Poetics of Subalternity: Remembering Namdeo Laxman Dhasal (1949-2014)

TRIBUTE

I vividly remember that sweaty summer afternoon of June 2007, when I had the opportunity to speak to maverick poet and activist Namdeo Dhasal who authored the powerful lines quoted below. I wished to speak to him in connection with my study on the 1974 Worli riots in Mumbai and the Dalit Panthers. Having grown up in the grit of a city with a difficult working class history, he was not only an icon for Dalit literature and radical Dalit politics, but for the unequal city itself. This is an attempt to sketch out why...

On the way to the dargah1

A leaking sun

Went burning out

Into the night’s embrace

When I was born 

On a pavement

In crumpled rags — 

And become orphaned — 

The one who gave birth to me 

Went to our father in heaven.

She was tired of the harassing ghosts in the streets

She wanted to wash off the darkness in her sari.

And I grew up 

Like a human with his fuse blown up

On the shit in the street

Saying, “Give five paisa,

Take five curses”

On the way to the dargah.

Born in...crumpled rags2

Namdeo Laxman Dhasal was born on February 15, 1949 in an untouchable Mahar family in a village named Pur Kanesar located near the city of Pune in Maharashtra. His father, Laxman Dhasal, moved to the city of Mumbai (then Bombay) to earn a living for the family and started working as a porter in a Muslim butcher’s beef shop in central Mumbai. They lived in a shanty called Dhor Chawl (Dhor is one of the Scheduled Castes in Maharashtra traditionally attached to the occupation of removing animal carcasses) located near Golpitha (‘gol’ means round structure and ‘pitha’ is a ‘country-liquor shop’). This is why his first literary masterpiece bore the name of the ghetto he grew up in. He began to earn a living as a taxi driver and his youth took shape in the midst of smugglers, drug peddlers, sex workers in the neighborhood, which also was home to one of the largest red-light areas of the subcontinent called Kamathipura. It is here that he founded the Tiraskrit Naari Sanghatana(Association of Loathed Women) to work towards the empowerment of sex workers in the face of the onslaught by extortionists and police personnel.

In his early years, Dhasal developed a close association with both the socialist and communist movements. He became a member and activist of the Praja Socialist Party and was deeply influenced by Rammanohar Lohia and Acharya Narendra Dev. Later he came in contact with leaders like S. A. Dange and several cultural activists of the Communist Party of India (CPI), which at the time had a strong base in central Mumbai especially its outfit called Girni Kamgar Majdoor Union, which worked for the cause of mill workers in the area. He fell in love with Mallika Amar Sheikh, daughter of one Shahir Amar Sheikh, a celebrated folk singer and member of the IPTA and CPI. Subsequently, he married Mallika, whom he fondly called ‘comrade’, and exchanged the red-salute with her. Dhasal was entirely self-taught, and he voraciously read the writings of Marx, Lenin, Mao and, of course, Ambedkar. As the creator of masterpieces who never received any formal education, Dhasal can easily be compared with the likes of Malcolm X, who inspired the Black Panthers, as well as the Minister of Information of the Black Panthers, Elridge Cleaver, who also had little formal education and created a literary masterpiece, titled Soul on Ice, that he penned while he was in prison. Dhasal became the founder of the Dalit Panthers, the name of the new party being clearly inspired by the Black Panthers.

Poetics

Dhasal was not the first Marathi Dalit poet. There were many who wrote before him but only in received and standard Marathi language, whereas Dhasal challenged the neatness of polite literary registers. He fearlessly brought the language to life as a tool to express anger directed at a deeply unequal society pockmarked by caste and class. He is often referred to as the writer whose poems are full of profanities—but they are equally replete with sudden and moving poetic tenderness, both befitting life as he knew it. Noted Marathi playwright and critic Vijay Tendulkar compared him with Tukaram, the famous bhakti saint-poet of Maharashtra who lived in the 16th century. Dilip Chitre, himself a Marathi poet and translator, also a close friend of Dhasal, described him as arguably the foremost Marathi poet, as one of the foremost poets of India and as having world stature. Chitre saw Golpitha falling under the tradition of modern urban poetry like Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal and Arthur Rimbaud’s Une Saison en Enfer. (Chitre 2007: 28-29)

Dhasal’s second collection of poems, titled Moorkha Mhataryane Dongar Halavile (The Stupid Old Man moved the Mountain), was published in 1975. This is a collection of his political poems. He wrote this collection when he was reading a lot of Marxist literature and realised the limitations of bourgeois political parties. Dhasal never separated his poetics from his politics; he conceded that both are inseparable from each other and politics always was part of his poetry. This collection has one of his famous poems ‘Song of the Dog and the Republic’. But ‘Priyadarshini’, a long poem that he wrote in praise of Indira Gandhi, was published in 1976 by the then Congress Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Shankarrao Chavan, and in return more than 300 criminal cases charged on Dalit Panthers activists were withdrawn by the government. Dhasal’s defence of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi came as a surprise to both his friends and foes. But true to his political spirit, he did not make a permanent compromise with Indira’s false rhetoric of ‘garibi-hatao’. In 1981 came his next collection of poems, titled Tujhi Yatta Konchi (What is Your Grade?), which chronicled celebrated poems like ‘Hunger’ and ‘Ode to Dr Ambedkar: Equality for All or Death to India’ and ‘Sweet Baby Poverty’. Another collection of Dhasal’s poems, titled Khel (Play, 1983), has many romantic and satirical poems. The disdain in the content of another collection is evident from the very title, Gandu Bagicha (Arsefucker’s Park, 1986). In this collection, the poem called ‘New Delhi, 1985’ brilliantly mocks the celebration of the Republic Day at India Gate in New Delhi. Dhasal’s disillusionment with Dalit politics in Maharashtra took many turns but his final Rightward shift and that too coming close to the Shiv Sena against which he fought on the streets during the Worli riots of 1974 came as a rude shock to both his Dalit and Leftist friends. Though he contributed occasionally to the Sena mouthpiece, Samna, he never spared the divisive and fascist tendencies of the Right-wingers and his politics is amply reflected in the collection, Ya Sattet Jeev Ramat Nahi (The Soul Doesn’t Find Peace in This Regime, 1995). One of Dhasal’s poems in this collection clearly demonstrates his secular and humanitarian spirit as well as his vengeance against the fascist forces:

Concomitantly: December 63

...Who are these people — my own, my countrymen?

Usurpers of yore who seized my country

These are their rites, their ritual chants

God or religion?

...Yesterday they murdered Gandhi

Now they want to put the whole nation to death 

How many stories of alien invaders shall I tell them?

My original ancestors were dark Dravidian non-Aryans

Followed by Scythians, Huns, Kushans, Turks, 

Iranians and Afghans

Then white soldiers in uniform and the Firangs

Mixture of races and castes

The soil of this country never practised 

untouchability...

...today is the day of your remembrance

Whether you like it or not

Let me too raise my hand to commit violence

Perhaps these usurpers’ heads can be brought back 

to sense 

If they are hit hard... 

Mee Marale Sooryachya Rathache Ghode Saat
(I Slew the Seven Horses of the Chariot of the Sun, 2005) is a collection of his philosophical and emotional poems, and Tujhe Bot Dharoon Chalalo Ahe Me (Holding Your Finger, I Walk On, 2006) is a collection dealing with poems he wrote for and dedicated to Babasaheb Ambedkar. In his writings on Dalit consciou-sness, Dhasal always feared the pitfalls of identity politics and worked towards a synthesis between Ambedkarism and Marxism. His novel in Marathi, titled Ambedkari Chalval (1981), reflected upon Dr Ambedkar’s critical engage-ment with the socialist and communist movement of his times. Dhasal regarded Baburam Bagul as the foremost literary master whose Jevha Me Jaat Chorli Hoti (When I had concealed my Caste) and Maran Swasta Hot Ahe (Death is Becoming Cheaper) became master-pieces of modern Dalit literature. Bagul was the first Marathi Dalit writer who intro-duced the note of class-consciousness in Dalit literature apart from highlighting the pain of the Dalit masses.

Politics

Namdeo Dhasal’s romance with politics also started quite early in his life. He played a key role in conceptualising the Dalit Panthers Party that was formed on July 9, 1972 in Bombay along with his poet and activist friends like Raja Dhale, J.V. Pawar, Arjun Dangle, Avinash Mahatekar and others. They were the first generation of English-educated Dalits, aware of their constitutional rights and civil liberties. There is no denying the fact that these enthu-siastic young leaders were inspired by Black literature and the Black Panthers Party in the US, which was fighting against the racial police brutalities in the black ghettos across the American urban centres. In Maharashtra, caste atrocities were at their peak in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. The toothless Untoucha-bility (Offence) Act of 1955 miserably failed in treating these atrocities as crimes. ‘Self-Defence’ against such atrocities was a rallying point and an inherent strategy for initial mobilisation for the party. The period of the emergence of Dalit Panthers was of course the period when events of great historical signi-ficance were taking place across the globe—the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement in the US, the Black movement, the women’s movement and the revolutionary Left move-ment. These movements were all a part of the new global reality which the Panthers in particular and the Dalit movement in general drew inspiration from. (Omvedt 2006: 76)

In the absence of a definite, clear-cut political ideology, Ambedkar’s ideology initially served the Panthers’ needs. The leaders, however, were conscious of the lack of a coherent ideology and eventually developed their own road-map and published it in the form of a manifesto, a year after the organisation was formally established. While the Panthers continued to draw inspi-ration from B.R. Ambedkar, an attempt was made in the manifesto to formulate an ideology that drew inspiration from Marxism, in order to give the movement a radical orientation. The party’s ideology or guiding sentiment was thus distinctly different from the bourgeois-liberal and parliamentarian platform of the Republican Party of India (the RPI was announced by Ambedkar but the party came into existence after his death). The party manifesto broadened the definition of the term ‘Dalit’. It redefined this term to include the exploited masses, including women irrespective of their specific caste identity to make this subaltern category more robust. ‘Dalit’ was applicable to Scheduled Castes and Tribes, neo-Buddhists, economically backward workers, poor landless peasants, women, and all others who faced exploitation. The party manifesto described landlords, capitalists, moneylenders and their agents and the government which supported these elements as the sworn enemies of the Panthers. It identified all those forces which fought against caste and class oppression as the Panthers’ friends. The manifesto also highlighted the burning problems of the Dalits such as lack of food, water, shelter, jobs and land, and their highly unequal social status. The Panthers diagnosed the problem as essentially one related to economic and political power. And what it had pledged to fight for is clearly reflected in the manifesto:

“We will build the organisation of workers, Dalits, landless, poor peasants through all city factories, in all villages. We will hit back against all injustice perpetrated on Dalits. We will well and truly destroy the caste and varna system that thrives on the people’s misery, which exploits the people and liberate the Dalits. The present legal system and state have turned all our dreams to dust. To eradicate all the injustice against the Dalits, they must themselves become rulers. This is people’s democracy. Sympathisers and members of the Dalit Panthers, be ready for the final struggle of the Dalits”. (Dalit Panthers Manifesto, 1973)

The Dalit Panthers were a predominantly urban phenomenon that integrated both Marxist (in the traditional economic sense) and cultural struggle within their ideological armour. Also, though they might have borrowed heavily from Marxist terminology—an inclination that was shared by the Black Panthers in the USA—their strategies were more ambivalent and differed substantially from orthodox Marxist principles of class struggle.

The run-up to the events that led to the riots in BDD Chawls of Worli also reflected this ambivalence. The riots had started during the mid-term poll in the central Bombay parliamentary elections. The Panthers had given a call to boycott the election. It was on the issue of extending support to the CPI that differences started emerging between two camps headed by Namdeo Dhasal and Raja Dhale respectively. Dhasal was accused of propagating the comm-unist ideology and was expelled from the same party he was the founder member of.

In many ways, the Worli riots provided the impetus that the Dalit Panthers needed to gain popularity. However, it also acted as the wedge that splintered the party into several factions. Soon after the ouster of Dhasal from the Dalit Panthers Party, it further fragmented into various factions, one important faction being led by Arun Kamble. Though the Panthers were able to, get another lease of life at the time of the Marathwada riots, which occurred during the renaming of the Marathawada University as the B.R. Ambedkar Univer-sity, the party became largely ineffective.

Dhasal escaped several murderous attacks, as well as a cold-blooded attempt on his life. But his disillusionment with politics and continuous ill health did not curb his passion for giving voice to the subaltern. Finally, even the elite establishment conferred on him the Padmashri (1999) and the Sahitya Akademi Lifetime Achievement Award (2004) for his literary achievements. Dhasal finally lost his battle against the killer colorectal cancer in Mumbai on January 15, 2014 leaving behind a rich legacy of radical poetics of subalternity.

References

Chitre, Dilip (2007), Namdeo Dhasal: Poet of the Underworld (New Delhi: Navayana).

Dalit Panther Manifesto, 1973 (Bombay: Dalit Panthers).

Dangle, Arjun (1994), Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature (New Delhi: Orient Longman).

Dhasal, Namdeo (2007), Golpitha (Pune: Lokwangmay Griha).

Kumar, Arvind (2009), Discrimination and Resistance: A Comparative Study of Black Movements in the US and Dalit Movements in India. (PhD Thesis, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi).

Naipaul, V.S. (1991), India: A Million Mutinies Now (London: Vintage Random House).

Omvedt, Gail (2006), Dalit Visions: The Anti-Caste Movement and the Construction of an Indian Identity (New Delhi: Orient Longman).

Singh, Rajvinder, “A Poet of ‘mindful’ words”, The Hindu, January 20, 2014.

FOOTNOTES

1. This is the English translation of what originally appeared in the Marathi collection Golpitha. (Chitre, 2007)

2. The expression is borrowed from the poem cited above.

3. This is one of Dhasal’s long poems. Only relevant excerpts have been cited. (Chitre, 2007)

The author is an Assistant Professor, Dr K.R. Narayanan Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies, Noam Chomsky Complex, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He can be contacted at email: akumar3@jmi.ac.in