Brahmin Patriarchy and Dalit Feminist Rage in M.M. Vinodini’s “The Parable of the Lost Daughter”

Abstract

Caste continues to be a disabling material reality in India. It is perpetuated through ‘private’ formations like the ‘family’ as also through other more public “sites of sanskritization” (Rege, 333). Academia plays a foundational role in establishing and perpetuating caste structures. This is achieved through the teacher’s disciplinary authority as well as the syllabi’s disciplinary ‘demands’. This paper attempts to examine how M.M. Vinodini’s “The Parable of the Lost Daughter” claims for itself a space that has either been denied to Dalit writers or been usurped by non-Dalit ‘progressive’ writers. It reminds the reader how caste violence has not abated in a globalized world but has mutated into a treacherous social praxis. The paper also engages with the crucial connection between caste and gender. The paper examines whether the violence of the Brahmin father and the son-in-law towards women of other castes and of their own sparks a feminist continuum or if caste trumps any real or imagined solidarity between victims of Brahmin patriarchy.