Flaming green of a morning that awaits rain
And my lover speaks of rape through silences,
Swallowed words and the shadowed tones
Of voice. Quivering, I fill in his blanks.
—Excerpt from “My Lover Speaks of Rape” by Meena Kandasamy.
They have been called “Untouchables.” Over 15 percent of the population of India, traditionally considered “impure,” refused entry to temples and schools, banned from full participation in public life, and resigned to lives of poverty. Today, they are called Dalits, a Sanskrit word meaning “crushed.”
Even now, despite numerous laws and much public discussion, discrimination against Dalits is common. In many places, they are still not permitted to drink from the same wells or wear shoes in the presence of a person of higher caste. They work at the lowest jobs, have the highest rates of poverty and illiteracy of any group in India, and are often the victims of assault, rape, and other violent crimes. Thousands of years of tradition die hard.
Yet, out of this background emerges Meena Kandasamy. At the age of 20, this passionate young woman from the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu won first prize in the Indian Horizons Poetry Contest, for her poem “Mascara.” A national competition held by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations in celebration of International Women’s Day, the competition brought her instant renown. Now 28, Kandasamy has become internationally known as an activist, translator, essayist, and poet.
According to the Poetry International website, Kandasamy’s writing is a “process of coming to terms with her identity” as a woman and a Dalit. “My gender, language and castelessness were not anything that I had to be ashamed of,” she says. “I wrote poetry very well aware of who I was. But I was also sure of how I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be taken on my own terms.”
Kandasamy writes in English. Like many Dalits, she sees the language not as the tongue of imperial power, but as a nativized language that can serve as a vehicle for emancipation. “I want this new tongue to accept me,” she has said. “English takes your voice to a larger level and helps in your search for solidarity…(with) like-minded people, people who want change.”
The desire for change, a passion for justice, and anger at violence against women and Dalits is at the heart of Kandasamy’s work, and she uses her adopted language with courage and razor-sharp precision. “Demons in our/bodies are brutal tenants,” she writes in her poem “Evil Spirits.” “They suck with their vampire tongues/ to drink our anemic blood—/leave their puncture marks, which/ can be faintly seen on our black skins; /skins that bear greater scars.” In her poem “Prayer,” about a Dalit man killed for entering a temple to pray, she writes, “Agony is not always a forgotten memory./Life teaches: there are different Gods at different temples.”
To read more about Meena Kandasamy, go to the Livemint website and this page at the poetry journal Kritya.