Instead, we must understand the complex social, economic and political ways by which Dalits have been suppressed and marginalised. However when approaching a text like The Weave Of My Life, we cannot apply mainstream theories stemming from a top down approach of caste and academising it. The Weave Of My Life, written by a Dalit feminist is a voice of self-representation. Thus the work comes from a political standpoint and hence it is crucial for it to be translated with this lens.ĭalit autobiographies provide a counter history. The text is considered a testimonio, which is a first-person account, by the person (narrator) who has faced instances of social and political inequality, oppression, or any specific form of marginalisation. The narrative traces how this oppression evolves and transforms from her village to the urban city of Mumbai. The autobiography, translated by Maya Pandit into English, is not just an individual narrative but weaves together the issues and oppression faced by the community based on their caste and gender. Urmila Pawar continued the tradition of Dalit autobiographies and wrote The Weave Of My Life, which is the story of three generations of women of the Mahar community. However, it was not until 2008 that it was translated into English.

This form was dominated by male writers till the 1980s when the first Dalit woman autobiography Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke was published.

The form of the autobiography in Dalit politics was crucial as it gave voice to generations of subjugation and the denial of education. It is imperative for varied women’s voices to be represented in translation to bring to the forefront women’s lives, their histories, and their lived experiences.

Language is a bearer of culture and thus what is represented in literature determines what becomes dominant culture and what gets marginalised. Translation acts as an intervention to bring to us different cultures and to represent realities that are different from our own.

The weave of my life by urmila pawar