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A SHORT NOTE ON DALIT WRITERS

Dalit writing is a post-Independence literary phenomenon. Arjun Dangle has defined Dalit literature as:
“Dalit literature is one which acquaints people with the caste system and untouchability in India… It matures
with a sociological point of view and is related to the principles of negativity, rebellion and loyalty to science,
thus finally ending as revolutionary.”
Inequality was the main source of this marginality which led to insecurity, injustice and exploitation.
Marginalized sections were always on the periphery and distanced from the power centres. Dalits were always
on the marginalized ‘other’ side of the Indian society. So when they started voicing after centuries of silence,
about themselves, we have the literature depicting assertion of human rights, self-pride, revolt against social
injustice, chronicles of personal and collective suffering, and hopes and aspirations for a new society devoid of
discrimination. Dalit (Oppressed or broken) is not a new word. It was used in the 1930s as a Hindi and Marathi
translation of “Depressed Classes”, a term the British used for what are now called the “Scheduled Castes”.
Dalits were called by different names in different parts of India, invented by caste people and all entailing
insult and contempt. Such names include words like dasa, dasya, raksasa, asura, avarna, nisoda, panchama,
chandala and so on. It is very sad to say that untouchability is prevalent even in modern Indian society, where
educational opportunities are decentralized and the practice of untouchability is banned through Article 17 of
the Constitution of India. So Dalit is not a caste. It is a symbol of change and revolution. The primary motive of
Dalit literature is the liberation of dalits, the struggle against casteist tradition has a long history.
Sharankumar Limbale has stated,
“Dalit literature is precisely that literature which artistically portrays the sorrows, tribulations, slavery,
degradation, ridicule and poverty endured by Dalits. This literature is but a lofty image of grief.”
This trend started in 1873 when Jyotirao Phule, a Marathi Dalit (then known as an Untouchable), published his
book Gulamgiri (Slavery) and dedicated the treatise to the then Negroes in America as a ‘token of admiration
for their sublime disinterestedness and self-sacrificing devotion in the cause of Negro Slavery’. In the year
1992, Indian Literature virtually started a new chapter, with the publication of Arjun Dangle’s Poisoned Bread,
which was the first ever attempt to anthologize Dalit writings in English. He involved all the genres available in
Marathi Dalit literature-poetry, short stories, essays, autobiographical excerpts and public speeches.

THE DALIT PANTHERS

The Dalit Panthers was a social organization founded by Namdeo Dhasal, JV Pawar, Raja Dhale, and Arjun
Dangle in April 1972 in Mumbai. Formed in the state of Maharashtra in the 1970s, they ideologically aligned
themselves to the Black Panther movement in the United States. During the same period, Dalit literature,
painting, and theatre challenged the very premise and nature of established art forms and their depiction of
society and religion. Many of these new Dalit artists formed the first generation of the Dalit Panther
movement that sought to wage an organized struggle against the varna system. The politics of Maharashtra
had passed into the hands of Marathas, who dominated every sector of the rural economy, including banks,
marketing federations and sugar cooperatives. If rural life before this had been feudal and therefore
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oppressive for Dalits, the new economy dominated by cooperatives had no place for farmers with small
holdings, which is all that Dalits had. One kind of exclusion had been replaced by another. In this situation, the
Dalit Panthers became a rallying point for young Dalits, and, as Arjun Dangle wrote, “Maharashtra was once
again charged with discussions on Dalit literature and language.” Dalit Panthers visited “atrocity” sites,
organized marches and rallies in villages, and raised slogans of direct militant action against their upper-caste
aggressors.
The Dalit Panthers’ Manifesto defines Dalits as “all those who are exploited politically, economically and in the
name of religion.” They classified “American imperialism” in the same category as “Hindu feudalism”; with
both being examples of caste hierarchy. They also asserted that while Hindu feudalism may have spawned
caste inequality, its extension by the modern Indian state had created an oppression “a hundred times more
ruthless.”
The founders wrote angry, provocative prose and poetry. Raja Dhale wrote an article in the magazine Sadhana,
deriding the national flag. Such writings brought cathartic relief to Dalit youth who had not received the
benefits they'd expected following the country’s independence. Their firm stance and rallying message across
Maharastra made their members frequent targets of state surveillance and brutality. Their legacy lives on in
states across India, including in Tamil Nadu’s VCK Dalit Panthers Political party.
NAMDEO DHASAL
Perhaps the most iconic name in the world of Marathi poetry, Dhasal is also the most recognisable face of the
Dalit Panthers, an organisation formed along the lines of the Black Panther movement in the United States. His
first collection of poetry Golpitha (1972). Golpitha is the area in and around Kamathipura, Mumbai’s oldest red
light district, where Dhasal grew up. Dilip Chitre, in his essay ‘Poetry of the Scum of the Earth’, which appeared
in the book Namdeo Dhasal: Poet of the Underworld (2007), wrote, “As a practising poet and a reader of my
contemporary Marathi poets, I was dazzled by Golpitha. More than three decades later, when I wrote an
introduction to the book, I said that it would be a contender for as high an award as the Nobel Prize for
literature.”
Dhasal was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999. In 2004, the Sahitya Akademi, while celebrating its Golden
Jubilee, awarded him its Golden Jubilee Life Time Achievement Award.
MEENA KANDASAMY
Translated into 18 languages, she is one of most famous feminist writers in India, who doubles as an activist.
She is the author of two collections of poetry, Touch (with a foreword by Kamala Das) and Ms. Militancy, the
critically acclaimed novel The Gypsy Goddess and most recently A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife.
In Ms. Militancy, her resistance is targeted towards the two main oppressors; the caste-based Brahmanical
Hindu society and patriarchy. She tackles multi-layered oppression through confrontational lines, directly
accusing the players of this system, stripping them down of their so-called reverence, and exposing their
hypocrisy. In the preface ‘Should You Take Offence’, she tells “I do not write into patriarchy. My Maariamma
bays for blood. My Kali kills. My Draupadi strips. My Sita climbs on to a stranger’s lap. All my women militate.
They brave bombs, they belittle kings. They take on the sun, they take after me.”
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“Ms Militancy”, the title poem of this volume, is based on Kannaki, the heroine of the Tamil Classic
Silapathikaram. This poem is a call to women to be revolutionary and courageous like the heroine herself.
The Gypsy Goddess is an imagined narrative of actual incidents, the fictionalized counterpoint, if you must, of
the newspaper reports of the massacre of 25 December 1968. On that day, long-simmering tensions between
the landlords and labourers in what was then Tanjore district in Tamil Nadu came to a head in a conflagration
that saw 44 men, women and children being burnt to death in a locked hut in the village of Kilvenmani. The
first two chapters of The Gypsy Goddess establish the mythical backdrop of Tanjore district, and its social
landscape in the 1960s, when the rise of communism is making the feudal lords uneasy about the threat to the
entrenched order. This difficult introductory portion—which also explains the rationale behind the somewhat
unconnected title—gives way curiously smoothly to the actual “story”, marking out the principal villain,
Gopalakrishna Naidu, as he addresses a gathering of paddy producers. His speech, alternately hectoring and
cajoling, draws the lines between “us” and “them”—by turns, the state government in faraway Madras, the
upper-caste Brahmins who have fled their agraharams (Brahmin quarters) at the first sign of trouble, but,
most of all, the godless communists and the “coolies” under their thumb, who are demanding an extra half-
measure of rice. “Nothing we give them will be enough for them, so it is better that they are given nothing,” he
thunders. Erratic in style and mindful in structure, Meena Kandasamy’s The Gypsy Goddess is a raw approach
to writing nonlinear fiction. In a way, Kilvenmani, the shy and oppressed village in East Thanjavur district, is the
protagonist. The story is an intersection of politicking and discrimination, and is split into four sections:
Background, Breeding Ground, Battle Ground and Burial Ground. Titled ‘Cutthroat comrades’ — the satirical
chapter which introduces the antagonist and prepares the reader for the tragedy — reads like an exaggerated
extension of a Tamil feudal film. Gopalakrishna Naidu, the president of Paddy Producers Association, is
portrayed using cinematic measures. You hear him utter punch-lines to his fellow landlords: “If you can’t be
men, wear bangles”; “Nothing we give them will be enough for them, so it is better that they are given
nothing.” On Christmas evening in 1968, 44 Dalit men, women and children were herded inside a hut, which
was bolted from the outside and set on fire. You witness them being engulfed by the flames in Chapter 10,
‘Mischief by fire’, which is a testament to the writer’s literary genius.
“… and now the fire spreads with fondness and familiarity and the old men and the women and the children
bathed in blisters making touch their greatest trauma and long-ago tattoos of loved one’s names show up on
their arms but they are almost already dead as they continue to burn and soon their blood begins to boil and
ooze out of every pore sometimes tearing skin to force its way out in a hurry to feel fresh air and the blood
begins to brown and then blacken.”
At the centre of this novel is Maayi, the widow of the village witch-doctor. She can hear the dead and heal the
living. In ‘Survival guide’ we see Kilvenmani and its grief through Maayi.
“Maayi was aware of the anger that stiffened this boy’s hands. She knew the knots behind his nerves, the
bones burning in his knees. He had been throwing stones. Onnu. Randu. Moonu. Naalu. He had been breaking
things. Naapathi-onnu. Naapathi-randu. Naapathi-moonu. Naapathi-naalu. He had been keeping count. He had
not forgotten what he had seen.”
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Kandasamy knows the secret of empathising with her characters and strives to do the same with her readers.
But, for her, the reader is a collective noun. Her running commentary and crass retorts in advance to the
questions she assumes one will ask all point to this. She loses you several times to bursts of self-indulgence
and unconnected digressions, but brings you back with jolts of lyrical ache. The book silently asks several
questions, most of which are left unanswered. Every chapter is an experiment. She plays with various literary
devices. Chapters come in the form of a Marxist party pamphlet, an inspector’s observations, an anatomy of a
fairy tale, minutes of the Paddy Producers Association’s emergency meeting, and even as an imagined
question and answer session with a literary critic! Kandasamy mentions in her monologue that she has left the
rules of the novel on her clothesline to dry. Let it flutter in the wind and fade with time.
BAMA
Born in a family of agricultural labourers, Bama Faustina Soosairaj donned many hats before she finally
became a writer. She used to write poetry in college, but became a schoolteacher and a nun later to educate
Dalit girls. It was after leaving the seminary in 1992 that she went back to serious writing. The semi-fictional
autobiographical novel “Karukku” (1992) is her most famous work, although she has written more novels and
short story collections since then. Originally written in the Tamil dialect she used to speak as a child, the novel
created quite a stir, with Bama being prohibited from entering her village for seven months. When the novel
was finally translated into English in 1998, Bama went on to win the Crossword Book Award in 2000.
For detailed discussion on Karukku see
https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/introduction-to-karukku/211413

Her narratives are nuanced in exploring her intersecting identities as Dalit and woman in detail. As Bama says
in this interview with Githa Hariharan, Dalit women are exploited ‘thrice,’ on account of their caste, class and
gender – ‘triple monsters.’

In Tamil Nadu a laudable attempt to couple ‘Penniyam’ (feminism) and ‘dalityam’ (Dalit Studies) has been
recorded by Bama, whose Sangati speaks of the hitherto unheard annals of dalit women. Her second
work Sangati is an ambience of dalit women particularly paraiyars community, it draws a real picture of this
community. Sangati was originally written in Tamil in 1994. It was translated by Laxmi Halmstrom into
English. The whole narrative is divided into twelve chapters. The word ‘Sangati’ means news, events,
happenings and thus the novel through individual stories, anecdotes and memories portrays the event that
takes place in the life of dalit women. Sangati deals with several generations of women in dalit community.
The book is full of interconnected events – the everyday happenings of dalit community. It goes against the
notions of traditional novel. The book does not carry any plot in the normal sense, but it is a series of
anecdotes. Bama makes clear her intention in her acknowledgement: “My mind is crowded with many
anecdotes: stories not only about the sorrows and tears of Dalit women, but also about their lively and
rebellious culture; their eagerness not to let life crush or shatter them, but rather to swim vigorously against
the tide; about the self-confidence and self-respect that enables them to leap over their adversities by
laughing at and ridiculing them; about their passion to live life with vitality, truth and enjoyment; about their
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hard labour. I wanted to shout out these stories” (Sangati xvi). Discussing the social evils of this community
this book also throws light on the tyranny, exploitation, injustice, the cruelty, the trauma and disparity taking
place in the paraiyars community. In Sangati Bama is successful to draw a real picture of growth, decline,
culture and liveliness of dalit women. She also lays emphasis on the fact that the women of paraiyar
community lead a happy life in time of trouble and depression. All kinds of difficulties of dalit women their
boldness and weakness are described by Bama in her Sangati.
Sangati is more of a celebration of dalit female identity. Bama’s women are no longer subjugated;
they assert their individuality through education and collective action. Their resistance-both passive and active
to oppression makes Sangati a piquant depiction of the dalit women. Sangati carries an autobiographical
element in their narrative, but it is a story of a whole community, not an individual. In Sangati, many strong
Dalit women who had the shackles of authority are also focused. The condition of dalits was very bad as they
were not allowed to enter in to the temple, and schools for education. This form of discrimination based on
identity akin to racism.
In the initial chapters, it’s narrated in the first person, then counterpointed by the generalizing
comments of the grandmother and other mother figures, and later still, by the author-narrator’s reflections.
The earlier chapters show the narrator as a young girl of about twelve years of age, but in the last quarter, as a
young woman. The reflective voice is that of an adult looking back and meditating deeply upon her experience
in the past which calls for practical actions. It has no plot in the normal sense but just some powerful stories of
memorable protagonists.
In the first place, the question of economic inequality. Women are presented as wage earners as
much as men are, working equally as men as agricultural and building-site labourers, but still earning less than
men do, thereby highlighting Socialist-feminism. Yet the money that men earn is their own to spend as they
please, whereas women bear the financial burdens of running the whole family, often even singly. They are
constantly vulnerable to a lot of sexual harassment in the world of work. Within their community, the power
rests with men as the caste-courts and churches are male-led. Rules for sexual behavior are different for men
and women. Hard labour and economic precariousness lead to a culture of violence, and Bama boldly explores
this theme too.
Sangati deals with gender bias faced by dalit women right from their childhood. Girl babies are always
considered inferior and taken less care. The narrator of this book is a young girl in the early chapters grows
pensive due to the myriad events happening around her. As she grows into a young woman, she stresses on
the need for change and is calling out for action against atrocities that happen to the girls and women in her
community. Invidious patriarchal distinctions are initially inculcated in girl children within the first ten years of
their lives. Gender games act as effective tools to achieve this goal. Bama as a young girl of twelve learns that
boys have different roles to play than girls which are perpetuated in the form of gender games that they are
made to play as children. While games like ‘ kabadi’ and ‘marbles’ are meant for boys, girls play at cooking,
getting married and other domestic matters.
“Even when we played ‘mothers and fathers’, we always had to serve the mud ‘rice’ to the boys
first. They used to pull us by the hair and hit us says, ‘what sort of food is this, di, without salt or
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anything!’ In those days we used to accept those pretence blows, and think it was all good fun.
Nowadays, for many of the girls those have become real blows and their entire lines are hell” (31).
In Dalit community elders consider boys as permanent members in a family because they are
supposed to take care of their parents. On the other hand, female children are transient members who are to
be transplanted to another family and so have no role to play in their families. This causes gender prejudices
even in the minds of parents.
Dalit girls are hardly enjoying their childhood. They have little time to play as they have to take care of
their younger siblings. “Maikkanni is one such girl who has started to work from the day she learns to walk”
(70). She has to go to work when her mother delivers a baby. When her mother becomes fit Maikkani turn to
take care of the new born baby. The life of a dalit girl was tormenting but the life of a grown up dalit woman
was worse. Bama describes the life style of dalit girls as follows:
“Why can’t we be the same as boys? We aren’t allowed to talk loudly or laugh noisily; even when we
sleep we can’t stretch out on our backs nor lie face down on our bellies. We always have to walk with
our heads bow down, gazing at our toes even when our stomachs are screaming with hunger, we
mustn’t eat first. We are allowed to eat only after the men in the family have finished and gone what
Patti aren’t we also human beings? (29)”
Bama realistically portrays the physical violence like lynching, whipping and canning that dalit women
suffers by their fathers, brothers and husbands. Bama cleverly ropes in the prevailing subordinate condition of
women through the ages as a girl, woman, a bread winner for the family and her place in the church. The two
stories that Bama reminds is that of Mariamma and Thayi whose marital disharmonies are revealed in an
attempt to stereotype the dalit predicament. They are ill-treated and beaten up daily by their
husbands. Although both the husband and wife came after a hard day’s work in the field, the husband went
straight to the Chavadi to while away their time, coming home only for their meal. But as for the wife they
return home wash vessels, clean the house, collect water, gather firewood, go to the shops to buy rice for
cooking and other provision, feed the husband and children before they sleep, eat what is left over and go to
bed. “Even they lay down their bodies wracked with pain, they are not allowed to sleep, whether she dies or
survived, she had to give pleasure and enjoyment to her husband” (59).
In Sangati, Bama subverts mainstream legends and asks relevant questions pertaining to her culture.
The story of Thiruvallvar, the great Tamil poet’s wife Vasuki, perceived as the epitome of chastity and devotion
to husband is mentioned to illustrate the subordinate position of women in marriage. The story she feels is a
reminder that wives ate after husbands even during Thiruvalluvar’s time. Bama offers an alternate folk song
about Ananatamma of West Street, who was beaten up for eating crab curry before serving her husband:
“O crab, crab my pretty little crab, who wandered through all the fields I Planted I pulled off your
claws and put you on a pot, I gave the pot a hot and set it down. I waited and waited for him to come
home, And began eating as came through the door. He came to hit me the hungry brute , He pounced
at me to kill me…”(30)
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These lines are the reminder that wives ate after husbands even in this twentieth century also. The dalit
women are an easy prey to the men because of their repressed state. Over worked and exploited in the family
these women give vent to their mental agony in their spirit- possessed state.
Veliamma’s stories about the spirits that haunted Dalit women make Bama conclude that these
stories are concocted to push women to subservient position. Dalit women are an easy prey to these stories
because of their repressed state. Overworked and exploited both in the family and in society, these women
give vent to their mental agony in their spirit-possessed state. In her attempt to write a ‘her story’, Bama
makes interesting references to food enjoyed by her people. Traditionally in most homes the kitchen is a
limited space designated for women. But over the years women have transformed this space into an area of
discourse that gives them a semblance of power. In Sangati, Sammuga Kizhavi’s mouthwatering description of
ragikuuzh eating is thought provoking. She describes it as “nectar from heaven” (37).Every sunday, the
narrator’s patti made a special kuzhambu with cow’s intestine which went well with ragi kali. There is also
mention of patti’s hot kuzhambu with dried fish. In Karukku Bama brings to light the gugapusai at Chinnamalai,
the highlight of the festival is slaughter of rooster, goat or pig. There is immense joy in cooking the food and
feasting the delicacy. By subverting simple acts of cooking, feeding and sharing food, Bama brings the novel
alive before our eyes. KanchaIlliah in his thought provoking work Why I am Not a Hindu, mentions that certain
kinds of rich food like ghee and milk were seldom available for the economically downtrodden dalits in the
rural areas. But Bama celebrates the food that is cooked and served by the womenfolk in her community.
There is great joy in discovering other more healthy and nutritious options. The food metaphor helps in the
narrating of her stories earlier neglected or misrepresented in mainstream writing.
Bama realizes that the dalit women are constantly under menace and they are not safe in their work
place also. They are constantly under the threat of sexual harassments in the field of work Bama asks her
women:
“We must be strong. We must show by our own resolute lives that we believe ardently in our
independence… just as we work hard so long as there is strength in our bodies, so too, must we
strengthen our hearts and minds in order to survive” (59).
The men because they are dalits often undergo dog’s treatment in the hands of the upper caste men who are
the landlords. In such circumstances these men show off their male pride and authority, their suppressed
anger that is vented out on their wives who are beaten to pulp by these men. Ultimately it the women who are
tormented both within and without their homes. Playing the spokesperson for the women of her community,
Bama states that it is on her to speak out the truth that though all women are slaves to men, her women are
the worst sufferers. This is the core theme of Sangati.
The dalit women are mostly the wage earners of hard labour sweating it out in the fields, construction
sites, and in match box industries. The unequal division of labour, a product of first world elite that has been
imposed upon the dalit women who are paid less than their men. From Sangati we learn that the oppress class
too has its own gender discrimination wherein dalit men who are on the margins of the structured society in
turn marginalize their own women on the basis of fixed gener roles. Bama expresses her agony as:
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“It is not the same for women of other castes and communities. Our women cannot bear the torment
of upper-caste masters (mudalalis) in the fields, and home they cannot bear the violence of their
husbands” (65).
Among the other castes like Pallars, Koravars and Chakkiliyars, only the Parayars have been converted into
Christianity. This coerced conversion brought nothing but economic deprivation because they had lost their
right to reservation. The popular education scheme promised by the Christian priests becomes a poor
substitute for economic self-sufficiency. Sangati is in its huge criticism of Indian church. In Catholic Indian
churches there is prevalence of Caste-hierarchy within sub-castes of dalit community. The Catholic priests
were also gender-biased and treated the converted dalit women as inferior. She expressed this as:
Everywhere you look, you see blows and beatings, shame and humiliation…Became we have not been
to school or learnt anything, we go about like slaves all our lives, from the day we are born till the day
we die, As if we are blind, even though we have eyes. [66]
Bama also draws a comparison between dalit and non-dalit women. According to her the dalit situation is
better than that of upper class women who have been forced to live in most vulnerable conditions. Upper class
women find no way to express their pent up emotions. Bama feels proud that their women have economic
freedom from their men folk; they work hard in fields and rear up their children. Sometimes widows are
allowed remarriage and their culture never alienates a widow form the mainstream. But the upper class
women confine their emotions within the four walls of their homes. But dalit women women suffer caste
oppression in mornings and gender oppression in nights.
In Sangati the child narrator in the early chapters grows melancholic and rebellious due to the events
happening around her. When she grows into a young woman she stresses on the need for a radical change and
calls out for action against the exigencies of her companions. She exhorts then to take pride of their (dalit
women) caste and march towards social empowerment. Bama draws attention to their immense capacity for
hard labour, their spirit of protests their cultures absence of dowry and their rich cultural heritage. She talks
about the narrator’s courageous grandmother who pawned her ‘thali’ to feed her children, Katturaasa’s
mother who bore her son by herself while cutting grass and about Marriamma who came back to work even
after she met with an accident. But they have been silenced in the crucial moments of their lives. When
Bama’s protagonist admonishes her grandmother not for protesting, she replies,
“From your ancestors’ times it has been agreed that what the men say is right. Don’t you go dreaming
that everything is going to change just because you have learnt a few letters of the alphabet?” (118)
In Sangati the language of dalit women is rich and resourceful giving way to proverbs folklore and folk songs.
Bama as a feminist writer, protests against all forms of oppression and sufferings faced by dalit women in the
first half of this novel. But later part moves away from the state of depression and oppression. Instead it
presents a positive identity of dalit women focusing their inner strength and vigour. She also attracts our mind
towards the education system about dalit community. Pechiamma, who belongs to Chakkiliyar’s community,
studied up to fifth class, but the girls of that community do not go to school all that much.
Her language is also very different from the other women writers of India as she is more generous
with the usage of Dalit Tamil slangs. She addresses the women of the village by using the suffix ‘amma’
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(mother) with their names. From the names of places, months, festivals, rituals, customs, utensils, ornaments,
clothes, edibles, games, etc to the names of occupations, the way of addressing relatives, ghosts, spirits, etc;
she unceasingly uses various Tamil words.
Dalit women resort to variegated tools for survival. While Mariamma accepts what comes to her,
Pecchiamma protests by walking on without her husband. Language is one of the effective tools they deploy
against their oppressors. The folkloric native language of the dalits itself becomes a language of protest and
political challenge. To this Bama added a language of human rights articulated by her liberated protagonist.
This new language of political resistance also includes a free use of abusive terms. Women give vent to their
feelings by calling their neighbours abusive names or shouting the names of their body parts. This, for them, is
an effective defence mechanism to maintain their psychological equilibrium.
The text of Sangati as such deals with the variegated experiences and stories of the dalit women
stringed together, thus breaking the normative literary narrative of a single plot or story. It falls closer to the
narrative pattern of ethnographic/anthropological studies wherein testimonials of the concerned peoples form
the manner and method of constructing experiences and personal narratives which actually serve to build
their history as a community or ethnic group.
Bama uses a language unfamiliar to the mainstream, upper caste society to write her works. She
discards the so called “chaste” Tamil made unavailable for her people but employs the oral folk language,
which is familiar to her society. Unlike other writers who have dealt with Dalit life in Tamil like Sivakami,
Vidivelli and Imayam, who use the Dalit language only in dialogues between their characters, Bama writes her
whole work in the language of her community through her works especially Sangati.
In the end of this novel, the dalit women celebrate their newly found identity and inner strength. The
narrator of this novel finally becomes free from clutches of her limitations. She works and lives by hereself.
Bama realizes that it is up to the dalit women to take their lives into their own hands. In Sangati we hear the
voices of many women, some in pain, some in anger, some in frustration and some out of courage. Sometimes
the language is full of expletive with sexual undertones. Bama suggests that it is the sharp tongue of a woman
that can protect her against her oppressors. The characters often break in to a song or a chant when the
situation demands and there is a song for every occasion. But what is thought provoking is Bama’s sketching a
positive identity for the Dalit woman. An alternate her story as opposed to the mainstream is drawn with vivid
descriptions of a marriage ceremony, attaining of puberty ceremony, joy of togetherness, singing songs,
cooking and sharing food. In most rural homes the Dalit woman is an earning member, widow re-marriages are
possible and tali or the sacred thread worn as a chain during the marriage is not this binding symbol as in other
communities.

DAYA PAWAR
The poet Daya Pawar’s (born Dagdu Maruti Pawar) autobiography, Baluta, a landmark in Dalit literature, was
published in 1978, hitting upper-caste critics and readers alike between the eyes. Baluta was the first
autobiography to be written by a Dalit. Pawar’s graphic description of life in the maharwada, a place outside
villages reserved for Dalits, shocked readers and still does. ‘Baluta’ is a term for the system of traditional village
duties that Dalits had to perform for a share in the village produce. Baluta inaugurated a stream of explosive
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autobiographical narratives. It was never easy to tell these personal stories of humiliation and oppression. At
one point in Baluta, Pawar writes, “What I had seen of the life of Mahars in my childhood has cut a permanent
gash in my heart. The past will never be erased. It will go only when I go. The layers of abjectness that you see
on my face even today have their source in those times. Hard as you might scrub them, all you will do is draw
blood. They will not come off.” However, Pawar balances his personal pain with the thought that telling these
stories is politically important: “Some Dalits feel such stories are like digging up a garbage dump. But if a man
does not know his past, he will not know which direction he must take in the future.”
Dalits who had moved up the economic ladder into the middle-class, and who were ashamed of their
past and resented its being made public, were among the most vociferous in their criticisms of Baluta. This
class of Dalits has come to be known as ‘Dalit Brahmin’.
He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1990.

URMILA PAWAR
Urmila Pawar, a major voice in contemporary Dalit literature, recounts in her autobiography Aydaan (Basket,
2003), the aftermath of her daughter Manini’s birthday party to which she had invited the child’s classmate
Kishori and her older brother. On returning home, the brother told his mother that there were portraits of
Gautam Buddha and Ambedkar in the Pawar home. The following day, the mother arrived at Urmila Pawar’s
house, stood outside the door and said tersely, “Next time my daughter visits you, please don’t give her
anything to eat. We are Marathas and we don’t allow it.”
Pawar works with feminist organisations in the Mumbai and Konkan regions. Among her acclaimed
books are two collections of short stories, “Sahav Bot (Sixth Finger)” and “Mother Wit”. In 2004, the
Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad awarded her the Laxmibai Tilak award for “Aaidan”, but refused to accept it,
saying that the “metaphors, images, and symbols in Marathi literature have remained tradition-bound”.

BABURAO BAGUL
One of the pioneers of the Dalit Panthers, the Marathi writer shot to fame with his 1963 collection of short
stories “Jenvha Me Jat Chorali Hoti”. His other major works of fiction were “Maran Sast Hot Ahe” (1969) and
“Sood” (1970). He was awarded the Harinarayan Apte Award by the Government of Maharashtra in 1970. His
fiction dwells heavily on the social and economic deprivation enforced by the caste system, as well as the
revolt of those oppressed by the system.
Baburao Bagul’s debut collection of short stories, Jevha Mi Jaat Chorli Hoti (1963), revolutionized Dalit
literature, bringing to it raw energy and a radical realism—a refusal to understate or dress up gritty, brutal
reality. In 1947-48, when he was 19, the Matunga Labour Camp in Mumbai was one of the epicentres of the
Ambedkarite as well as workers’ movements. Baburao Bagul grew up listening to Babasaheb Ambedkar. At the
same time, he was exposed to Dalit writer Anna Bhau Sathe – a Marxist for a major part of his life – who
performed shahiri and plays in the area. The Matunga Labour Camp wasn’t just politically active but a vibrant
hub of literary activity, all of which provided Baburao Bagul a base for his stories.
11

Each of the ten stories in this book offers the reader scope for self-reflexivity. The story “Prisoner of
Darkness” is about the heinous practice of Devadasis – where young women are “dedicated” to a temple and
considered its property – and its consequences on the lives of the women affected by it.
The impact of Bagul’s stories comes from the monumental characters he creates, the live-or-die
situations he places them in, and the ferociously driven prose in which he describes their ordeals. Bagul’s
unnamed protagonist in the title story “When I Hid My Caste” tries to escape cruel discrimination by
concealing his caste. It finely portrays the dilemma of a Dalit man who migrates to a new city in Gujarat to
work for the railways. When his prospective landlord enquires about his caste, he replies, “How dare you ask
me my caste? Me? I am a Mumbaikar. One who fights for truth, dies for it, carries weapons on its behalf,
liberates Bharat, gives it power. Do you understand? Or do you want me to repeat myself? Sing to you the
ballad of our great deeds?” When his caste is finally revealed, he is beaten to within an inch of his life. Kashya
(Kashinath), a knife-carrying Dalit worker, rescues him and asks, “How could you have allowed those men to
beat you up like this?” The protagonist replies, “It wasn’t they who beat me. It was Manu.” The story
references a historical incident that goes back to the life of Babasaheb Ambedkar who also had to escape a
casteist mob in Baroda when his untouchable identity was revealed while he was staying at a Parsi guest
house. The story masterfully exposes the fact that caste is the main determinant for discrimination in India and
the superstructure of all social actions and interactions.

BABYTAI KAMBLE
The Prisons We Broke, is considered to be the first autobiography written by a dalit woman in Marathi
language. It is originally written in Marathi entitled as Jina Amucha. It was serialized in 1982 in a Marathi
women’s magazine and published as a book in 1986.
The book deals with the two major problems of the society: firstly, the oppression and exploitation of
the Dalit by the upper class: secondly, the discrimination towards women in a patriarchal society. In the
memoir, the retrospections of the author flow out profusely in beautiful colors. She talks about the life in her
village, called Veergaon. In her memory, the Maharwadas never had a prosperous life. On one side, ignorance
and lack of reasoning ruled them, on the other side, the Maharwadas life was dominated by poverty and
epidemics. Death rate was high because of the ceaseless starvation and lack of medical facilities for the fatal
epidemics. Moreover superstitions adorned their blindness.
Though Hindu Religion and gods considered Mahars as dirt, Mahar community upheld the Hindu
principles and they thought of gods with great sanctity. Potrajas, and possessed women are common in the
village. They never forget to give offerings to gods. Generations after generations Mahar community broke
their heads on the stones of Hindu temples with hopes. But the effect was curses. They cried at the feet of
idles with hopes. But the gods never heard them. They smeared kumkum and haldi on the gods. The possessed
women are greeted with respect. It is believed that they could speak about the future of the Maharwada, and
they could bless them with good wishes. So they often practiced the rituals that are taught by the same
religion which considered the Mahars as dirt.
12

Poverty was an unresolved problem among the Mahars. They were fated to eat left-overs. The stale bhakris,
and the rotten rotis were their common food. Upper caste considered them as the dirt in the garbage where
others throw away their waste materials. Mahars had to fight with the animals like cats, dogs and vultures for
their food. They were the masters of the dead animals. The upper caste Brahmins wiped away all the human
qualities from the Mahars and converted them into beasts. They were enclosed in dark cells, and their hands
and foot were in the chains of slavery. Mahars also valorize the prestige of Yeskar stick. And they thought that
it is their duty to work for their masters. They never had complaints. They lead a very satisfactory life. They ate
the leftovers and were content. They accepted their fate as part of their life. They considered themselves as
untouchables. For their hardships, and laborious work for their masters, they earned miseries and abuses as
remuneration. Even in their poverty stricken life, they never forgot to love each other and show kindness to
their fellowmen. Generations after generations, the Mahars served their masters very obediently. The upper
caste community threw abuses at the Mahars, if they did not fall at the feet of their masters, or if they did not
give the way to their masters when the masters came across in their way.
The condition of the Mahar women was miserable. They had to do all the house hold duties, and go
for selling wood to earn for their daily bread. They collected all the left overs from other places to give them to
their children. Most of the time women had to go on hunger unendingly. When a ritual comes, the work of the
women got doubled. They had to plaster their house with cow dung, and clean the utensils and the clothes.
Girls got married at the age of eight or nine. And they became pregnant at a very tender age which created a
lot of complications in their first delivery. They lead a very pathetic life in their husband’s home. If a girl could
not do the house hold duties, she was abused by her in-laws. She could not go back to her home also, in the
fear of scolding from her father and brothers.
The author talks about the influence of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in the memoir. Ambedkar was the light of
their life. He asked the Mahars to educate their children, and inspired them to fight against the atrocities. He
asked them not to give offerings to the gods who never cared about them. And he also asked them not to eat
the dead animals. Baby Kamble and her relatives actively participated in the revolutionary activities. She was
very much influenced by Ambedkar. She loved her father also. Her father often told not to work for money.
Money is not the ever valuable thing in the world. The value of money will go, when we become poor. But the
dignity that we earned in the course of our life will be there to support us. Money cannot always give us a
satisfaction to our life. Author and her relatives and some of her friends went to school. They were ill treated
by the teachers and others in the upper caste. But they managed to survive. Author is very much influenced by
the movie ‘Sati Savithri’. Ambedkar’s speech reverberated in the village, and the villagers reiterated his words.
We can also see an influence of Buddha in the text.
In the last part of her book Kamble talked about the responsibility of the present society. Even now
discrimination is not completely wiped out from our society. There are a lot of villages which should be
brought into the light of main stream. The educated people should work for them. Once, Baba Sahib worked
for the community. That is why the society got freedom. Now those who enjoy freedom should work to
unchain others. I, as a reader could hear another reformer’s sound in Baby Kamble’s voice. A new inspiration is
born out of her voice. Education, prosperity and comforts should not make us unaware of the problems of
13

society. We will have to utilize our faculties to support and guide others to the main stream, only then we can
enjoy the real value of our life.
It is to be noted that Kamble wrote in her spare time at the shop she ran with her husband for a living.
She was motivated by the anger she felt when she read the mythological representations of repression by
upper castes. An activist, she ran a residential school for socially backwards students in a village near Phaltan
in Maharashtra until her death in 2012.

AKHILA NAIK
Akhila Naik's Bheda (2010) has the distinction of being the first Odiya Dalit novel. It is set in remote villages of
the Kalahandi district in western Odisha mired in poverty, drought, famine, child trade, and malnutrition. The
novel traces the lives of the educated members of the Dalit community, who become conscious of their plight
and rise up in revolt. Threatened by the collective, the upper castes unite to take revenge on the Dalits and
their leader Laltu. After gruesome violence is inflicted on the community, the movement comes to an abrupt
end with the connivance of the state, the police, the media, and civil society at large. The word bheda means a
sense of difference. When used with the word bhaba (meaning existence in this context), it implies the
differences that exist among people in terms of caste, class, or race. It also means 'the target'. The title ties
together the multiple meanings of this word.

P SIVAKAMI
Formerly an IAS officer, Sivakami is a critically acclaimed Tamil writer. She is the author of four novels and a
collection of poems titled “Kadhavadaippu”. She also edits a monthly called “Pudhiya Kodangi”.
The Grip of Change is the English translation of Pazhaiyana Kazhithalum, the first full-length novel by
P. Sivakami, an important Tamil writer. This translation also features Asiriyar Kurippu, the sequel in which
Sivakami revisits her work. The protagonist of Book 1, Kathamuthu, is a charismatic Parayar leader. He
intervenes on behalf of a Parayar woman, Thangam, beaten up by the relatives of her upper caste lover.
Kathamuthu works the state machinery and the village caste hierarchy to achieve some sort of justice for
Thangam. The first Tamil novel by a Dalit woman, Pazhaiyana Kazhithalum, went beyond condemning caste
fanatics. Sivakami is critical of the Dalit movement and Dalit patriarchy, and yet does not become a ‘caste
traitor’ because of her participation in the search for solutions. The novel became an expression of Dalit
youth—eager and working for change. In Book 2, (Author’s Notes for The Grip of Change) Kathamuthu’s
daughter Gowri, the author of Book 1, traces the circumstances and events of her novel. The result is a
fascinating exploration of the disjunctures between what happens in the author’s family and community, and
her fictional interpretations of those happenings.
In The Taming of Women, as Anandhayi gives birth to her fifth child downstairs, with only her ancient
mother-in-law for help, upstairs her husband Periyannan sleeps with a woman he has summoned to spend the
night with him. Women of many generations live in that house at the end of the road, with the tyrannical and
charismatic Periyannan always trying to bring them under his control. Voracious in his appetites, for both
power and sex, Periyannan is a domineering antagonist to the tender but tenacious Anandhayi. In her most
14

celebrated novel, Sivakami vividly evokes a world where women and men are in constant conflict, scrambling
for the little power to which they can hold on. It is her superb satiric eye—capturing in comic vignettes of
exquisite detail the life of women in a village transforming into a small town—that brings relief to this bleak,
blistering vision of humanity, leaving the reader simultaneously amused and devastated.

OMPRAKASH VALMIKI
Born in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, Valmiki’s autobiography “Joothan” is one of his most popular
books. He is also the author of poetry collections such as “Sadiyon ka Santap” and “Bas Bahut ho Chuka” and
short story collections such as “Salam” and “Ghuspaithiye”.
Valmiki was born into the Chuhra caste (aka Bhangi), whose ordained job it was to sweep the roads,
clean the cattle barns, get shit off the floor, dispose off dead animals, work the fields during harvests, and
perform other physical labor for upper-caste people, including the Tyagi Brahmins. The Tyagis didn’t address
them by name, only called out, ‘Oe Chuhre’ or ‘Abey Chuhre.’ It was alright to touch cows and stray dogs but
touching a Chuhra inflicted instant ‘pollution’ on the Tyagis. During his boyhood, his entire family worked hard,
yet they ‘didn’t manage to get two decent meals a day,’ not the least because they often didn’t get paid for
their labor and instead ‘got sworn at and abused.’
The Chuhras were forced to live outside the village reserved for upper-caste people. A high wall and
a pond segregated their brick houses in the village from the Chuhra basti, or cluster of shanties. Upper-caste
men and women of all ages came out and used the edge of the pond as an open-air lavatory, squatting
across from the Chuhra homes in broad daylight with their private parts exposed. ‘There was muck strewn
everywhere,’ writes Valmiki. ‘The stench was so overpowering that one would choke within a minute. The
pigs wandering in narrow lanes, naked children, dogs, daily fights, this was the environment of my
childhood.’
In the rainy season, these narrow lanes of the basti filled up with muddy water mixed-in with pigs’
excrement; flies and mosquitoes thrived. Everybody’s arms and legs became mangy and developed itchy
sores. There was one drinking well in their basti for about thirty families, and despite a guard wall around it,
it became full of long worms during the rainy season. They had no choice but to drink that water, as they
were not permitted to use the well of the upper-caste folks. Their homes were made of clay that sprang
leaks all over. During heavy rains, the ceilings or walls often collapsed, as it did for Valmiki’s house more than
once. One season most of their homes collapsed; as always, there was no outside help or insurance, and they
had to rebuild on their own.
What Valmiki had going for him was a headstrong set of parents, determined to give him a better
future. In 1955, despite Gandhi’s work on ‘upliftment’ and the new anti-discrimination laws on the books, his
father had a hard time getting him admission into a primary school. When the boy finally got in, he was not
allowed to sit on the benches but on the floor, away from the upper-caste boys, at the back by the door,
from where he couldn’t see the blackboard well. Other boys hurled epithets and beat him casually, turning
him into a cowering introverted kid. Even the teachers looked for excuses to punish him, he writes, ‘so that I
would run away from the school and take up the kind of work for which I was born.’ In fourth grade, a new
15

headmaster arrived, who thrashed him almost daily and one day asked him to take a broom and sweep all
the rooms and the playground in school. The hapless boy spent two full days sweeping, hoping it would soon
be over.
As it turned out, his father was passing by that day and saw him sweeping the grounds. Sobbing and
overcome by hiccups, the boy told him the story. Father snatched the broom and with eyes blazing, began to
scream, ‘Who is that teacher, that progeny of Dronacharya, who forces my son to sweep?’ [1] All the teachers
stepped out, including the headmaster, who called his father names and roared back, ‘Take him away from
here … The Chuhra wants him educated … Go, go … Otherwise I will have your bones broken.’
On his way out, his father declared in a loud voice, ‘I am leaving now … but this Chuhre ka will study
right here … In this school. And not just him, but there will be more coming after him.’ His father’s courage
and fortitude left a deep and decisive mark on the boy’s personality. His father knocked on the doors of
other upper-caste men he had worked for, hoping they would support him against the headmaster, but the
response was the opposite. He was plainly told: ‘What is the point of sending him to school?’ ‘When has a
crow become a swan?’ ‘Hey, if he asked a Chuhra’s progeny to sweep, what is the big deal in that?’ When his
father had all but given up, one village elder yielded to his tearful beseeching and intervened to get the boy
reinstated. A close call, else he would have ended up illiterate like the rest of his family.
Most of his family worked at harvest time. For a hard day’s labor, which included harvesting lentils,
cutting sheaves of wheat in the midday sun, and transporting them via bullock carts, each person got one
out of 21 parts produced—about two pounds of wheat—as wages. For the rest of their labor in the cowshed,
they got paid in grain and a leftover roti each day (‘made by mixing the flour with the husk since it was for
the chuhras’), and at times scraps of leftovers from their employer’s plates, or joothan.
The Hindi word joothan, explains Mukherjee, ‘literally means food left on an eater’s plate, usually
destined for the garbage pail in a middle class, urban home. However, such food would only be characterized
‘joothan’ if someone else besides the original eater were to eat it. The word carries the connotations of ritual
purity and pollution as ‘jootha’ means polluted.’ Words like ‘leftovers’ and ‘leavings’ don’t substitute well,
‘scraps’ and ‘slops’ work better, though ‘they are associated more with pigs than with humans.’ Joothan is
also unfit for consumption by anyone in the eater’s family or in his own community. Mukherjee writes:
The title encapsulates the pain, humiliation and poverty of Valmiki’s community, which not only had
to rely on joothan but also relished it. Valmiki gives a detailed description of collecting, preserving
and eating joothan. His memories of being assigned to guard the drying joothan from crows and
chickens, and of his relishing the dried and reprocessed joothan burn him with renewed pain and
humiliation in the present.
The word actually carries a lot of historical baggage. Both Ambedkar and Gandhi advised
untouchables to stop accepting joothan. Ambedkar, an indefatigable documenter of atrocities against
Dalits [and an ‘untouchable’ himself], shows how the high caste villagers could not tolerate the fact
that Dalits did not want to accept their joothan anymore and threatened them with violence if they
refused it.
16

Valmiki describes one such incident, among the most powerful in the text. His community looked forward
to marriage feasts in the village when they would gather outside with big baskets. After the guests had
eaten, ‘the dirty pattals, or leaf plates, were put in the Chuhras’ baskets, which they took home, to save the
joothan sticking to them.’ At the end of one such marriage feast, Valmiki’s mother requested the Brahmin
host for additional food for her children, only to be humiliated and told to mind her place, be satisfied with
what she already had collected, and to get going. Valmiki writes:
That night the Mother Goddess Durga entered my mother’s eyes. It was the first time I saw my
mother so angry. She emptied the basket right there. She said to Sukhdev Singh, ‘Pick it up and put it
inside your house. Feed it to the baratis [marriage guests] tomorrow morning.’ She gathered me and
my sister and left like an arrow. Sukhdev Singh had pounced on her to hit her, but my mother had
confronted him like a lioness. Without being afraid.
His family fell on even harder times when his oldest brother and wage earner got a high fever, and without
access to a clinic, died. Valmiki had finished fifth grade but their deepening poverty—they didn’t even have
enough food—meant that he could not continue with school. He dropped out and began tending buffaloes in
the field, watching with a heavy heart his schoolmates going to school. Over the protests of others, his
brother’s widow pawned the only piece of jewelry she had, a silver anklet, to pay for Valmiki’s school—yet
another close call.
Back in school, Valmiki continued to face severe discrimination. Though he consistently did well in his
studies, his memories of school are suffused with pain and humiliation: from taunts and beatings by
schoolmates and teachers in a ‘terror-filled environment’, to his exclusion from extracurricular activities like
school plays; during exams, he was not allowed to drink water from a glass when thirsty. He had to cup his
hands, and ‘the peon would pour water from way high up, lest our hands touch the glass.’ At times, he
writes, ‘I feel I have grown up in a cruel and barbaric civilization.’ He does remember fondly a couple of boys
who befriended him and didn’t let caste come between them.
Remarkably enough, Valmiki was determined to make full use of the school library; by the time he
reached eighth grade, he had read Saratchandra, Premchand, and Rabindranath Tagore, and relates this
poignant vignette.
I had begun to read novels and short stories to my mother in the faint light of the wick lamp. Who
knows how often Saratchandra’s characters have made a mother and son cry together? This was the
beginning of my literary sensibility. Starting from Alha, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to Sur
Sagar, Prem Sagar, Premchand’s stories, Kissa Tota Maina … whatever I found, I, the son of an
untouchable illiterate family, read to my mother.
He studied in the light of a lantern in his intensely noisy neighborhood. ‘I was the first student of my caste,’
writes Valmiki, ‘not just from my basti but from all the surrounding villages of the area, appearing for the
high school exams,’ and he felt the pressure that came from their pride in him. His graduation became an
occasion for a feast in his community. He remembers that even one of the Tyagi Brahmins came to
his basti to offer congratulations, and later took him home and fed him lunch in their own dishes while
17

sitting next to him. Valmiki’s example inspired other children to show more interest in education, and for a
while he even ran evening classes in his basti.

SHARANKUMAR LIMBALE
Sharankumar Limbale is a Marathi language author, poet and literary critic. He has penned more than 40
books, but is best known for his autobiography Akkarmashi (originally published in Marathi 1984), translated
with the title The Outcaste (translated in 2003). His critical work Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit
Literature (2004) is considered amongst the most important works on Dalit literature.
The Outcaste (that is Akkarmashi) is his autobiography, published at the age of twenty five. Two
voices are prominently audible in The Outcaste - one is the collective (group) voice of the Dalits expressing
their protest; other is that of Limbale himself who reveals his inner trauma through his work. He is the
‘ostracized’ son of an ostracized community (Mahar). The very title of the autobiography is symbolic of his
plight. Pure gold is described as ‘baramashi’. When it is impure, it is ‘Akkarmashi’. It is true that the title of the
autobiography must be interesting but Akkarmashi is an abuse. Can an abuse be the title of an autobiography?
In the author’s note, Limbale says,
My history is my mother’s life, at the most my grandmother’s. My ancestry does not go back any
further. My mother is an untouchable, while my father is a high caste one from the privileged classes
of India. Mother lives in a hut, father in a mansion. Father is a landlord; mother, landless. I am an
Akkarmashi, branded illegitimate.
He has lived the life of an untouchable, as a half caste, and as an impoverished man. High caste people looked
upon his community as untouchables, while his own community humiliated him by calling him ‘Akkarmashi’. As
a result he had to live with the burden of inferiority. This feeling and insult is like the ‘ever oozing wound of
Aswathama.’ He confesses, “Gaav, bhasha, aai, vadil, jaat, dharma, ya sarva babatit me dubhanglela,
vyaktimatva haravalela.” (I was a split and lost personality as far as town, language, mother and father, caste,
and religion are concerned.)
Due to the peculiar circumstances of his birth, he could identify himself with Karna. He writes, “With
my first cry at birth, milk must have splashed from the breasts of every Kunti.” He accepts, “I was growing like
Karna in the Mahabharata” (p. 37). On being asked who his father was and how was he related to his step-
sisters, his mother clammed up like Kunti. He says bitterly, “At such moments I felt a kinship with Karna. I felt
we were brothers. Many times I felt I was Karna myself because, like him, I too was drifting with the flow of
the river” (p. 60). Continuing the use of the same trope further, at another place, the author, at the age of
twenty-five declares in a very philosophical and metaphorical manner that he does not recognize his own
father or brothers. They are all alive. He may not know them even if we happened to travel in the same bus.
“That’s what this journey of life is like. Our eyes are blind folded and we wander not knowing where,
like Dhritrashtra and Gandhari or Karna and Kunti or Eklavya and Ashwathama. On the battlefield of
life we fight our own fathers, uncles, sisters, brothers, and mothers. We battle with ourselves as if we
are our own enemies. All this is because we are controlled by caste (p. 91).
18

He comments at another place that life is a battlefield where in we fight our own kindred. We battle with
ourselves as if we are our own enemies. All this is because we are controlled by caste. He adds, “We are the
vanquished. We are fighting another battle against convention. Though we may be defeated in this, there will
be yet another battle in which we never surrender” (p. 92). In his autobiography, he has also mentioned the
Dalit Panthers movement, the movement for the renaming of Marathwada University and its aftermath.
In Hindu: a Novel, focusing on what happens in a village where dalits are assertive, Limbale reveals
the shocking violence of everyday life. Hindu’s propelling event is the murder of Tatya Kamble, a dalit theatre
artist whose folk theatre talks of a different world where dalits abandon fear and deference to resist and gain
social justice. The plot and narration are unconventional. There is neither an all-absorbing love story nor a
hero. The first person narrative, full of self-recrimination and self-justification, is followed by an omniscient
narration, which brings about a kaleidoscopic effect. Through multiple juxtapositions and characters’ voices,
we experience the many layered nature of events as these unfold and reach the public domain. The novel also
shows the horse-trading that catapults the high caste supported Dalit candidate into the minister’s chair.
Dramatic and matter of fact, Limbale brings issues that India grapples with in its search for becoming a
modern nation based on equality.
Baburao Bagul’s work, Dalit Sahityache Krantivigyan (roughly translates as “Revolutionary Science of
Dalit Literature”) was one of the first and brilliant attempts to provide theory to Dalit literature. Being his
predecessor in this domain of theory making, Sharankumar Limbale broadened the scope of such
attempts. Limbale’s biggest contribution to Dalit literature is his book, Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature:
History, Controversies and Considerations (2004). Limbale opines that it is impossible for a non-Dalit to write
Dalit Literature as this Literature is the product of Dalit consciousness that is shaped by the lived experiences
of Dalit, peppered by their pain, suffering and feeling of rebellion and anger. A non-Dalit cannot possibly
imagine all of this and be able to write an authentic account on the Dalits. Dalit literature being a revolutionary
form of literature does not adhere to traditional principles of aesthetics. In the Marathi literature, emphasis is
put on the idea of beauty due to which pleasure is cited as the foremost aesthetic value. Pleasure is said to be
native to Marathi Savarna literature while pain is said to belong to Dalit literature.

KANCHA ILIAH
Kancha Ilaiah, who now refers to himself symbolically as Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, is an Indian political theorist,
writer and activist for Dalit rights. He writes in both English and Telugu.
Important books:
• Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Sudra critique of Hindutva philosophy, culture and political economy
(Calcutta: Samya, 1996)
• Ilaiah, K. Buffalo Nationalism: A Critique of Spiritual Fascism (Calcutta: Samya, 2004)

MONORANJAN BYAPARI
Byapari was an “active” Naxalite in those bloody, turbulent days of Kolkata’s history, at odds with the CPM and
its power structures. A teenaged refugee from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), Byapari “escaped” the
19

destitution of his shanty in Kolkata and headed to north Bengal’s Siliguri. The agrarian revolt that flared up in
nearby Naxalbari in 1967 drew Byapari like a moth to the Naxalite movement’s egalitarian dream. “We were
trained in handling pipeguns and minor weapons. Our enemies were small industrialists and businessmen,” he
says of the time when he returned to Kolkata in 1970. “One day, a childhood friend, who was a CPM worker,
was killed by Naxals. I saw his body and became disillusioned. Instead of reaching the capitalists, we were
killing our own poor people and home guards,” he says. The Naxalite phase of his life found gripping literary
form in his 2013 novel Batashe Baruder Gondho (There is Gunpowder in the Air, 2018)
A chance meeting with Mahasweta Devi opened up a new life for him. Hearing of the rickshaw-puller’s interest
in reading, she invited him to write for her Bengali journal, Bartika. Rickshaw Chalai (I Pull A Rickshaw) became
Byapari’s first published piece of writing in 1981. Since 1981, Byapari has authored a dozen novels and over a
hundred short stories, apart from non-fiction essays. Itibritte Chandal Jiban (Interrogating my Chandal life : An
Autobiography of a Dalit), the autobiographical novel that won him the coveted West Bengal Sahitya Akademi
Award, is cited as an exemplary illustration of Bengal’s Dalit and working-class life. “The author of Itibritte
Chandal Jiban is an amazing discovery for me,” writer-activist Mahasweta Devi had written in a collection of
scholarly writing on Byapari published this March, titled Nana Chokhye Manoranjan Byapari. “Manoranjan is
not merely a ‘Dalit’ writer. He is an icon of another generation—alive, dissenting, and a symbol of hope and
aspiration of ordinary people,” says Mahasweta Devi in the preface.

G. KALYAN RAO
Dalit conversion to Christianity has a long history, predating Dr Ambedkar’s call for conversion in 1935. The
contexts of conversion are many; however, the strong urge among Dalits to escape the oppressive,
dehumanizing socio-spiritual condition remains the chief motive. The colonial administration, and even before
that, the missionaries, were the first to make interventions in the lives of the Dalits, providing access to
education, employment, healthcare, and mobility. Consequently many Dalits converted to Christianity en
masse. However, post conversion, they became “doubly marginalized” both in terms of caste and religion.
Several attacks on Dalit Christians in colonial as well as post-independence India illustrate these two bases of
victimization. A few writers, such as Bama, Imayam, and Raj Gouthaman, have attempted to explore the lived
experience of Dalit Christians with a focus on caste within the Catholic Church. Kalyan Rao’s Telugu
novel Antarani vasantham (Untouchable Spring) published in 2000 is the first novel that seriously engages with
the complex of Dalit conversions and in an epic fashion explores the lived experience and struggle of Telugu
Dalits and Dalit Christians in history from the colonial times to the present.