DALIT LITERATURE:
THE VOICE OF THE DOWNTRODDEN
by
Razi Abedi
THE VOICE OF THE DOWNTRODDEN
by
Razi Abedi
In today's world dominated by the
culture of advertisement, even the miseries of the worker are glamorized. Two
thousand years ago when Christ tried to ameliorate the misfortunes of the
unprivileged, the shepherd's crook became the symbol of the Messiah's mission.
Today bishops still honor this tradition by wearing carrying a crook--made of
gold.
All institutions ultimately serve
vested interests. It is for this reason that the downtrodden of the earth have
grown suspicious of all institutions and movements and insist on preserving
their own identities. They do not want to be swallowed up by an ideology or a
slogan. Such is the case with the movement called Dalit which started in
Western India in the 1960s.
Dalit is the literature of the
Untouchables of Maharashtra, of those who are looked down upon even by other
workers. Dalit is Marathi for 'the spurned'. The term was first used for the
Untouchables in 1930. It is a comprehensive expression which now includes
Harijans (such as Mahars), Mangs, Mallas, Chambhars and Pulayas. Dalit is a
protest literature against all forms of exploitation based on class, race,
caste or occupation.
The Dalits are treated worse than
animals. Their presence is usually banned from upper-class localities. Even
then they are bound to hang clay pots from their necks so that they may not
pollute the streets of the privileged by their spittle. They carry brooms tied
to their bodies so that while passing through such 'upper lanes' they can wipe
away their footprints.
Arjum Dangle gives a harrowing
picture of their wretchedness in a poem entitled 'Chhavni Hilti Ha', ('The
Cantonment Has Begun to Shake').
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.
Dalit has not yet been
acknowledged as a literature in its own right, and no reference to it is found
in the standard literary journals of India. But its reverberations are now
being heard all around the globe. Like the stories of Prem Chand, it creates characters
of great sympathy and humanity, humbly asking for their right to civic
representation, but no moral or political organization has the courage to
openly associate with them. Recently we have found them turning up in the odd
literary story or what has come to be known as the 'art film'.
Dalit should not be confused with
Marathi protest literature, because its subjects are very different. For
example, the short story by Dr. Surendra Barlinge, chairman of the Sahitya
Sanskrit Mandal, 'Mepan Maze', deals with the topic of sex change, a subject
which could interest only upper-class readers. Similarly, Padminiraje
Patwardhan's story, 'Deepshikha', is about a beautiful talented girl, Brahamin
by caste, who marries a civil servant.
No doubt these are stories that
deal with genuine problems of modern life. But they are not the issues which
interest Dalit writers. In their world women are casually stripped and
molested, men brutally murdered, and this has been going on for centuries,
generation after generation. These are Untouchables who invite death if they
dare to quench their thirst from a common pond. Even the Brahamin's god is not
their god. He does not accept their supplication. He is not even capable of
feeling their misery. Keshav Meshram challenges this god in 'One Day I Cursed
That...God', in these words:
Would you wipe the sweat from
your bony body
With your mother's ragged sari?
Would you work as a pimp
To keep her in booze?
O, father, oh, god the father!
You could never do such things.
First you'd need a mother----
One no one honors,
One who toils in the dirt,
One who gives and gives of her love.
A homegrown movement of the
Untouchables, Dalit is opposed to all notions of caste and class, but it also
suspects the intellectuals of the left as well as Marxist ideologues who treat
Marxism itself as a dogma rather than a science. Such people assume the role of
Marxist pundits, and Untouchables cannot afford to trust pundits. The
theoretical variety of revolutionaries cannot even imagine the predicament
these wretched people live in. Namde Dhasal cries out:
This world's socialism,
This world's communism
And all those things of theirs,
We have put them to the test
And the implication is this--
Only our shadows can cover our own feet.
Their suffering is not just the
suffering of the individual, and there is nothing romantic about it. Their
problem is neither ideological nor philosophical. They do not seek poetic
beauty. Similes, metaphors and symbols are not important. The reality of their life
is too hideously shocking, beyond the capacity of fantasy or imagination. Their
tragedy is universal, trampling them down and disfiguring their humanity.
Narayan Surve makes an ironical comment on the champions of revolution and
their rhetoric in his poem, 'Karl Marx':
In my first strike Marx met me
thus:
I was holding his banner high on my shoulder.
The other day he stood listening
to my speech at the gate, in the meeting. --now we alone are the heroes of
history, of all the biographies too, henceforth...
He was the first to applaud, then
laughing boisterously
he put his hand on my shoulder and said:
'Are you a poet or what...
nice...very nice...
I too liked poetry
Goethe was my favorite.
Goethe was my favorite.
Their bitterness is totally
understandable. They have been subjected to the worst atrocities. A young man's
thumb may be amputated just so that he does not become a better archer than a
lad of the upper class.
These people see the class war
that is going on at the global level as irrelevant to their cause. Class war is
a long-term struggle. People like themselves have neither the time nor the
patience to wait for the tide to turn. The verdict of history may come too
late. Prabhakar Bangurde spurns such wishful thinking in his poem 'Comrade':
Don't be in a hurry for
revolution.
You are still very small.
Your ability to resist
the atrocities, boycotts and rapes
that go on every moment
has become nil
comrade
Tomorrow's sun is yet to rise
sleep undisturbed until then...
This is their everyday experience
that closely ties them to prevailing social conventions, justifying their
appalling living conditions in the name of culture and tradition. They are
particularly concerned about their daughters who must be married according to
strictly imposed custom and lead respectable and pious lives. This must be hard
to swallow when they see that 'they strip naked my mother, my sisters' and 'my
own daughter's virtue is looted in public/ my eyes look on, my blood shakes'.
These are lines taken from a folksong.
But Dalit poetry is not merely
protest. There are also the eternal emotions of love and sacrifice
reverberating in it, as in this poem, 'Mother', by Warman Nimbalkar:
Dark, dark slender body---this
was my mother.
Drudged in the woods for sticks from morning on.
All we brothers, sitting, waiting, watching for her.
And if she didn't sell the wood, all of us slept hungry.
And one day she died of hard work
and left them wailing, through not without leaving a sweetness behind her:
My eyes seek my mother,
I still grieve,
I see a thin vendor of wood.
I buy her sticks.
Consider this beautiful poem,
'The City', by Daya Pawar. It begins like this:
One day someone dug up a
twentieth century city
And ends on this observation.
Here's an interesting inscription:
'This water tap is open to all castes and religions'.
What could it have meant:
That this society was divided?
That some were high while others were low?
Well, all right, then this city deserved burying--
Why did they call it the machine age?
Seems like the Stone Age in the twentieth century.
The Dalit are also burning with a
desire for revenge. Their anger is reflected in 'You Wrote From Los Angeles',
by Daya Pawar:
In the stores here, in hotels,
about the streets,
Indians and curs are measured with the same Yard--stick.
"Niggers! "Blacks! This is the abuse they fling on me.
Reading all this, I felt so damn!
Now you've had a taste of what we've suffered
In this country from generation to generation.
But though it is the poetry of
the oppressed, in it can be heard the echoes of a rebellious soul:
I'm the sea; I soar, I surge.
I move out to build your tombs.
The winds, storms, sky, earth.
Now all are mine.
In every inch of the rising struggle
I stand erect.
-J.V. Pawar:
"I Have Become the Tide".
(Razi Abedi is Pakistan's
foremost literary figure. He was chairman of the Punjab University in Lahore
and has published extensively on the literatures of both East and West. His
particular interest is the study of Urdu literature in the context of third-world
literature and the literature now being produced in the West. He has also
written extensively about education, specifically on its socio-cultural
implications. Abedi is actively involved in the cultural and academic life of
Lahore and is a member of many organizations in the city. He also writes
poetry.)
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