Defiance, Quest for Equality and Democratic Impotence: An Analytical Study of Datta Bhagat’s Play Whirlpool

Abstract

This paper explores Datta Bhagat’s Play Whirlpool (2000) as a work of Dalit minor literature that investigates the defiance manifested by the minor character towards the upper caste Hindus, their quest for equality and the democratic impotency of the India state. Using qualitative close reading method informed by Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of minor literature and the caste critique of B.R. Ambedkar, supplemented by sociological insights from Max Weber and Robert Deliege, this study examines how Brahmanical myths, religious exclusion and the legal system sustains untouchability in India. Focusing on Manohar’s various acts of defiance, the false criminalization of the minor characters and the fatal well-explosion at the end of the play; I argue Bhagat dramatizes collective agency and dissent or defiance among marginalized characters, while exploring democracy’s impotence in India to eradicate the caste hierarchies. The play reveals how culture narratives and local power structures conspire to normalize subordination of the Dalit people even in the presence of formal democratic state institutions. By analyzing Whirlpool as a political and theatrical, this study contributes to scholarship on Dalit literature by highlighting how minor literature can transform the grievances of the individuals into collective discourse and by investigating the gap between democratic ideals and lived equalities in human society.