Between two worlds: The predicament of Dalit Christians in Bama’s works.

Bama’s work in Tamil has for the first time brought to focus the lived experience of the Dalit Christian community that has been pushed to the margins of Indian society. Dalit Christians are doubly victimized, first because of their religion and second because of their caste, and Bama’s work captures and articulates this. However, the Dalit Christian specificity of the author tends to be underplayed and her work is read unproblematically as Dalit literature. There is also a tendency among critics to introduce a split in Dalit Christian subjectivity, rendering the Dalit and Christian elements of identity as separate spheres. This paper seeks to problematize such hegemonic readings and situate Bama’s work in the historical, theological, and social contexts of Dalit Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]