Translated for the first time into English, Joopaka Subhadra's stories expose the lives of Madiga women, the most oppressed among Dalits, in Telangana. As she declares that she has drawn these from lived experiences, the reader in turn witnesses the cruelties in the lives of Dakkalis, who are wandering bards, disturbance in the old feudal hierarchies with the arrival of educated Dalit youth, lack of compassion in society for women with disabilities, and the absence of accountability in government institutions, society and the state. The stories reveal the subtle discrimination practised despite education and employment. Those on the politics of food are particularly intriguing p> Joopaka Subhadra is an activist and Telugu writer who has published collections of poetry as well as of short stories and essays, introducing Dalit women's concerns that have had a major impact on Telugu literature. She is Additional Secretary, Government of Telangana.
Alladi Uma and M. Sridhar retired as professors, Department of English, University of Hyderabad. They are known for their sensitive translations and are now involved with the Alladi Memorial Trust that works with the education, health and legal needs of the underprivileged.p>
Joopaka Subhadra received her M.A. in Telugu literature and is a powerful Dalit woman writer. Her poems and short stories bring out the lives and conditions of Dalit women. Many of her stories are drawn from her own experiences. Apart from her short stories she has published a poetry collection, Ayyayyo Dammakka. She has also written political essays, book reviews, songs and journalistic pieces. She has a column with a well-known feminist journal, Bhoomika. She has co-edited Nalla Regadi Sall (a collection of Madiga women's stories) and a poetry collection Kaitunakala Dandem. She is also an activist and has been instrumental in establishing Mattipoolu (SC, ST, BC and Minority) Women Writers Forum. She is Additional Secretary, Government of Telangana.
ALLADI UMA and M. SRIDHAR were professors, Department of English, University of Hyderabad, when they took early retirement. retirement. They have been translating from Telugu to English for over 25 years. Among their important translations are Ayoni and Other Stories. Untouchable Spring by G. Kalyana Rao, Mohana! Oh Mohana! and Other Poems by K. Siva Reddy and Sorajjem by Akkineni Kutumbaran. They are involved with the Alladi Memorial Trust that supports the education, health and legal needs of the underprivileged.
It has been a pleasure to translate Joopaka Subhadra's stories. When Subhadra requested us to translate her book of short stories we accepted it with a bit of hesitation. Hesitation because we had to translate stories written in a rural Telangana dialect as it is spoken by a woman from a specific sub-sect of the Dalits to which Subhadra belongs. The only experience we had earlier was that of translating G. Kalyana Rao's novel, Untouchable Spring. But that was of a male writer from a dominant sub-sect of the Dalits. Each experience has been a learning process for us. Despite the busy schedule and pressures of her job in the Secretariat, Subhadra had made the time to come and sit for hours and patiently explain to us and help us correct wherever we had not got it right. No words can adequately express our thanks to her.
We thank Stree for its support in helping us to revise the manuscript.
Society that has progressed due to the sweat of Dalit women, has sidelined our histories and literatures. Ours is a scenario where not even a letter of the alphabet has been apportioned to us either in history or literature. Our work songs, our plays, our language, our food, and so on, have all exuded fragrance outside mainstream history. Social and literary histories have been recorded only of those who have been on the side of the victorious in history. They have suppressed the histories, literatures, arts, and the social, cultural and legal protests of the defeated. This is what Bharatam, Ramayanam and Bhagavatam have done. They have placed false histories in front of society. All these have been done by the castes that have usurped these literatures. These have not been attempts to discover the human angles, but have been carried on as war strategies. One cannot see relations of production. Language too has remained inflexible, sludgy like a pond, and hidden away from the sun. They have propagated this as literature.
Throwing out Dalit women's literature as a pot touched by a dog, coming up with cruel cultural values as enunciated in dominant literary values like, 'What's meant by the devil cooking excreta and the Dakkali woman cooking payasam?"" Since the past sixty years, the Seemandhra upper castes of the coastal region and Rayalaseema, who have usurped Telugu literature have suppressed Telangana and Dalit literatures.
Many liberation movements have taken place on Telugu soil. In the Communist, Revolutionary, Dalit, Women's and Telangana movements, Dalit women's role was significant. Every social movement that has promised liberation has practised untouchability as enunciated by Manuvada, and has kept our women's role, and our problems at an enormous distance.
If we want to bring out our histories and literatures, it would involve the difficult situation of digging and unearthing them. The Dalit literary movement that questioned caste oppression and the Seemandhra women's movement that opposed gender oppression have merely continued the unutterable Hindu caste antagonism against Dalit women's identities. Sandwiched between these two movements, of considering Dalits only as Dalit men, and of women as only upper-caste women, Dalit women's identities have been eclipsed. It is still continuing.
Strong Dalit movements that arose on the Telugu land, refusing to recognize and lend a helping hand to women's identity, sufferings, lives, experiences and liberation in their community, have cruelly pushed them into the mob of dorasanis-wives of landlords-and are causing them unending injustice.
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