• Dr. Simmi Gurwara

Ilavenil Meena Kandasamy- a poet, translator, creative writer and activist- is the “first Indian woman writer, writing Dalit poetry in English.” In an interview with Sampsonia Way Magazine, Meena said, "My poetry is naked, my poetry is in tears, my poetry screams in anger, my poetry writhes in pain. My poetry smells of blood, my poetry salutes sacrifice. My poetry speaks like my people, my poetry speaks for my people." Meena’s poetry of resistance- both in Touch and in Ms. Militancy- re-examines our “national culture” and our “national history” through the mainstream protest literature of the current age. Militant Dalit literature is impregnated with the gory descriptions of atrocities hurled upon Dalits and the lives lived in wretchedness and desolation. Kandasamy spares none-neither Gandhi nor Gods. She relentlessly attacks and disrobes the age-old façade of subjugation and suppression through her fiery verses. She dares to dent the deep-rooted caste-ism in the psyche of dominant class in India and dissects the cultural bias which allows mighty shield to the caste crusaders. She offers “textual cleansing” to her people. The poems of Meena Kandasamy are illustrative of her angst and scathing criticism of the narratives which propagate the standardized form of nationalism. Her poems reveal the very complicit nature of this homogenized nationalism and nationalist narratives which camouflage the repugnant, repeat onslaughts in the lives of the third world women under the smokescreens of secularism, democracy, and ‘unity in diversity’. The purpose of this paper is to examine Kandasamy’s seething expression and unique manner of resistance to endless social and cultural exploitation, assault and injustices and her struggle to topple the applecart in order to re-write and re-set the alternate histories and narratives. This paper will address the poetic departures that constructively and vehemently challenge the ‘methodological nationalism hegemonising imagination of Southasia’ and Southasian literature by offering ‘alternative imaginings’.

Dalit, caste, culture, narratives, histories, subaltern, resistance, suppression

"THE POETICS OF CASTE & CULTURE: READING MEENA KANDASAMY’S TOUCH AND MS MILITANCY", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.9, Issue 3, page no.c730-c737, March-2022, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2203294.pdf

"THE POETICS OF CASTE & CULTURE: READING MEENA KANDASAMY’S TOUCH AND MS MILITANCY", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.9, Issue 3, page no. ppc730-c737, March-2022, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2203294.pdf