Week 6 - Sirgapoor Sahil Reddy

DALIT LITERATURE READING SUMMARIES WEEK 6

“DALIT”- A NEW CONTEXT FOR AN OLD MARATHI WORD

Sirgapoor Sahil Reddy

20161245

BA LLB Section A

By the 1970s there were two major movements of the Dalit’s that gained prominence in the English language press, which was named the Dalit Panthers and Dalit Literature.

Three specific phases of the Dalit movement can be identified in the present century; first, proto-Dalit activism (1900-1930), second, the emergence and consolidation of Ambedkarite paradigms (1930-1972); third, the birth of the Dalit movement, which begins with the birth of Dalit panther’s movement of Maharashtra in 1972.

 Initially it was a “social movement”- a voice to express the concerns of the Dalits in the community.  Here the community in the question itself is partly newly invented and mobilized to influence the shape and course of the historical change. This process also involved the cultural politics of renaming several untouchable castes which mobilized themselves by bonding over a common memory out of their real and existential experiences. Maharashtra-an Aryan cum Dravidian land- was the first to witness an anti-caste movement of Jyotiba Phule and then came to the Dalit movement of Ambedkar.

Dalit Literature artistically portrays the penury, oppression, slavery and degradation endured by the Dalits. This form of literature generally addresses the themes of “I the victim” rather than “I the achiever”. The idea of the equal worth of all people was widely expressed, but social conditions did not change. There were revolutionary transformations in the lives of the nation, society and individuals due to the consciousness of such humanistic values as equality, liberty, fraternity and justice. Yet, at the same time, sentiments of pain and revolt were also kindled because of dissatisfaction with an inequitable system.