Grapple for Equality: A Critical Analysis of Caste and Gender Discrimination in Bama’s Vanmam (Vendetta)

Abstract: Divisiveness among humans is so inherent, rampant and intuitive that none would find it easy to escape the oppression resulting from this man-made setback. The Human psyche covets to rule, master and exploit its power over others; and this is the core and the most intimate cause of all intolerance and oppression in our world, whatever label one wants to bracket then under, say, caste, creed, race, gender or faith. This paper titled, Grapple for Equality: A Critical Analysis of Caste and Gender Discrimination in Bama’s Vanmam (Vendetta) is an attempt to identify the gender inequality and sexual violence among Dalit women exposed by the author. The main themes of the Dalit writings in India usually centre on subjects like social disability, caste system, economic inequality, contemporary cruelties and cultural assertion that have been uniquely entitled ‘the struggle for identity’. Bama, one of the renowned Tamil Dalit woman writers, dwells on the themes of caste and gender discrimination in most of her novels. The novel Vanmam mainly focuses on Dalit women, highlighting how they are subjected to social discriminations of multiple sorts.