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| Poets at the meet: (from right) Yogesh Maitreya, Aruna Gogulamanda, Cynthia Stephen, Chandramohan Sathyanathan, and Aruna Lanjewar Bose |
“To
be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But, for man, the root is man
himself.” – Karl Marx.
Dalit poetry, or poetry written
by Dalits, in English, finds itself in the spotlight
today in the wider literary world. Or what is euphemistically termed as the
Mainstream for the want of a better word.
In August last year, for example, a landmark initiative was
undertaken by the Sahitya Akademi, something that had never happened before in
the history of the venerable institution established in 1954, now more than
60-odd years old. It invited five Dalit poets writing in English for an exclusive
symposium-cum-reading. The poets invited were
Chandramohan Sathyanathan, Cynthia Stephen, Yogesh Maitreya, Aparna Lanjewar
Bose and Aruna Gogulamanda.
In a press release afterwards, calling it a
‘first-of-a-kind’ event, the Akademi noted the salient features of the poems that are being written today as it sees them:
“Elements of protest, resistance, pride, assertion of identity”. A radical
poetics, in brief.
What is truly radical is the insistence on caste by these poets, Dalit in their case, all
of whom have different backgrounds and inspirations. And it is radical –
according to Marx’s formulation – simply because they understand, and deal with
caste, as the root of Indian, or larger Hindu society and
culture. This understanding, or insight, imbues their poetics with the
radicalism which is actually not new. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, and before him
Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule, had also advocated the same understanding and it
is what reflects in the poetics of the Dalit poets who read that day at the Akademi.
What
is new, however, is the confidence on display in writing poetry in
English, the language of privilege and power in Post-independence India and
that might be behind the startling effect it may produce on some who are caught
unawares by this well-thought out linguistic as well as social assertion, a
storming of the gates of the Literary Mainstream Culture, so to say. Then, the
charges of it being high on ‘rhetoric’ are sometimes thrown around, like it
happened at the Akademi reading too but more on that later.
Out of the poets who read that
day, Chandramohan Sathyanathan, is probably most popular today. An outlier in
the sense that he did not study humanities like most writers/poets –
he has a degree in engineering – and who started writing poems only
after the December 16 Nirbhaya gang rape, his second book Letters to Namdeo
Dhasal sold well It also received good reviews, including one by Kavita
Krishnan, noted Leftist activist, who hailed him as a ‘unique voice’ http://cpiml.org/feature/
However, a close reading of both
the books reveals a poet slowly but steadily at
work, chiselling away at his craft, polishing it to perfection. The themes he
takes up in both books – caste, Marxism, family, community and other events of
socio-political importance – are similar but indeed, in the second book, his
metaphors become more refined; his symbols more striking; his language more
potent.
For example, it can only be a measure of the confidence of
the poet that he can describe with such wry
humour a degrading and demeaning encounter in a train with a casteist bigot
insistent on reducing him to his caste identity – a phenomenon that Rohith
Vemula had noted with such moving pathos in his suicide note.
“Caste in a local train can be
deceptive/ like the soul / of a Pakistani fast bowler camouflaged / in a three
piece suit / and an Anglicized accent.” – he writes, in the poem Caste in a Local Train in the collection Letters to
Namdeo Dhasal, describing the person looking outwardly modern, but still bound
by caste in establishing social relations. He describes his own approach,
trying to dodge his inquiries, hoping his interlocutor would get it. “I try to
find myself a place/ in his skull/ beyond his caste mark, between his eyebrows:
trying to find my way around/ an ever changing map! / He tries assessing me
with an inswinger first/ “What is your full name? / Then he tries an outswinger
that seams a lot / “And what is your father’s name?” / By this time, he loses
his patience / And tries a direct Yorker / “What is your caste?”
For someone who grew up ‘aspiring to be a mathematician’, in whose
family environs ‘Ambedkarite ideals had not seeped in’, and who grew up reading
newspapers and magazine articles instead of literature oriented towards the
goal of social justice, Sathyanathan expresses satisfaction with his journey so
far. “My own journey so far has been quite swift. Being Dalit naturally
politicizes us and drives us to nascent themes hitherto unwelcome in Indian
English Poetry. I believe, I have made my presence
felt in the Indian English poetry ecosystem.”
It was not easy. As he says: “Indian Writing in English in my
opinion is too elitist and panders to the urban, upper class, caste,
heterosexual male gaze. It would take a long time for Indian Writing in English
to (be) inclusive enough.”
He cherishes his IOWA experience,
for which he was nominated by the US consulate, where he also received the rare
honour of having a poem of his grace a building
in the University campus, as an exhibit blown up and illuminated. “My
experience has been enthralling. We were 28 writers from 27 countries, (and) it
was a pleasure to know and familiarize myself with these writers. The
playwright from Pakistan Usman Ali was a revelation, he represented the
non-elitist strand of Pakistani Writing in English…The American Poetry ecosystem has much to offer- it’s very diverse with
many Afro-American and Queer voices in the "mainstream"…I am eager to
watch the unfurling of Indian English Poetry along
these lines.”
______________________________
Namdeo Dhasal, is an inspiration for Yogesh Maitreya too, who is
currently finishing his PhD from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, on
the Dalit shahirs, or bards of
Maharashtra, another inspiration for him. As someone who grew up in a Dali
basti, with books not readily available, the shahirs were his first
introduction to the world of art and knowledge. “The songs of shahirs have not
only filled my mind with imagination of the history of the struggle of my
community, it also introduced to mepoetic rhythms
and vocabulary of life which depicted our identity, belongingness, which has
been totally deformed by school education and their books in India.”
Maitreya whose debut collection
The Bridge of Migration was published last year by Panther’s Paw Publication,
which he helped setup himself, writes in his ode to Dhasal in his poem titled To Namdeo Dhasal: “Panther, you only said /
“Let them live happily by naming their life / after penis, I won’t live like
that”. / Then how do we comprehend / Your end? / How do we tolerate / The
changing colour / of that furious ink? / But let me tell you / One thing, / You
will always be recalled as a panther, / A man who / Not only wrote poems / But their meanings too.”
Yogesh, too, in some poems like Dhasal did, makes the ‘meaning’ or the poem’s intent clear. Like in the poem On
9th Oct, 2015, at Communists’ Union office in Fort Area: “Today
I see / Lenin’s bust on a table / In a union office, / beside it / There is a
tiny statue of Ganapati. / I thought to tell the man / Who sits on that chair /
that / There is some contradiction I just observed / But then / I suddenly
realised: / Brain Cancer is incurable.” The bitter irony of a Ganapati idol and
Lenin’s statue sitting together draws this sharp rebuke from Maitreya who
writes in another poem consisting of one line,
called When Meeting, Marx: “Jai Bhim, Marx.” In these two poems,
his view of the Marxist struggle for equality in the Indian context is
abundantly clear.
In fact, this is a view largely
shared by others in Dalit intelligentsia.
Chandramohan too makes his ambivalence towards Indian Marxism clear in a poem in the second collection: “A comrade with a red flag
/ Visited our god forsaken colony / My Grandfather parroted his slogan / “Land
for the tiller.” / The old man / Tilled the land, / Poured out the sweat from
his body, / Erected the flag hoist firmly on the ground. / And the flag was
hoisted sky high. / He watched it with moist eyes from 64 feet away.”
Yogesh does not feel that writing in English may reduce the reach
and access of his work. “It is true the discourse of ‘English’ in India has
been so far dictated, governed, and manipulated by Brahmanical writers, or
whose sensibilities are Brahmanical, reflected through the narratives they have
been producing. The history of English in Maharashtra, with regard to dalits, is however different. Anti-caste crusaders and founder
of the nation, Mahatma Phule and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar had written widely in
English. In fact, it is with the advent of British in India, the means of
education had been opened to Shudra and ex-untouchables in Maharashtra. Thus,
the presence of English through British, became a medium for Dalits to elevate in the domain of what is loosely said as
‘knowledge’ or education, to imagine a differently possibilities of life which
was prohibited to them by Brahmanical society. I don’t believe that English
can’t do justice to Indian reality. It depends on who writes what,” he asserts.
Like Chandramohan, he too sees the elitism inherent in the
literary circles, especially in Indian Writing in English. “It depends whose
narratives in English in India are considered as ‘Indian Writing in English’.
If English writings of Mahatma Phule and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar whose writing
had changed the discourse of India forever, are not considered as ‘Indian
Writing in India’ then, I think, Indian-English-writing suffers from Brahmanism
(Brahmanvad). I believe that more and more Dalits writing
in English would only change the discourse of English in India. However, it
would take several decades from now as I can foresee. But the process has
begun.”
Keenly aware that Dalit writing is
now a ‘saleable commodity’, he resents the intervention of those from the
‘upper-castes’ still dominating the publishing industry and academia,
disseminating ‘knowledge’ about Dalits. “I do not
like to be explained by others; I do not like to be misrepresented and
misunderstood,” he declares boldly. The reason he gives is: “Dalit narratives
are primarily social than personal. They are being produced by Dalit writers to imagine a possibility of a society based
on equality, liberty and fraternity.” This is one reason – the irrelevance of
‘upper-castes’ to the Dalit discourse – why he
could nor care less how his work is received by IWE circles.
Who are his favourite authors? “Mahatma Phule,
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
Arthur Schopenhauer, Charles Dickens, Namdeo Dhasal, Baburao Bagul, Arun Kale,
Sharad Patil, Gopal Guru, Tony Morrison, R.S. Thomas, Nagraj Manjule etc”.
_____________________________
A love for Charles Dickens is
something Cynthia Stephen, journalist-poet, and social
activist as well as a feminist, shares with Maitreya. Her literary tastes are
more attuned to the classical sensibility, she says. Her other favourites are
the Bronte sisters, and Jane Austen, for example.
In her own words, she is not a
‘prolific’ poet. Something needs to happen for her
to be moved enough to write a poem. Like the
gut-wrenching suicide of Rohith Vemula. She paid her tribute to the Ambedkarite
activist thus, in a poem that she read at the Akademi
event called 2016 Space Odyssey, adapting T.S. Eliot’s landmarkpoem The
Wasteland’s beginning for the purpose of hers.
“January is the cruellest month.
The sun began its climb, but darkness
In the heart and mind did not decrease.
The stars still shone. They shone brighter
on the night of the 17th.
A new star reached the horizon, leaving
Mere humans, mere stardust, mere minds,
mere thoughts and words.
We were unworthy of your presence among
us, our lives are fatal accidents,
You escaped the orbit of meaningless
Sysiphean labour.
We now scan your work, your life, your
words, your pictures.
For guidance on how to move forward.
Your are now a comet, blazing a shining
path beyond this earth.
2016 Space odyssey.
But we have a long and lonely path to
blaze on this earth.
Our destinies, and those of the children
after us - beckon.
We look up. The sky is dark, but the dawn!
It comes every morning.
January is the cruellest month.”
Stephen, who hails from Karnataka, sees
the exclusion of Dalit writers and poets from the wider literary circles as a ‘fact.’ “Tell
me at how many literary festivals and gatherings, do you see the presence
of Dalit or Adivasi writers? Do they get the
same space to speak even if present?”, she asks. Calling it a ‘closed
situation’, she mentions that in her experience, she has seen sometimes the
same family members writing books which are then picked up and promoted by
publishing houses. “There is a very strong sense of clannishness…There is a
huge void of Dalit voices in the English literary
world.”
She also finds the growing interest
in Dalit literature to be a complex phenomenon.
While noting that there is indeed more attention now from mainstream
intelligentsia towards the literary output of Dalits,
there still exists a form of ‘subliminal rejection of concerns raised by Dalits” by the same sections, she believes. “There is an
automatic defensiveness which blocks out the discourse of Dalits in
academia, politics, media or literature.” But at the same time, she also
sees Dalitscoming together and forming a discourse
of their own where their own points-of-view are acknowledged and accepted
without the mediation of the mainstream intelligentsia. And she finds social
media to be a leveler in that sense. In the media, she finds Dalits depicted often as helpless victims; the
‘upper-caste’ angst also vitiates against Dalits who
no matter how accomplished they are always get viewed as less, she notes.
Is the rise of Hindutva playing
any role in Dalit literary voices becoming more
prominent? She does not see a direct link. “The Dalit and
Adivasi youth acted as stromtroopers during Godhra riots in 2002 so the
Hindutva ideology has made inroads into their psyche too.” But she also finds
worthy the efforts made by Gujarat Dalitleader
Jignesh Mevani and Chandrshekhar Ravan of Bhim Army to organise against
Hindutva politics, “though they have chosen different issues.” So she does see
an ‘indirect impact.” “People are using their lived reality to attempt a
resistance.”
For Aruna Gogulamanda, the rise of Hindtuva politics has had a
more deeper impact on Dalit politics as well as
literature. “When injustice takes the place of justice,
resisting it becomes the weapon. When secular and democratic spirits are taken
over by religious fanaticism and casteist attacks, the oppressed won’t keep
quiet for long. Every action has equal and opposite reaction. It’s the Hindutwa
forces that are the reasons behind growing up social consciousness among the
Oppressed communities. The revolt can be thru literature or massive protests.
But revolt has started for sure,” she explains.
A research scholar at the University of
Hyderabad studying ‘Select Dalit and non-Dalit Women’s autobiographies’, Aruna comes from a
middle-class background with her father being a government servant. Her poetry, she says, is for mainly oriented towards the concerns
of women from her community who are doubly marginalized due to their caste as
well as gender status. “Dalit women are placed
differently, too. While majority of them are still agricultural laborers and
domestic helps or daily wage laborers in the rural India, two-three percent are
educated and working at different places, in different kind of jobs. To the
former, “No Bra Day or Me Too” is not understandable as big problems, as, they
have no proper blouses or clothes to cover their bodies. They live in (fear of)
regular sexual assaults at fields and construction sites; the latter suffer the
similar abuse and harassment in a passive manner and this is the problem faced
by even the women from the other fortunate sections in the
society. So, I’m needed to write for all these
women,” says Gogulamanda who writes in both Telugu and English. She
started writing poetry only a couple of years
ago, often posting her work on Facebook directly.
As she writes in her poem,
She Was Told: “She was told
Not to wear a blouse
To allow every male
Watch her as a device.
She was told
To bend her back, not walk straight
To fill the tender tummies, keeping herself a bait.
She was told
To toil all day long in the fields
As a human machine
Deprived of food and water.
She was told
To swallow the pain of not feeding her baby
Though her lactating breasts pine to sate its hunger.
She was told
To take the insults, jeers, beatings and assaults,
For being born a woman, in a cursed clan.
She was told
To take the daily thousand cuts
Of sexist remarks, acts and assaults
Of her man and master.
She was told
That she is bad omen.
A bloody sanitary pad, useful but a disgusting topic.
The relentless sun beats oh her
Her dreams, beauty and youth
Sacrificed in the service of the land, the hut, the master.
Her eyes two dry hollows bear silent witness
To hundreds of deaths of her mothers, daughters, sisters
Their dreams, respect and their bodies.
Her calloused hands, her unkempt hair
Her cracked heels, her wrinkled hair
Tell the tales of living through fears and years
Of centuries and millennia of violations and deaths.
She was told
That she was dirt,
She was filth and
In this sacred land of thousands of goddesses
She is called a Dalit.”
V. Divakar is the editor of The Baroda Pamphlet, a bi-monthly
print journal that he started with others, funded by friends, to publish
articles essentially ‘critical’ as well as ‘assertive’ in nature. The journal
also publishes articles that critique the caste system and address
caste in general, like an issue dedicated to Dalit poetry, edited by Maitreya. He also published Sathyanathan’s
second book of poems from the small press
publication Desirepaths.
Aware of the work of both the poets, he
says while Sathyanathan is more subtle and 'sophisticated' when it comes to
language, Maitreya prefers the direct approach. He too believes that English is
more of an advantage than disadvantage when it comes to writing poetry even if in itself English is not an ‘egalitarian’
language. He also prefers it over translating Dalit poetry into English as he feels “that translation leads to
the absence of a certain subjectivity. You lose something if you are
not part of an imagination.” While Dalit poetry existed earlier in folk form, and was printed
extensively for cheap during the time of Ambedkar and Phule, he is nevertheless
excited about the new possibilities. Citing Roundtable India, an
Ambedkarite online platform, he calls the trend ‘phenomenal’ as new
writers from the Dalit community break the
notions of ‘academic’ poetry. “Both Yogesh and
Chandramohan have claimed English and made it their own.”
He
notes the critique made by Maitreya and Sathyanathan, of Indian Marxists and
says that while Dalits continue to serve as the
foot-soldiers of the Left movement, they are still denied leadership roles by
‘upper-castes’.
I ask Divakar what he has to say
to the criticism or charge that Dalit poetry is mostly rhetoric; the same charge was levelled by
a ‘renowned’ – as the press release put it – poet at
the Sahitya Akademi meet. He says this has been the attitude of ‘progressive’
writers from before. “They have a stereotypical understanding of poetry. They do not understand that the anger will exist and
will be expressed in poems as long as there is
exploitation.”
Ajay Navaria, who is a professor at Jamia Milia Islamia
university in Delhi and a promiment Dalit writers
in Hindi also finds the charge objectionable as it ignores the fact that the
‘rhetoric’ comes from the lived experience of the poets.
“The same charge was levelled at Namdeo Dhasal too.”
According to Navaria, craft is of
great importance too. He sees Sathyanathan in particular paying attention to it
and praises him for his command over language. “Language itself protests in
his poems. He knows that in order to survive,
protest must be registered. Otherwise like the Jarawa tribe, we will lose our
identity along with our language. Even his love poems rise
above the circumstance of being only about two individuals and express larger
concerns.”
As far as the angry rhetoric is
concerned, he says it was more a part of the first wave of Dalit poetry and that it was justified. “If someone rapes
another’s sister and beats others up, he will get to hear abuses in return. But
now we see more compassion in place of anger in these poems.
These poems are more balanced, and restrained.
The earlier phase of raw anger – as seen in Dhasal’s poetry –
is now over.”
Will the new Dalit poetry also
be as powerful as Dhasal’s verses and have a similar socio-political impact? We
have to wait and watch as newer talents slowly but firmly take over the
mantle.
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