DALITS AND THE LITERATURE OF PROTEST: AN OVERVIEW

Protest in all its variety and degree of intensity has been a buzzword in cultural
studies all over the world. Naturally, literature is not an exception to it. Literature as a
reflection of socio-politico-cultural milieu of the artist is definitely an area that enables to
explore the life and times of a man who created it and his ideology in relation to various
aspects of his life. That is why, this paper attempts to trace the aesthetics of protest in
subaltern literature with special reference to ‘The Branded’, a brilliantly decoded life-story
of a man who, along with hundreds of similar communities, was branded as a criminal by
the socio-religio-political structure of India. Attempts are also made to see how the
narrator develops his story as a paradigm to illustrate his concept of aesthetics and how it
contradicts with the aesthetics of mainstream literature. The basic argument of this paper
is to draw attention of the intelligentsia towards the new aesthetic principles underlying the
literary output of the marginalized sections of the society and pass on a judgment on its
aesthetic qualities.