Namdeo Dhasal introspects pain, nirvana

At a poetry reading evening, the Dalit poet well-known for bringing out the voice of the 'scum of the Earth' will take the audience through his journey of poetry from over three decades

I’ve made myself tired and unhappy here on this seashore of pain;
Sculpting with a chisel an image of many-faceted wounds.

Indeed, with an uncensored vocabulary which imparts a beautiful stain in his notebook, Namdeo Dhasal has shaken society's conventional notion of poetry. Like in these lines from his poem titled 'Autobiography' which appeared in his 1995 book Ya Sattet Jeev Ramat Nahi (The Soul Doesn't Find Peace In This Regime), Dhasal has prodded the classes and castes persistently to acknowledge the oppression against Dalits and the underdog. Common sense conveys that such evocative words cannot flow from the pen of one who has not been a witness and, often, victim, to the caste-based politics and ostracism himself.

Dhasal will himself let audiences travel with him into a time and space of his work, at a poetry reading session to be held on September 29, at Jnanapravaha, where he will read poetry from his earliest collection Golpitha of 1972, to Nirvana-agodarachi Pida (The Pain Before Nirvana) of 2010. English translations of his poetry would be done by Shanta Gokhale.

Full report here Mumbai Mirror 

"Dalit writings an integral part of Indian literary tradition"

Dalit literature, whether oral or written, has been an integral and enlivening part of Indian literary traditions for centuries, eminent writer and academic U. R. Ananthamurthy has said.

For the depressed classes like tribals and those destined to live in the lower rungs of social hierarchy literature had always been a means to achieve “self-respect, the Jnanpith Award winner said here on Sunday.

He was delivering a lecture on the “Contributions of Dalits to Indian literature”, organised by Dr. K. Ayyappa Panicker Foundation, in honour of the late Malayalam poet and scholar.

Quoting from Kannada and other Indian languages, Prof. Ananthamurthy said while non-Dalits could write about the Dalit situation they could not claim to represent the Dalits.

There had been several examples of non-Dalits writing on Dalit situation, like the famous Kannada novel “Chomana Dudi” by Shivaram Karanth. But there was a kind of arrogance when non—Dalits claimed to represent Dalits, he noted.

Full report here Hindu

"Dalit literature an integral part of Indian literary history"

Dalit literature, whether oral or written, has been an integral and enlivening part of Indian literary tradtions for centuries, eminent writer and academic U R Ananthamurthy has said. For the depressed classes like tribals and those destined to live in the lower rungs of the social hierarchy literature had always been a means to achieve "self-respect", the Jnanpith laureate said in Thiruvanathapuram last evening.

He was delivering a lecture on the "Contributions of Dalits to Indian literature", organised by Dr K Ayyappa Panicker Foundation, in honour of the late Malayalam poet and scholar. Quoting from Kannada and other Indian languages, Ananthamurthy said while non-Dalits could write about the Dalit situation they could not claim to represent the Dalits.

There had been several examples of non-Dalits writing on Dalit situation, like the famous Kannada novel "Chomana Dudi" by Shivaram Karanth. But there was a kind of arrogance when non-Dalits claimed to represent Dalits, he noted.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Remembering Ayyappa Panicker

The friends and disciples of poet Ayyappa Panicker are planning to celebrate his 80th birth anniversary in a big way. A function will be organised at 5 pm on September 12 at VJT Hall to commemorate the late poet.

Eminent Kannada writer and Jnanpith Award winner U R Ananthamoorthy will deliver this year’s Ayyappa Panicker Memorial Lecture on the topic  ‘Indian Literature: Dalit Contribution.’ The lecture will be followed by a discussion on the subject.  Ayyappa Panicker Foundation president K Satchidanandan will preside over the function and vice- president T P Sreenivasan will be the moderator.

Poetry at Midnight, an English translation by P Ravindran Nayar of  Ayyappa Panicker’s last anthology of poems, ‘Pathumanipookkal , will be formally released at the function by Ananthamoorthy.

The function will be followed by a visual representation of selected poems by Ayyappa Panicker on stage. Groups of students from the All-Saints’ College; Mar Ivanios College; NSS College for Women, Karamana and the Departments of English and Malayalam of the Kerala University will compete with their adaptations of chosen poems of Panicker. The team selected for the best performance will be presented with the Ayyappa Panicker Poetry Trophy.

Full report here New Indian Express

Encounter of the titans

What happens when BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi look down from heaven? Two brilliantly imagined soliloquies

The Flaming Feet and Other
Essays: Permanent Black,
254 pages, Rs595.

Two voices suddenly pipe up midway through The Flaming Feet, D.R. Nagaraj’s book of essays on the Dalit movement, and they turn out to be those of the principal protagonists of the book: B.R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi. For once, we see them not spoken about, but speaking in their own voices, as if restored to life.

It is 1997, the 50th anniversary of India’s independence—an independence about which both men were, from the very beginning and for different reasons, sceptical. Ambedkar and Gandhi occupy adjoining rooms in heaven, and look down somewhat disconsolately on an India that has moved on. Ambedkar speaks of his immense antipathy to religious superstition and myth-making, and acknowledges that “my intimate enemy, that Gujarati Bania Mr. Gandhi, also does not like these things”, even if Gandhi is always seen as a man of religion. Gandhi, meanwhile, is found contemplating “how Hind Swaraj would be if my nextdoor neighbour, the learned Babasaheb, had written it”, and thinks that Ambedkar, a trained economist and the quintessential rationalist, would have found an enormous array of statistics to improve the argument.

Full review here Mint 

'I don't see pure milk-and-honey goodness in the poor'

Journalist Manu Joseph's debut novel Serious Men is about an extremely intelligent but crooked man whose obsession is to make his son be known as the first Dalit genius. He works in a science institute that is top heavy with Brahmins. The story is about whether Ayyan Mani manages to convince the world that his son is a genius, and what role Arvind Acharya, the science institute's chief, plays in it. Joseph, who takes over as editor of the year-old Open magazine in August, grew up in a Brahmin neighbourhood in Chennai, and spent two years in a Mumbai [ Images ] chawl. The book is full of sharp observations from these two worlds. In this interview with Rediff.com's Krishnakumar Padmanabhan, he speaks about 'very smart Dalit males', absent-minded scientists, and how different literature is from journalistic writing.

For a Christian who grew up in a Brahmin neighbourhood, how was it getting into the head of a Dalit character?
As a journalist I have met several Dalit men, many times for stories that have nothing to do with Dalits. I was always aware of a particular kind of a very smart Dalit male and the way he thinks or at least the way I think he things.

Also, when I first came to Bombay I lived in a chawl for two-and-a-half years. There I met some men whose views are very similar to Ayyan's. But the fundamental angst of Ayyan Mani and his perception of the world, life and science is my conjecture, my creation.

You mentioned 'very smart Dalit male'. What sets him apart?
What sets him apart is that he is a mathematical probability. In a set of so many people, one will be exceptional irrespective of culture, family background or upbringing.That anomaly is Ayyan Mani. He is not a product of his own culture. He is a freak, in a way. I say that about Ayyan Mani even though some of his traits are borrowed from the men I used to know.

Full interview here Rediff

REVIEW: Changiya Rukh

REVIEW

Changiya Rukh: Against the Night
Balbir Madhopuri
translated from the Punjabi by Tripti Jain
OUP
Rs. 395
Pp.216
ISBN: 9780198065500,
Hardback

Blurb 
The first Dalit autobiography in Punjabi to appear in English, Changiya Rukh means a tree lopped from the top, slashed and dwarfed. Balbir Madhopuri uses it as a metaphor for the Dalit robbed by a tradition that places every sixth Indian beyond touchability. Significantly, by bringing forth fresh branches and leaves, the lopped tree proves its innate worth through defiant resilience.

Set in the village of Madhopur in Punjab, the work leads most centrally to the question of how a man conducts himself among people who either do not understand him or would like to see him in the slush where they think he belongs. Madhopuri’s vision is both melancholy and honest as he captures and sensitively portrays the plight of his community despite all constitutional and legislative measures. But in the end, this real life story of a Dalit’s rise from bonded labourhood to the editorship of a socio-economic journal is one of triumph of resistance, of achievement, and of hope.

Perceptively introduced and contextualized by Harish Puri, this book will appeal to students and teachers of caste studies, Indian literature in translation, comparative literature, and translation studies.

Review
Against the night... Hindu
... is the first Punjabi dalit autobiography to appear in English translation. Excerpts...
D uring this phase of terrorism in which brother was killing brother, another incident disturbed me a great deal. One of our relatives informed us, “The Sardarni I work for as a sweeper had one day happily told me, ‘Sister, Khalistan is about to be created. That would be great. The Hindus will all leave, and you people will live with us in Khalistan!'”

We all listened intently to her, our questioning eyes were fixed on her face as she went on, I said, ‘Sardarni it would be great for you, but will we also get some land? Then again, why are you insisting that we should stay here with you in Khalistan? For us, Hindus and Sikhs are the same. Do you really love us so much Sardarni …?'

“Then?” We had to hear what came next.

‘Then what!' She said, ‘We like you that is why I am telling you! Who will clean and sweep for us in Khalistan?'

Caste & the labour market

Review
BLOCKED BY CASTE, ECONOMIC DISCRIMINATION IN MODERN INDIA
Edited by Sukhadeo Thorat, Katherine S. Newman;
Oxford University Press,
Rs. 750

This is an excellent volume — carefully-researched and eye-opening — on caste-based injustice in our society and economy. Now, while there is a literature that documents discrimination and the denial of civil liberties, there is very little understanding and research on the practice of caste discrimination in markets, notably in modern, urban and metropolitan settings, and in public institutions. This book takes up the challenge of understanding the latter by means of systematic research on the question.

A useful four-fold classification of the types of discrimination is proposed by Thorat and Newman: complete exclusion, selective inclusion, unfavourable inclusion, and selective exclusion. Complete exclusion would occur, for example, if Dalits were totally excluded from purchase of land in certain residential areas. Selective inclusion refers to differential treatment or inclusion in markets, such as disparity in payment of wages to Dalit workers and other workers. Unfavourable inclusion or forced inclusion refers to tasks in which Dalits are incorporated based on traditional caste practices, such as bonded labour. Lastly, selective exclusion refers to exclusion of those involved in “polluting occupations” (such as leather tanning or sanitary work) from certain jobs and services.

Study in rural areas
There is a body of research on discrimination in rural areas and on the continuation of caste barriers to economic and social mobility in village India. There is a myth, however, that caste does not matter in the urban milieu and that, with the anonymity of the big city and with education and associated job and occupational mobility (assisted by affirmative action), traditional caste-based discriminatory practices disappear. This book explodes that myth in a set of chapters that focus on the formal labour market. These chapters use methodologies developed in the United States to study racial discrimination, and are written in collaboration with scholars from the U.S.

Thorat and Attewell ran an experiment to test caste discrimination in the urban labour market. For one year, researchers collected advertisements from leading English language newspapers for jobs in the private sector that required a university degree but no specialised skills. The researchers then submitted three false applications for each job. The applicants, all male, had the same or similar education qualification and experience. One of them had a recognisable upper caste Hindu name, another a Muslim name and the third a distinctly Dalit name. The expected outcome was a call for interview or further screening.

An analysis of the outcomes, using regression methods, showed that, although there were an equal number of false applicants from three social groups, for every 10 upper caste Hindu applicants selected for interview, only six Dalits and three Muslims were chosen. Thus, in modern private enterprises (including IT), applicants with a typical Muslim or Dalit name had a lower chance of success than those with the same qualification and an upper caste Hindu name.

Full report here The Hindu

Cries in the wilderness of desertion and apathy

Narayan has a point when he says he’s not a Dalit writer, but an Adivasi author. Tribals, though classified under the Scheduled Tribe category, cannot be referred to as Dalits. Like other sub-castes who have their own identity, tribals too have a unique social identity, he asserts. “Tribals are the ones who are marginalised and dumped in the backyards of the society, primarily due to geographical compulsions. We are being sidelined by even the so-called Dalits. Tribals are nobody’s slaves. We are blessed with the practical knowledge for living,” he adds.

Narayan believes there’s an essential disparity between so-called Dalit literary works and indigenous tribal literature. “For modern society, however, everything — that is everything that’s not of the Savarna — smacks of the Dalit touch. I’m totally ignorant about the Dalit way of life. None of the Dalit writers are in touch with me.

“Tribal literature comprises those writings which originate from the ones who are sidelined by both mainstream and dalit literature,” observes Narayan, the first and the foremost tribal writer in Malayalam and the award-winning author of Kocharethi.

Full report here Express Buzz 

Words that touch

Untouchable, maybe. But no longer unread.

Omprakash Valmiki, born into India's lowest social group, the Dalits - known widely as "untouchables" -- says he was the first member of his family to "ever see the inside of a school building."

For 40 years he has worked for the Ministry of Defense in Dehradun - but by night the bureaucrat was doggedly composing poems and fiction. And when Mr. Valmiki came to the 2010 Jaipur Literary Festival to participate in a series of panels meant to recognize the importance of so-called Dalit literature, he drew larger crowds than many of the internationally known authors there. He was mobbed for autographs, and his works - which include the Hindi-language autobiographical novel Joothan: A Dalit's Life, published in English translation in the U.S. by Columbia University Press - were among the first to sell out at the festival bookshop. (The English translation also appears with the subtitle "An Untouchable's Life.")

Full report here Wall Street Journal