Muktabai Salve
Indian author
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Muktabai Salve was a nineteenth-century Indian writer, who is considered one of the earliest Dalit women figures who contributed to the early Dalit literary movement.[1] She is known for an early critique of caste and gender discrimination in her essay Mang Maharachya Dukhavishayi (lit. 'Grief of Mang-Mahars'). She belonged to the Mang community and was educated at a school run by social reformer Jyotirao Phule and his wife Savitribai Phule.
Muktabai Salve | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1840s[2] |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Period | 1850s–1860s |
| Subject | Dalit literature |
| Notable works | Mang Maharanchya Dukkhavishayi (1855) |
Career
Born into the Mang community, Muktabai had studied in Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule's school for around three years since the age of 10.[3] Historian Shailaja Paik writes that Salve's 'newly acquired literacy' allowed her to articulate the social suffering of Untouchable communities and to question prevailing caste hierarchies and Brahman authority.[4] In 1855, at the age of fourteen, Salve authored an essay titled Mang Maharachya Dukhavishayi (lit. 'Grief of Mang-Mahars') published in the Marathi periodical Dnyanodaya (lit. 'Rise of Knowledge').[5] In the essay, she discussed the caste based inequality and criticised Brahminical domination.[6][7][8] Paik notes that through the essay Salve connected personal experiences of suffering with broader structures of gender and caste power in colonial society.[6][9] In this context, Paik considers her "an early enunciator of intersectionality."[10]
According to Hanumant Ajinath Lokhande, Salve's essay represents a significant early articulation of Dalit consciousness in literature and "the genealogy of Dalit literature can be traced in Salve's essay."[11] Lokhande refers to her as the 'first Dalit feminist writer' of India.[12]
Later, in 1946, Salve's essay was reprinted in the Dnyanodaya Centenary Volumes, edited by B. P. Hivale.[13] Apart from her 1855 essay, little is known about Salve's later life.[13] Sharmila Rege dedicated her book Writing Caste, Writing Gender to Salve and referred to her essay as "the first feminist testimonio."[14][15]