Gendered Power and Subaltern Voices: Women in the Drama of Dina Mehta, Manjula Padmanabhan, Poile Sengupta

Indian English drama serves as a powerful space for social critique, using the immediacy of performance to expose and question socio-political realities, particularly issues of gender injustice, inequality, and power. Within this tradition, women playwrights such as Dina Mehta, Manjula Padmanabhan, and Poile Sengupta mark a significant shift by presenting women not as passive figures shaped by male perspectives, but as active agents expressing their lived experiences of oppression, resistance, and survival. Their works explore diverse forms of violence embedded in domestic, social, and institutional structures, while also interrogating broader issues such as globalization, commodification, and patriarchal norms. This book highlights the transition from the representation of women to their emergence as speaking subjects, drawing on feminist and subaltern frameworks to examine how marginalized voices assert themselves despite systemic silencing. Ultimately, the book argues that contemporary Indian women's drama in English is not merely reflective but interventionist, challenging entrenched power structures and reimagining the conditions of women's lives.