Oral Traditions and Literature: A Discourse on the Need to Democratize Literature

Abstract

It may be safely be stated that throughout the history of literature in any language, hegemonic literary-cultural discourse had privileged the written-urban literary-cultural traditions over the oral rural traditions of the masses particularly tribals, through the method of “selection and exclusion” which carefully excludes marginalized tribal oral literature. It may be safe to state that histories and contemporary news media continue to be manipulated by hegemonic troupes. The same phenomenon can be witnessed in literature as well. Amid such a phenomenon, oral literature stands as a force of resistance against the hegemony of dominant narratives, putting up a fight for the marginalised literature to be heard and understood. In the light of the above, this paper seeks to highlight the need to democratise narratives based on the rationale that true democracy cannot be achieved through political representation alone.