Reclaiming The Margins: A Feminist Reading of Dalit Women's Voices in Contemporary Indian Literature

This research paper explores the intersection of caste and gender through a feminist reading of contemporary Indian Dalit women's literature. By focusing on seminal texts such as Karukku by Bama and The Weave of My Life by Urmila Pawar, the study aims to uncover how Dalit women narrate their lived experiences of marginalization, resistance, and identity formation within a deeply patriarchal and caste-stratified society. Employing intersectional feminist theory and subaltern studies as its critical framework, the paper analyzes narrative voice, linguistic choices, and themes of trauma, silence, and empowerment. Methodologically, the study adopts close textual analysis supported by secondary critical literature to highlight how these autobiographical and semi-autobiographical works resist both upper-caste literary hegemony and mainstream feminist silencing. The findings reveal that Dalit women’s literature functions not merely as testimonial writing but as a potent form of social and political assertion. This paper underscores the necessity of acknowledging caste within feminist discourse and argues for the inclusion of Dalit women’s narratives in the broader literary canon to truly democratize literary studies and cultural representation.