Bhati 1

The Prisons We Broke

-Baby Kamble

An autobiography is not only the story that demonstrates the saga of individual but also

depicts sorrows, sufferings, subjugation and socio-economic conditions in a society.

Similarly Baby 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. Written in Marathi as Jina Amachain1985, it was

translated into English by Prof. Maya Pandit. 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 Indian society

especially that of her own community. Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke is considered not as

her personal autobiography but can be termed as the autobiography of an oppressed and

subjugated Dalit women who wishes that her unheard sufferings are gifted with an audible

voice. As Maya Pandit examines, “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”. Baby Kamble beautifully tried to depict the pitiable situation of

Mahar’s in Maharashtra. She describes the mental and physical violence against women by

the public and private spheres.

The Prisons we Broke, begins with Kamble recounting the fond memories of Veergaon, a

village in the Purander taluka in Pune district, her grandparent’s home. Kamble spent most of

her childhood in her grandparent’s village, in the first chapter of her autobiography, she

describes the utter poverty in which the Mahars lived. Out of the fifteen or sixteen houses in

her community, only three or four were in habitable condition, the rest of the houses were
 Bhati 2

only tiny huts made of “nothing but stones arranged vertically with some mud coating.’’

(Kamble,7) The Mahars had few possessions to call their own, a keli, big clay pot with a

small mouth, was kept at the entrance, “the mouth would be covered with a broken coconut

shell that also served as a cup for drinking water… one had to pour water into the coconut

shell, and blocking the holes with one’s fingers, hastily enter the shell into one’s mouth.” (7)

They had a clay chulha in one corner of the hut, clay pots, a wooden plate, a grinding stone

and a tawa with a big hole in the centre, in another corner rags were heaped to be used as

mattresses. “Above the chulha would hang a long string called walni. These strings were our

holy threads, the markers of our birth, our caste- like the janeu of the brahmins. These strings

had to be there because on these strings we would hang the intestines of dead animals in

order to dry them!” (8) Kamble compares the religious strings of brahmins to mahars, in

other words, their helplessness in choosing their occupation and later coming to terms with

the upper castes taking away their agency and freewill.

Kamble describes the appearance of Mahars as “covered in thick layers of dust and dirt, a

black coating on their skin… they looked like rag dolls, nibbled and torn by sharp- teethed

mice. The thick tangles of hair would be infested with lice and coated with lice eggs.” (8) The

small huts would be overpopulated with at least eight to ten kids, with runny noses and bare

bodies covered in mud, without any piece of clothing covering them. Kamble describes the

poverty-stricken condition of Mahars where children, until they reached puberty, roamed

around naked. The uniform for grown up girls was a khun blouse stitched from multiple rags

to cover themselves, “a rag would be tied around the waist; its ends pulled between the legs

and tucked up at the waist.” (8) On the other hand, the boys only required a rag the length of

an arm and four-finger wide, in addition to this they also required a waist string called

kargota which would be prepared by rolling sari borders into strings. Lack of sanitation and
 Bhati 3

proper clothing would result in lice infesting even the waist string, “the skin continuously

itched and had to be scratched.” (9)

The mahars feared God and believed their poor and lowly condition was the consequence of

offending the Gods and earning their wrath. The great-grandfather of the family “brought

these gods from faraway places. Such demanding and strict gods!” The small huts in the

communities thus, dedicated a small amount of land to be used as god’s place, a platform

would be prepared with the help of mud and stones in front of the tiny houses. The size of the

platform indicated the prestige and status of the household, bigger the platforms, greater their

fame would be, “the god was a huge, round, smooth stone, weighing two to three kilos,

painted saffron, with long lines of bhandara and kumkum drawn on it. Some stones also had

two large protruding eyes and huge mustaches painted on them… the goddesses of the house-

the women- matched the goddesses named Wadjai and Kadjai in their appearance.” (9) The

superstitions remain prevalent among the people, being possessed by the Gods is considered

very holy and prestigious, it is also a means of livelihood where they sustain themselves

through sacrificial items offered to them like food, clothes, utensils, etc. “Since their old man

passed away, these gods possess the young son. Their house has become a holy shrine now,

with people pouring in from everywhere. It’s crowded like a fair. And that young man- what

strength! You should see him when the god Laman Pathan possesses him. Even twenty strong

men can’t control him. But he has one rule: in the holy food offered to him, he must have a

suti roti and an opium pipe. Without those, Laman Pathan won’t possess him.” (9) Possession

by the gods is considered a huge achievement, equivalent to academic accomplishments. If

one were to make his parents proud and earn a name for themselves in the community, being

possessed by the gods played a big role in achieving this feat. “The parents must have earned

a lot of merit, that’s why holy spirits like Laman Pathan possess their son. That god won’t
 Bhati 4

possess just anybody out there.” (10) The people believed in black magic and the gods to

unravel such power that the person one wanted dead, will vomit blood and die at that very

instant.

Baby Kamble elaborates the household and outside duties designated for womenfolk in the

community, they were required to wake up early in the morning and make preparations for

lighting the chulha. While the older women in the community tended to the chulha, the

younger ones would go to the village shop and beg him to sell her the things she wanted,

while maintaining appropriate distance from him, “Appasab, could you please give this

despicable Mahar woman some shikakai for one paisa and half a shell of dry coconut with

black skin?”(13) The shopkeeper would also ask his children to maintain distance from the

woman, lest she pollutes them, the woman would also emphasize on the same, “Take care

little master! Please keep a distance. Don’t come too close. You might touch me and get

polluted.” (14) The money involved in this transaction would not get polluted by the Mahar

woman’s touch. The author describes how Dalits are blinded with superstition, they not only

follow the same hindu religious laws and customs that oppress them but are also encouraged

to pass it down to their children. “Saru, your father-in-law was the vaghya of the same god.

You know how much he used to earn! He used to return from his collection round, his rusted

bones creaking, his back bent double, with heavy bags of food hanging from his shoulders.

Even the neighbours used to survive on that food.” (17) The act of possession by the gods

becomes a very pure and holy occasion, the mother of the son is advised to keep an eye on

the newly possessed child, so that he doesn’t get polluted by women of loose morals.

The Mahar women were the most enthusiastic during Ashadh, the festival season, even

though the Hindu philosophy had discarded them as dirt, yet “Hindu rites and rituals were
 Bhati 5

dearest to our hearts. For our poor helpless women, the haldi-kumkum in their tiny boxes was

more important than even a mine full of jewels. We desperately tried to preserve whatever

bits of Hindu culture we managed to lay our hands on.” (18) The rituals followed by Mahars,

were an outlet for their oppressed lives. Prayers offered to these Hindu gods was an act to

console themselves, in the hopes that they might attain deliverance from their suffering.

Sharmila Rege in her article, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’ states that “The category

'woman' was conceived as collectively, based on their being oppressed by the fact of their

womanhood. The three categories were deployed in combination and this often led to

exclusions around race, class ethnicity. Since most of the vocal feminists of the 1970s were

white, middle class and university educated - it was their experience which came to be

universalised as 'women's experience'”. She further emphasises that “the ambivalence of the

left towards the notion of women's issues was thus countered by an assertion that women

were essentially connected with other women and 'subjective experiences of knowledge'

became the base of the universal experience of womanhood. Thus 'experience' became the

base for personal politics as well as the only reliable mythological tool for defining

oppression [Grant 1993].” (WS-40)

While trying to position Dalit in the history Rege explains that, “The non-brahmanical re-

constructions of historiography of modern India in the works of Omvedt (1976, 1993, 1994),

Patil (1982) and Alyosius (1997) have underlined the histories of anti-hierarchical, pro-

democratising collective aspirations of the lower caste masses which are not easily

encapsulated within the histories of anti-colonial nationalism. Infact these histories have often
 Bhati 6

faced the penalty of being labelled as collaborative and have therefore being ignored in a

historiography which is dominated by narratives of nationalism.” (WS-41)

Rege clarifies in her essay ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’, that “Chatterjee concludes that

the nationalists had in the early decades of the century 'resolved' the woman's question, all

subsequent reworkings of the women's question by dalit and working-class women, thus

come to be precluded. The period marked by Chatterjee as the period of the 'resolution of

women's question'; as we shall note later - is the very period in which women's participation

in the Ambedkarite movement was at its peak. But in Chatterjee's framework, such

movements would be dismissed as western inspired, orientalist, for they utilised aspects of

colonial policies and western ideologies as resources [Sarkar 1997].” Rege brings to our

knowledge, “Muktabai (a student in Phule's school) in an essay entitled 'About the Girls of

Mangs and Mahars' draws attention to the deprivation of lower castes from their lands, the

prohibition of knowledge imposed on them and the complex hierarchies wherein even the

lower castes were stratified into more or less polluting. She then compares the experiences of

birthing for lower caste and brahmin women, underlining the specificities of experiences of

lower caste women [Chakravarti 1998]. Savitribai Phule's letters reveal an acute

consciousness of the relationship between knowledge and power and crucial need for

democratic access to knowledge for the shudras and women.” (WS-41)

“In a review of the different definitions of caste put forth by Nesfield, Risley, Ketkar and

others, Ambedkar points to the inadequacy of understanding caste in terms of 'idea of

pollution'. He argues that "the absence of intermarriage or endogamy is the one characteristic

that can be called the essence of castes" [Ambedkar 1992]. Thus, it is the superimposition of

endogamy on exogamy and the means used for the same that hold the key to the
 Bhati 7

understanding of the caste system, Ambedkar then draws up a detailed analysis of how

numerical equality between the marriageable units of the two sexes within the group is

maintained. Thus he argues that practices of sati, enforced widowhood and child marriage

come to be prescribed by brahmanism in order to regulate and control any transgression of

boundaries, i.e, to say he underlines the fact that the caste system can be maintained only

through the controls on women's sexuality and in this sense women are the gateways to the

caste system [Ambedkar 1992:90]. In his speech at the gathering of women at the Mahad

satyagraha, he draws linkages between caste exploitation and women's subordination by

underlining this; calls upon women to contest the claims of upper caste women's progeny to

purity and the damnation of that of the lower caste to impurity. He locates the specificities

and varying intensities of women's subordination by caste and thereby draws their attention to

the specificities of their subordination, both as 'dalit' and as 'women'.” (WS-42)

Post Ambedkarite movements led by Dalit women as defined by Sharmila Rege in her essay,

“A recent study by Guru (1998) has drawn attention to the sustained organisation of dalit

women through the mahila mandals in Akola region. These mandals though primarily

organised around Trisaran and Panchshil, sensitise their members to the Ambedkarite

ideology. The dalit women of these region have been vocal on the cultural landscape in the

post-Ambedkerite phase. Their compositions ('ovi' and 'palana') are rich in political content,

for instance one of the ovis suggest that the golden border on Ambedkar's suit is more

precious than the rose on the suit of Nehru). This juxtaposing of Ambedkar against Nehru is a

statement on the political contradictions between dalit politics and the politics of the

Congress.”

“Dalit women play a crucial role in transferring across generations, the oral repertoire of

personalised yet very collective accounts of their family's interaction with Babasaheb or other
 Bhati 8

leaders of the dalit movement. The question that emerges then is 'Why is this different voice

of the dalit women' inaudible in the two major new social movements of the 1970s, namely

the dalit movement and the women's?” (WS-42)

Rege writes about the practice of dowry, “the campaign against dowry, while the left based

women's organisations viewed dowry in terms of the ways in which capitalism was

developing in India; the autonomous women's groups focused on the patriarchial

power/violence within families [Kumar 1993]. The present practices of dowry cannot be

outside the processes of brahmanisation and their impact on marriage practices. That

brahmanic ideals led to a preference for dowry marriage is well documented.” Rege

observes “that while the left party-based women's organisations collapsed caste into class, the

autonomous women's groups collapsed caste into sisterhood - both leaving brahmanism

unchallenged. The movement has addressed issues concerning women of the dalit, tribal and

minority communities and substantial gains have been achieved but a feminist politics

centring around the women of the most marginalised communities could not emerge. The

history of agitations and struggles of the second wave of the women's movement articulated

strong anti-patriarchal positions on different issues, Issues of sexuality and sexual politics -

which are crucial for a feminist politics remained largely within an individualistic and

lifestyle frame.”

“The increasing visibility of dalit women in power structures as 'sarpanch or member of the

panchayat and in the new knowledge making processes has led to increased backlash against

dalit women. The backlash is expressed through a range of humiliating practices and often

culminates in rape - or hacking to death of their kinsmen. Such incidents underline the need

for a dialogue between dalit and feminist activists, since inter-caste relations at the local level

may be mediated through a redefinition of gendered spaces. Gender issues are appropriated as
 Bhati 9

cultural issues and become grounds for moral regulation. All this calls for reformulation of

our feminist agenda, to reclaim our issues and reconceptualising them such that feminist

politics poses a challenge to their very cross-caste/ class conceptualisation of brahmanical

Hindutva.” (WS-43)

“In the brahmanical social order, caste-based division of labour and sexual divisions of labour

are intermeshed such that elevation in caste status is preceded by the withdrawal of women of

that caste from productive processes outside the private sphere. Such a linkage derives from

presumptions about the accessibility of sexuality of lower caste women because of their

participation in social labour. Brahminism in turn locates this as the failure of lower caste

men to control the sexuality of their women and underlines this as a justification of their

impurity. Thus gender ideology legitimises not only structures of patriarchy but also the very

organisation of caste [Liddle and Joshi 1986].”

“Brahmanisation has been a two way process of acculturation and assimilation and through

history there has been a brahmanical refusal to universalise a single patriarchal mode. Thus

the existence of multiple patriarchies is a result of both brahmanical conspiracy and of the

relation of the caste group to the means for production. Hence, she argues that women who

are sought to be united on the basis of systematic overlapping patriarchies are nevertheless

divided on caste, class lines and by their consent to patriarchies and their compensatory

structures.” Rege concluded that, “The dalit feminist standpoint which emerges from the

practices and struggles of dalit woman, we recognise, may originate in the works of dalit

feminist intellectuals but it cannot flourish if isolated from the experiences and ideas of other

groups who must educate themselves about the histories, the preferred social relations and

Utopias and the struggles of the marginalised, A transformation from 'their cause ' to 'our

cause ' is possible for subjectivities can be transformed. By this we do not argue that non-dalit
 Bhati 10

feminists can 'speak as' or 'for the' dalit women but they can 'reinvent themselves as dalit

feminists'.” (WS-45)

Baby Kamble’s Autobiography ‘The Prisons We Broke’ is a direct self-assertion of a Dalit

woman, but it also went two steps ahead: it was a head-on confrontation with bramhinical

hegemony on the one hand and patriarchal domination on the other. In one sense it is more of

a socio-biography rather than an autobiography.

A singularly important aspect of Jina Amucha is Baby Kamble’s Dalit Feminist critique of

patriarchy. She graphically describes the physical and psychological violence women have to

undergo in both the public and private spheres. Baby Kamble 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. 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 among women. In her

self-narration Baby Kamble portrays how Dalit Women were the worst sufferers of

superstition, hunger, poverty and the exploitative patriarchal order of Dalit Men as well as

the Men from higher castes. The male dominance which was prevalent among the men of the

higher castes was also prevalent among Dalit men. In her narration Baby Kamble shows how

the custom of keeping women at home, behind threshold was prevalent among Dalit Men. It

was rather a pride of the Mahar Men to keep their wives behind threshold. Baby Kamble’s

mother was locked in a house by his father to keep his male “honour” intact.

“In those days, it was the custom to keep women at home, behind the threshold. The honour

enjoyed by a family was in proportion to the restrictions imposed on the women of the house.
 Bhati 11

When no one could see even a nail of the woman thus confined within the four walls of the

house, then this “honour” became the talk of the town- a byword among the relatives and

friends in the surrounding villages. Then people would tell each other, how one Pandharinath

Mistry kept his wife completely hidden in the house and how even the rays of the sun did not

know her. My father had locked up my aai in his house, like a bird in a cage.” (Kamble 5)

The child marriages were also prevalent among Mahars. Baby Kamble narrates

the plight of Dalit Girs who were married at very young age. The girl married into the family

of mahar of the sixteenth share had to work hard. Regarding the sad plight of the daughter-in-

law in such a family Baby Kamble writes, “The daughter-in-law of that house was kept busy

all twenty-four hours of the day. The men folk would bring loads of meat in big baskets on

their heads. The meat needed to be preserved. This was a very arduous task. And many a

time, the duty fell on the daughter-in-law. More often than not, she would be not more than

eight or nine years old. She had to sit down with a sharp knife, cut the huge pieces of meat

into smaller ones of about half kilo each, and then stretch these into long snake like strips.”

(Kamble 73-74)

Dalits were slaves of Savarnas. But the mentality of enslaving others was deep rooted in the

psyche of Dalits too. Hence, they used to enslave their daughters-in-law. The tendency often

slaving their daughters-in-laws by Mahars is narrated by Baby Kamble.

“The other world had bound us with chains of slavery. But we too were human beings. And

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.” (Kamble 87)

 Bhati 12

The Dalit women were not only exploited by the caste system but they were also

suffered by Dalit women. The mothers-in-law tortures their daughters-in-law to take revenge

of the tortures they suffered by their mothers-in-law. It gives them satisfaction and pleasure

they could at least dominate someone else. The practice of chopping off the wife’s nose with

the instigation of mother and to fix her foot in a wooden piece weighing around five kilos

with iron bar was prevalent among Mahar community. The women were the enemies of their

counterpart. In most cases the mothers-in-law act as the agents of exploitative system

against their own daughters-in-law. Baby Kamble narrates the plight of the Dalit women very

graphically:

“In those days, at least one woman in a hundred would have her nose chopped off. You may

well ask why. It’s because of the sasu, who would poison her son’s mind. These sasus ruined

lives of innocent women forever. Every day the maharwada would resound with the cries of

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

beasts, 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; their hair would remain uncombed and tangled, dry from lack of oil. Women led the

most miserable existence. The entire day, the poor daughters-in-law would serve the entire

household like a slave. The sasu, sasra, brothers and sisters-in-law, the neighbours- she had to

serve one and all. The household chores were no less tortuous. Many daughters-in-law would

try to run away to escape this torture.” (Kamble 98)

Srinivas defines caste as “Caste is a hereditary, endogamous, usually localised group having

traditional association with an occupation and a particular position in the local hierarchy of
 Bhati 13

castes. Relations between castes are governed among other things by the concept of purity

and pollution and generally maximum commensality occurs within the castes” (Srinivas

1978). Caste are groups with a well-defined lifestyle of their own, the membership is

determined not by selection or merit but by birth. Caste is, thus, an ascribed category. Each

caste has its own traditional occupation. They practice endogamy. In fact, caste cannot be

reproduced without endogamy and it is because of this that endogamy is considered to be the

tool for expression and continuation of caste and gender subordination. It is through this rule

of marriage that discrete caste categories continues and ritual purity of caste is maintained.

The safeguarding of caste structure is achieved through the highly restricted movement of the

women. Women are regarded as gateways, literally points of entrance into the caste system.

Thus, the purity of the caste can be ensured through closely guarding women who form the

pivot for the whole structure. Caste blood is always bilateral i.e. its ritual quality is received

from both parents. Thus, ideally both parents must be of the same caste. At this juncture, the

concepts of anuloma and pratiloma are worth discussing. A union where a boy of upper caste

marries a girl of lower caste was approved and called anuloma while marriage of woman of

ritually pure group with man of lower ritual status was strongly disapproved and called

pratiloma. In fact children born out of the latter form of marriage were considered as

untouchables. The idea being emphasised here is that woman as guardian of “purity” is not to

lower herself but she could be raised high. To reinstate, the blood purity of the lineages and

also the position of family within the wider social hierarchy was directly linked to the purity

of women. Women are considered to be repositories of family honour.

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
 Bhati 14

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, economic, social and

psychological. The discrimination to Mahar community begins from the very childhood days

till end. In the book we come to know that all Mahar girls are neglected in school by upper

caste girls because of the fear of getting polluted. Even if upper caste girls pass by them, they

would cover their nose, and run away as if these Dalit girls are not humans but foul- smelling

corpses. One of the upper caste girls says that she was made to have a bath after she reached

home from school as her mother didn’t allow her in because she had come to know that

Mahar girls too sit in that class. Kamble presents an unflinching portrait of Dalit women,

subjugated triply by gender, caste and patriarchy. Especially newly married younger women

suffer the worst fate. Girls are usually married off at the early age of eight or nine marriage

for them turns out to be nothing but a big calamity. The first duty of the newlywedded

daughter-in-law was to prepare bhakris so that she could prove her culinary skills . She had to

do all the household chores without being given the chance of making any complaints. They

can never expect a compliment in return from their in-laws but if a girl could not do the house

hold duties, she was abused by her in-laws especially if she failed to make bhakris, her

mother –in- law would yell like this: Look at the bhakris this slut has prepared. She cannot
 Bhati 15

even make a few bhakris properly. Oh, well, what can on expect of this daughter of a dunce?

(94). When a ritual was to be observed, the work of the women got doubled. They had to

plaster their house with cow dung, and clean the utensils and the clothes. They lead a very

pathetic life in their husband’s home. Kamble dexterously depicts how a daughter-in- law is

not safe even before a woman of her own community but are always the target of taunts and

put-downs and is frequently physically and psychologically tortured in her in- laws. Their

mothers-in- law loved to give the same harsh treatment to them as they had received from

their own in- laws which tell a lot about their sick consciousness of having to inflict

unnecessary pain to the immature younger girls and would even curse their mother if they fail

to do a task. This is shown by the book in these lines: what’s your aai really? Tell me! Is she

a good married woman at all? Or does she know only how to run after the pot-maker

donkeys? Didn’t she teach you anything? I pamper you... my own sasu was spitfire. A

burning coal! Holding a burning coal in one’s palm was easier than living with her! (95). The

condition of the Mahar women was wretched, worthless and most miserable. They had to do

all the house hold duties, and go for selling wood to earn for their daily bread. They collected

all the left- over from other places to give them to their children. Most of the time women had

to go on hunger unendingly. Dalit men never bothered to provide nutritious and hygienic

food to the new mothers. Women had to be forcibly content with only the gruel made from

jowar. At the time of their delivery the midwives performed their jobs without any

professional skill. Whenever they needed any sort of assistance they were left at the mercy of

God. Kamble paints the painful and pathetic condition of new mothers’ as: Many new

mothers had to hungry. They would lie down, pining for a few morsels while hunger gnawed

their insides. Mostly women suffered this fate. Labour pains, mishandling by the midwife

wounds inflicted by onlookers’ nails, ever gnawing hunger, infected wounds with pus oozing

out, hot water baths, hot coals, profuse sweating – everything caused the new mothers’
 Bhati 16

condition to worsen and she would end up getting a burning fever. (60 ) Kamble says that the

Mahar women lives were limited to and bound by all domestic chores and they never had the

provision of self-hygiene and self-care. Besides they were considered just as child

procreating machines. “A mahar woman would continue to give birth till she reached

menopause” (82). They were the worst victims of patriarchy, caste consciousness, gender

proclivity and domestic violence. Kamble describe the pathetic situation of the Mahar women

who are supposed to behave like slaves in presence of their upper caste Brahmans and are

even instructed by their own men as to how to be at the beck and call of the upper caste

hindus and take them as their masters. A sense of threat was instilled in them with regard to

these upper caste sections of the community. But for their hardships, and laborious work for

their masters, they earned curses and abuses as remuneration. Generations after generations,

the Mahars served their masters very obediently. However, the upper caste community threw

abuses at the Mahars, if they did not fall at the feet of their masters, or if they did not give the

way to their masters when the masters came across in their way. They had to cover

themselves fully if they saw any man from the higher casts coming down the road, when he

came close, they had to say’ the humble Mahar women fall at your feet master’. This was like

a chant, which they had to repeat innumerable times, even to a small child if it belonged to a

higher caste. (52)

The book narrates that a Dalit woman was always treated as a sexual object and was made

available to upper caste men whenever they had a sexual urge. Dalit men were supposed to

offer their wives to upper castes people to please them sexually in every possible manner. S.

K. Limbale asserts boldly in his autobiography that her mother was kept by several patils. He

also tells that none of his siblings were born of the same father. However, he firmly believes

that there was nothing wrong in the women itself but it was the inhuman customs and rituals
 Bhati 17

fixed by upper caste sections that degraded Dalit women so low. He says […My mother was

not an adultress but the victim of a social system. I grow restless whenever I read about a

rape in the newspaper. A violation anywhere in the country, I feel, is a violation of my

mother.” (S.K.Limbale). Kamble has exposed the hypocritical mental makeup of the upper

caste sections of Indian society. Since the marginalization, victimization and enslavement of

Dalits is based on this thinking that the Dalits are dirty and contaminated. They are treated as

untouchables but such mentality is kept away whenever it comes to the benefit of those upper

caste sections. In all indirect forms the upper caste Hindus are dependent on the Dalits.

Kamble masterfully exposes these double standards of upper caste people like this: When

Mahar women labour in the fields, the corn gets wet with their sweat. The same corn goes to

make your pure, rich dishes. And you feast on them with such evident relish! Your palaces

are built with the soil soaked with the sweat and blood of Mahars. But does it rot your skin?

You drink their blood and sleep comfortably on the bed of their misery. Doesn’t it pollute

you then? (56) Similarly on marriage occasion, the Brahmin priest would be invited to

solemnize the marriage. The fear of getting polluted by Dalits makes the Brahmin priest sit at

a distance. However, he has no qualms in accepting Dakshina-money, and few kilos of

pulses, rice, wheat and jiggery. Dalit women shown in this text emerge as sandwiched

between the Brahmanic and Dalit patriarchy as they are doubly oppressed. Though the text

explores how the Brahmanic domination had turned the Mahars as worst as animals. Kamble

secures a path for the emancipation of Dalit women through the ideology of Ambedkar. In the

book the author talks about the influence of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar who was the light of their

life. He asked the Mahars to educate their children, and inspired them to fight against the

atrocities. He asked them not to give offerings to the gods who never cared about them and

asked them not to eat the dead animals. Lambale has given due credit to the transformative

thoughts of Ambedkar which helped the Dalits in elevating their social and economic
 Bhati 18

position. His ideas are put thus: [F]rom now onwards you have to follow a different path.

You must educate your children. Divorce your children from God. Teach them good things.

Send them to schools. The result will be there for you to see. When your children begin to be

educated, your conditions will start improving. Your family, your life will improve. Your

children will bring you out of this hell. We are humans. We, too, have the right to live as

human beings. (65). The book, realistically and painfully, sketches the journey of the Mahar

community from pre-Ambedkar era to its rapid transformation through education and mass

conversion. Conclusion 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.
 Bhati 19

Work Cited

Kamble, Baby. The Prisons We Broke. Translated by Maya Pandit. 4th ed., Orient

Blackswan. 2014.

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

The Prisons We Broke” Research Scholar vol.3. Issue 3. Aug2015. pp-174-180.

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

Considerations. New Dellhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2014.

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

Retrieved from http:// ashwinranjanikar.blogspot.in/2013/11/dalit-women-autobiography-

baby-kamble.html?m=1 Accessed 10 Dec 2017.

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.

Rather, Mohd. Nageen. “Analysing the Painful Recountal of Dalit Women in Baby Kamble’s

The Prisons We Broke”. American Research Journal. Vol. 3 Issue 1. pp-1-5.

Rege, Sharmila. “Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of 'Difference' and Towards a

Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position.” Economic and Political Weekly. 31 October 1998. pp-

38-46.

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

Broke” Literary Herald. VOL3. ISSUE. 2. 2017 pp-306-310.

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