Bama (writer)

Last updated

Bama
Born
Faustina Mary Fatima Rani

(1958-03-14) March 14, 1958 (age 66)
Pudhupatti, Chennai, India
NationalityIndian.
Occupation(s)writer, teacher.

Bama (born 14 March 1958), also known as Bama Faustina Soosairaj, is a Tamil Dalit feminist, teacher and novelist. Her autobiographical novel Karukku (1992) chronicles the joys and sorrows experienced by Dalit Christian women in Tamil Nadu. [1] She subsequently wrote two more novels, Sangati (1994) and Vanmam (2002) along with three collections of short stories: Kusumbukkaran (1996) and Oru Tattvum Erumaiyum (2003), 'Kandattam'(2009). [2] In addition to this, she has written twenty short stories.

Contents

Early life and family

"We who are asleep must open our eyes and look about us. We must not accept the injustice of our enslavement by telling ourselves it is our fate, as if we have no true feelings; we must dare to stand up for change. We must crush all these institutions that use caste to bully us into submission, and demonstrate that among human beings there are none who are high or low. Those who have found their happiness by exploiting us are not going to go easily. It is we who have to place them where they belong and bring about a changed and just society where all are equal."

 — Bama in Karukku (2012). [3]

Bama was born in 1958 as Faustina Mary Fatima Rani in a Roman Catholic family belonging to the Paraiyar community from Puthupatti in the then Madras State. [1] Later she accepted 'Bama' as her pen name. Her father, Susairaj was employed in the Indian Army [4] and her mother was named Sebasthiamma. She is the sister of famous Dalit writer Raj Gauthaman. Bama's grandfather had converted from Hinduism to Christianity. [1] Bama's ancestors were from the Dalit community and worked as agricultural labourers. Bama had her early education in her village. Her early literary influences include Tamil writers like Jayakantan, Akhilan, Mani, and Parthasarthy. In college, she read and enjoyed Kahlil Gibran and Rabindranath Tagore. On graduation, she became a schoolteacher for very poor girls, following which she served as a nun for seven years. [4] She chose to take the holy orders to escape caste-based discrimination, and also to further her mission of helping in the advancement of poor Dalit girls.[ citation needed ]

Writing career

After joining the nunnery, Bama found out that there was a separate training centre for Dalit Catholics.[ citation needed ] Angered by the poor conditions of the Dalit Catholic training centre, she left the nunnery after seven years. She finished her studies and joined as a teacher at a Catholic Christian school. During her teaching experience, she found out that the Catholic nuns oppressed the Dalit children and teachers. This further added to her disdain towards the convent. This was when she began writing. With the encouragement of a friend, she wrote on her childhood experiences. [1] These experiences formed the basis for her first novel, Karukku published in 1992. [1] Bama wrote the novel in a dialect of Tamil that is unique to her community. She said she faced flak regarding the choice of her language from the members of the upper caste. That's when she decided to use the same dialect in all the novels subsequently. [5] When the novel was published, Bama was ostracised from her village for portraying it in poor light and was not allowed to enter it for the next seven months. [6] Karukku was, however, critically acclaimed and won the Crossword Book Award in 2000. [7] [8] It has since become a textbook in various courses like Marginal Literature, Literature in Translation, Autobiography, Feminist Literature, Subaltern Literature and Dalit Literature, across many universities. [9] Bama followed it with Sangati and Kusumbukkaran. Bama got a loan and set up a school for Dalit children in Uttiramerur. [6] Bama's Karukku has been translated to English [7] and Kusumbukkaran and Sangati to French. [1] Sangati has also been translated to Telugu by Dalit writer and activist Joopaka Subhadra. [10] Bama recently published an essay in Single By Choice: happily unmarried women!, a collection of 13 essays by unmarried women in India talking about their singlehood. In her essay she talks about her choice of being a single professional Dalit woman in India. While she did grow up with dreams of marrying a man and having a girl child, she gradually chose being a single woman because according to her "the institution and structure of marriage and family as they exist today, are not woman-friendly at all." She also says, "I liked being myself; I didn’t want to lose my self, my being, my freedom and identity, for anyone." [11] [12] However, her life choices have not been without its own set of challenges. She talks about how she has had to experience insults and suspicion for choosing to be single. [5]

Themes

Bama's novels focus on caste and gender discrimination.[ citation needed ] They portray caste-discrimination practised in Christianity and Hinduism. In an interview, Bama has said that she writes because she considers it her duty and responsibility to share the experiences of her people. In addition, she also finds the act of writing cathartic and liberating. For her, "writing itself is a political act", and a "weapon" that she uses to continuously fight against the dehumanizing caste practice. [13]

Bibliography

[14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dalit</span> Marginalized castes in India and other South Asian countries

Dalit is a term used for untouchables and outcasts, who represented the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. They are also called Harijans. Dalits were excluded from the fourfold varna of the caste hierarchy and were seen as forming a fifth varna, also known by the name of Panchama. Several scholars have drawn parallels between Dalits and the Burakumin of Japan, the Baekjeong of Korea and the peasant class of the medieval European feudal system. Dalits predominantly follow Hinduism with significant populations following Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, and Islam. The constitution of India includes Dalits as one of the Scheduled Castes; this gives Dalits the right to protection, positive discrimination, and official development resources.

The caste system among South Asian Christians often reflects stratification by sect, location, and the caste of their predecessors. There exists evidence to show that Christian individuals have mobility within their respective castes. But, in some cases, social inertia caused by their old traditions and biases against other castes remain, causing caste system to persist among South Asian Christians, to some extent. Christian priests, nuns, Dalits and similar groups are found in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gail Omvedt</span> American-born Indian sociologist (1941–2021)

Gail Omvedt was an American-born Indian sociologist and human rights activist. She was a prolific writer and published numerous books on the anti-caste movement, Dalit politics, and women's struggles in India. Omvedt was involved in Dalit and anti-caste movements, environmental, farmers' and women's movements, especially with rural women.

Shantabai Krushnaji Kamble was an Indian Marathi writer and Dalit activist. She wrote the first female Dalit autobiography.

<i>Majya Jalmachi Chittarkatha</i> Autobiography by Shantabai Kamble

Majya Jalmachi Chittarkatha is an autobiography of Shantabai Kamble published in 1983. This is considered the first autobiographical narrative by a Dalit woman writer. The work has been translated into various languages and is required reading for Marathi literary students at the University of Mumbai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meena Kandasamy</span> Indian writer, translator and activist (born 1984)

Ilavenil Meena Kandasamy is an Indian poet, fiction writer, translator and activist from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lakshmi Holmström</span> Indian-British writer and translator (1935–/2016)

Lakshmi Holmström MBE was an Indian-British writer, literary critic, and translator of Tamil fiction into English. Her most prominent works were her translations of short stories and novels by contemporary writers in Tamil, such as Mauni, Pudhumaipithan, Ashoka Mitran, Sundara Ramasami, C. S. Lakshmi, Bama, and Imayam.

Dalit literature is a genre of Indian writing that focuses on the lives, experiences, and struggles of the Dalit community over centuries, in relation to caste-based oppression and systemic discrimination. This literary genre encompasses various Indian languages such as Marathi, Bangla, Hindi, Kannada, Punjabi, Sindhi, Odia and Tamil and includes narrative-styles like poems, short stories, and autobiographies. The movement started gaining influence during the mid-twentieth-century in independent India and has since spread across various Indian languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mridula Garg</span> Indian writer (born 1938)

Mridula Garg is an Indian writer who writes in Hindi and English languages. She has published over 30 books in Hindi – novels, short story collections, plays and collections of essays – including several translated into English. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Navayana (publishing house)</span>

Navayana is an independent anti-caste Indian publishing house based in New Delhi, strongly influenced by Ambedkarite ideas. It was founded by S. Anand and D. Ravikumar in 2003. The first book it published was Ambedkar: Autobiographical Notes priced at Rs 40. Since then it has published acclaimed fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels and poetry anthologies. From 2009 onwards, Navayana broadened its publishing outlook to include social issues other than caste because ‘the struggle against caste cannot happen in isolation from other struggles for justice and equality’ as a statement on the website reads.

Susairaj Pushparaj, known as Raj Gauthaman, was an Indian Tamil intellectual who pioneered new approaches to Tamil cultural and literary history studies in the late 20th century. He authored 20 research works that analyse the development of Tamil culture from ancient to modern periods with a focus on subaltern Dalit perspectives. He also wrote three novels and translated Sanskrit works into Tamil. Raj Gauthaman was a part of the core group of writers and thinkers, many of whom were Dalits, which shaped the thinking of the influential journal, Nirapirikai in the early 1990s. He worked in academia before retiring in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imayam (writer)</span> Tamil novelist from Chennai, India (born 1964)

Imayam is an Indian Tamil-language novelist from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He has eight novels, eight short story collections and a novella to his credit. Widely acknowledged for his realist mode of writing, his stories are known for their incisive exploration of societal intricacies. Closely associated with the Dravidian Movement and its politics, he is considered as one of the leading writers from South India. He is the recipient of the honorary Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Selladha Panam in 2020. He is also the first Tamil writer to receive the Kuvempu Rashtriya Puraskar National Award (2022) for bringing new sensibilites to Tamil literature through his writings. Noting the writer's proclivity to Dravidian ideals, the Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K.Stalin called him "an ideologue donned in black and red". He lauded Imayam calling him a "proactive writer" in the Dravidian movement.

Yashica Dutt or Yashica Dutt Nidaniya is an Indian writer and freelance journalist who has written on topics including fashion, gender, identity, culture and caste. Following the response to her 2016 blog post, ‘Today, I’m coming out as Dalit‘, Dutt published "Documents of Dalit Discrimination" on Tumblr and the book Coming Out as Dalit, which received a Sahitya Akademi award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thenmozhi Soundararajan</span> Indian American Dalit Rights Activist

Thenmozhi Soundararajan is an Indian American Dalit rights activist based in the United States of America. She is also a transmedia storyteller, songwriter, hip hop musician and technologist. She has been actively campaigning for the rights of the marginalized in the midst of structural casteism. She is the founder of Equality Labs, the largest Dalit civil rights organization in the United States. Soundararajan is known for her advocacy work against caste discrimination in the United States and India, and for her contributions to the field of media and technology justice. She has co-authored reports on hate speech and disinformation on social media, and has spoken out against caste-based harassment in the tech industry. Soundararajan's book "The Trauma of Caste" explores the intersection of caste, gender, and mental health, and advocates for the recognition and healing of caste soul wounds as a prerequisite for caste abolition. She has also been involved in art and storytelling projects, including the creation of the #DalitWomenFight movement and the curation of Dalit History Month.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Living Smile Vidya</span> Indian actress

Living Smile Vidya, or Smiley, is an Indian actress, assistant director, writer, and trans and Dalit rights activist from Chennai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joopaka Subhadra</span> Indian Telugu Dalit writer (born 1962)

Joopaka Subhadra is a Telugu Dalit activist, poet and writer. She writes poems and short stories that shed light on the lives of Dalits, specifically Dalit women. She is currently working at the Andhra Pradesh Secretariat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dalit feminism</span>

Dalit feminism is a feminist perspective that includes questioning caste and gender roles among the Dalit population and within feminism and the larger women's movement. Dalit women primarily live in South Asia, mainly in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. Dalit women face different challenges than women in oppressor castes in these countries. They are more likely to be poor, uneducated and socially marginalized. Dalit feminists advocate and have advocated for equal rights for Dalit women based on gender, caste and other issues. They have addressed conferences, created organizations and helped elect other Dalit women into political office.

Vijila Chirappad is an Indian Dalit poet who writes in Malayalam.

The 2004 Kalapatti violence refers to the violence against Dalits by dominant-caste villagers in the village of Kalapatti, Tamil Nadu on 16 May 2004. About 100 Dalit houses have been burned down by a mob of 200 villagers and Dalits who attempted to escape were attacked. The attacks lasted for 2 hours and 14 people were seriously injured in the violence including a man's arm reportedly hacked off.

Kalyani Thakur Charal is a Dalit feminist poet from India writing in the Bengali language.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Dutt, Nirupama. "Caste in her own image". The Tribune .
  2. ↑ "Biography, Tamil Studies conference". Tamil Studies Conference. Archived from the original on 28 January 2010. Retrieved 7 January 2012.
  3. ↑ Vishwakarma, Dr Aarti (30 August 2022). "The Problematics of Ideological Construction and Repressive Interpellation of Caste in Bama's Karukku". The Creative Launcher. 7 (4): 51–59. doi: 10.53032/tcl.2022.7.4.07 .
  4. 1 2 Sudha, Sarojini. "From Oppression to Optimum Through Self-spun Philosophy- A Comparative Reading of the Fictional Output of Maya Angelou and Bama" (PDF). Shodhganga.inflibnet,ac.in. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 August 2018. Retrieved 20 May 2017.
  5. 1 2 "On a wing and a prayer: Tamil Dalit writer Bama on 25 years of Karukku". The Indian Express. 21 January 2018. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  6. 1 2 Hariharan, Gita (28 December 2003). "The hard business of life". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 3 February 2013.
  7. 1 2 Kannan, Ramya (4 May 2001). "Tales of an epic struggle". The Hindu . Archived from the original on 13 April 2014.
  8. ↑ Prasad, Amar Nath (2007). Dalit literature: A critical exploration. Sarup & Sons. p. 69.
  9. ↑ "Karukku was my healing: Bama Faustina". National Herald. 30 January 2018. Archived from the original on 1 September 2021. Retrieved 14 March 2019.
  10. ↑ "Subhadra Joopaka". Literary Commons. 19 January 2016. Archived from the original on 19 August 2018. Retrieved 14 March 2019.
  11. ↑ Single by choice : happily unmarried women!. Sharma, Kalpana, 1947-. New Delhi. 2019. ISBN   978-93-85606-22-9. OCLC   1110885246.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  12. ↑ Faustina, Bama (21 July 2019). "How I learnt to carry on with life in silence". National Herald. Archived from the original on 25 September 2020. Retrieved 1 August 2020.
  13. ↑ Sarangi, Jaydeep (28 January 2018). "Interview with Bama". Writers in Conversation. 5 (1). doi: 10.22356/wic.v5i1.28 . ISSN   2203-4293.
  14. ↑ "Anthology chronicles deceits and pleasures of dalit existence". The Times of India. 26 January 2018. Archived from the original on 17 March 2024. Retrieved 17 March 2024.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.