Disciplinary power and practices of body politics: an evaluation of Dalit women in Bama's Sangati and P. Sivakami's The Grip of Change through Foucauldian discourse analysis

All oppressed, downtrodden and marginalized sections exploited through the caste system in Indian society are categorized as Dalits. Dalit writings emerged as a body of literature in the decades following the late 1960s, gaining wider visibility with landmark anthologies in 1992. Early Dalit writings portrayed the collective pain and oppression of Dalits, with relatively less focus on the specific sufferings of women. Dalit women face triple marginalization of caste, class and gender. Recent Dalit feminist scholarship and a surge of writing by Dalit women across genres highlight women’s oppression and advocate emancipation. Works such as Bama’s Sangati and P. Sivakami’s The Grip of Change unravel oppressive social structures and, while documenting exploitation, also propose avenues for empowerment. Existing scholarship on these novels largely centers on women’s marginalization or the intersection of caste and gender, with some attention to narrative form and identity construction. Noting a research gap regarding how power operates in the social structure and how discursive practices contribute to women’s subjugation, this paper sets out to analyze patriarchal power as disciplinary power and the practices of body politics that render the female body a site of political struggle, adopting Foucauldian concepts as the analytical framework.

The paper surveys prior scholarship on Sangati and The Grip of Change, noting that most studies address women’s marginalization, exploitation, and the double oppression of being both Dalit and female, with notable exceptions examining form (Nayar) and identity construction (Pan). It identifies a gap concerning the operation of power and discursive practices in women’s subjugation. Theoretical grounding is provided through a review of diverse conceptions of power: from Hobbes’s domination, Arendt’s collective action, Pitkin and Dahl’s capacities and behavioral dimensions, Bachrach and Baratz’s agenda control, Lukes’s shaping of wants, to Giddens’s transformative capacity and Wartenberg/Wrong’s power-to/power-over. Gendered analyses by MacKinnon and Butler are noted. The paper argues for Foucault’s relevance, highlighting his departure from sovereign power toward diffuse, productive, and discursive disciplinary power that operates via hierarchized surveillance and produces subjects. Foucault’s claim that power is productive and omnipresent, and his emphasis on the creation of ‘domains of objects and rituals of truth,’ set up the study’s Foucauldian discourse-analytic approach. The paper also anticipates critiques (Fraser, Hartsock) of Foucault’s account of resistance, later addressing them via Foucault’s notion of localized resistances and the cultivation of counter-discourses.

Qualitative, interpretive literary analysis employing Foucauldian discourse analysis. The study applies Foucault’s concepts of disciplinary power and the techniques that produce docile bodies—hierarchical observation (surveillance), normalizing judgment, and examination—to close readings of Bama’s Sangati and P. Sivakami’s The Grip of Change. It examines how patriarchal discourse prescribes ‘required behaviour’ and ‘prescribed movements’ for Dalit women, and how surveillance is enacted by both men and women, reproducing the male gaze. The analysis extends to discursive constructions of the body as a political site, drawing intertextual analogies (e.g., Spivak’s discussion of sati) to expose material/economic bases of control, and engages religious/cultural discourses (e.g., episodes from the Mahabharata and Ramayana) that normalize protector–possession contracts and idealized femininity. The method also considers the role of counter-discourse and education as localized strategies of resistance, in line with Foucault’s later ethics of care of the self. Evidence consists of textual instances from the novels (dialogue, narrative episodes) illustrating labor exploitation, sexual regulation, surveillance, victim-blaming, politicization of women’s bodies, and assertions of agency through awareness and refusal (e.g., Gowri’s stance).

- Patriarchal power in the analyzed texts operates as Foucauldian disciplinary power: it is diffused through social institutions and everyday practices, prescribing acceptable gestures, movements, and ‘required behaviour’ for Dalit women, and sustaining a dominant male order via constant surveillance. - Economic/material bases of patriarchy are evident: women’s labor is exploited in fields and home, with wage disparities (e.g., in Sangati, women work as hard as men but are paid less), and property rights are undercut (e.g., Thangam’s eviction to seize her share of land). - Sexuality is stringently regulated: cross-caste relationships by women are punished (e.g., Essakki’s murder; beatings for loving a Palla boy), while men’s transgressions are normalized. - Disciplinary techniques normalize subordination early: girls receive less care and nutrition, are confined to domestic labor, barred from games, instructed to move and comport themselves modestly (head down, quiet, compliant). - Surveillance is internalized and reproduced by women: female characters (Kamalam, Valliammai, Lalitha) vilify and punish Thangam, mirroring patriarchal ideology and reinforcing docility. - The female body is politicized as a site of struggle: Thangam’s rape and humiliation are instrumentalized in caste politics by Kathamuthu, who reframes her case for political gain, echoing Spivak’s account of sati as materially motivated control over widows’ property. - Religious and mythic discourses (swayamvara narratives, Draupadi’s disrobing, Ahalya) foster a protector–possession paradigm that legitimizes male entitlement and women’s transfer between male custodians, shaping women’s subjectivity and normalizing submission. - The ‘protector’ contract masks exploitation: men position themselves as saviors to justify control while extracting sexual, political, or economic benefits (e.g., Paranjothi Udayar’s and Kathamuthu’s treatment of Thangam; Kathamuthu’s humiliation of Nagamani despite claiming to protect her). - Resistance and emancipatory possibilities are framed through counter-discourse and education: awareness of rights and critique of marriage/motherhood as disciplinary institutions enable refusals (e.g., Gowri’s rejection of marriage), aligning with Foucault’s view of discourse as both enabling and constraining and of localized resistances. - The analysis shows a triangulated mechanism of adherence, accountability, and repetitive operability across domestic, communal, and broader social spheres, reproducing disciplinary order and stigmatizing deviance.

The findings demonstrate that a Foucauldian lens illuminates how patriarchal power in caste-stratified contexts is enacted not only through overt violence but via subtle disciplinary mechanisms that normalize women’s subordination. By tracing hierarchical surveillance, normalized judgments, and examinations in everyday life, the analysis clarifies how Dalit women’s access to resources, bodily autonomy, and mobility is curtailed. Intertextual and religious discourses further entrench a protector–possession ideology that politicizes women’s bodies for hegemonic contests (e.g., caste politics surrounding Thangam). The study addresses its research question by showing how disciplinary power and discourse co-produce docile female bodies and how this dynamic is maintained by both men and women within communities. It also underscores the relevance of constructing counter-discourses—education, rights awareness, and refusals of imposed roles—as localized strategies to subvert disciplinary norms. For Dalit literary studies, the approach reframes well-known themes of oppression by specifying the micro-physics of power that make such oppression durable, while pointing to tangible sites (household divisions of labor, marriage, communal surveillance) where intervention and resistance may be mobilized.

The paper shows, through Bama’s Sangati and Sivakami’s The Grip of Change, that disciplinary power and discursive practices intervene to structure Dalit women’s lives, sustaining patriarchy via internalized surveillance, normalized conduct, and the politicization of women’s bodies. It argues that patriarchal structures perpetuate gender injustices by regulating labor, sexuality, and comportment, with co-women often reproducing the disciplinary gaze. The analysis highlights how adherence to everyday rituals and taboos governs ‘normal’ versus ‘deviant’ behavior, entangling Dalit women in regressive orders. Yet, by exposing these mechanisms, the study also identifies fissures: education and critical awareness can function as counter-discourses and as self-caring technologies of power in a Foucauldian sense, enabling localized resistances (e.g., refusals of marriage and idealized motherhood). The paper thus contributes to Dalit literary criticism by demonstrating Foucault’s continued relevance and by suggesting future work could further elaborate strategies of resistance and empowerment within and beyond literary representations.