Reclaiming voice: poetry as identity repair in the works of Dalit women poets

This article examines how contemporary Dalit women poets use poetry to rebuild and negotiate identity within the intersecting realities of caste and gender oppression. Focusing on the works of Hira Bansode, Kalyani Thakur Charal, and Meena Kandasamy, the study reads selected poems as forms of testimony through which lived experiences are articulated, questioned, and reinterpreted. Drawing on literary and narrative-based psychological perspectives, it explores how writing helps organise memory, express emotion, and reshape the sense of self. The analysis identifies three interrelated processes in these poems: reclaiming voice, reasserting embodied identity, and creating counter-narratives that challenge dominant social perceptions. It argues that Dalit women’s poetry functions not only as literary expression but also as a space for identity formation, resistance, and self-redefinition within conditions shaped by social inequality.