Dalit Literature and Marginalized Narratives: Voices from the Periphery

Dalit literature has become a significant way of resistance against the silencing of marginalized communities in Indian history. “If Dalit literature is contrasted with the mainstream Indian literature, there is an immediate perceptible difference in the traditions that the literature represents.” This paper examines Dalit literature as a discursive practice against discourse defined by upper-caste hegemony. It looks at the use of autobiography as an identifying tool and also the use of oral and mythic memory for reconstructing Dalit identities in the literary mainstream.The study engages with key thematic concerns such as humiliation, resistance, assertion, and liberation strategizing the place of narrative in destabilizing literary canons of literature. Dalit texts do not merely represent suffering; they articulate agency and political consciousness, turning personal pain into collective resistance. Another thematic concern of the study is humiliation, resistance, assertion and liberation that dislocate the canon of literary texts.Furthermore, the paper locates Dalit literature within the broader context of marginalized subaltern narratives with reference to other comparable subaltern traditions, but also with recognition of the distinctive socio-cultural context. The paper claims that Dalit writing is not just a literary movement but a socio-political intervention that aims to democratize the production of knowledge and the representation of culture. Against this backdrop, the paper defines the scope of Dalit literature in relation to other subaltern and marginalized literary traditions.