Sudra’s Story(2007), an autobiographical fragment by A. N. Sattanathan .These voices protest against an unjust social order that has denied them the fundamental human values like individuality, identity, liberty and equality. The three authors who  belong to marginalized groups in India, are concerned with self-assertion and are perpetually in a quest for constructing an identity of his/her own. Distinguished by startling language, ethnographic details and native idiom,  the narratives portray the realistic and authentic accounts of the life conditions of the marginalized group—their  suppression, humiliation, sufferings, dilemmas and exploitation.