The politics of form in dalit fiction: Bama's sangati and sivakami's the grip of change

Abstract

This article examines two Dalit novels, Bama's Sangati and Sivakami's The Grip of Change. It argues that the two novels hybridise the very novel form through the appropriation of different registers, the mythic, the historical and the immediate. It argues that this narrative hybridisation is a political project, reflecting a radicalisation of consciousness itself. Bama and Sivakami, I argue further, transform folkloric and local-mythic language and narrative by infusing into it the language of rights, Ambedkarite philosophy, dignity and the law. The language of the law and rights, I suggest, have entered common usage and thus results in a radicalising of the common sense, so that folkloric language itself becomes a language of protest and political challenge. © 2011 CWDS SAGE Publications.