AWEJ Special Issue on Literature No.1, 2013 Pp. 313 – 320
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Identity Crisis in Dalit Short Stories from Maharashtra
Ali Ahmed Khan
Department of English, College of Business Administration,
Salman bin Abdul Aziz University
Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia
Abstract:
Literature has the power to bring about revolutionary changes and reformative actions by the members of society. This fact makes literature a very potent tool and it has been utilized by revolutionary and reformist forces. The present paper is an attempt to analyze the literary output of the ‘dalits’ of India in order to find out the voices of resistance and the struggle for identity by this marginalized group of the caste ridden Indian society. The themes of dalit literature reflect the harsh and hard realities of their day to day to life. Poems, short stories, novels and autobiographies written by dalit writers provide useful insights on the question of dalit identity. For the present paper I have taken up some short stories written by dalit writers from Maharashtra. These short stories have been analyzed to see the voices of pain and anguish trying to build an identity equal to the other so called high castes.
Keywords: identity, Crisis, Dalit, struggle, resistance