Karukku

Introduction

Karukku is a novel, originally written in Tamil in 1992, by Bama. Bama is the pen-name of a
Tamil Dalit woman, from a Roman Catholic family. She has published three main works: an
autobiography, Karukku, 1992; a novel, Sangati, 1994; and a collection of short stories,
Kisumbukkaran 1996. Her first novel, which is also the subject of this essay, is an autobiography
in which the author reflects on her life and details the struggles that she has faced as a Christian
Dalit Woman in Tamil Nadu. It was the first autobiography of its kind to emerge in Tamil,
though similar Dalit female narratives had begun to emerge in other regional languages, most
notably in Marathi (Bama n.d, 2011).

Karukku is far from a typical autobiography and in fact often takes on the color of a testimonio,
where the author's voice metonymically stands for her entire community. The protagonist is
never named and though she often uses the personal pronoun "I" to talk about personal
humiliations and struggles, in describing her trauma as a Dalit woman she constantly uses "us"
and "we" to remind the reader that none of her struggles are hers alone, and that "there are other
Dalit hearts like mine" (Nayar, 2006). Bama's impulse to focus the reader on the plight of her
community as a whole is also clear in the tone of her autobiography which doesn't follow a
typical "confessional" mode and in fact leaves out many personal details about the author
entirely (Nayar, 2006).

The aim of this essay is to show that Karukku is not a simple telling of personal hardships but
rather a political project, and should thus be understood not just as an autobiography but equally
as a social critique and a rallying cry for political change. First I will provide a brief account of
the language used by the author which represents a marked departure in Tamil writing till then.
Then I will discuss the way in which Bama weaves her community identity into her personal
identity, thereby contextualizing her experiences as those of a Dalit Christian woman. Finally, I
will examine how she uses Karukku to address her community, thereby betraying an impulse not
simply to depict Dalit life as it is but to rally her community for change.

The use of Tamil

When Bama initially approached publishers in order to get Karukku published, she was shooed
away and ultimately had to publish the book privately (). Part of the reason her writing was
rejected is because she wrote in an informal, conversational, non-sanskritized tamil that is
commonly used only by lower caste persons. Publishing houses found this unacceptable because
it challenged the Brahmanical aesthetic of mainstream Tamil literature, which used formal
sanskritized Tamil. Lakshmi Holmstrom describes this in the following way:

Bama is doing something completely new in using the demotic and the colloquial regularly, as her medium for
narration and even argument, not simply for reported speech. She uses a Dalit style of language which overturns the
decorum and aesthetics of received upper-class, upper-caste Tamil. She breaks the rules of written grammar and
spelling throughout, elides words and joins them differently, demanding a new and different pattern of reading.
(Introduction, Bama n.d, 2011)

The choice to shed the upper caste Tamil into which she was educated, is a significant choice
because it immediately challenges the reader who is not be used to reading literature written in
this style. It lends a uniquely Dalit voice to a medium that had until then been dominated by
Brahmanical language and aesthetic (Bama 2001). This style allows Bama to appeal to the reader
in a more direct manner, thereby helping one identify with the experiences narrated throughout
the book. It also reflects her desire to assert herself as a Dalit woman, by making her narrative as
distinct from the more typical Brahmanical narrative as possible, which allows her to express a
sort of pride in her communal identity.

The Personal as Political

Bama starts off in the preface by explaining the significance of the title 'Karukku' which is the
Tamil word for a Palmyra leaf that is serrated on both sides like a double edged sword. She
recalls that as a child, when she was sent to gather firewood she would often cut herself on
Palmyra leaves. She links this memory of pain with the social injustices faced by her which 'cuts'
her like the karukku leaf. But she is not alone in her plight. She goes on to say:

There are other Dalit hearts like mine, with a passionate desire to create a new society made up of justice, equality
and love. They, who have been the oppressed, are now themselves like the double-edged karukku, challenging their
oppressors. (Preface, Bama n.d, 2011)

In this manner she declares that she is not speaking only for herself, but for her entire community
because she sees her personal experiences as symptomatic of the male-dominated casteist society
in which she lives. Thus it is no surprise that she begins her narrative with the collective noun
"our" - "Our village was very beautiful" - as opposed to describing it as "my village." This serves
the purpose of foregrounding her community identity, as a Dalit, over and above her personal
identity. She thus goes on to describe her childhood village in detail, narrating humourous
incidents, the games played by children there and so on. In fact, in chapter one Bama mentions
no personal details about her life at all. In Chapter 2 she recounts her first experience with
untouchability when she saw a respected elder from her community being forced to carry a
packet of vadais (meant for an upper-caste Naicker) by its string, so as to avoid 'polluting' it. She
also discusses the physical segregation experienced by Dalits, as they are forced to live in a
separate town, far away from where the upper caste Hindus and Christians live. She recalls that
almost all the students at her primary school were Dalit Christians, yet the school was located in
an upper caste neighborhood far away from where her community was forced to live. Such
descriptions are intended to give the reader a sense of what everyday life for a Christian Dalit in
Bama's village was like.

However even whilst speaking about the unthinkable treatment meted out to her community as a
whole, Bama is constantly sensitive to the double burden of oppression born by Dalit women, on
account of their gender and caste (Mangalam 2014). She talks about how Dalit women live in
constant fear of sexual violence and physical assault at the hands of the police and upper caste
men. When Bama describes the games played by children in her community she takes great care
to mention that girls and boys adopt set roles whilst play-acting:

The boys of the colony play act as Naickers (upper caste landlords) and the girls follow suit as Pannaiyaals
(farmhands). Alternately the boys would pretend to keep shop and the girls would 'buy' grocery from them; the boys
would pose as priests, the girls would submit as sisters; the boys would act as drunken husbands returning home and
the girls as wailing wives receiving the blows. Thus, even at play, Dalit girls are located in a subordinate position. In
relation to the Dalit boys, the girls are placed as victims, as passive receivers who could be counted upon to
legitimise the male authority (as husband, as landlord or as priest). (Mangalam 2014)

Further she remarks that while her entire community is involved in agricultural work, women
laborers are often paid less wages than the men:

I saw our people working so hard night and day, I often used to wonder from where they got their strength, but of
course, they never received a payment that was appropriate to their labour, men received one wage, women another.
They always paid men more. I could never understand why. (Bama n.d, 2011)

In this manner, throughout the text, she constantly draws attention to the unique oppression of
Dalit women, which she faces despite being Christian. Bama's grandfather, like many Dalits of
his generation, had sought to escape caste based oppression by converting to Christianity.
However for Bama, and for all those in her community, her social identity as a Dalit continued to
transcend her religious identity as a Christian. Unlike many Dalit girls Bama had the privilege of
being educated, first at the primary school in her village which was run by upper-caste Priests
and then at a convent high school in a village nearby. At both places she was ill-treated by the
upper-caste teachers, nuns and priests who ran these establishments. Dalit Christians were not
allowed to sing in the choir and had segregated seating and were made to use separate utensils.
Dalit Christian girls, and only Dalit Christian girls, were constantly forced to fetch water, clean
lavatories, wash the church and do hard manual labor after school hours (Bama n.d, 2011).

Upon seeing and suffering these atrocities, Bama is motivated to become a nun herself to
empower young Dalit students. However her hopes of reforming the church from within are
dashed when after joining the order, she is only treated with more contempt. She is not allowed
to teach and is constantly reminded that as a Dalit she should be grateful that she was accepted
into the order at all (Bama n.d, 2011). Finally tired of this discrimination, Bama leaves the
convent after seven years. This is the watershed moment that leads her to recall her life and write
Karukku in 1992.

Whilst writing, Bama constantly alternates between a personal singular narrative and a collective
or representative narrative (Nayar, 2006). In describing personal hardship, she uses her trauma as
a link to her community thereby gradually coming to terms with her identity, which is
transformed from a simple Christian identity to that of a Dalit Christian woman, who is
disillusioned by her religion and its false promise of social equality.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that large portions of Karukku are fairly descriptive the overall tone of the novel
is far from a passive recalling of events. The telling of incidents is punctuated regularly with the
anguish and horror that the author feels towards those who perpetuate injustices against her
community based on their caste identity. In many places in the text she proceeds by first
detailing a personal struggle, then acknowledging its communal color and finally by advocating
for change (Nayar, 2006). One example of this progression is in chapter two where, as previously
stated, the chapter begins with her detailing her personal experience of seeing an elder carrying
vadais for a Naicker. This experience however takes on a different color when it is
contextualized for her by her brother. He explains to her that because we are Dalits, the Naicker
is afraid that we will pollute his food by touching it. Horrified by this, Bamas narrative (first
one of personal anguish) now shifts to the collective, and she begins to speak on behalf of her
community when she says:

I felt so provoked and angry that I wanted to touch those wretched vadais myself straightaway. Why should we have
to fetch and carry for these people, I wondered. Such an important elder of ours goes meekly to the shops to fetch
snacks and hands them over reverently, bowing and shrinking, to this fellow who just sits there and stuffs them into
his mouth But we too are human beings. Our people should never run these petty errands for these fellows. We
should work in their fields, take home our wages, and leave it at that. (Bama n.d, 2011)

The shift from the use of the personal pronoun I in the first sentence to a collective pronoun
we in latter sentences marks the shift from the personal narrative to the communal (Nayar
2006). It is interesting to note that in the last two lines of the above quote, Bama appears to
addressing members of her own community directly. She does this at several points in the text, to
encourage them to advocate for their rights. Even in the preface she remarks:

In order to change this state of affairs, all Dalits who have been deprived of their basic rights must function as Gods
word, piercing to the very heart. Instead of being more and more beaten down and blunted, they must unite, think
about their rights, and battle for them. (Bama n.d, 2011)
In this sense her writing is not a mere recording of experiences but is a militant act, intended to
galvanize Dalits to overcome the injustices they face. Her intention is to provoke the reader. She
achieves this through the form of her novel, which employs informal lower-caste Tamil, and
through its content, which oscillates between visceral depiction of horrific injustice and socially
progressive advocacy. Thus, Bamas autobiography is far more complex than a simple personal
history. It is part personal, part collective biography and part activism - all combined into one.

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