A NEW HORIZON IN DALIT WRITING
Patriarchy and the Dalit idiom were discussed at the Sahitya Akademi’s first event with Dalit poets writing in English
In the summer of 1976, the rape and murder of a young woman in Karnataka’s Kolar district sent shockwaves through the state. The victim belonged to the impoverished community of potters, classified as OBC (Other Backward Class) in the state, and the family had little resources to survive, let alone fight for justice. But in the gloom was sown the seeds of a new movement. A poem penned by the Kannada poet Kotiganahalli Ramaiah started galvanizing Dalit and OBC communities against the crime, and in demanding dignity for women from marginalised groups. His poem travelled orally from village to village as women threaded the verses into a tune. The dirge became a part of the community’s cultural history and sparked a statewide struggle.
For centuries, Dalit writing has occupied a wide expanse, stretching from oral histories, verses in little-known languages, songs that were never written down but passed down generations, to couplets, and what we today understand as canonical literature. But as society and experiences of caste rapidly mould themselves into new forms, new writers are taking centre stage, challenging the collective understanding of the normative gaze in literature. Five such writers came together on July 17 at the Sahitya Akademi in Delhi for the body’s first-ever event featuring Dalit poets writing in English. Between them, Chandramohan S, Aruna Gogulamanda, Cynthia Stephen, Aparna Lanjewar Bose and Yogesh Maitreya displayed not just diversity of themes but also of locations and style – and embodied a new generation of Dalit writing in India.
“There has been a paradigm shift in the newer generation of poets. A growing number of young people from our communities have entered universities, literary and art spheres, and been subjected to newer forms of discrimination and bias. Their experience of social exclusion is unique,” explained Stephen.
Gogulamanda says her writing feels inspired by Dalit women, who often find themselves erased from history and the canon. “Patriarchy is the biggest evil Dalit women face, the base even for caste discrimination. The torture I faced made me understand the vulnerability of Dalit women, and that’s what I write.”
Chandramohan started writing poetry during the nationwide churn that followed the December 16, 2012 gang rape in Delhi. The poet from Kerala is now a part of the prestigious International Writing Programme at the University of Iowa. “Being Ambedkarite, one politicizes onself, and the literature we produce prevents anyone from reverting to the Brahmanical status quo.”
Dalit writing in India has often thrived away from the focus of the so-called mainstream industry in metropolises – the hundreds of small publishers and stalls that throng every celebration of Ambedkar’s birth or death anniversary stand testimony to the resilience and reach of small booklets and novels of anti-caste literature. These new writers are aware of this legacy and are intent on taking this forward – in English.
To write about Dalit literature is a paradox in itself – the marking of an author as Dalit is simultaneously assertion and exclusion. “We know which communities control English publication in India, and favour writing that meets their sensibilities. But when we write in English, our expression is the same but our language is different, just like Dhasal changed Marathi from a Brahmanical language through his poems,” he says.
Maitreya admits to the contradictions but argues that engagement with English and the urban audience is necessary. “We are in the city, our realities are different. But wherever you go, caste goes with you. I say I am a poet writing in English. But people say I am a Dalit poet.”
This is why, he adds, Dalit communities need to mould language. As Chandramohan says, poetry is a possibility to build a new world.