ABSTRACT
This chapter documents representation of Dalit women in religious texts and Hindu mythologies, which have always exhibited Dalit women as a threat to ‘purity’ and ‘fortune’. Vizia Bharati presents different, deeply degrading images of Dalit women as portrayed in Hindu writings, and offer evidence that ancient as well as modern literature does not depict Dalit women in a humane and dignified manner. Y.S. Alone presents Dalit women’s lives using visual imaginaries and attempts to identify locations of resistance within current aesthetic practices that speak back to these degrading portrayals. Such historical characters (MatangaKanyas, Tataka, Shurpanakha, Aayomukhi, Mandodari) and roles (Devadasi, Jogtini) of Dalit women evidence a fundamental difference between caste-privileged and their own lives. This difference has been neglected by mainstream Indian feminist discourse, despite its abiding relevance to theorising the lives of everyday women and in fighting patriarchy in a concrete sense.
