Sucheta Sachan

Professor Sourabh

1911154

B. A. English (Hons.)

Paper: DSE Literature and Caste.

Discuss how “The Grip of Change” examines the intersection of caste and

gender.

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”, Simone de Beauvoir.

We are born what we perceive, it is our choice to make a woman, The Second Sex. Patriarchy

is something which our society has followed since ages, traditions, rituals etc do not come

from birth, it is the society which gives birth to them. The human social organisation has

evolved through a series of stages: animal-like sexual promiscuity was followed by

matriarchy (rule of the mother), which was in turn followed by patriarchy (rule of the father),

which continues to exploit, suppress and oppress women of all ages. Specially the Dalit

women, they have been double exploited, as being a woman and belonging to lower caste.

Labour is central to Dalit women but have been seen low by the caste system. Upper caste

people are highly placed just by difference of having property or material resources, they are

forced to do cheap labour under high class as they cannot posses property. A sexual

relationship between a low caste man and a high caste woman is highly condemnable, the

upper caste man’s use (sexual) of a lower caste woman was naturalized. The lower caste

women are not regarded as grihnis or family women as the high caste women are. The upper

caste men were allowed the right to take a second wife from the lower order.
 P. Shivkami’s The Grip of Change is the English Translation of Pazhaiyana

Kazhithalum, the first full-length novel by P. Shivkami, an important Tamil writer and a

member of the Indian Administrative Service. She has beautifully examined the intersection

of caste and gender in her novel through the character of Thangam, a Parayar woman. She

potrays how woman born free, struggle to be free from dominance of patriarchy and caste

system. They face double violence inside and outside of the society.

The novel opens up with Parayar woman, Thangam, with frenzied ranting, as she has

been beaten up by the relatives of her upper caste lover. She is a widow with no child, abused

by her brother-in-laws and left poverty stricken and uncared by her own family members. She

works in sugarcane field of her upper caste master, Paranchothi Udayar, to sustain herself. But

instead gets raped by hands of his paymaster, she feels helpless, fears political background

and power of his thus remains silence. Since she did not complain he got more authoritative

and regularly forced himself on her. Thangam is even assaulted by her own Hindu caste man.

She is denied the demand for share in her husband’s paternal land and refused on the ground

that she is not having any children from her husband. Her fertility is questioned and linked to

the land. Her brothers-in-law denied giving her share in the land but try to take her advantage

as a vulnerable widow. Being a Dalit widow she faces never ending atrocities which Shivkami

shows in her critical oppression of Dalit movement and Dalit Patriarchy.

Paranchothi Udayar’s brother-in-law saw Udayar and Thangam saw together and tell

onto Kamalam, wife of Udayar. The matter got serious, Thangam faces extreme violence in

the midnight by four men beating and abusing her by dragging her out of her hut with her

hair. She got no support fron her brother-in-laws or the men and women of her own

community. On account of this she takes an extreme step to take the matter to Kathamuthu, a

charismatic Parayar leader early morning of that same night. Kathamuthu works out the state

machinery and the village caste hierarchy to achieve some sort of justice for Thangam. A
Dalit widow faces so many problems she is seen as an object, an instrument of lust and is

treated as a mistress. Whereas when Kathamuthu has an affair with the upper caste widow

Nagamani, she earns a rightful place by marriage and placed as a wife in his home. The caste

angel discussed by P. Shivkami through this matter is associated to the question of patriarchal

mindset of a Hindu man. When the matter of illicit relationship is disclosed by the society, the

same man refuses to accept his relationship with Thangam. His power, pride and aggression

are revealing from the following lines:

‘Ungrateful whore! Even if she was hurt, she was hurt by the hand adorned with gold! A

Parachi could never dreamt of being touched by a man like me! My touch was a boon granted

for penance performed in her earlier births! And then the dirty bitch betrays me! How can I

face world with my name thus polluted?’ (P. Shivkami, The Grip of Change, p. 31)

He feels worried because of fear that his enemies will use his indiscretion to win votes in the

next election not of the deed he did. He would have managed the things with money and

power if some other matter might have been there. Paranjothy Udayar's wife, Kamalam, who

colludes and sends her brothers to beat Thangam feel nothing for Thangam as a woman. She

simply imparts him to act as usual and says, "Can't you manage the Police?" (p.34). To

observe is the violence on the Dalit widow is not the big matter to anyone, what concerns

more to upper class is the Police case, caste concern and pride of zero dignity. Kamalam, a

higher caste woman and her attitude of showing no emancipation towards the matter is worth

observing.

Shivkami, the author potrays the old age bias, the burden of proof on woman and the

supremacy of male. A woman with no husband, found herself helpless with no soul to rescue.

The sexual violence she faced on the very first day left her dejected forever. She had spent her
three years of widowhood untouched by a man; she hated succumbing to the loathsome old

man‟s lust. She sobbed with anger sitting alone in the field. For Thangam, there was no

choice left. Despite of all she tried to overcome with the help of Kathamuthu, who only sees

her as an third option for sex and to teach lesson to his two wives. He brings light to the

matter of caste. The situation of Thangam is of no importance to her, he changes her whole

story to gain his political position among his caste people.

‘You are such a bitch. I have changed the whole story. Don’t you understand?’ (P. Shivkami,

The Grip of Change, p. 12)

He acted only as a middleman and ended up making her as her third wife, as his intentions

were never pure towards her.

The low caste people learn the hard core realities by harsh lessons. While taking her

matter to Kathamuthu at the very night of the attack her demand for justice was so simple.

She says-

"Sami, these hooligans who beat me up, they should be jailed for at least a day and tortured.

The pain is killing me." (P. Shivkami, The Grip of Change, p. 5)

The suffering she has gone through were unimaginable but Nobody concerned about the

psychological state of Thangam after that incident. For a childless widow such violence was

like hurricane in the silent sea.

The Grip of Change creates the impression that the upper caste had handled the

incident as a man-versus-woman problem, whereas the lower caste had given it the caste

slant. But,Thangam, a subaltern Dalit third world woman goes on facing problem everywhere.

The violence in the form of physical, emotional, psychological, and religious ways is not the

matter of today. Since centuries, women, are being dominated by the hands of patriarchy. In

the novel the intersection of caste and gender defines how thinking and working of society
goes. One can clearly observe that the social structure denies her natural right, the caste Hindu

community treat her as a slave and the patriarchy treats her as an inferior. At the end, reader

gets a hint that the women and their role in the society are changing and so the patriarchy and

their role must change.

Works cited

1. Nair Pramod, The Politics of form in Dalit Fiction: Bama‟sSangati and Shivkami‟s The

Grip of Change. International Journal of Gender Studies. 2011. E-Print.

2. Shivkami, P. The Grip of Change (translated by Shivkami), Hyderabad, Orient

Blackswan. 2007. Print.

3. Somkuwar, Pratibha . "Unjustified Justice in the Grip of Change" International Journal on

Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL), Vol. 2, Issue 11, November 2014,

PP 19-22, http://www.arcjournals.org/. Accessed 11 Nov, 2021.

4. Vasanthi, J. Mary and N. Bindu . "The Twice Marginalised in Sivakami’s Grip of

Change" Pune Research An International Journal in English, Vol. 2, Issue 6, Nov- Dec

2016, Pp 1-4, http://puneresearch.com/. Accessed 11 Nov, 2021.