Decoding the Tamil Dalit cultural practice of deifying female victims of castebased sexual brutalisation through Cho Dharmaan’s Koogai: The Owl and Imayam’s “The Binding Vow”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.67436/llilj.2019v9i1.%25pKeywords:
Dalit females, sexual brutalisation, myths, deities, cultural practice, Mother Goddess culture.Abstract
The article aims to study the cultural practices of Tamil Dalits surrounding female victims of their community who died due to caste-based sexual brutalisation as reflected in Cho Dharman’s novel Koogai: The Owl (2015) and more significantly in Imayam’s
short story “The Binding Vow” (2012). As females of Dalit community in the castebased Indian society their bodies are the primary sites for assertion of caste superiority and punishment of their community through regular sexual exploitation, brutal rape and murder. Though the condition of Dalit females has been variously studied across disciplines yet the community’s practices of deifying those females who died due to such atrocities are yet to be studied. The paper aims to study the various myths surrounding such deities, the origin of the practice, its implication for the Tamil Dalits as well as the caste people and the impact of this practice on the caste-based Indian society.
