This paper seeks to re-examine the feminist consciousness in the works of Sarala Devi, a pioneering yet often overlooked voice in early twentieth-century Odia literature. Her works punctuate the idea that the freedom and independence of expression in regional literatures can offer a more nuanced understanding of Indian feminism than the mainstream canon allows. Writing from within a deeply stratified social structure, Devi was acutely aware of the transformative power of the pen, yet her silence on the intersections of caste, class, religion, and ethnicity reflects the historical and cultural limitations of her context. While her works reveal her deep engagement with the notion of women’s holistic liberation, Devi’s positionality also underscores the privileges that enabled her to speak from within the structures she sought to critique. Her feminism—both assertive and restrained—becomes a site where empowerment and limitation coexist. This study argues that her focus on regional and political dimensions of women’s freedom, rather than on systemic inequalities, offers critical insight into how early feminist discourse evolved within linguistic and cultural margins. By engaging closely with her works such as Biswa Biplabini (1930), Narira Dabi (1934) and Utkala Nari Samasya (1934), this paper aims to situate Sarala Devi within a continuum of feminism “in the making”—a dynamic, evolving praxis rather than a fixed ideology. In re-reading Devi, the study not only recovers a name erased from the broader map of Indian feminist literature due to linguistic regionalism but also illuminates the silences and tensions that shaped them.

Authors:
Soumyaa Nayak, University of Hyderabad, India

About the Presenter(s)
Soumyaa Nayak is currently a Research Scholar at the Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad, India. She is currently working on Odia women writers from the early twentieth century.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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