HYDERABAD: Modelled along the lines of Black history month, April has been designated as Dalit history month. The idea is to present an alternative history from the dominant upper caste narratives, celebrate resistance and resilience and to commemorate the life and struggle of leaders such as Jyotirao Phule and Bhim Rao Ambedkar who fought for Dalit liberation, as thier birth anniversaries also fall in this month.
According to an article written by K Purushotham, Professor, Kakatiya University, Dalit narrative in Telugu literature can be traced back to 300 years even though it wasn’t known by the same name. He writes, “While oral Telugu literature dates back 1,500 years, written Telugu Dalit literature goes back hardly 300 years though it was not necessarily known by the same nomenclature.
It may be traced back to the 17th century saint poet Potuluri Veerabrahmam, a sudra social reformer who used to go through Dalit wadas (settlements) educating the people against caste and untouchability. Hymns written and sung by him and his disciples were popular among Dalits. Another significant writer in this lineage was the saint poet, Yogi Vemana, a non-brahmin, who wrote simple verse on various forms of superstitions and evil practices including caste and untouchability.”
In the last three decades, new emerging trends within literary cultures in India also included Dalit writings. Especially in undivided Andhra Pradesh, they flowed from B R Ambedkar’s ideas, questioned the left ideologies and condemned caste hierarchies.
“However, even today caste goes wherever we go,” says Telugu writer Pasunoori Ravinder, whose anthology of short stories, “Out of Coverage Area” won Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2015. Hailing from a poor family of daily wage workers in Warangal, he was influenced by the left in his youth but soon realised that caste hierarchies were ignored even after 100 years of left presence in the country. “There was a paradigm shift in the understanding of oppression of marginalised communities and there were people who realised that caste stuck wherever you go,” he said.
According to him, caste discrimination is a part of everyday lives of Dalits. “Think of real estate, when a non upper caste person goes to buy a house, they are generally posed with the question of being a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian, as a way to identify one’s caste,” he said.
Talking about Telugu literature, he said, “a lot of literature came from condemning the Karamchedu and Chunduru massacres. In the 90s, the Dalit literary scenario changed completely, with many legendary writers and poets such as Sivasagar, Kalekuri Prasad, Madduri Nagesh Babu and many more voicing their opinions for the cause of social justice.”
Shedding further light on the importance of covering Dalit narratives, translators of G. Kalyan Rao’s “Untouchable Spring”, Alladi Uma and M. Sridhar said, “It is imperative to bring out the voices of those who have not been allowed to speak. History is not just of those in power. There are perspectives we have not been exposed to. We need them now more than at any time.”
“The Dalit women’s literature began as a reaction against both the “left” and mainstream women’s movements. Dalit women writers also took strong exception to the use of language not only by men from the uppercastes (like the mainstream feminist movement), but also by their Dalit male counterparts. Apart from the theme of protest against their oppressors, their has been an emphasis in Dalit literature on the need to go back to the roots of their own history and culture,” added Alladi Uma.
On being asked what position Dalit literature holds vis-a-vis the canon, the translators replied, “There are writers like Gurram Joshua who have been accepted by the mainstream perhaps due to his writing in the metrical form. A more contemporary writer like Sikhamani may have been appropriated because he began in the “anubhuti” (experiential) mode of mainstream Telugu writing.
At least there is a mention of some Dalit male writers in literary histories. Dalit women writers have had to wait for their being noticed till Gogu Syamala and Joopaka Subhadra (themselves Dalit women writers) brought out anthologies of Dalit women’s writing. There are innumerable other voices waiting to be retrieved and recognised. The yardstick used to assess mainstream writing cannot be used to evaluate Dalit writing.”
As non-Dalit translators, they said that the pain and anguish of Dalits expressing their lives may be alien to them but they have made attempts to “read, talk to people, sit with the writers to grapple with their narratives. For example, Urumula dance that G. Kalyana Rao talks about in his novel, Untouchable Spring; intricacies of tanning of cattle skin in the short story Oora bavi (Village Well) by Kolakaluri Enoch; experiences that Subhadra talks about of sharing food with her uppercaste counterparts in her workplace as in her short story titled How are you Veg? are just a few instances where there is a need for the upper caste translators to be extra sensitive to the cultural specificities of Dalit life,” they added.
They further added that the reception of Dalit writing has come a long way from what it was in the early 1990s. “Kalyana Rao’s Untouchable Spring has been prescribed in the undergraduate program of Delhi University. Joopaka Subhadra’s book, How are You Veg won the Laadli award for gender sensitivity. Yet, much more recognition of Dalit narratives is due.
We have taught courses exclusively on Dalit writing at Hyderabad university, courses on Dalit and black literatures, and carried out research as well as supervised research on Dalit literature. The issue of English in the education of Dalits has recently emerged as an important theme in the context of Dalit studies,” the translators said. English in the Dalit Context is a book of critical essays edited by Alladi Uma, K. Suneetha Rani and D. Murali Manohar. “There is a growing need to strengthen critical discourse in the area of Dalit studies,” they said.