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International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Humanities (IJIRAH)

Impact Factor: 4.675, ISSN (Online): 2456 - 3145
(www.dvpublication.com) Volume 2, Issue 1, 2017
BAMA’S SANGATI AS A UNIQUE DALIT FEMINIST
NARRATION FROM SUBJUGATION TO CELEBRATION
Dr. A. Vignesh Kumar* & R. S. Sabeetha**
* Assistant Professor, Department of English, The Madura College, Madurai,
Tamilnadu
** Assistant Professor, Department of English, Fatima College, Madurai, Tamilnadu
Cite This Article: Dr. A. Vignesh Kumar & R. S. Sabeetha, “Bama‟s Sangati as a Unique Dalit Feminist
Narration from Subjugation to Celebration”, International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and
Humanities, Volume 2, Issue 1, Page Number 92-96, 2017
“Oppression, ruled and still being ruled by patriarchy, government,
caste and religion, Dalit women are forced to break all the strictures of the society
in order to live”
(Preface, Sangati)
India is one of the fastest growing countries in the world; yet it is notorious for its rigid caste system.
The earliest records of Indian civilization are preserved in Aryan scriptures or what is today known as Hindu
Scriptures. The early Indian society was constructed around Varnasrama Dharma, a labour based division of
castes in India that inevitably brought racial prejudices. The Brahmins were the topmost in the pecking order.
The Sudras were destined to serve the three upper ladders, namely Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaisyas. They
remain the „untouchables‟ in society. They have been accepted as Scheduled Castes in the Indian constitution
after the British use of the phrase. Gandhiji and Ambedkar used two different terms to name them- harijan and
Dalit. Their efforts have brought about an upliftment in their social status. They also encouraged education of
the Dalits that ultimately lead to a new writing.
Indian Dalit literature began as a concerted movement in the 1960s, though clannish elements were
visible as early in the 11th century. It began in Marathi literature and later on infiltrated to Hindi, Kannada,
Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil literatures. Dalit writers initiated a realistic, experience based and authentic
literature which threatened the upper class hegemony in society and in literature. The anger, sorrow and the
indomitable will and hope of Dalit protagonists were offered in a tongue which is often denigrated as vulgar.
The writers of different states in India share a collective relationship to a common cause, a common identity and
a common political stance.
Dalit is a literature in India is of whole community but of an individual. Many writers, thinkers, social
reformers and political figures gave their contribution in the dalit literary movement like B.R. Ambedkar, M.K.
Gandhi, Rettaimalai Srinivasan etc. Exploitation or oppression of weaker by stronger is as old as mankind itself.
The Indian history has been a vibrant record of conflict and dialectic between two opposite forces like exploiters
and exploited colonizer and colonized, powerful and powerless. Dalit literature is always marked by revolt and a
great struggle of lower caste, against the high class people commonly known as savarna.
Southern India has witnessed organized attacks against Dalits through Panchami Land issue, Chengara
struggle and Muthanga issue. Dalit caste organizations like „Dalit Panthers of India‟ in Maharashtra, „Dalit
Mahasabha‟ in Andhra Pradesh, „Dalit Sangharsha Samiti‟ in Karnataka, and „Arundhatiyar‟ in Tamil Nadu
were formed in response to mainstream atrocities. They demand for equitable shares in opportunities and
reservation. Most of the activists are good writers as well.
Dalit issues are recorded in a variety of genres-autobiographies, novels, poetry and essays. In South
India there are many Dalit feminist writers. Among them Bama, Sivakami, Poomani explored subalternity and
gender discrimination in their works. Their female protagonists are double victimized as condition is
analogous to the situation of black women in America. A recent wave of Dalit literature emerged as Dalit
Feminism. Bama is a representative novelist of Dalit feminism.
Caste and Gender are the two important identity building mechanisms that create a dalit feminist
perspective. Dalit feminism redefines women from the socio – political perspective of a dalit, taking into
account the caste and gender oppression. This paper focuses on the sufferings of Dalit women in two aspects:
first, being a woman second, belongs to the lowest community. Therefore they are double oppressed.
From the time they are born, girls are discriminated against just by their sex. A girl-child is neglected
at infancy in favour of the boy. The girls play gender-games like cooking or getting married. The women of
Tamil Dalit community are on their feet doing back- breaking work from morning till night, all to just barely
make ends meet. The men never do their share of the work. Dalit women participate in productive works, earn
wages and participate in the economic chain. But they are paid much less. They are also constantly under the
threat of Sexual harassments in the field of work. Family, Church and Caste-Courts are usually male-led.
In Tamil Nadu a laudable attempt to couple „Penniyam‟ (feminism) and „dalityam‟ (Dalit Studies) has
been recorded by Bama, whose Sangati speaks of the hitherto unheard annals of dalit women. Through Sangati,
Bama tries to bounce back the bi-fold oppression of dalit women. Sangati is more of a celebration of dalit
female identity. Bama‟s women are no longer subjugated; they assert their individuality through education and

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 International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Humanities (IJIRAH)
Impact Factor: 4.675, ISSN (Online): 2456 - 3145
(www.dvpublication.com) Volume 2, Issue 1, 2017
collective action. Their resistance-both passive and active to oppression makes Sangati a piquant depiction of
the dalit women. In Sangati Bama focuses on the double oppression of females. While going through all this
caste system some important questions arises in the mind: Who are Dalits? What is feminism? What is women‟s
identity Focused in Bama‟s Sangati? What are the solutions suggested in Bama‟s Sangati? These are some
important questions which pressurize us to go through the text. Sangati exposes that how a man spend money to
earn as they please but on the other hand a woman has to fulfill their family responsibilities.
Bama‟s „Sangati‟ is a unique Dalit feminist narrative. It is mainly concern with women‟s movement in
India. Literature also contributes in the Dalit movement and to the women‟s movement in India especially in
Tamilnadu movement of 1960s may be noted as the starting point of feminism. But of course before this there
already occurred various struggle against male oppression, the privilege systems and inequality. As an exponent
of Dalit feminism, Bama has found is Karukku the right way to explores the sufferings of Dalit women. Sangati
carries an autobiographical element in their narrative, but it is a story of a whole community, not an individual.
In Sangati, many strong Dalit women who had the shackles of authority are also focused. The condition of dalits
were very bad as they were not allowed to enter in to the temple, and schools for education .This form of
discrimination based on identity akin to racism.
Sangati was originally written in Tamil in 1994. It was translated by Laxmi Halmstrom into English.
The whole narrative is divided into twelve chapters. The word „Sangati‟ means events, and thus the novel
through individual stories, anecdotes and memories portrays the event that takes place in the life of dalit
women. Sangati deals with several generations of women in dalit community. The book is full of
interconnected events – the everyday happenings of dalit community. It goes against the notions of traditional
novel. The book does not carry any plot in the normal sense, but it is a series of anecdotes. The author herself
says the purpose of writing the book in her acknowledgement as:
“My mind is crowded with many anecdotes: stories not only about the sorrows and
tears of dalit women, but also about their lively and rebellious culture, passion about life with vitality,
truth, enjoyment and about their hard labour. I wanted to shout out these stories.” (Sangati, 9.)
In the initial chapters, it‟s narrated in the first person, then counterpointed by the generalizing
comments of the grandmother and other mother figures, and later still, by the author-narrator‟s reflections. The
earlier chapters show the narrator as a young girl of about twelve years of age, but in the last quarter, as a young
woman. The reflective voice is that of an adult looking back and meditating deeply upon her experience in the
past which calls for practical actions. It has no plot in the normal sense but just some powerful stories of
memorable protagonists.
As Bama nego-feministicly voices out the grievances of the Paraiyya women, there is, in the first place,
the question of economic inequality. Women are presented as wage earners as much as men are, working
equally as men as agricultural and building-site labourers, but still earning less than men do, thereby
highlighting Socialist-feminism. Yet the money that men earn is their own to spend as they please, whereas
women bear the financial burdens of running the whole family, often even singly. They are constantly
vulnerable to a lot of sexual harassment in the world of work. Within their community, the power rests with men
as the caste-courts and churches are male-led. Rules for sexual behavior are brow-raisingly different for men
and women. Hard labour and economic precariousness lead to a culture of violence, and Bama boldly explores
this theme too.
Sangati deals with gender bias faced by dalit women right from their childhood. Girl babies are always
considered inferior and taken less care. The narrator of this book is a young girl in the early chapters grows
pensive due to the myriad events happening around her. As she grows into a young woman, she stresses on the
need for change and is calling out for action against atrocities that happen to the girls and women in her
community. Invidious patriarchal distinctions are initially inculcated in girl children within the first ten years of
their lives. Gender games act as effective tools to achieve this goal. Bama as a young girl of twelve learns that
boys have different roles to play than girls which are perpetuated in the form of gender games that they are
made to play as children. While games like „ kabadi‟ and „marbles‟ are meant for boys, girls play at cooking,
getting married and other domestic matters.
“ Even when we played „mothers and fathers‟, we always had to serve the mud „ rice‟ to the boys first.
They used to pull us by the hair and hit us says, „what sort of food is this, di, without salt or anything!‟
In those days we used to accept those pretence blows, and think it was all good fun. Nowadays, for
many of the girls those have become real blows and their entire lines are hell” (31).
In Dalit community elders consider boys as permanent members in a family because they are supposed
to take care of their parents. On the other hand, female children are transient members who are to be
transplanted to another family and so have no role to play in their families. This causes gender prejudices even
in the minds of parents.
Dalit girls are hardly enjoying their childhood. They have little time to play as they have to take care
of their younger siblings. “Maikkanni is one such girl who has started to work from the day she learns to walk”
(70). She has to go to work when her mother delivers a baby. When her mother becomes fit Maikkani turn to

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 International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Humanities (IJIRAH)
Impact Factor: 4.675, ISSN (Online): 2456 - 3145
(www.dvpublication.com) Volume 2, Issue 1, 2017
take care of the new born baby. The life of a dalit girl was tormenting but the life of a grown up dalit woman
was worse. Bama describes the life style of dalit girls as follows:
“Why can‟t we be the same as boys? We aren‟t allowed to talk loudly or laugh noisily; even when we
sleep we can‟t stretch out on our backs nor lie face down on our bellies. We always have to walk
with our heads bow down, gazing at our toes even when our stomachs are screaming with hunger,
we mustn‟t eat first. We are allowed to eat only after the men in the family have finished and gone
what Patti aren‟t we also human beings? (29)”
Bama realistically portrays the physical violence like lynching, whipping and canning that dalit women
suffers by their fathers, brothers and husbands. She explores the psychological stress and strains of them. Bama
cleverly ropes in the prevailing subordinate condition of women through the ages as a girl, woman, a bread
winner for the family and her place in the church. All of these proved claustrophobic to the women folk of the
dalit community. The two stories that Bama reminds is that of Mariamma and Thayi whose marital
disharmonies are revealed in an attempt to stereotype the dalit predicament. They are ill-treated and beaten up
daily by their husbands. Although both the husband and wife came after a hard day‟s work in the field, the
husband went straight to the Chavadi to while away their time, coming home only for their meal. But as for the
wife they return home wash vessels, clean the house, collect water, gather firewood, go to the shops to buy rice
for cooking and other provision, feed the husband and children before they sleep, eat what is left over and go to
bed. “Even they lay down their bodies wracked with pain, they are not allowed to sleep, whether she dies or
survived, she had to give pleasure and enjoyment to her husband” (59).
In Sangati, Bama subverts mainstream legends and asks relevant questions pertaining to her culture.
The story of Thiruvallvar, the great Tamil poet‟s wife Vasuki, perceived as the epitome of chastity and devotion
to husband is mentioned to illustrate the subordinate position of women in marriage. The story she feels is a
reminder that wives ate after husbands even during Thiruvalluvar‟s time. Bama offers an alternate folk song
about Ananatamma of West Street, who was beaten up for eating crab curry before serving her husband:
“O crab, crab my pretty little crab, who wandered through all the fields I Planted I pulled off your
claws and put you on a pot, I gave the pot a hot and set it down. I waited and waited for him to
come home, And began eating as came through the door. He came to hit me the hungry brute , He
pounced at me to kill me…”(30)
These lines are the reminder that wives ate after husbands even in this twentieth century also. The dalit women
are an easy prey to the men because of their repressed state. Over worked and exploited in the family these
women give vent to their mental agony in their spirit- possessed state.
Veliamma‟s stories about the spirits that haunted Dalit women make Bama conclude that these stories
are concocted to push women to subservient position. Dalit women are an easy prey to these stories because of
their repressed state. Overworked and exploited both in the family and in society, these women give vent to their
mental agony in their spirit-possessed state. In her attempt to write a „her story‟, Bama makes interesting
references to food enjoyed by her people. Traditionally in most homes the kitchen is a limited space designated
for women. But over the years women have transformed this space into an area of discourse that gives them a
semblance of power. In Sangati, Sammuga Kizhavi‟s mouthwatering description of ragikuuzh eating is thought
provoking. She describes it as “nectar from heaven” (37).Every sunday, the narrator‟s patti made a special
kuzhambu with cow‟s intestine which went well with ragi kali. There is also mention of patti‟s hot kuzhambu
with dried fish. In Karukku Bama brings to light the gugapusai at Chinnamalai, the highlight of the festival is
slaughter of rooster, goat or pig. There is immense joy in cooking the food and feasting the delicacy. By
subverting simple acts of cooking, feeding and sharing food, Bama brings the novel alive before our eyes.
KanchaIlliah in his thought provoking work Why I am Not a Hindu, mentions that certain kinds of rich food like
ghee and milk were seldom available for the economically downtrodden dalits in the rural areas. But Bama
celebrates the food that is cooked and served by the womenfolk in her community. There is great joy in
discovering other more healthy and nutritious options. The food metaphor helps in the narrating of her stories
earlier neglected or misrepresented in mainstream writing.
Bama realizes that the dalit women are constantly under menace and they are not safe in their work
place also. They are constantly under the threat of sexual harassments in the field of work Bama asks her
women:
“We must be strong. We must show by our own resolute lives that we believe ardently in our
independence… just as we work hard so long as there is strength in our bodies, so too, must we
strengthen our hearts and minds in order to survive” (59).
The men because they are dalits often undergo dog‟s treatment in the hands of the upper caste men who
are the landlords. In such circumstances these men show off their male pride and authority, their suppressed
anger that is vented out on their wives who are beaten to pulp by these men. Ultimately it the women who are
tormented both within and without their homes. Playing the spokesperson for the women of her community,
Bama states that it is on her to speak out the truth that though all women are slaves to men, her women are the
worst sufferers. This is the core theme of Sangati.

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 International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Humanities (IJIRAH)
Impact Factor: 4.675, ISSN (Online): 2456 - 3145
(www.dvpublication.com) Volume 2, Issue 1, 2017
The dalit women are mostly the wage earners of hard labour sweating it out in the fields, construction
sites, and in match box industries. The unequal division of labour, a product of first world elite that has been
imposed upon the dalit women who are paid less than their men. From Sangati we learn that the oppress class
too has its own gender discrimination wherein dalit men who are on the margins of the structured society in turn
marginalize their own women on the basis of fixed gener roles. Bama expresses her agony as:
“It is not the same for women of other castes and communities. Our women cannot bear the torment of
upper-caste masters (mudalalis) in the fields, and home they cannot bear the violence of their
husbands” (65).
Among the other castes like Pallars, Koravars and Chakkiliyars, only the Parayars have been converted
into Christianity. This coerced conversion brought nothing but economic deprivation because they had lost their
right to reservation. The popular education scheme pronused by the Christian priests becomes a poor substitute
for economic self sufficiency. Sangati is in its huge criticism of Indian church. Bama feministicaly voices out
the grievances of Paraiya women. In Catholic Indian churches there is prevalence of Caste-hierarchy within
sub-castes of dalit community. The Catholic priests were also gender-biased and treated the converted dalit
women as inferior. She expressed this as:
Everywhere you look, you see blows and beatings, shame and
humiliation…Became we have not been to school or learnt anything, we go about like
slaves all our lives, from the day we are born till the day we die, As if we are blind, even though
we have eyes. [66]
Bama also draws a comparison between dalit and non-dalit women. According to her the dalit situation
is better than that of upper class women who have been forced to live in most vulnerable conditions. Upper
class women find no way to express their pent up emotions. Bama feels proud that their women have
economic freedom from their men folk; they work hard in fields and rear up their children. Sometimes widows
are allowed remarriage and their culture never alienates a widow form the mainstream. But the upper class
women confine their emotions within the four walls of their homes. But dalit women women suffer caste
oppression in mornings and gender oppression in nights.
In Sangati the child narrator in the early chapters grows melancholic and rebellious due to the events
happening around her. When she grows into a young woman she stresses on the need for a radical change and
calls out for action against the exigencies of her companions. She exhorts then to take pride of their (dalit
women) caste and march towards social empowerment. Bama draws attention to their immense capacity for
hard labour, their spirit of protests their cultures absence of dowry and their rich cultural heritage. She talks
about the narrator‟s courageous grandmother who pawned her „thali‟ to feed her children, katturaasa‟s mother
who bore her son by herself while cutting grass and about Marriamma who came back to work even after she
met with an accident. But they have been silenced in the crucial moments of their lives. When Bams‟s
protagonist admonishes her grandmother not for protesting, she replies,
“From your ancestors‟ times it has been agreed that what the men say is right. Don‟t you go
dreaming that everything is going to change just because you have learnt a few letters of the
alphabet?” (118)
In Sangati the language of dalit women is rich and resourceful giving way to proverbs folklore and folk
songs. Bama as a feminist writer, protests against all forms of oppression and sufferings faced by dalit women in
the first half of this novel. But later part moves away from the state of depression and oppression. Instead it
presents a positive identity of dalit women focusing their inner strength and vigor. She also attracts our mind
towards the education system about dalit community. Pechiamma, who belongs to Chakkiliyar‟s community,
studied up to fifth class, but the girls of that community do not go to school all that much.
Her language is also very different from the other women writers of India as she is more generous with
the usage of Dalit Tamil slangs. She addresses the women of the village by using the suffix „amma‟ (mother)
with their names. From the names of places, months, festivals, rituals, customs, utensils, ornaments, clothes,
edibles, games, etc to the names of occupations, the way of addressing relatives, ghosts, spirits, etc; she
unceasingly uses various Tamil words.
Dalit women resort to variegated tools for survival. While Mariamma accepts what comes to her,
Pecchiamma protests by walking on without her husband. Language is one of the effective tools they deploy
against their oppressors. The folkloric native language of the dalits itself becomes a language of protest and
political challenge. To this Bama added a language of human rights articulated by her liberated protagonist. This
new language of political resistance also includes a free use of abusive terms. Women give vent to their feelings
by calling their neighbours abusive names or shouting the names of their body parts. This, for them, is an
effective defence mechanism to maintain their psychological equilibrium.
The text of Sangati as such deals with the variegated experiences and stories of the dalit women
stringed together, thus breaking the normative literary narrative of a single plot or story. It falls closer to the
narrative pattern of ethnographic/anthropological studies wherein testimonials of the concerned peoples form

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 International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Humanities (IJIRAH)
Impact Factor: 4.675, ISSN (Online): 2456 - 3145
(www.dvpublication.com) Volume 2, Issue 1, 2017
the manner and method of constructing experiences and personal narratives which actually serve to build their
history as a community or ethnic group.
Bama uses a language unfamiliar to the mainstream, upper caste society to write her works. She
discards the so called “chaste” Tamil made unavailable for her people but employs the oral folk language, which
is familiar to her society. Unlike other writers who have dealt with Dalit life in Tamil like Sivakami, Vidivelli
and Imayam, who use the Dalit language only in dialogues between their characters, Bama writes her whole
work in the language of her community through her works especially Sangati.
Sangati both mirror up the state of depression and also reveals the vigor, courage and the resilience of
dalit women even in the midst of all misery. In the end of this novel, the dalit women celebrate their newly
found identity and inner strength. The narrator of this novel finally becomes free from clutches of her
limitations. She works and lives by hereself. Bama realizes that it is up to the dalit women to take their lives into
their own hands. She makes an appeal for a change and betterment of the dalit women‟s life in various aspects
which includes sex and gender discrimination, equal treatment in the workplace, right to education etc. That is
why Bama depicted the various stages of dalit women as a girl, women and the old age women.
By discussing the narratives of many women from the Dalit community Bama places before us the
rural Dalit woman‟s identity. Though the struggle is much owing to the double oppression of caste and gender,
we notice that their strength is also revealed. The women stand by each other to help each other when there is
injustice meted out not only in society but in family circles as well. Bama doesn‟t shy away from describing
violent domestic or street quarrels. In Sangati we hear the voices of many women, some in pain, some in anger,
some in frustration and some out of courage. Sometimes the language is full of expletive with sexual
undertones. Bama suggests that it is the sharp tongue of a woman that can protect her against her oppressors.
The characters often break in to a song or a chant when the situation demands and there is a song for every
occasion.. But what is thought provoking is Bama‟s sketching a positive identity for the Dalit woman. An
alternate her story as opposed to the mainstream is drawn with vivid descriptions of a marriage ceremony,
attaining of puberty ceremony, joy of togetherness, singing songs, cooking and sharing food. In most rural
homes the Dalit woman is an earning member, widow re-marriages are possible and tali or the sacred thread
worn as a chain during the marriage is not this binding symbol as in other communities. It is interesting that the
Dalit woman cannot be suppressed in spite of caste, gender oppression.
Work Citied: Bama. Sangati. Trans. Lakshmi Holmstrom. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. 2005. Print
References:
1. “Dalit woman talk differently‟ Economic and Political Weekly. October 2013, P14-21 Print.
2. Prasara V.P. Modes of Resistance in Dalit Feminism: An Insight into Bama‟s Sangati.
3. “Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary studies, - An international peer received journal”
Vol. I, Issue VI, May – June 2013. Print.
4. Ragamalika, Annam. Caste Gender Dichotomy: a Dalit Feminist Perspective – A study of Bama‟s
Sangati. “IMPRESSIONS – a Biannual Refreed e- Journal” Vol. VI, Issue I. January 2012. Electronic.
5. Rege, Sharmila. “Writing caste/writing gender: Narrating Dalit Women‟s Testimonies”. New Delhi,
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