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1

“The Double Curse”—a Dalit Woman Autobiography in Hindi by Kausalya Baisantri

100%

Browarczyk M.

Cracow Indological Studies

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2013

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vol. 15: Text History and Society as Depicted in Indian Literature and Art. Part II. ŚRAVYA. Poetry & Prose

287-305

EN

Kausalya Baisantri authored a Dalit woman autobiography in Hindi—the first to my knowledge—in 1999. The article draws on the ‘narrative self’ concept as the theoretical apparatus for the analysis of the text’s content and context. The history of the autobiography genre in Hindi overlaps with the beginnings and advancement of prose in pre-modern and modern literature in these languages, which developed at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Autobiographical motifs predominate Dalit writings, due mostly to the fact that Dalit literature per se is viewed both by the authors as well as by the readers as a strong manifesto of an exploited people’s struggle, voiced by the oppressed themselves with the purpose of enforcing social change, it is perceived as a weapon to fight oppression of the upper castes.

2

From the Other One to the Only One Prabha Khaitan and Her Autobiography

100%

Browarczyk M.

Cracow Indological Studies

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2015

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vol. 17: Crossing over “on the Birds’ Wings”: South Asian Literature in Local and Global Contexts

85-111

EN

The article examines autobiography of Prabha Khaitan with reference to plausible global and cross-regional inspirations, and studies the narrative to track down some of the author’s individual strategies of constructing the narrative self. Prabha Khaitan enters into a discussion with autobiographical texts of global and cross-regional importance. Apart from being a prolific Hindi writer, she combined multiple roles of a feminist, an intellectual, an entrepreneur, and a philanthropist in her lifetime. Her autobiography reveals various, often contradictory, identities illustrating thus a fairly liminal and dynamic positioning of a woman in the contemporary Indian society, which results from the interaction of various factors. Khaitan accounts her life as that of a rebel against social norms and breaks ‘the aesthetics of silence’ (Ritu Menon’s concept) imposed on women of her class and caste. She both challenges and to some extent complies with the dominant orthodox discourse on womanhood by introducing the imagery of the archetypical female divinity, both Satī and Śakti, which also explores much more subtle and entwined coexistence of women’s submission and subversion.

3

Pamięć i niepamięć. Pamięć historyczna a indyjskie narracje autobiograficzne

100%

Browarczyk M.

Przegląd Orientalistyczny

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2016

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issue 1-2

45-55

EN

The article investigates the relations between historical and autobiographical narratives in India with special attention to the Hindi language. In the early stage of autobiographical studies some Western researchers of the subject, like Gusdorf and Lejeune, emphasized the absence of the autobiography in the Orient. This approach was criticised as ethnocentric by post-colonial, subaltern and feminist scholars thus fostering a new theoretical perspective that led to a re-definition of autobiography, which was from then on perceived not exclusively as a written literary narrative but any narrative of life expressed through a variety of mediums (fine arts, performing arts, music, cinema etc.). In this paper the use of autobiographical narratives as a source for research on historical memory is discussed with focus on certain specific limitations of biographical writings. The autobiography is also explored as an expression of choice for the socially marginalised, in particular the dalits and women.

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2 Cracow Indological Studies

1 Przegląd Orientalistyczny

3 Browarczyk M.

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1 2015

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“The Double Curse”—a Dalit Woman Autobiography in Hindi by Kausalya Baisantri

From the Other One to the Only One Prabha Khaitan and Her Autobiography

Pamięć i niepamięć. Pamięć historyczna a indyjskie narracje autobiograficzne