Abstract:
Each and every inquiry begins with simple questions and this study is not an exception to that. It is astonishing that a vast literary body which changed not only the literary but also the socio-political dimensions of our country in the past four decades remains neglected in India as well as in the West. Dalit literature has all the potentialities to be a global literature and the part of what is called the Indian English Literature. The revolutionary attitude of the poetic spirit and the reformative zeal differentiate this genre of poetry from the other poetic genre. Because of its revolting aesthetic formulae, the Marathi Dalit poets are presenting the history of Dalit consciousness with a hidden ironical tone. The age old social injustices and the ‘reductive’ neo-colonial trends serve as the main elements of the dominant discourse of the class-structured society to exploit the ‘possibilities’ of the Dalit literature. This paper would employ the ‘minor’ literary theory of Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to show the change of poetic aesthetic tradition in Marathi Dalit poems.
Key Words: Revolution, Neo-colonial, Reductive Criticism, Possibility, Minor Literature
The political and social bitter experiences throughout the generations and the dirty works given to them, made the Dalit poets write about their plight. So, in their case, poetry is not merely the ‘passion’ rather it is the ‘passion of cry’. As Mulk Raj Anand in ‘Some Words by Way of Preface to Dalit Poems’ in An Anthology of Dalit Literature wrote— “The process of poetry arising out of the cry can be felt in most Dalit poems, because in these utterances protest seems to come from the insulted and the injured, who have laboured for generations for the superiors, their hands have become with dirty works. One can take almost any Dalit poem and feel the cry rhythm arising from itself.” (Anand xi) The origin of this ‘cry’ was in the pages of unwritten history of India, in the tyrannical but unreasonable Brahmnic history of oppression on the ‘Dalit’. But after the independence of India, the oppressed people did not remain in the same position they used to be in before. The undistinguished un-Brahmnic masses got to know that there was something formed by the Indian government—Indian Constitution which provides the right of every person equally. They did not want to remain as the ‘anonymous’ blur faces to the upper-class and to the world—they wished to express their own identity. As it is evident in Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature by Sharankumar Limbale (translated by Aloke Mukherjee)— “Common people began to understand the language of entitlements and rights due to the emergence of a democratic form of government. They felt that independence had set them free. Independence brought hope that all the issues facing the Indian people would be resolved. However, with time, the problems increased. Unemployment, poverty, growing population, communal conflicts, corruption in public life, the din of the Hindutva forces, and the ever threatening spectre of famine led to a loss of popular faith in independence and saw the beginning of mass movements to seek redress for the various injustices.” (Limbale 23)
But there is a vast ‘gap’ between the production and the reception of the Dalit literature. It is because they have for decades been considered as the mere documentation of the abominable social status of the Dalits, or in the words of Foucault—‘monument’ (Foucault 2007). The poets are the most neglected among them. The aesthetic values of their works have so often been despised for their political propaganda; although in attaining their revolutionary cry, the politicized reality is merely needed than the ‘aesthetics’ of their poetry. In this way, they are ‘deconstructing’ the ‘emotional overflow of powerful feelings’ in the similar vein of Martin Heidegger’s criticism of ‘aesthetics’. Jacques Ranciere in ‘The Politics of Literature’ remarks in the same tradition—“literature actually does politics.” (Ranciere 3) Arun Prabha Mukherjee in her Introduction to Om Prokash Valmiki’s Joothan elucidates the similar notions— “dominant discourse of postcolonial and subaltern theories does not only refuse to the high caste status of these writers but presents them as resistant vices, representing the position of the colonized.” (Mukherjee 2003. Xiii)
Evidently, although Dalit literature was one of the post independence Indian literature, its intention and objectives were marked for and towards the social justices to the Dalits. So, Dalit poetry’s ‘cry’ was coming from sorrows, tribulations, slavery, degradation, ridicule and poverty endured by Dalits. Lofty treatment of ‘grief’ which is ‘Historically Objective’ and eventually ‘subjective’ is the theme of this kind of poetry as they were seeking the equal rights and the equal distribution of anything in this world ‘Deconstructing’ the age-old tradition of deprivation as described in Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature by Sharankumar Limbale— “Every human being must find liberty, honour, security, and freedom from intimidation by the powerful elements of society. These values are now being articulated in a particular kind of literature—its name being Dalit Literature. Recognizing the centrality of the human being, this literature is thoroughly saturated with humanity’s joys and sorrows. It regards human beings as supreme, and leads them towards total revolution.” (Limbale 30)
Revolt is the later stage of suffering and rejection. Their anguish was not ‘subjective’ but ‘objective’ telling and recounting the voices of collective masses. Their own experiences in the different fields of life were gushing up from the revolting force into the empty pitcher of their life. So, a strong revolutionary attitude and a heinous social commitment are the ‘purposes’ in writing this kind of poetry as recounted in Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature by Sharankumar Limbale— “ Revolt is the stage that follows anguish and rejection. ‘I am human, I must receive all the rights of a human being’—such is the consciousness that gives birth to this revolt. Born from unrestrained anguish, this explosive rejection and piercing revolt is like a flood, with its aggressive character and an insolent rebellious attitude.”(Limbale 31) This rebellious attitude can be traced back in different poet’s recounting of their experience in their collection of poetry. Their focus was on the ‘Humanitarian Propaganda’—thinking man as man—not as superior or inferior in terms of a vague and unproductive manuscript and institutional tradition of the past; instead their opinions were opinionated on the humanitarian and reformative thoughts and principles of Ambedkar, Mahatma Phule and later with Buddha illustrated in Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature by Sharankumar Limbale— “They mark a rebellion against overbearing religion and tradition, as well as hypocrisy masquerading under seductive names such as freedom or democracy. They express the pain of human beings who are not treated as human. They demonstrated respect for the Buddhist value of treating humans as humans. And they nurture the feeling of unending gratitude towards Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and Mahatma Phule.” (Limbale 32)
The spoken but unheard voices and their consciousness, although neglected for a long time, are now being considered as the groundbreaking Indian or International radical and progressive literature. Especially after independence, the Dalit people were becoming aware of the fact that they are Dalit or oppressed. For the growth of this consciousness, there were multidimensional activities. For instance, there were ‘tries’ for expressing the voices and making themselves educated with the European advanced learning and recounting their own ‘pathetic experience’ of being a Dalit with the help of those enlightenment and knowledge. As a result of the growing Dalit consciousness ‘Radical Group Formations’ such as ‘Dalit Panthers’ become the platforms of ‘thought-exchange’ which is necessary in any culture to be rich and progressive. The consequence was the ‘negotiation and renegotiation’ with the so called ‘Centre’, which at last was leading the Dalit Revolution towards forming ‘Other Centre’ which is different from the dominating ‘Centre’ and which is ‘Symbolic’ in its Nature. Thus, the process of making the ‘Margin’ or ‘Subaltern Space’ a ‘Symbolic Centre’ – ‘Produces’, ‘Creates’ and ‘Reaffirms’ new identities for the Dalits instead of ‘expressing’ their traditional untouchable identities. This gave birth to a ‘New Movement’ in India—the birth of a ‘New Community’ and ‘New Social Formation’; although they were not new in this society—but their revolutionary move moved them away from their ‘Old Rusted Identity’.
This revolutionary and committing stance of the Dalit poets is evident in their poems. Also their striving for the attainment of the ‘Symbolic Centre’ is found in the lines. Let us have a look on some of the poems of some great and reputed Marathi Dalit poets.
Hira Bansode’s poem ‘Bosom Friend’ depicts the encounter of the two bosom friends—the poet’s friend from the upper caste Hindu and the poet is from the Dalit community. The poet invited his friend in his own house for a dinner—
“Today you came over to dinner for the first time
You not only came, you forgot your caste and came
Usually women don’t forget that tradition of inequality
But you came with a mind large as the sky to my pocket
Size house.” (Bansode 1)
The poet thought that she had forgotten all the binaries of caste and creed and felt supremely happy—
“You came bridging the chasm that divides us
Truly, friend, I was really happy.” (Bansode 1)
Then the poet went on arranging the best possible food and playing the meekest possible host. But when she got a glimpse of the dishes, she was became shocked with disgrace because it was on the plate the food of the Dalit people and the manners in which the dishes were served did not comply with ‘her’ upper class tradition—
“But the moment you looked at the plate, your face
Changed.
With a little smirk you said Oh My—Do you serve chutney-
Koshimbir this way?
You still don’t know how to serve food
Truly, you folk will never improve.” (Bansode 1)
The poet desired for the utopia. It was the ‘dream’ of the Dalit community for a long time from the past to become equal with the non Dalit people of India. It became the key-factor for them to live and exist. It sometimes got the real but artificial touch in their dream when the person like the poet's friend came to dine with the person like the poet. But the dream did not last so long as ‘she’ again brought back the ‘chasm’ between them and for that the poet felt sorry and ashamed—
I was ashamed, really ashamed
My hands which had just touched the sky was knocked
Down. (Bansode 1)
And it is clear from the break- down of the dream that that dream was achieved through a list of visions. It gave the poet the impression that the people of his community will never be able to parallel the main-folk. The traditional richness of the Dalits’ custom of ‘food serving’ meant nothing to them. But the question is why is this kind of ‘judgemental’ attitude towards a community’s tradition and customs? What it may be, it is their own and particularly their own. The attack did continue as before—‘she’ was complaining of not having served ‘buttermilk’ at the end of the meal—
“What’s this? Don’t you serve buttermilk or yogurt with
The last course of rice?
Oh My Dear, we can’t do without that...” (Bansode 2)
The poet had to be in ‘silence’ because ‘silence’ had been the only language his community enjoying for the centuries—
“I was silent....
I was sad, then numb.” (Bansode 2)
But the age old tradition of remaining silent was gone. He broke the barrier of silence and tried to enjoy the world of voice. With the hidden irony which is the main weapon of the Dalit poets, he depicts the situation in a funny manner—
“So my memories swan up in my mind...
You know, in my childhood we didn’t even have milk for
Tea much less yogurt or buttermilk
My mother cooked on sawdust she brought from the
Lumberyard wiping away the smoke from her eyes...
Dear Friend Shrikand was not even a word in our
Vocabulary.” (Bansode 2)
Thus, like all the other Dalit voices the poet here took resort to the ‘memories’ oh his early days and to get back in search for the voice within them. Then the poet was fully convinced that the gap between him and his Friend will never be bridged because the long tradition of being on the upper level and oppressing the Dalits can never be left by the community of his Friend—
“Dear Friend—you have not discarded your tradition
Its roots go deep in your mind.” (Bansode 3)
This is clearly a ‘Reductive’ tendency—which reduces the ‘differences’—the possibility within the culture and literature of Dalit people. It needs a new way of thinking leaving the opinionative and reductive generalizing tendency— as viewed by Gilles Deleuzein ‘Why Philosophy?’ They would ‘enact’ and ‘create’ a new possibility or thought of their identity—for their power lies in being open and expansive. (Deleuze 4) It is clear that the ‘rejection’ of their tradition did not make the poet happy. It enforces in him a kind of kinetic energy full of empowered enthusiasm and vigour. Clearly this matter is seen in his questioning of the rules of ‘centre’—the main-stream—
“Today the arrangement of food on your plate was not
Properly ordered
Are you going to tell me what mistakes I made?
Are you going to tell me my mistakes?” (Bansode 3)
Pralhad Chenwankar’s poems are infused with the materials of aggressive rebel forces. The poet in the short but impregnated poem ‘Empty Advice’ recounts the experiences of a Dalit person in order to get a glass or mouthful of water; indirectly ruminating the earlier experiences of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar—he was not given to drink water from the same well from where all the other students of the upper caste used to drink water. The poet, thus, is telling that the societal dimension of our country demands from the Dalits ‘a pot of blood’ for ‘a swallow of water’—
“This country which demands
A pot of blood
For a swallow of water.” (Chenwankar 1)
He questions that if such is the condition then how can the poet call this country his own?
“How can I call it mine
Though it gave the world
The (empty) advice of peace?” (Chenwankar 1)
Certainly it is their country also. The Dalits also live in this country where there is running the biggest democracy on the planet. But why is this discrimination then? Democracy does not support the unequal distribution of facilities among its people. Here, there is a contradiction between democracy and the condition of Dalits in India. Indian societal framework was created by the Brahmins and they got the supremacy over the Dalit culture and in every respects of their life. But even after the seventy four years of the establishment of democracy in India, this condition of the Dalits did not change at all. Thus, the Dalits could not put up with the idea that this country is theirs also.
Critics of different hues interpret this matter in this way that the ‘Nationalism’ in India is not supported and is not being complied with the notion of Dalits’ failure to comply with the idea of Indian Nationalism. But for this harsh criticism it is to say that Dalits were not anti-national. They are revolting against the deprivation this society gives upon them continuously. Their purpose was not to break the unity and fraternal bond of India. They were not violating India’s ‘Nationhood’. In fact, they were trying to establish an ‘orderly nationhood’ through their proposal of ‘real democracy’ and ‘Nationalism’ with the vehicles of ‘Equality’ and ‘social justice’ by means of the demolition of caste and untouchability.
So, it is clear that their ‘cry’ of negating this country to be their own does not mean any kind of activity of forming ‘band organization’—rather they wanted to cling close to this country by effacing from her surface all the social injustices. Thus, their refusal to think of their country as their own comes from a deep dissatisfaction with the Indian caste and untouchability for long which resulted in an ‘uprootedness’ and ‘insecurity’ of their own existence in the caste- based society. Consequently they began to hate the posing and show-making face of Indian democracy to maintain peace in the midst of the world when unequal and peace-less sleep was slept by the millions of Dalits in India. These kind of ironic contradictions were the favourite pass-time of the Dalit poets and Pralhad Chendwankar is not an exception to that.
In the similar vein Pralhad Chendwankar has sufficiently recognised the revolutionary instinct hidden in each and every Dalit personality. Their unbreakable strength of mind and their non-ending courage might be the cause for which the Brahminic forces made them to be suppressed for a long time because of the fact that they were frightened of that ‘Attitude’ of the Dalits. The diplomatic caste-binary and the prejudice might be the result of that which is evident in Chendwankar’s ‘Patil’. In this poem he portrayed the traditional picture of an Indian village where the village mukhiya Patil called for the Dalit poet and ordered him to sit down throwing a rag so that he could sit on it because the ground was wet—
“When Patil sent
for me, I went
“sit down,” he said,yet
Ground was wet.
Threw at my head
Torn sacking jute
Still there I stood
Quite mute.” (Chenwankar 2)
In spite of the roaring of Patil, he disavowed to sit either on the wet ground or on the torn sacking jute. He preferred to be mute and stood either. This was the greater blow Patil had ever got from a Dalit because the ‘Patils’ had never seen this kind of disavowal of their orders in their lives. The power of this ordering had been entrusted on his hands by his ancestors. So, he was surprised as well as angry to get disrespected forgetting the fact that they from the time unknown had been disrespecting a greater humanity thinking them ‘naturally inferior’.
So this breaking of his community’s established rules made him violent to utter—
“Why ain’t this runt
Bloody scum dancing on boards
To fill its gut?” (Chenwankar 2)
Then followed all the—
“Paunch-scratching, spewed
Fourth filth-abuse.” (Chenwankar 2)
But even then the poet stood there mute and silent. These ‘Paunch’ and ‘scratching’ are the opposite reaction flown from the action of breaking an age-old tradition by disobeying Patil’s command to sit—
“Wonder now, why did I stand?” (Chenwankar 2)
But no wonder is there— it was because the ‘consciousness’ grew in his mind that led him towards a position of protesting against all kinds of injustices done upon him or on his community. The construction which was the mechanic to the implementation of social injustice was ‘deconstructed’ by the ‘non-acceptance’ of the order of construction. And a peculiar celebration ‘ullas’ is there after negating the age-old order system—‘sit down’ in Chendwankar’s poems. Another two things are also important in this poem— the power of ‘endurance’ and the power to ‘rebel’.
Arjun Dangle, another Marathi Dalit activist poet set his journey in the field of Dalit poetry with the awareness of the Dalithoodedness and the harsh reality laid inside it made all his poems aggressive and ground-breaking. His poem ‘Revolution’ gives us the long history of Dalit sufferings. He dug the tradition of Brahmnic society and put out the general insufficiencies with which the Dalit people had been living on the past days. He described that when they hung pot from their necks and brooms were being tied to their backs, they used to be the ‘friends!’ of the upper class people—
“We used to be their friends
When, clay pots hung from our necks,
Brooms tied to our rumps,
We made our round through the Upper Lane
Calling “Ma-bap, Johar, Ma-bap”.” (Dangle 1)
It is noted that in the Peshwa days of the 18th century, according to legend, untouchables wore pots around their necks to keep their spittle from polluting the ground; and brooms to obliterate their footprints. The Mahar used a special greeting—“Ma-bap, Johar, Ma-bap” (hail, mother and father). The irony of Dangle’s poem lies in the term ‘friend’. The upper class people never thought the Dalits to be their friend in reality; rather as a cruel and an inhuman apparition from the ‘Above’ they continuously haunted the Dalits. They used them in their own terms and conditions in order to either fulfil their need or to fulfil their psychological appetite to oppress other people so that they might show power and their superiority of caste as they originated from the upper portion of the body of Brahmma. Again some Dalit communities used to round the upper lanes or the allies of the village where the upper class people lived shouting— “Ma-bap, Johar, Ma-bap” (hail, mother and father) rather than the usual greeting ‘Ram Ram’ or ‘Namaste’. It seems to us that the Dalits were talking to the upper class people from a kneeling-down position. Actually they could not talk to or utter their ‘voices’ because they had to listen to only what the upper class said. Not only that they had been given new greetings of calling the upper class people (hail, mother and father). It is because that the upper class wanted them always to remember their ‘position’ which is ‘low’ and it was working as the tool of a greater discourse of Brahminism to continuously suppress the ‘voice’ of the Dalits (normal greetings) and made them to make it their ‘habit’ by ‘practicing’ or uttering ‘Ma-bap’ and at last as a part of discourse it would have become ‘natural’ phenomenon to the Dalits to forget their own voices and practice— “Ma-bap, Johar, Ma-bap”.
Dangle did not stop there. He pushed the irony of ‘friend’ further to the point of ‘love’. The upper class people used to love the Dalits when they ‘fought with crows’, made the village clean by removing the carcasses and skinning them neatly and at last shared the meat with jackals and dogs simultaneously fighting with them—
“We fought with crows,
Never even giving them the snot from our noses
As we dragged out the upper lane’s dead cattle,
Skinned it neatly
And shared the meat among ourselves.
They used to love us then.
We warred with jackals-dogs-vultures-kites
Because we ate their share.” (Dangle 1)
Love is a mutual understanding and there must be no room for utilizing one for one’s bad condition by taking the full opportunity or chance of the situation. But the Brahminic ‘societal love’ for the Dalit people was characterized by the ‘need’ of their traditional ‘cleanliness’ and appetite for power. So, the love of the upper class for the Dalits was humiliated here with irony as it is portrayed with the shadowy cloud of need. This love eventually led the Dalits to share the carcasses with jackals-dogs-vultures-kites and which made them equal with the position of those animals and birds. But the scenario was bound to change—
“The Upper Lane doors are closed to us.” (Dangle 1)
All the doors of the upper class were closed for the Dalits because they had raised a revolt against the oppression and inhumanity they bore for a long time from one generation to the other. This revolution was not easy because the Brahminic people with all their might has been trying to conceal the ‘cry’ of revolution and burn the voices which would shout the name of ‘revolution’—
“Burn, burn those who strike at tradition.” (Dangle 1)
This ‘burning’ the voice is taking the voice away from them and suppressing the revolution as it was striking at the ‘tradition’ of the society which exploited the Dalits continuously and now they got up and questioned the authority of their power and authenticity. This revolutionary attitude led the Dalit force on the way of the attainment of a ‘symbolic centre’ and by way towards a greater deliberation of the humanity.
The celebration of ‘present’ and ‘now’ is there in Namdeo Dhasal’s poem ‘Now, Now’. The poem ruminates about the past centuries through which his ancestors had been journeying with the heavy loads on their backs, turning away from the ‘sun-light’— which is the reference to the light of ‘knowledge’ and education necessary for the growth of their Dalit consciousness. They were deprived of their knowledge of ‘other self’ (which might be the original self) and this deprivation of the ‘knowledge’ made them powerless—
“Turning their backs to the sun, they journeyed through
Centuries.” (Dhasal 7)
But now the generation of the poet wanted to change the tradition. They did not want to journey through the path of darkness where there was no light and no scope for self evaluation—
“Now, Now, we must refuse to be pilgrims of darkness.
That one, our father, is bent from carrying,
Carrying and darkness. Now, now we must lift that
Burden from his back.” (Dhasal 7)
The ‘bent’ position of the father by carrying the heavy loads of ‘sins’ of the upper class Hindus is a reminder of the greater injustice done to a human community by turning them to a ‘non-human’— ass or load bearer. From this point of history, for the ‘anguish’ the protest of the Dalit poets such as Namdeo Dhasal became the outburst of subdued ‘anger’ and the revolting spirit came out as the ‘destructive’ and ‘deconstructive’ mentality—
“Our blood was slipped for this glorious city
And what we got to eat was the right to eat stones.
Now, now, we must explode that building which kisses
The sky!” (Dhasal 7)
Again the poet forecasts that after a thousand years their community might be rewarded for this load-bearing for the upper class and the possibility was there for the ‘self-evaluation’ of one’s own ‘subjectivity’ as well as the ‘objective’ interest of the community. So the poet urgently calls for the attainment of the ‘light’ which had been kept away for long and for the ‘lack’ of which they were ignorant of the ‘truth’ that made them inferior to the upper class—
“After a thousand years we were blessed with a
Sunflower-giving fakir;
Now, now, we must, like sunflowers, turn our faces to the
Sun.” (Dhasal 7)
This searching for the ‘light’ facing the sun must be their upward surge for searching a ‘Symbolic Centre’ where they would be in the condition of the awareness of the ‘knowledge’ of the Dalitness and get up to serve their own good. So, from this point, there started another journey which may not end or may go forever through life's invested turns and intentions.
Another great exponent of the Marathi Dalit poetry is Arun Kamble. His poems give us the glimpses into the Dalit world of injustice by way of harshly criticizing and questioning the Vedic justification of the caste system and the Neo-colonial attitude of the Brahminic tradition to suppress the voice of the Dalits. His poem ‘Speech’ shows us the tradition of ‘muting’ or ‘silencing’ the Dalits from the time unknown. The weight of the tradition of caste made them completely dumb and tongue-less—
“With weight of tradition
Behind his back
Yells, “standing bastard, I
Tell you,
Shutter with our tongue!” (Kamble 1)
The Dalits could not speak the language of the upper class Hindus. It was considered as the sinful act on part of a Dalit person to utter the Brahminic words and this act would bring the severe punishment on the Dalit concerned. Either he had to perform the ‘purification’ ritual that was there in the Vedas or he was thrown out of the village forever to go somewhere else and became an outcast person even to his own community.
But peculiarly enough, the Brahminic societal tradition in the time of pre-colonial and especially in the post-colonial India was interested in ‘teaching’ the Dalits their own language. And the bellowing of the Brahman teachers in the school could be heard anywhere in India—
“Picking through the Vedas
Buttering his queue
Brahman teacher at school
Bellows, “speak my pure tongue,
Whoreson!” (Kamble 1)
The questions are—who are they to decide what is pure and what is impure? And how did the Dalits become voiceless? There are answers to the questions. It is obvious that the ‘picking’ of Vedas and the long tradition of silencing their voice through the process of making them use another’s tongue and the ‘cultural pressure’ to think and consider that tongue as their ‘own’, instigated the Dalits as ‘mute’ (Spivak 19) . Here is clearly the ‘Double play’— the Brahmins told them to use the tongue but at the same time they never allowed them to make the Brahmnic tongue as their ‘own’ (Dalits). They are ‘refugees’ to a ‘new language’. Similarly, by using another’s language, they are ‘distancing’ their own culture and language from themselves. Here, the upper classes try to ‘cease’ the ‘differences’ and ‘preferences’ in the terminology of Deleuze from the body of a common mass which is one kind of Neo-colonial and suppressive ideologically bourgeois to make them speechless. (Deleuze 5) So, the poet in the utter confusion questions—
“Now, you tell me, which speech
Am I to tongue.” (Kamble 1)
This is why Arun Kamble proposed that the life the Dalits had been living must be lived by the upper class Hindus in the poem ‘The Life We live’—
“If you were to live the life we live
Then out of you would poetry arise.” (Kamble 2)
No doubt, this depiction of the situation in the poetry is groundbreaking when it wants to exchange the roles of these two communities with each other. The proposal is quite daring on behalf of a Dalit poet. The suffering the Dalit had been putting up with burnt them with the passionate anger and they began to write poetry out of a social commitment to change that. This is because their poems were not of the soft and romantic nature. And the poet is assuring the fact that if the upper class people suffer from the similar situation as the Dalits did, they would have written poems in the same way. If we look at the poem with a Neo-colonial gaze then the two binaries—‘colonizer upper class Hindus’ and the ‘colonized Dalits’ were ‘negotiating’ with each other’s position like the way Jackson and Harry Trewe changed their respective roles of master and servant in Derek Walcott’s ‘Pantomime’ where there ‘negotiation and renegotiation of roles’ led them towards a ‘man-to-man’ relationship forgetting the ‘uprightness’, ‘mastery’ to be a common democratic man to develop a man to man affinity: “...I just call you plain Terwe, for example, and I notice that give you a slight shock....you see, two of we both acting a role here we ain’t really really believe in, you know. I ain't strong enough to give people orders, and I know I ain’t the kind who likes taking them.” (Walcott 145) But here in this poem ‘the negotiation and the renegotiation of the roles’ were not done with the mutual contest from the both sides. It was only an imaginary portrayal of the situation which shows if the upper class people change their places with that of the Dalits’, then what their feelings would be.
Dalit poetry is primarily marked with the repetitive questions towards the authority of keeping a community into the darkness so long intentionally. Arun Kamble was the leading and the foremost of the group who had advocated the questions of the primary Dalit existence. His poem ‘Primal Bond’ depicts that the poet did not know where this journey started from and where it would end. This poem is an address to a Brahmin girl who represents traditional India. The journey the poet referred to was of putting up with the darkness and ignorance of the world and bearing the ‘bad and spoilt smell of the dead skin’ with deep sighs—
“From what generation to what generation
Is this journey?
And I am like this:
When I contain all brightness and all darkness
Why do I bear this dead skin,
These sighs?” (Kamble 3)
Was this bond of the Dalits with ‘darkness’ natural? This ‘naturalization’ of an injustice was not a simple task rather it was the part of a ‘discourse’ and in the poet’s words, it was done through the ‘beard’ of a ‘seer’ which is indicative of the caste- origin from the body of Brahmma—
“From under what seer’s beard
Came this insomnia,
This hypnotic coma.” (Kamble 3)
And like each and every discourse, it had a deep ambition and intention. Its ambition was to make a community cripple mentally, physically (leaving it in a coma-like situation), psychologically, economically and in some other ways to life and to continue getting privilege out of it and to enjoy the power generated from their service from the time unknown. This discourse made the Dalit people compel to ‘practice’ the acts again and again in such an intensity that it became natural and like the poet they were trying to get a new identity by even ‘kitchen-fire’—
“This burning vineyard of skinless grapes
What place should be set afire?
In what kitchen was this body made
A “pure” one?” (Kamble 3)
So, it is evident that it was one kind of colonialism—Neo-colonialism. British rulers colonized India for about two hundred years and the impacts of it were even now visible. It was direct and common to the most part of the world. But what was astonishing about this neo-colonialism is that it was very old— so old that we could not remember when it actually started. But it was done so cleverly that it has been continuing even now covering thousands of years—thousand years’ colonialism. Like British colonialism, it was also direct and visible in society. But its implementing tools are so deep and cleverly buried deep into the religion that it sometimes seems ‘Natural—Primal’— primal bond to the Dalit community in front of the humanitarian world. This ‘bondage’ led the poet despising the romantic nonsense in the Dalit poetry—
“I want to paint your picture
I want to sing you a poem
I want to fill my eyes with you
I want to marry you” (Kamble 4)
In the place of the romantic poetry, the poet suggested them to remember about the life they were living. It is humorous to propose a girl so tenderly for a Dalit poet because he was standing on the heap of gun-powder after tolerating the long deprivation. The poet goes on asking the girl thus—
“But how can I call you a poison girl?
Why are you faithful to
that skeleton found in an excavation?” (Kamble 4)
Here, the ‘poison girl’ refers to an ancient story of women (from Dalit community) who were fed poison slowly until they could kill anyone who slept with them while tolerating the poison themselves. The poet wanted to convey the impression that a girl from the Brahminic community could not put up with what a Dalit woman could do. According to the poet’s words, it was because of the deep-rooted faith of the Upper class Hindus to the ‘skeleton’ or the head with beard—Brahmma and the caste-division as it was found in Manusmriti. So, in the poem, there is another implication of the ‘primal bond’—that is the bond of the Brahminic people with that of the hard-core inhuman rules of Manusmriti. And the Dalits thought that it was their destiny to put up with that and as they were destined to do that, they must do it—
“The primal bond of the universe
Which blesses the phenomenon
Of procreation
Is forming in you.” (Kamble 5)
What is the relationship between ‘Anger’ and ‘Voice’? Can ‘Anger’ lead towards the articulation of voice or speech? Another poet who was dealing with these kinds of questions was Waman Kardak. In the poem ‘I Don’t Get Angry’ he lamented for the death of Ambedkar telling that when he was alive and accumulated all the necessary coordination with the whole of the Dalit community— the Dalits were marching forward for the rights they should have as their birth-right. The ideas and thoughts made all the Dalits united with the burning passion of revolution. But after the death of Ambedkar, according to the poet, ‘cowardice’ came there in the minds of the Dalits and all the burning passions were pacified—
“The village is the same, the villagers are the same.
When my Bhim was alive, they used to tremble.
King Bhim went away, cowardice came.” (Kardak 1)
Without Bhim they felt helpless in the hands of the upper class and their sufferings were increasing day by day in different forms—the honour of the poet’s community was at stake because of the attack on so many ‘mothers’, ‘sisters’, ‘daughters’ and ‘brothers’. Even then, the poet did not want to be angry—
“Here, there, they strip naked my mothers, my sisters.
I don’t get angry, I don’t get angry
Today I see my own honour dishonoured.
My own daughter’s virtue is looted in pubic,
My eyes look on, my body shakes,
Cowardice grows from my helplessness.
My brother is burned alive in my hut.
What happened, what did not, doesn’t go in the book.” (Kardak 1)
It is not that he did not want to do something, but the helpless situation made him a ‘lamb’s tail’ while he was a ‘lion’s cub’ in the hands of the ‘wolves’ that is the upper class Hindus—
“I was a lion’s cub, now I’m a lamb’s tail.
The people are wolves; who will hunt the wolves?
My blood does not boil like King Bhim’s did.” (Kardak 2)
So, what is the hegemonic force behind this ‘Dalit Body’ projection in the Indian society? It is often thought that Dalit and lower caste people are able to give vent to the physical exercise but they have nothing inside their minds except evil and demonic thoughts. This is the centralized notion of suppressing the ‘mental and creative’ power of a whole body. The upper caste were writing on the ‘passive body of a Dalit’ or in the other words there is passive body of a Dalit (taken as a whole) and the Brahmins painted them (it) in their own brush and hue. So, this ‘objectification’ of each subjective soul (body) is not enhancing the ‘Difference’ rather ‘Reducing’ the ‘possibility’ of creativity and other life forms if we use Deleuzian terms. (Deleuze 5)
While summing up, a question will appear in the front—that is if these poets could give any alternative way to resolve this problem or their revolting voice will remain unheard. So, what is needed is the more and more critical appraisal of this particular type of literature by way of exploring— “The spatial strategies implicated in the hegemonic aspirations of the Hindu communalism in India...Hindutva seeks to redefine the nation-space—seeks, that is to rearticulate the link between an imagined community and its territorial domain.” (Deshpande 167) Another thinker Kancha Ilaiah solutes out new dimension to deconstruct the Hindu nationalist hegemony by way of giving vent to the ‘Buffalo Nationalism’ which undoing the Indian societal spiritual fascism and its moorings, takes a count on the positive values of the buffalo as a productive animal that epitomises the qualities of the Dalit- Bahujans (Ilaiah:25) Thus, the revolutionary voices of the Dalit poets are creating a new vocabulary of imagination and ontological aesthetic sensibility as evident in the interpretation of Joshil K. Abraham and Judith Misrahi-Barak in Dalit Literatures in India—“This literature is developing new kind of literary aesthetic imagination by challenging and sometimes subverting the usual language and the pre-existing canonical literary circles.” (Abraham, Barak 10)
Works Cited:
- Abraham, Joshil K. and Misrahi-Barak, Judith. Dalit Literatures in India. New Delhi: Routledge, 2016. Print.
- Ambedkar, B. R. Words of Freedom: Ideas of a Nation. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2010. Print.
- Anand, Mulk Raj and Zelliot Eleanor, An Anthology of Dalit Literature, Delhi: G.Print Press, 2014. Print.
- Dangle, Arjun. Poisoned Bread. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2009. Print.
- Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, trns. Dana Polan, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. Print.
- Deleuze, Gilles, Routledge Critical Thinkers, ed. Claire Colebrok, Abington, Oxon, 2007. Print.
- Deshpande, Satish “Hegemonic Spatial Strategies: The Nation Space and Hindu Communalism in Twentieth Century India”, Subaltern Studies IX, Community, Gender and Violence. Ed. Partha Chatterjee and Pradip Jeganathan, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2014. Print.
- Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge, 2007. Print.
- Ilaiah, Kancha. Buffalo Nationalism— A Critique of Spiritual Fascism. Kolkata: Samya Publishers, 2004. Print.
- Limbale, Sharankumar. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature—History, Controversies and Considerations, trns. Alok Mukherjee, Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2004. Print.
- Mukherjee, Arun Prabha. ‘Introduction’, in Om Prokash Valmiki, Jothan: A Dalit’s Life. Kolkata: Samya, 2007. Print.
- Ranciere, Jacques. The Politics of Literature. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Print.
- Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, Ruotledge Critical Thinkers, ed. Stephen Morton, Abington, Oxon, 2015. Print.
- Walcott, Derek, Pantomime. 1978. Post Colonial Plays: An Anthology. ed. Helen Gilbert. New York: Rutledge, 2001. 132- 52. Print.