Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Prisons We Broke
The Prisons We Broke
Dalilts were treated as polluters to the High Caste Hindus. They were not allowed to
travel by the regular road on the otherhand they have to travel by the road side and bushes and
also bow to the high caste Hindus with respect otherwise they had to face seveare cursing by the
high caste Hindu and their own community memebrs also took that opportunity to expploit and
degrade the women even they chooped off women’s noses . Baby Kamble scolded the high caste
Hindus for the dualism that Hindus feather their nests on the hardworks and efforts of women at
that time they didn’t care getting polluted. Kamble descibes it as:
When the 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
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? Just as the farmer pierces his bullock’s nose and inserts a
string through the nostrils to control it, you have pierced the Mahars nose
with the string of ignorance. And you have been flogging us with the whip
pollution”. ( The Prisons We Broke : 56 : 2011)
High Caste Hindus put Mahar Community ignorant from their basic rights of food, shelter and
clothes. They were asked to live in seperate colonies and very degarded work of skinning the
dead animals was given to them. The dead animals were the food for them. They never tasted
chapatis, curries and other sweets. Poverty was with them from their birtrh and chasted them till
their death.
Mahar community memebers were very ignorant about their women. It is said that giving a birth
to a child is the rebirth of the mother. After delivering a child the mother requires to take some
light food. Dalit men were unable to provide food to the new mother also.Taking loans from the
village sahukar they celebrate their festivals but they did not take loan or make proper
arrangements for the new mothers’. Baby Kamble describes the 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’ condition to worsen and she would end up getting a
burning fever. ( The Prisons We Broke: 60: 2011)
Dalit Community memebers were very ignorant about their daughter-in-laws. They hadnot paid
attention to their health. They treated them like slaves. Like High caste Hindus, Mahars also
wants to become masters so they put their daughters-in- laws as their slaves. Baby Kamble
describes it:
The other world had bound us with chains of slavery. 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-laws! If
nobody else , then we could at least enslave them. ( The Prisons
We Broke: 87: 2011)
This demonstatres very pitiable conditions of dalit women. They were exploited as lower
castes by the uppercaste Hindus and in their own community they were maltreated and exploited
by their own family members because of born as a woman. The High caste Hindus restricted
Dalits to each and every level. They very wisely bonded Dalits in the customs of tradition and
rules and regulations under the name of religion and culture. Dalits were restricted to wear
clothes and restricted to dress like uppercaste Hindus. Though they were capable of wearing gold
chains and expensive clothes they were not allowed to wear it. It is descibed by Baby Kamble as:
There were caste rules even for how to tucked the pleats.Mahar
women had to tuck them in such a way that the borders remained
hidden. Only high caste women had the previlage of wearing
their saris in such a way that the borders could be seen. A Mahar
woman was supposed to hide the borders and the pleates:
otherwise it was considered an offence to the high castes.Their
foreheads were smeared with huge kumkum marks. Their
blouses were also made fom rags. ( The Prisons We Broke: 54:
2011)
Along with this Dalits were not allowed to travel by road which is meant for the High
Caste Hindus and they have to bow to their masters on their way. High caste Hindus hadnot left
the single opportunity to humliate Dalits for very small mistakes they created scene and cursed
Dalits and on instances cracked them also, upto their death. Describes Baby Kamble as:
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.( Prision We
Broke : 52)
There were separate colonies for the Mahar Community memebrs and also to the lower
communities and Mahars wer allowed to travel by the roads to these colonies only. “ The lanes
were known as dhangar lane, Vinkar lane, Mali lane , teli lane and so on”.( The Prisons We broke :54:
2011)
The above mentioned incidents descibes the factual and very pitiable condition of Dalit
women that they were victims of caste system and also victims of being women in the male
dominated society. Women from the uppercaste or lowercaste there are some similarities that
they have to suffer because of their gender. But it is very disgusting and pitiable that for the sake
of some material gains humans had and have voilating and expoitaing human beings. We very
proudly says that we are living in the age of information technology and in the age of
globalization where we don’t consider anybody inferior on the basis of caste. Thouch the
incidents of humiliation, marginalization and explitation are happening. Dr. Ambedkar has
advised to annihilate the caste for the overall growth of the society but in this age we very
produly celebrates caste, class and gender except vindicating them which is not in favour of the
healthy society and humanism. Hence it is a high time to look into the hindsight the ideology of
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar,Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda and Dr. S.
Radhakrushnan.
References:
1. Kamble, Baby. 2009. ‘Jina Amuche’ translated by Maya Pandit as The Prisons We
Broke. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
2. Rege, Sharmila. 2006.Writing Caste / Writing Gender: Dalit Women’s Testimonies.
New Delhi. Zubaan.