International Journal of English Research

This paper deals with the issues of A Voice of marginalized through dalits literature. ‘Dalit’ means nominated name for a group of communities in India who were historically considered to be very unskilled in Indian society, such as shoe makers, butchers, sweeping, waste and animal carcass disposal, manual scavenging etc. Dalits are considered to be an oppressed Indian caste under the Indian caste system. Dalit literature appears in the 1960s, starting with the Marathi language, and soon appeared in Hindi; Telugu, Kannada and Tamil languages. This body of writing reflects Dalit experience of the community’s sensibility and identity primarily from the point of view of Dalit who have been excommunicated, marginalized, exploited and humiliated for ages in the Indian caste ridden Hindu Society. It reflects not only the history of Dalit but also the challenging tradition in the present era. Dalit literature provides the deep structure of literary representations and serves to organize the particularities of circumstance and individual identity. The marginalized, the subaltern, the dalit, call him whatever you may, one thing remains steady and that is their daily struggle for survival as the reserved, oppressed and exploited part of society. Discriminated by various factors, the Dalits are the victims of various structures that make society like economic, social, gender based, cultural, etc. The individuals or the groups were marginalized either in the name of religion, race, region, community, cast, gender, nationality or even ideology. But this relationship between the centre and margin was temporary and short lived. The centre can subdue and suppress the marginalized voices, but can never silence them forever. Once they find their true voice, they come to an end to be marginalized.