Volume I Special Issue I September 2021

Name of Author : Abhinav Piyush

Title of the paper : Anita Bharti: Education, Feminist Consciousness and Redefinition of the Dalit Woman Protagonist

Abstract: In the context of Dalit literature in general, and Hindi Dalit literature in particular, the Dalit subject’s negotiations with the modern educational institutions at different levels of education have been problematised by many Hindi Dalit women authors. “Ek thi Kotewali” There was a Quotawoman, translation mine by Anita Bharti is another resounding take on the narrative of the contemporary processes of education, its associated institutions and the embedded narrative of casteless modernity that they carry. In Hindi Dalit women’s writings, apart from the stories of Sushila Takbhore, Rajat Rani’s remarkable short story - “Hum Kaun hain?” deals with the Dalit child’s exposure to covert forms of casteism in school where she is badgered into revealing her surname by the teachers and the school administration. Kaveri’s “Dronacharya Ek Nahi” keeps its male protagonist – Suvash at the centre of the narrative in which an educated Dalit youth is treated as an anomaly by the different stakeholders of school and college education. The limited reach of education to the larger dalit collective and its graded quality is seen as a design to perpetuate systematic oppression and discrimination. However, in this paper, I intend to discuss Anita Bharti’s story from her 2012 short story collection Ek Thi Kotewali Tatha Anya Kahaniyan There was a Quota-woman and Other Stories which prepares the mould of education-centred Dalit short stories where the dalit woman protagonist is projected as the epitome of empowerment and Ambedkarite consciousness through education. The thrust of redemptive possibilities that modern means of education as a theme receives in Dalit literature, Dalit institutional politics and Ambedkarite discourse has been converged with the agency and consequentiality of Dalit woman protagonist in her narrative. Both the overt and covert forms of casteism which manifest themselves as a part of contemporary social reality and more so within the modern and emancipatory spaces of educational institutions is confronted and contested in this narrative. Beyond the theme of education, this paper also interrogates the intersectionalities of caste and gender as one of its core issues.

Keywords : Feminist Consciousness, Education, Dalit Woman Protagonist

DOI :

Page Number : 135-138