Reading Kaushalya Baisantry's Dohra Abhishaap: A Modern Idiom of Dalit Female Subjectivity

Abstract

The emergence of Dalit autobiography offers a new dimension to the study of the literary genre of autobiography. This paper explores the intersectionality of caste and gender and liberation issues through the critical reading of Kaushalya Baisantry's Dohra Abhishaap, a Dalit autobiography written in Hindi. And, how the act of writing life narratives by Dalit women smashes the misconstruction/misreading of their agency by deconstructing their traditionally assigned identity and reconstructing their autonomous agency. It also sets up the manifestos for Dalit women's liberation through the textual construction of Dalit female ‘self.’