With the Margin: The Theme of Gendered Subaltern in Mamang Dai’s Legends of Pensam

Whether it is the pre-colonial, colonial, or post-colonial era, the problems of the indigenous tribal women of North-East India have not changed much. The same scenario is reflected in Mamang Dai’s Legends of Pensam as the women on margin have always retained in the same shape and misery. The gendered subalterns have been suffering in silence accepting their fate or restricting themselves amid their limited demarcated territory in order to survive. Over the years, these fair sexes are not only being ignored and exploited, under the hands of the colonial or elitist masses but also by the patriarchal structure designed in the Indian society. Various types of changes and uncertainties have touched the premises in the land of the Adi tribes, placing the women somewhere inbetween tradition and modernity. Dai in her work has tried to portray the scuffling situations of the Adi women, how they have resisted and quietly tackled those changes, uniquely sculpting their own identity. Keeping those silences and muted existences of the indigenous women in mind, this paper is an earnest attempt to hear the voices of those women or give them a chance to bring their survival complexities in the eyes of mainland India and the world.