Caste Discrimination and Education as a Hope of the Underprivileged – A brief study of Poomani’s Heat & Bama’s Karukku

Abstract

Education is a force that liberates the underprivileged people from their sorrow and misery in the form of slavery. In recent years opportunities for education are widespread but in ancient days educational opportunities were for only particular community people. Around 1500 BC the Aryans arrived in India. They conquered Northern regions in India and pushed the native people towards the Southern region, forest and mountains. They disregarded the local culture and initiated the caste system in India. These caste system continues on till now. Many atrocities are done in the name of caste and community. One community people attack and kill other community people in the name of caste for petty things. Even though we live in a highly advanced world where the government supports the underprivileged people, crimes against them are regularly executed. Government supports them by giving large scale educational opportunities but even those opportunities doesn’t help them to survive in this world unscathed. In Poomani’s Heat in the name of caste many atrocities were done to these people. Bama in her autobiographical novel believes that education is their only form of survival. This paper analyses how education is the only hope of these people and how even it failed to help them.