Intersectionality: Exploring Gender, Caste and Queer Identities in the 21st Century English Literature

Abstract

Literature has long served as a sensitive mirror to the complexities of human identity, especially in societies marked by deep social hierarchies. In contemporary India, writers from marginalised locations have expanded this mirror, revealing lives shaped by the simultaneous pressures of caste, gender, and sexuality. Their narratives do more than tell personal stories—they illuminate the structural inequalities that continue to define social experience. Taking a lead out of this concept, this paper examines how gender, caste, and queer identities intersect in the selected works of Urmila Pawar, Baby Kamble, Meena Kandasamy, and Sachin Kundalkar, representing diverse voices of 21st-century English literature. Using the framework of intersectionality, the study explores how these writers depict the layered structures of discrimination and belonging that shape human experience in contemporary India. While Urmila Pawar and Baby Kamble reveal how caste and patriarchy combine to silence Dalit women, Meena Kandasamy and Sachin Kundalkar portray how sexuality and social hierarchy intersect to challenge conventional notions of identity and morality. Drawing upon Dalit feminist and queer theoretical insights, the paper analyses how narrative voice, language, and emotion become instruments of both resistance and self-expression. It argues that these texts transform literature into a space of dialogue and dissent, where marginalised lives speak with dignity and force. Ultimately, the study affirms that intersectionality, when grounded in the Indian context, opens new ways to understand literature as a mirror of both suffering and resilience.