Published Paper Details:

During the second phase of Dalit Literature, the emergence of Dalit women's literature, particularly Dalit women's autobiographies, marks the advent of the Dalit women's voice. Dalit women writers have made an effort through their autobiographies to raise voices against the social and cultural forces that have marginalized them for ages. Baby Kamble's The Prisons We Broke is one such autobiography that allows us to venture into the Dalit women's world, their life struggles, and their community through her eyes. Baby Kamble's The Prisons We Broke is probably the first autobiography by a Dalit woman in any Indian language. She portrays the real picture of the degraded position of the Mahar community in the twelve chapters of this book, keeping her own life out of her autobiography. She doesn't focus on any single character and its development; instead, her book is a manifesto of her community. She demonstrates how caste and religion converge to perpetuate exploitative practices against Dalits in common and Dalit women in particular. Her autobiography can easily be divided into two parts. The first half portrays the oppression and exploitation of the Mahar community, and the second half brings forth the transformation and awakening of the Mahar community under the influence and leadership of Dr. Ambedkar. The paper centres on the lives of the women of the Mahar community presented by Baby Kamble and tries to find out how the women of this community were ill-treated and subordinated by the upper caste as well as by their own male folks. The inhuman conditions these women have lived and survived for so many years are painful to see and hear. And how, with the advent of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, this community or the Dalits in common have tried to identify their righteous place is what narrated by the writer in her autobiography.