Articulating Marginality: A study of Irathina Karikalan's “Oorakali, Mogalli Ganesh's “The Paddy Harvest” and Narayan Singh's “Married to Separateness”

In recent decades Dalit literature has emerged as an important sub-genre in Indian literature. Translation of different Dalit texts written in different regional languages into English has allowed the Dalit writers to gel into a movement. Though the issues of Dalits are different in different states, the themes are somewhat interconnected. The current paper studies three short stories written in different languages by the authors. Irathina Karikalan's short story “Oorakali” was originally written in Tamil, Mogalli Ganesh's “The Paddy Harvest” in Kannada, and Narayan Singh's “Married to Separateness” was originally written in Hindi. Their translation into English has made these available to a wider audience and thus makes the readers aware of the problems faced by untouchables in different parts of the country. The stories explore three different issues related to caste, but the skeleton of the stories is the same: oppression. The stories lay bare not only the oppression and marginality of the untouchables, but also the hypocrisy and inhumanity of the upper castes. The stories at the same time bring out the hurdles that lie in the way of dismantling caste structures.