ABSTRACT
M.M. Vinodini (1969) writes with a strong Dalit Christian feminist identity. All her writings—poetry, prose, fiction, drama—could be considered part of the critical discourse as they all raise crucial issues about the ongoing movements and developments. This essay is Vinodini’s foreword to a book that articulates the demand of the writer for a language of their own. Vinodini brings up multiple issues for discussion in this essay while stating that a language of one’s own is very important. She refers to the national language that has created a national image of literature, people and especially Indian women. Non-Hindu and non-upper-caste women always remain outsiders to this language. Against the backdrop of the demands for introduction of mother tongue and protests against the infliction of English on the one hand and the demands from the Dalit movement that English education is the need of the hour, Vinodini argues how many Dalit Christians have mother tongue that is a mixture of English and Telugu since they served the British officers and learnt to converse with them. In a similar vein, she points out how a Christian Dalit woman is never a part of the national imagination of an Indian woman.
