Land: Women’s Breath and Speech

Palanimuthu Sivakami (born 1957) is an Indian writer writing in Tamil. Palanimuthu Sivakami was born in Tamil nadu. Her education took her away from her home and in her acquiring of BA in history and MA she became confident and independent. She went on to serve in the Indian administrative service for about 22 years and now is part of the Indian political scenario.

 Dalit women writers are like these diamonds, those who are born and brought up in misery, discrimination and adversity and come out stronger through their books and activism. Their writing gives an in-depth view of their struggle.

Women across the world and especially in rural India have met challenges to get themselves educated and for a dalit woman it’s doubly hard. The few women who got themselves educated and wrote came out with work in forms of books which were to a great extent autobiographical, slanting towards feminism and also were considered mainly as a movement of the women to come out of the oppressive norms.

Her Essay, “Land: Women’s Breath and Speech” is an excerpt from her long Essay. It has been translated by C.T.Indra and Meenakshi Hariharan from tamil (Nilam: Pengalin Peachum Moochum). She begins her essay by giving an outline of how the Earth is being a part of universe. She furthermore deconstructs the term “Land”. Then she goes on talking about the Thinai Segregation and how the land has been divided based on its Quality. She negotiates how the land is named after the language the people speak, such as Tamilnadu, Telungana,etc. She provides a survey of the dominance of man on land and traces its Origins. She articulates of how humans destroyed the nature in the beginning of civilization. She also talks about the appropriation of land by clans. She furthermore elaborates on how land is given value by Its minerals and natural resources.

She also talks about Zamindari System Which gives Zamindars rights over the land. She criticises the land lord system as an inept and also discusses about Mirasdar. Sivakami talks about the tax system which was posed upon those who were possessing lands. Finally she openly tates that “Untouchables are denied the right to hold any property/land”. She talks of certain land acts which pretended to give the farmers, rights over the land. She talks about Land ceiling act of 1961 which says “If a family has more than five menbers, it could hold additional lands and each family can have upto 60 acres”. After a elaborate discusses she concludes that women are the real victim and denied the ownership of lands. She insists, just like Virginia Woolf, If a women must be liberated she must be given ownership of land. Thus she concludes her essay by insisting upon the importance of giving land to women.