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@article{192759,
        author = {Ashutosh Patro and Dr. K.P. Sousa and Ms. Shital K. Aher},
        title = {Womb, Name, Skin: Reading Reproduction, Respectability, and Dalit Selfhood Through Murugan’s Rural World and Dutt’s Urban Narrative},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {9},
        pages = {4673-4682},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=192759},
        abstract = {This study examines how the body becomes a contested site where caste and gender intersect to produce distinct forms of marginalization in Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman (2014) and Yashica Dutt’s Coming Out as Dalit (2019). Through a comparative intersectional lens, the research explores how reproductive failure in rural Tamil Nadu and aesthetic policing in urban India reveal the multidimensional subjugation of Dalit and lower-caste women. The analysis shows that while Murugan’s Ponna endures ritualistic shaming tied to her womb, Dutt confronts ideological erasure linked to her surname and skin. Both texts expose the body as more than flesh. It becomes a social text, inscribed with hierarchies that can destroy or, with great effort, be rewritten. This paper argues that existing scholarship has not adequately addressed how caste and gender do not merely coexist but actively constitute each other in literary representation. By placing a fictional narrative alongside a testimonial one, this research maps the continuities and ruptures in how bodily oppression operates across temporal, spatial, and generic boundaries.},
        keywords = {Intersectionality, Caste-Body, Dalit Feminism, Reproductive Stigma, Passing, Subaltern Narrative.},
        month = {March},
        }