Subverting Caste and Gender: Resistance and Voice in Meena Kandasamy's When I Hit You and The Gypsy Goddess

This research article explores the powerful literary interventions of Meena Kandasamy, an Indian writer and activist whose work interrogates the complex intersections of caste, gender, and resistance. Focusing on her novels When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife and The Gypsy Goddess, the study analyzes how Kandasamy deploys narrative voice and form to challenge systemic structures of patriarchy and caste-based oppression. Drawing on feminist and postcolonial theoretical frameworks, this paper discusses how her protagonists resist cultural silencing, expose institutional violence, and reclaim agency through writing. The article argues that Kandasamy's writing represents a dynamic form of protest literature that not only critiques dominant power structures but also reclaims the voice of the subaltern woman.