Dalit Women Autobiography: Baby Kamble The Prisions We Broke
The Prisons We Broke: Saga of Dalit Womens Pathetic ConditionDr.
Ashwin RanjanikarAssistant Professor and Head,Dept. of English,Shri
Sant Savta Mali Gramin Mahavidyalaya,Phulambri,
[email protected] is
enjoyed as a literary genre all over the world. Its importance as a
means of self-examination, self-creation and selfregeneration has
been recognized by the critics and creative writers. Writing an
autobiography is a Western tradition where people enjoys to
celebrate the self and they are eager to demonstrate their
achievement. Indians have adopted this tradition of writing
autobiography from the West. Autobiography can be classified in two
categories one as the life stories which inspires, stimulates and
demonstrates personal achievements of an individual. Secondly the
life stories which not only demonstrates the saga of individual but
also the society as a whole depicts sorrows, sufferings,
subjugation and socio-economical conditions. Dalit autobiographies
belongs to the second category. They have portrayed the
socio-economical, cultural and political conditions of Dalit
Community under the control and influnce of Upper Caste Hindu
society. Contemporary Indian Society was divided under the wrong
notions of Purity and Pollution. Dalits were treated as
untouchables and polluters to the High Caste Hindus because they
were born in the low caste Mahar. They were intentionally kept
ignorant and denied to take education and asked to live out of town
in separate colonies by high caste Hindus to safeguard their
control over Dalits. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar gave the message to
take Education, Unite and demand for the rights to the Dalit
Community. Dalit communities admitted their childern to school and
started to take education. Slowly, they were becoming conscious
about their rights and demanding for liberty and equality.
Autobiography came handy to them to demonstrate their age old
suffering, exploitation and maltreatement. Writers like Daya Pawar,
Shankarrao Kharat, Bandu Tupe, P. E. Sonkamble, Shrankumar Limbale,
Laxman Mane, Laxman Gaikwad and Kishor Kale came foreward and
penned their experiences in the from of autobiographies. Like male
autobiographers, female autobiographers like Baby Kamble, Urmila
Pawar, Kumud Pawade, Janabai Girhe demonstarted their life stories
and experiences of trivial exploitation on the basis of caste,
class and gender. Baby Kamble is the first women from Mahar
Community to pen her life story as Jina Amuche translated by Maya
Pandit in English as The Prisons We Broke. Through this
autobiography Baby Kamble has depicted the pathetic condition of
women and also how Dalit society is devided as Traditional and
Modern. Traditional Dalit community members had denied the way
shown by Dr. Ambedkar and accepted the age old customs and
tradtions and living life ignorantly. On the other hand Ambedkars
followers admitted their children to school which created a
miraculous change in the society. Baby Kamble belongs to this
second category. Her father was a civil conratcor and influnced by
Dr. Ambedkar he admitted all his children to school and forced
others to follow the same.Dalilts were treated as polluters to the
High Caste Hindus. They were not allowed to travel by the regular
road on the otherhand they have to travel by the road side and
bushes and also bow to the high caste Hindus with respect otherwise
they had to face seveare cursing by the high caste Hindu and their
own community memebrs also took that opportunity to expploit and
degrade the women even they chooped off womens noses . Baby Kamble
scolded the high caste Hindus for the dualism that Hindus feather
their nests on the hardworks and efforts of women at that time they
didnt care getting polluted. Kamble descibes it as:When the Mahar
women labour in the fields, the corn gets wet with their sweat. The
same corn goes to make your pure, rich dishes. And you feast them
with such evident relish! Your palaces are built with the soil
soaked with the sweat and blood of Mahars. But does it rot your
skin? You drink their blood and sleep comfortably on the bed of
their misery. Doesnt it pollute you then? Just as the farmer
pierces his bullocks nose and inserts a string through the nostrils
to control it, you have pierced the Mahars nose with the string of
ignorance. And you have been flogging us with the whip pollution. (
The Prisons We Broke : 56 : 2011)High Caste Hindus put Mahar
Community ignorant from their basic rights of food, shelter and
clothes. They were asked to live in seperate colonies and very
degarded work of skinning the dead animals was given to them. The
dead animals were the food for them. They never tasted chapatis,
curries and other sweets. Poverty was with them from their birtrh
and chasted them till their death. Mahar community memebers were
very ignorant about their women. It is said that giving a birth to
a child is the rebirth of the mother. After delivering a child the
mother requires to take some light food. Dalit men were unable to
provide food to the new mother also.Taking loans from the village
sahukar they celebrate their festivals but they did not take loan
or make proper arrangements for the new mothers. Baby Kamble
describes the pathetic condition of new mothers as: Many new
mothers had to hungry. They would lie down, pining for a few
morsels while hunger gnawed their insides. Mostly women suffered
this fate. Labour pains, mishandling by the midwife wounds
inflicted by onlookers nails, ever gnawing hunger, infected wounds
with pus oozing out, hot water baths, hot coals, profuse sweating
everything caused the new mothers condition to worsen and she would
end up getting a burning fever. ( The Prisons We Broke: 60:
2011)Dalit Community memebers were very ignorant about their
daughter-in-laws. They hadnot paid attention to their health. They
treated them like slaves. Like High caste Hindus, Mahars also wants
to become masters so they put their daughters-in- laws as their
slaves. Baby Kamble describes it:The other world had bound us with
chains of slavery. But we too were human beings. And we too desired
to dominate, to wield power. But who would let us do that? So we
made our own arrangements to find slaves- our very own daughters-
in-laws! If nobody else , then we could at least enslave them. (
The Prisons We Broke: 87: 2011)This demonstatres very pitiable
conditions of dalit women. They were exploited as lower castes by
the uppercaste Hindus and in their own community they were
maltreated and exploited by their own family members because of
born as a woman. The High caste Hindus restricted Dalits to each
and every level. They very wisely bonded Dalits in the customs of
tradition and rules and regulations under the name of religion and
culture. Dalits were restricted to wear clothes and restricted to
dress like uppercaste Hindus. Though they were capable of wearing
gold chains and expensive clothes they were not allowed to wear it.
It is descibed by Baby Kamble as:There were caste rules even for
how to tucked the pleats.Mahar women had to tuck them in such a way
that the borders remained hidden. Only high caste women had the
previlage of wearing their saris in such a way that the borders
could be seen. A Mahar woman was supposed to hide the borders and
the pleates: otherwise it was considered an offence to the high
castes.Their foreheads were smeared with huge kumkum marks. Their
blouses were also made fom rags. ( The Prisons We Broke: 54:
2011)
Along with this Dalits were not allowed to travel by road which
is meant for the High Caste Hindus and they have to bow to their
masters on their way. High caste Hindus hadnot left the single
opportunity to humliate Dalits for very small mistakes they created
scene and cursed Dalits and on instances cracked them also, upto
their death. Describes Baby Kamble as:They had to cover themselves
fully if they saw any man from the higher casts coming down the
road, when he came close, they had to say the humble Mahar women
fall at your feet master. This was like a chant, which they had to
repeat innumerable times, even to a small child if it belonged to a
higher caste.( Prision We Broke : 52)There were separate colonies
for the Mahar Community memebrs and also to the lower communities
and Mahars wer allowed to travel by the roads to these colonies
only. The lanes were known as dhangar lane, Vinkar lane, Mali lane
, teli lane and so on.( The Prisons We broke :54: 2011)The above
mentioned incidents descibes the factual and very pitiable
condition of Dalit women that they were victims of caste system and
also victims of being women in the male dominated society. Women
from the uppercaste or lowercaste there are some similarities that
they have to suffer because of their gender. But it is very
disgusting and pitiable that for the sake of some material gains
humans had and have voilating and expoitaing human beings. We very
proudly says that we are living in the age of information
technology and in the age of globalization where we dont consider
anybody inferior on the basis of caste. Thouch the incidents of
humiliation, marginalization and explitation are happening. Dr.
Ambedkar has advised to annihilate the caste for the overall growth
of the society but in this age we very produly celebrates caste,
class and gender except vindicating them which is not in favour of
the healthy society and humanism. Hence it is a high time to look
into the hindsight the ideology of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar,Gurudev
Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda and Dr. S.
Radhakrushnan.References:1. Kamble, Baby. 2009. Jina Amuche
translated by Maya Pandit as The Prisons We Broke. New Delhi:
Orient Blackswan.2. Rege, Sharmila. 2006.Writing Caste / Writing
Gender: Dalit Womens Testimonies. New Delhi. Zubaan.
