Introduction

Jina Amucha, probably the first autobiography by a Dalit women, not only in Marathi, but in

any Indian language is a masterpiece by Baby Tai Kamble. It was published in 1986 and became

a milestone in history of Dalit writing. The Prisons We Broke, the translated version of Maya

Pandit provides a graphic insight into the oppressive caste and patriarchal tenets of Indian

society. Through the autobiographical novel Kamble provides a clear picture of the Mahar

community, the largest Dalit community in India. It is an epic portrayal of their hardy lives,

festivals, rituals, marriages, snot-nossed children and customs.

The author Baby Tai Kamble was born on 1929 in Maharashtra to a Mahar family. She was an

Indian activist and author. She worked mainly in Phaltan, a small town in Maharashtra.A

veteran of the dalit movement; she was inspired by the radical leadership of Dr. B. R.

Ambedkar, and got involved with the struggle from a very young age. Later she went to

establish government approved residential school for socially backward students. She has a

published collection of poetry and been honoured with several awards for her literary and

social work. Kamble and her family converted to Buddhism and remained lifelong as practicing

Buddhists. She was acclaimed writer in her community and was fondly called as Tai, which

means sister. She had a unique style of feminist writing setting her apart from others. Her

autobiography Jina Amucha was first published as a book in Marathi. Feminist scholar Maxine

Bernstein was instrumental in encouraging Baby Tai Kamble to publish her writings. In course of

time it became one of the best autobiographical accounts on caste, poverty, violence and triple

discrimination faced by Dalit women. This auto- narrative chronicles Baby Tai’s life in the

precolonial to postcolonial India. It is a nation’s biography chronicled from a subaltern point of

view.
 The second edition of Jina Amucha was published in 1990, during the birth centenary year of

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. Her writings were first published serially through ‘Strew’, women’s

magazine. It’s English translated version, The Prisons We Broke was published in 2008. The

second edition was published in 2018 which includes Baby Kamble’s preface to the first (1986)

and second (1990) editions of Jina Amucha published by Rachana Prakashan and Ravindra

Kulkarni.

Maya Pandit is a poet, translator, teacher, developer and an activist who has been involved

with the women’s movement in India. She also is associated with Alternative Theatre

Movement in Maharashtra for the last three decades. An accomplished translator, she has

translated several plays, autobiographies and fictional narratives across Marathi and English.

She has published several research papers in feminist and Dalit studies, translation studies and

English language training (ELT). She is a professor at English and Foreign Languages University,

Hyderabad.

The Prisons We Broke by Baby Tai Kamble can’t be considered as a personal autobiography

alone. It can be considered as an account of Mahar community. As Maya Pandit examines, that

The Prisons We Broke is an expression of protest against the inhuman conditions of existence

to which the Hindu caste system has subjected the Dalit for thousands of years. The narrative is

considered to be a protest against the atrocities committed on Dalits by Hindus for thousands

of years. In her personal life, she has given more importance to the people of her community

than her personal life. A close study of the autobiography reveals the oppression of Dalit

women by the upper class people as well as the members of their own community. She

presents every minute details of the life of their community without any shame or

awkwardness. She wishes to let her future generation understand from what chains of slavery

they have come out. The main character present in this autobiography is Baby kamble, the
omniscient narrator. She gives an account of all incidents took place in her life. She not only

unfolds her own miserable story but she describes the lives of people in the village realistically.

She gives the biographical information of people who she thinks have been instrumental in

changing her life including the villagers.

Kamble narrates a chronicle of superstitions existed in their community. Mahars had sunk deep

in the mire of such superstitions. She attacks the evil social customs which segregate the Mahar

women from the mainstream. The Mahar wives were suppressed in all aspects of their life.

Everyone in their community was illiterate; they blindly followed all the customs without a

second thought. The living conditions of Mahars were distressing. Kamble tells about the life of

the children of Mahar community and how their surroundings moulded them. They led an

entirely different life from other children. They earned education from what they perceived.

High caste people often exploited Mahars and they never paid them with right amount. The

Mahar woman faced many exploitation both from inside and outside their family. She was

forced to follow traditions and was never allowed to disobey it. If a Mahar woman failed to pay

respect to the men of higher caste she had to undergo a great humiliation not only by the

people of higher caste but also by the Mahar men and women because the slave mentality was

deeply rooted in the psyche of Mahar men and women. After reconciliation with the men of the

higher caste the Mahars would return to their hut and then abuse their daughter-in-law for her

disrespectful action. Everybody then showes their anger towards the poor young girl. Most of

the Mahar women die during childbirth due to malnutrition and hunger. It was great difficult

for them to afford even the cheapest food.

Kamble through her autobiography attempts to throw light on her life as a woman and her

struggle to face the adverse social circumstances. She narrates her experiences along with the

experiences of other women in her own community and other high communities as vividly as
possible. What makes her book appealing is the fact that the men and women from the Mahar

community wanted a change in their lives so they could live without a social stigma. They

understand the value of education from their Bhimaraja’s words and accepts it as the only way

to change the life of future generation. There is a tremendous change in their lives and the

change is from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge, from dependence to

independence and from poverty and suppression they gather strength and start participating in

demonstrations meant for the uplift of their community. In this way The Prisons we broke is a

saga of women’s suffering but one can see a ray of hope in their lives when they follows the

path of Ambedkhar.

As a reaction against mainstream Indian feminism that tended to ignore the problems of

caste, Dalit women and those who advocate their cause have been making a valid case for Dalit

feminism. This standpoint acknowledges patriarchal oppression from outside the caste as well

as within it. Dalit Feminism recalls the joint oppression of caste and gender faced by multiple

Dalit women. Urmila Pawar, Meena kandaswamy and Gogu Shyamala are some of prominent

writers who contributed to Dalit feminism.

 Resistance and recuperation : developing a Dalit feminist standpoint in Baby Tai Kamble's

The Prisons We Broke

There is yawning gaps between the haves and not-haves, rich and poor, upper caste and

lower caste, males and females in India. All these differences have given rise to certain social

maladies and inequalities, and these gaps present challenges to the existing national society;

but as the time moves on, things take a turn and powerless people try to get to the pinnacle,

try to swap their place to the centre, where there is already the established authority of the

powerful superior upper-caste people. However, it would be only partially viable to say that

the politics of oppression of the upper caste people are solely responsible for the belittled

position of the Dalits and especially of Dalit women. The problem of the Dalits has its roots

also in the hierarchal social structure of the Dalit community itself.

The Prison we broke is a millstone of Dalit women autobiographies in Indian history of Dalit

Feminism and to protest against inhuman conditions which have been subjected to Dalit.

Baby Kamble’s engagement is with the history of Dalit oppression. She does not try to glorify

the life of the Dalit community; rather she explicitly states that she intends to subject the life

of her community to critical scrutiny to demonstrate how Brahminical domination had turned

the Mahar into a slave, forcing them to live in conditions that were worse than animals. Baby

Kamble asserts that I have described in this book the details of the life of our community as I

have experienced it during the last fifty years. The readers should not feel ashamed of this

history. I have tried to sketch a portrait of the actual life of the Mahars and the indignities;

they were subjected to. I am writing this history for my sons, daughters-in-law and my

grandchildren to show them how the community suffered because of the chains of slavery

and so that they realise what ordeals of fire the Mahars have passed through. I also want to
show them what the great soul Dr Ambedkar single-handedly achieved which no one else had

achieved in ages.

An important unique aspect of Jina Amucha or The Prisons We Broke by Baby Kamble’s is

the critique of patriarchy. She graphically describes the physical and psychological violence

women have to undergo in both the public and private spheres. If the Mahar community is

the ‘other’ for the Brahmins, Mahar women become the ‘other’ for the Mahar men. Baby

Kamble demonstrates how caste and patriarchy converge to perpetuate exploitative

practices against women. It is here that the urge to define the self becomes most evident in

women. She also shows the remarkable dignity and resilience of the Mahar women in their

struggle through which they have emerged as the agents of transformation in their

community. Kamble recalls how one in every hundred women had a disfigured or broken

nose, punishment for attempting to escape the torture at home. Women with broken heads

and backs were also, common. But some of the younger women chose to rebel against the

violence, and the never- ending labour and some even attempted to escape in the darkness

of night. But there was nowhere for them to go. No sooner had they reached their natal

home, that the men of the family would band together against them. The women of this

community were crushed under the hegemonic structures of masculine power in their

domestic and outer social spheres. As they comment at one place about their marital status,

by referring to their kumkum ( red sign which a women wears in form of ‘red bindi ‘ or

vermillion ) which they wear for their husbands,

We are protective about the kumkum on our foreheads for the sake of our husbands.

“We believe that if a woman has her husband she has the world; if she does not have

a husband, then the world holds nothing for her.’ It’s another thing that these masters

of kumkum generally bestow upon us nothing but grief and suffering. Still the kumkum
 we apply in their name is the only ornament for us. It is more precious than even the

kohinoor diamond (41).

As Simone De Beauvoir rightly asserts in the introduction of her book The Second Sex (1949), '

We are exhorted to be women, remain women, and become women'. Knowledge of the

women about themselves is far different from that of males and that only leads to its

epistemological consequences, about society and people around them. They are people from

low caste; so facing casteism, facing dire poverty because of poor class and because of gender,

they have been rendered voiceless inside their homes and outside world; resourceful, upper-

class people always keep eyes on their body and humiliate them in every possible way. Mahar

women work for them, bring them firewood and then also get extremely inhuman, bitter

words from their masters

. Listen carefully you dump Mahar women, check the sticks well. If you overlook any of

threads sticking to the wood, there will be a lot of trouble. But what’s that to you? Your

carelessness will cost us heavily. Our house will get polluted. Then we will have to polish

the floor with cow dung and wash all our clothes, even the rags in the house! Such trouble

we will have to undergo for your foolishness! And how will the gods tolerate this, tell me?

They too will get polluted, won’t they? That’s why I’m telling you, check the sticks well !

(55).

This gives focus upon the point, how these Mahar women have internalised their sense of

servitude when an upper caste orders them. These women have suffered traditionally, no

education, no other privilege, just a beastly existence far worse than that of their men folk. If

the Mahar community is the “other” for the brahmins, Mahar women become the “other” for

the Mahar men. It also unveils the various ways in which the construction of the resistant

selfhood and subjectivity of not just a person just a person but of the entire marginalised
community happens. The inhuman practice of untouchability, though it was made by rule

after the Independence of India a punishable crime, pervades the life of Dalits. How even a

small boy of upper caste is conditioned to ‘see’ the Mahars as untouchable is clearly depicted;

“Take care little master! Please keep a distance. don’t come too close. You might touch me

and get polluted"(14).

‘In those days it was a custom to keep women at home, behind the threshold.’ This is the

general condition of women of the Dalit Mahar community; they are Dalits among Dalits.

Power of patriarchy is always there to crush them and subjugate them under its feet. These

men of their community are not sensible enough to know and give value to their women’s

labour. They are doing the household work and doing production work as well by giving birth

to children and by sustaining them. Mahar women engaged in whole day’s back - breaking

work and, then again, trapped in abuses of their men. She never enjoyed freedom or a sense

of existence for her own. Lacked identity and had her wings cut off. "My father had locked my

aai (mother) in his house, liked a bird in a cage" (5).

This is the social paradigm under which these Mahar women lead their existence. Their

social situation has determined their understanding and given them knowledge regarding

their social situation. They are the subordinated group and the power structures that

subjugate them have removed many choices from their lives. This kind of social exclusion has

caused a psychological and emotional disturbance to this Mahar woman. Lives of these

women are quite contrary to that of men of their community that determines their marginal

existence. These women are subject to multiple and overlapping forms of exploitation.

Standpoint theory challenges all such kind of invisibility and distortion of women’s

experiences and includes their perspectives and experiences. It also provides a basic from

which to commence theorising about women’s lives, and aims to liberate women from their
subordination. Such is the condition of these Mahar women, they are seen to be following all

the family rituals without any complaint and sustaining their families.

The autobiography enumerates many more fronts on which women have to suffer.

Marriages at an early age, followed by successive pregnancies shatter a woman’s physical and

mental well-being. Kamble notes “a Mahar woman would continue to give birth till she

reached menopause” (82). Further, the pregnant women are the greatest victims of

malnourishment. The only food available to them is the gruel made from stale rotis and jowar.

A Mahar women gives birth to a child, she goes through a very horrible experience of labour

pain as she is unable to get medical facilities; only women at home provide her help and their

poverty can shake someone until the core of the heart. Helpless, she would lie completely at

the mercy of the women surrounding her.Many women had to tie up their bellies and lied

down helplessly. They had nothing to eat when they needed it most. Some were lucky to have

jawar, the cheapest grain that time, to be cooked and was given to them.

Her vagina would be swollen stiff as the surrounding women kept thrusting their hands inside.

There would be several pain wounds and cuts inside, which throbbed with unbearable pain.

For want of cotton or cloth pads, blood continues to flow. Why the girl would be fortunate if

her family could find even rags for her. This was the extent of their poverty!” (58-59).

Women are bound up all over by all these natural experiences, and bearing it is their

destiny as it constructs their whole existence. Dalit women are doubly marginalized firstly, as

a Dalit and secondly as a woman. They are equal to their men in terms of rendering labour,

but they remain inferior in terms of societal norms, power and decisions relating to family

matters. Dalit Patriarchy confines a woman within four walls. The text unveil the facade of

harsh reality a Dalit woman living in,especially a newly married younger women suffer the

worst fate. Usually married of at the age of eight or nine, immature, even without knowing
what it mean to have a husband, yet the child had to go to her in-law’s house to lead a

married life.

Another aspect of domestic violence that dalit women suffer in their life is poignantly

presented in the narrative. Baby Tai illustrates the authority of husband and the hegemony of

in-laws against women when they enter the bride groom’s home. The author writes, "But we

too were human beings. And we too desired to dominate, to wield power. But who would let

us do that? So we made our own arrangements to find slaves - our very own daughters in-

law! If nobody else, then we could at least enslave them." (87). Young daughters-in- law's lives

became unbearable and miserable because of their sasus. The sasus ruined the lives of

innocent young girls forever. Feminism is a way of thought which means ‘not to be governed

by old patriarchal norms of society’. The situation is even worse when mother-in-law ill-

treated their daughter-in-law and also made their sons to treat them in similar manner. Every

day the Maharwada would resound with the cries of helpless women in houses. Husbands

were beating their wives, as if they were animals. Baby Tai narrates, “They had no food to eat,

no proper clothing to cover their bodies; their hair would remain uncombed and tangled, dry

from lack of oil. Women led the most miserable existence.” (98). This concept of family and

scolding the daughter-in-law referring to honour of family is imitation of high castes.

Daughter-in- law was considered as an easy prey and anybody could torture her. She was

victim of most inhuman practices in each trial which she faces after her escape. She will be

forcefully tied to wooden planks attached to iron chains. “She would have to drag this heavy

burden each time she tried to move. She was forced to move with this device around her leg.

Her leg wounded and blood would ooze out every time she tried to move her leg. She was not

a human being for her in-laws, but just another piece of wood" (99). Such women were the

sights of attention for the people around and they treated her with disrespect. They were

considered as sluts and their reputation was washed off due to wrong impressions created by
their in-laws. Their physical and mental oppression have no barriers. They bear children when

their bodies were too weak too weak t bear that burden. “A Mahar women would continue to

give birth till she reached menopause…Hardly a few babies would survive”(82). This reflects

the poor neglected health conditions of the women who were made to undergo a number of

deaths in single life.

Their life is nothing, as they have no proper basic need, education and other resources to

make their life better. Their men earn extremely meagre wages and they outpour all their

frustration upon ‘their women’.Every day the Maharwada would resound with the cries of

hapless women in some house or the other. Husbands, flogging their wives as if they were

beast, would do so until the sticks broke with the effort the heads of these women would

break open, their backbones would be crushed, and some would collapse unconscious. But

there was nobody to care for them. They had no food to eat, no proper clothing to cover their

bodies. Even Aristotle had commented about the dominating behaviour of men in his famous

work, Politics, that the relation of male to female is naturally that of the superior to inferior, of

the ruler to the ruled.Baby Kamble shows her anger towards the unjust system prevalent in

Indian society where patriarchy crushed the womanhood under its strong foundation. Women

were regarded as Goddesses but in reality they were not treated as the human beings. She

speaks in favour of women and also shows her gratefulness towards Babasaheb for

introducing Hindu Code Bill in the Parliament to secure rights for the Hindu womenwomen.

The Mahar women are marginalized in five ways: 1) because they are women, 2) because

they are Dalit and are subjects of casteist oppression, 3) they are victims of patriarchal power

system, 4) they are victims, because they are economically backward hence they are

venerable to be exploited in an upper caste community. And the fifth one is the issue within

Dalit feminism, that is the marginalised by their community.Due to all this continued

oppression and tortures, their bodies were used to pain and suffering and their thoughts,
feelings and emotions got shaped thus.The upper caste had never allowed this lowly caste to

acquire knowledge. Generation after generation our people rotted and perished by following

such a superstitious way of life. In this context, Jean-Paul Sartre’s statement seems up to the

mark to describe the condition of Mahar women, ‘I do not say that it is impossible to change a

man into an animal: I simply say that you won’t get there without weakening him

considerably’ (Sartre, 1961, p. 6).In her autobiography Baby Kamble presented the live picture

of Mahars life in past 50 years living in Western Maharashtra. She candidly showed her anger

toward the Chaturvarna system of Hinduism as well as against the patriarchal order

predominant among Mahars which gave a lower status to their women.

 Conclusion

Baby Tai Kamble is widely remembered and loved by Dalit community for her wide literary

contributions and activist work. She traced the repressed history of Mahar community through

her writings.Since autobiography is not only the story that demonstrates the saga of individual

but also depicts sorrows, sufferings, subjugation and socio-economical conditions in a society, it

is enjoyed as a literary genre all over the world and its literary significance is recognized by all.

Kamble’s autobiography mentions certain important issues like caste discrimination, women

subjugation and the influence of Dr. Ambedkar on Dalit women to get them educated both

socially and culturally. It deals mainly with the lives of Mahar men and women in Kamble’s

village Veergaon in the state of Maharashtra. The text provides a painful and realistic picture of

the oppressive caste and patriarchal beliefs of the Mahar community, especially that of women.

Dalits are the people who are considered impure, dirty and untouchable as they belong to the

lowest rung in Hindu hierarchal system, and are excommunicated from the Hindu society. They

were termed as untouchables and dirty by the sacred Hindu Vedas and were subjected to the

meanest jobs such as sweeping, husbandry and scavenging. Women, who already have a

secondary status in society, face a double pressure as they belong to a Dalit community. They are

subjugated in and outside the home. They never enjoy honour and dignity which should be due

to them; rather they are the soft targets of all the forms of discrimination in Indian society.

Kamble has gone deep into her memory and brings to the surface the plight of Dalit women. Her

autobiography is filled with heart wrenching passages of miseries and sufferings of women who

are made to receive the inhuman treatment without any fault of their own. There is hardly any
place where women could feel secure and heave a sigh of relief. Their lives are made hell at

every stage and every place is no less than a torture centre for them.They are made to suffer in

every form whether it is physical,economical,social and psychological.

In ‘The Prisons We Broke’ ,women are presented in a subaltern aspect. If Mahar community

is the ‘other’ for high castes, Mahar women become the ‘other’ for Mahar men. They lacks

identity, it is here the urge to to define the self becomes most evident in Mahar women.

Throughout history Dalit women are oppressed and sexually assaulted by the men and Dalit men

themselves. The Prisons We Broke demonstrate the crimes done on women. Even in feminist

discourse, Dalit women issues are hard studies along with the writings of upper caste Hindu

women, and high caste Hindu has not shown real sympathy for Dalit women in their writing. It is

because, for the upper caste Hindu women, the Dalits are less than human, as the Black women

are less than human for the White women. Dalit women are considered to be the most

underprivileged group left out at the bottom of the hierarchal caste society for centuries. They

suffer doubly marginalised one being a Dalit and two being a woman. Being Dalit, they suffer

due to caste discrimination and being a woman they are victimised by the patriarchal social order

both in their homes as well outside. Dalit women believed to be alienated at three levels: caste,

class and gender. The violence against Dalit women continues. Dalit women have been

misrepresented in Indian literature and Indian English literature, most of upper caste male writers

are biased towards Dalit women. They are portrayed as sex objects for the upper caste men and

they never resist the sexual advances made by the men, and hence they are the passive partner in

sex. They are shown as weak or too sick intellectually to fight against the injustice done to them.

Kamble's autobiography turns into the discussion on Dalit patriarchy from the constant

violent struggle of all Dalits for survival in caste prejudiced society. She is not ready to celebrate
Dalit culture, since it is full of superstitions; rituals imposed by upper-castes and imposed food

habits of eating dead animals. It is something that needs to be rebelled against. Similarly she

would point out the violence within the families of Mahars against their women. Apart from the

poverty stricken life, superstitious beliefs, lack of medical care at the time of deliveries, she has

to endure severe physical violence by husband and in-laws. The autobiography is a self-critique

of the patriarchy and superstitions prevalent among Mahars. It is also a document which

recorded the poverty and hunger of Mahars. The autobiography is a social critique of the Hindu

Social system as well the patriarchal order of Mahars. Baby Kamble’s self and frank analysis

made her autobiography totally different from the autobiographies of higher caste women as well

as Dalit male autobiographers where the presence of Dalit women as an independent human

being rarely felt.Through her narration Baby Kamble bring to the fore the plight of Dalit

Women.

Dalit women are treated by the Indian society as the lowest of the low. They are not only

persecuted by the society but they are also dominated by their own community. Baby Kamble’s

extraordinary journey rises above the caste and is highly remarkable and worth appreciating. The

readers get overwhelmed by the implications she brings in her autobiography. There are various

themes of this autobiography such as identity crisis of the Dalit woman, atrocities on women, the

plight of the untouchables, the superstitions in the Hindu society, exploitation of the women at

physical and psychological levels, the role of Dr. Ambedkar in transforming the lives of the

Dalits, the social customs in Hindu religion, the evils of the caste system, the community life of

the low caste people in the orthodox Hindu society etc.

An attempt has been made in this project,to throw light on the autobiographer’s life as a

woman and her struggles faced by every Mahar women. As a conclusion, it can be said that "it is
not our differences which separate women, but our reluctance to recognise those differences and

to deal effectively with the distortions which have resulted from the ignoring and misnaming of

those differences” (Lorde 122). How Dalit women with their heart-rendering narration have

evinced the famine sensibility, which comes out of their angst and protest against the society

where Dalit women are still carrying the stigma of being "oppressed" and struggling hard to

show their indelible presence in today’s society. It is evident from this assessment that Kamble

minutely and painfully portrays the tortures a Dalit woman had to undergo. She had to suffer

domestic violence in the form of thrashing, physical torture, nose chopping, work overload and

what not. She had no one to go to but had to suffer silently in many forms and on different

stages. She had suffered because of her birth, because of her caste, because of her gender and

because of her poverty. There are multiple layers of her sufferings enfolded for her. Life had

been made a burden for her. Undoubtedly she had to pay a heavy price for being born.

.
 Works Cited

De Beauvoir, S. The Second Sex. Vintage Publications. 1949.

Kumar, Amit. “Caste and patriarchy dominate the lives of Dalit women in Baby Kamble’s The

Prisons We Broke.” Research Scholar, vol. 3, no. 3, Aug. 2015, pp. 174-180.

Limbale, Sharankumar. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and

Considerations. Orient BlackSwan, 2014.

Mill, J. S. The subjection of women. Longman Green Company, 1869.

Naik, Purnachandra. “Baby kamble to Bama:Dalit women write differently.” Economic and

politically weekly, vol. 1, no. 42, 2016, pp. 16-19.2.

Rajinkar, Ashwin. “The Prisons We Broke: Saga of Dalit Women’s Pathetic Condition.

Rajput, Deepa. “Dalit among Dalits: Dalit women with special reference to Baby Kambale’s

The

Prisons We Broke.” GALAXY International Interdisplinary Research Journal, vol. 2, Feb.

2014,

pp. 139-143.

Rege, S. (1998). “Dalit women talk differently: A critique of ‘difference’ and towards a Dalit

feminist standpoint position.” Economic & Political Weekly, pp. 39-44.

Singh, Karan. Dalitism and Feminism locating women in Dalit literature, Creative, 2011.

Shaily. “Trauma of Dalit Women as Thrice-Suppressed in Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We

Broke”

Literary Herald, vol. 3, no. 2, 2017, pp. 306-310.