Well into the new millennium, humankind is still in the process of grappling with basic issues of discrimination, inequity, oppression and injustice, whether it be in the most advanced of modern democracies like the USA or in the largest democracy like India. Despite major paradigm shifts brought about by the avalanche of information technology and scientific advancements, the innate human longing for individual identity continues to remain a major tour de force in both life and literature. The present paper seeks to examine two plays that deal with subaltern discourses in comparative parlance - the Pulitzer Prize winning play Fences by August Wilson (African American), and Routes and Escape Routes by Datta Bhagat (Indian). Fences, Wilson's play, set in the 1950s, is a play about baseball, a national American pastime.

Troy Maxson, in the play, is a garbage collector whose rebellion and frustration set the tone for the play as he struggles for fairness in a society which seems to offer none. In his struggle, he builds fences between himself and his family. The metaphor of `fences' also refers historically to the American practice of keeping black people bound within the limits of slavery. Similarly, Datta Bhagat's Routes and Escape Routes presents, in a dramatic fashion, three generations of Dalits represented by Uncle Kaka, a long-term participant in the Ambedkar movement; the successful and ethical professor, Satish; his progressive Brahmin wife, Hema; and the angry and impatient student Arjun - all of them projecting differing responses to a situation of Dalit need and caste violence.

Among the basic issues that continue to occupy a prominent place in the arena of American politics is that of race relationship. Being situated in both the superstructure and base of society, `color-prejudice' is a personal as well as a political reality. In the words of Charles T Davis, "Whatever happens, we can expect that blackness will continue to operate as a creative element, neither as a mark of shame, nor as a badge of honor, in the literature of this country" (Davis, 1989, p. 19). The pervasive presence of the color line in a nation dedicated to the avowed ideals of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, remains a cause for concern even after 225 years of the declaration of independence. As the ambivalence of the `American Dilemma' continues to haunt the conscience of the most powerful democracy in the world, no less problematic is the issue of caste, for the world's largest democracy, India. Speaking at a reception organized in her honor in Kozhikode, shortly after she received the Booker Prize, Arundhati Roy said that in her opinion, the Dalit struggle for justice and equality would be, `and indeed ought to be', the biggest challenge that India would face in the next century. `I am fully aware', she observed, "that this particular war will be an immense and complicated one. That it will be waged in all sorts of ways, by all sorts of people in all sorts of places" (Roy, 1999). The concern for justice and equality in a society wracked by caste prejudice does merit considerable attention from a nation that prides itself on the ideals of Vasudhaika Kutumbakam.

The present paper seeks to examine and explore the paradigms of the dilemmas of race and caste, as reflected in August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize winning play, Fences, and Datta Bhagat's Routes and Escape Routes, respectively.

English Studies Journal, American Politics, Theatrical Ingenuity, Intellectual Transformations, Non-Dalit Personalities, Indian Society, Black Communities, Dalit Movement, Civil Rights Movement, American Dilemma, Ambedkar Movement.