Feminist Resistance in the Poetry of Imtiaz Dharker: An Analytical study

Abstract

Imtiaz Dharkr’s feminist stance is revealed in her prose and poetical writings in which she highlights the anguish and anxiety of Indian continent women caught in the morass of affected conventions social and familial. But at the first instance she portrays her own joys and sorrows, anguish and anxiety that she herself experienced in different situations of her diaspora life. She is a sensitive soul recording in her poetry and drawings all the intimations of wrong and turbulence that she feels she underwent through her life in exile. What distinguishes her writings is her ability to transform her personal feminine stance into something general, to give a universal colouring to her personal pain of diasporic life. Her anguished affirmation of independence is available in her hand drawn drawings upon her poetry books. Her quest for identity is directly the progeny of an old social set up, oriented towards the total annihilation of the feminine personality in different shapes particularly in the form of religion. Religion and diaspra feelings are, no doubt, the leitmotif of her poetry but the depth of her distress seems to have left a constant sting in her soul, and that does invest her identity with a certain tincture of pangs. This research paper argues that Dharker’s poetry is not merely an expression of personal Feministic emotions; it is a literary strategy of resistance. Her poetry transforms private experiences into collective voices of women seeking dignity, independence and recognition.