A ‘Critical Disability’ Reading of Tara: A Stage Play in Two Acts by Mahesh Dattani
| Authors |
| Sahabuddin Ahamed & Ashutosh Singh |
| Date of Publication: June, 2026 |
| Volume: XXIII |
| DOI:10.65734/tgi.ssei.avp.ijcsss.ti.23.15 |
| Abstract |
| This essay critically examines the socio-cultural and political constructions of disability and their impacts on the oppressed and marginalized subjects in Mahesh Dattani’s play Tara: A Stage Play in Two Acts (2000) in the light of ‘critical disability’ theory. In the play, Dattani highlights the issue of disability through the portrayal of conjoined twin protagonists, Tara and Chandan. It explores the ways in which persons with disabilities are stigmatized, devalued, discriminated, and marginalized based on power, gender, and sex. The patriarchal hegemonic culture reinforces the physical and psychological conditions of the disabled people and simultaneously undermine their abilities for and beliefs in self-transformation, self realization, self-determination, and self-reliance. The paper attempts to unfold the dominant meaning-making process, essentialist perspectives, and reinforcement of unjust stereotypes which are applied to woman with disabilities, granting them the marginal status in every sphere of life. The play’s treatment of disability evokes a need of replacing the common socio-political assumptions regarding it and simultaneously reassigning new narratives and meanings to it in a more symbolic way. Its task is to challenge the distinction between ability and disability, to bring about justice for disabled subjects and to transform the oppressive and dehumanizing circumstances under which they live. The ‘critical disability’ theory of Rosemarie Garland Thompson and Simi Linton is used in the paper. |
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