Dharma and its Discontents Mahar Dalit Womens Autobiographies as a Critique of Vedic Legacy

Name of Author : Maria Rincy

Abstract: This paper offers a Dalit feminist critique of dharma and Vedic cultural legacy through the autobiographical writings of Mahar women, particularly Baby Kamble and Urmila Pawar. Rather than treating the Vedas as uniformly oppressive, it distinguishes between early Vedic plurality and the later Brahmanical codification of social norms in the Dharmashastra tradition, especially the Manusmriti. The paper argues that it was not the Vedas per se, but their reinterpretation within Brahmanical jurisprudence, that institutionalised caste hierarchy, ritual exclusion, and gendered subordination. Through close readings of The Prisons We Broke and The Weave of My Life, this study demonstrates how Mahar Dalit women experienced the lived consequences of scriptural distortions untouchability, ritual humiliation, internalised patriarchy, and epistemic exclusion. These autobiographies function as counter texts to Dharmashastric authority, reclaiming dharma as dignity, labour, and lived morality rather than graded inequality.

Keywords : Dalit Feminism, Dharma, Vedic Legacy, Mahar Women, Autobiography, Brahmanical Hegemony.

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