দলিত নারীচেতনার কাব্যভাষ্য : কল্যাণী ঠাকুর চাঁড়ালের কবিতায় প্রেম, প্রতিরোধ ও পুরাণের পুনর্নির্মাণ/ Poetry commentary on Dalit women's consciousness: Love, resistance and the reconstruction of myth in the poetry of Kalyani Thakur Charal

Abstract

In recent times, 'Feminism' has become a widely discussed topic in the world of literature and culture. However, the nature and expression of this feminism are not uniform everywhere. The expression and strategies of feminism have changed and diversified across different countries and historical periods. Furthermore, in today's globalized world, 'Dalit Feminism' has emerged as a significant part of this feminist discourse. Kalyani Thakur Charal (1965-), a Dalit feminist poet, is one such writer whose work stands as a testament to her tireless efforts in constructing a resistant voice against patriarchal and upper-caste society, and against political oppression and exploitation, by incorporating both 'feminism' and 'Dalit consciousness'. However, her poetry does not merely construct a conventional form of feminism by simply opposing patriarchy in a typical manner. Therefore, it is quite difficult to categorize her as a feminist poet in the conventional sense or to place her in the line of traditional feminist poets. Doing so would lead to a deviation from artistic truth in literary criticism. Rather, in her poetry, women emerge as a 'Dalit Community' or 'Dalit Class' within society, raising their voices against the prevailing social structure. Or, not just from the perspective of an ordinary woman, but from the fundamental viewpoint of a Dalit woman, the audacity to repeatedly point a finger at the entrenched structure of patriarchal and upper-caste society has become the subject matter of her poetry. There, she has launched her warship against the current of resistance, using love and mythology as her weapons. This discussion highlights this distinct and pan-Indian voice of feminism through the newly constructed narratives of love and mythology in the poetry of the Dalit poet Kalyani Thakur Charal.