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Hindi  Dalit  Literature

Voices of awakening

The history of Dalit Sahitya in Hindi stretches back to times before Kabir and Raidas. An exploration of its foundations that emerged after the attainment of our Independence in 1947 would, however, require the researcher to investigate the period immediately preceding that of Dr. Ambedkar during which Swami Achhutanand ‘Harihar’, the founder of the Adi Hindu Mahasabha (an organisation of the Depressed Classes) and of the newspaper Adi Hindu, and poet, dramatist, historian and propagandist of a distinct Dalit religious faith, articulated through his literary production a community consciousness of the Dalit people. On the issue of a separate culture of the Dalit people, there was an unanimity of opinions between Swami Achhutanand and Dr. Ambedkar. The two engaged in a cooperative partnership in associations and agitations that took up the causes of the Dalits.

The book entitled Adi-vansh ka Danka (The Manifesto of the Adivasis), authored by Swamiji, was first published in 1940 by the Adi Hindu Propaganda Bureau, Lucknow. Its central argument was that the untouchables were embodiments of racial purity, that they were indeed the earliest inhabitants of Bharatvarsha and that they did not discriminate amongst themselves on the basis of birth, skin-colour or gender. They were not given to mutual aversion or acrimony, nor did they engage in exploitative practices. They earned their livelihood by the sweat of their brows. Thus they hardly deserved to be looked down upon. Swamiji advised the adivasis to emancipate themselves from the sentiments of sub-caste inter-rivalry.

Hindi Dalit poetry of this era was inaugurated with Swamiji’s composition “Manusmriti Hamko Jala Rahi Hai” (“Manusmriti is Burning Us”):

Day in and day out, this Manusmriti is burning us, burning us,

Not letting us climb up, it is degrading us, degrading us,

While Brahmins and Kshatriyas are allowed to rise and rise,

“Wear your old clothes,” for us in the advice.

In 1946, Mahatma Gyandas ‘Vivek Bhusan’, published a book of poems under the title Bharat Ke Achhut (India’s Untouchables). Dalit interventions in debates on social equality in India in the context of India’s approaching political independence came from intellectuals such as Devidas Jatav, Chandrika Prasad ‘Jigyasu’, Swami Bodhanand, Swami Sudhanand and Hari Prasad Tamta, the editor of the newspaper Samta, all of whom raised their voices in support of the struggle for social equality. On Swami Achhutanand’s death, the poet Jagat Ram Jatiya penned the poem “Char Aansu” (“Four Drops of Tears”). The book of poems by Bihari Lal ‘Harit’, Azadi Ki Larai (The War of Independence), was published in 1947. It contained some of his most significant creations.

The grandson toiled very hard to pay the grandfather’s debt,

The three rupees he had loaned became for the zamindar a seventy year asset.

After editor Shantibai lost her eyesight, Kalu Ram Jatia had taken over as the third editor of Adi Hindu. But Kalu Ram Jatia was first and foremost a poet. A sample of his poetry:

As long as indignities without count

Are visited on the untouchables’ account,

Surely their tormentors too must pay

For the crimes they commit in every way.

The purpose of his poetry was to ensure that the benefits of India’s independence accrued to the Dalits as well. As the aboriginal population of India, the Dalits must be accorded due pride of position within the nation. They must be freed from the shackles of varna and jati, the hierarchies of the caste system.

A leading Dalit poet of this era was Durgawati, the wife of Swami Achhutanand, who was a teacher in a school in Sirsa Ganj. One of her most poems, “Have You Really Slept Off On Us, O Swami?” was written by her on her husband’s death.

You who have awakened the world, O Swami ours,

Will you really be able to sleep on for hours?

My companion, who, like the sun, stirred up a benighted

community

And battled for its freedom beyond religion and nationality,

Before our aspiration for an identity could be realised,

You have left us, and I, with shock, am dry-eyed.

Not only the father of three daughters whom you have sired,

You were also the Swami of crores of others by you inspired.

It needs to be stated that before Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Panthers appeared on the scene to fight for the rights of the untouchables, Swami Achhutanand had made the terms ‘outcaste’ and ‘Dalit’ current in Hindi vocabulary. To protest the use of the word “Harijan”, Achhutanand had already written the poem “Hey! Gandhi, Bhagwan.” Dalit writers in Hindi thus enabled the creation of an appropriate climate for the mobilisation of a Dalit movement in the 1960s by the Republican Party of India. In course of time the Bahujan Samaj Party has reaped the harvest of a Dalit literary consciousness. Unfortunately, however, Dalit writers have rarely received the recognition they deserve from the political leaders of the Dalits.

From 1947 to 1990, the voice of the Dalit poet has dominated literary expression by Dalits. A work on “The Influence of Dr. Ambedkar on Hindi Dalit Poetry of the 1990s,” submitted to Jawaharlal Nehru University as an M. Phil. thesis, was the first on this subject to receive the award of M.Phil. Presently almost every university in the country has scholars specialising in the study of Dalit literature. Dalit literature has entered the syllabi of courses taught at the Lucknow University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Indira Gandhi National Open University and Delhi University. In this regard, the Hindi departments in the universities in the provinces are a few steps ahead of the centrally-funded universities. The pioneering Ph.D. dissertation on Hindi Journalism, awarded the doctoral degree by Rohilkhand University in 1995, was based on my own work on ‘The Influence of Dr. Ambedkar on Dalit Journalism in Hindi.” Pehla Khat (The Initial Letter), Manav Ki Parakh (The Test of the Human Species), Bandhan-Mukt (Unshackled), Aman-Jyoti (The Flame of Peace), Mukti-Parv (The Phase of Liberation) and Rukega Nahin Vidroh (The Revolt Will Not Stop) are examples of novels published in Hindi by Dalit writers in recent years even as Hiraman (The Golden Parrot) and Kraunch Hun Main (I Am Kraunch) are instances of contemporary poetry anthologies compiled by Dalit writers publishing in Hindi. As far as Hindi Dalit autobiographies are concerned, my own autobiography Mere Bachpan Mere Kandhon Par (My Childhood On My Shoulders) has been just released by Vani Prakashan. The autobiographical impulse in Dalit writers from the Hindi heartland, in fact, manifested itself quite early. Around 1952-1954, the autobiography of Hazari had appeared. Serialised in Hindustan under the caption, Ek Harijan Ki Ram Kahani (The Grand Narrative of a Harijan’s Life), it was subsequently brought out in English translation from England under the heading An Outcaste Indian. Jhootan (Left-Overs), the self- narrativisation of his life by Om Prakash Valmiki has also attracted international and national attention after it was translated into English a few years ago. This book has been the topic of an essay “Jhootan Ka Lekhak Kaun Hai?” (“Who is the Author of Jhootan”?) by Dr. Dharamvir, the noted Dalit critic. This essay lives up to the finest traditions of dialectic among the Dalit intelligentsia introduced by Swami Achhutanand. Dr. Dharamvir has an excellent study too of the writings of Kabir. Mere Patni Aur Bheriya (My Wife and the Wolves) will be his latest book.

Dalit writers are, from time to time, provided the opportunity to represent themselves on the pages of non-Dalit publications, but there is obviously no clear-cut or conscious policy adopted by editors of non-Dalit periodicals to regularly solicit for their issues writings by Dalit writers. On the whole, the exercise of including Dalit writings in issues of mainstream magazines/journals remains arbitrary and dependent upon the whims and fancies of the editors concerned. Only if and when these journals/magazines appoint “guest editors” who are Dalits to edit “special Dalit issues” do Dalit writers feature in them. It is a pity that even Hans, a periodical in Hindi with a pronounced liberal orientation, whose editorial chair has been occupied by persons of the ilk of Premchand and Rajendra Yadav, waited till August 2004 to inaugurate its “special Dalit Issue” with me as “guest editor”, featuring contributions by at least two dozen Dalit writers, including, for the very first time, a few poems of Swami Achhutanand. The theme of this special issue was “Satta Bimarsh Aur Dalit” (“Dalits and the Discourse of Power”).

Among the works of Dalit women writers writing in Hindi, after Rajat Rani Meenu’s short story “Sunita” and Uth Chal Mere Saath, as part-autobiography by her, the novels of Kaveri (Miss Ramia), Sushila Takbhore, Raj Bharati and Tara Parmar show significant literary promise.

(Edited and translated by Tapan Basu.)

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