Namdeo Dhasal: Poet, Activist, Social Reformer

In the oppressed world of the Dalit samaj, the acceptance of a poet who acknowledged the atrocities and dared to speak up against them was rare. Namdeo Dhasal, a poet and Dalit activist fought sociopolitical and caste hierarchical structures with his revolutionary works and his poetry which embraced people left behind by society.

Namdeo Dhasal; Image Source- The Wire

“The needle probes for the artery;

Enemies of poetry gather in your city.

Your town is cursed with power;

Roses flow in this stream of blood;

The waters of your Yamuna stand exposed.”

In his poem New Delhi, 1985, Dalit activist and Marathi poet Namdeo Dhasal penned these lines. So much has been written and spoken about him that today, he feels not a person unknown- but instead a revolutionary, a fighter, a Dalit activist and a poet that changed the course of Marathi literature and brought about impeccable social change.

Namdeo Dhasal was born on February 15, 1949, in the Mahar community in the Pur-Kanersar region near Pune in Maharashtra. When he was a little child, his family moved to Bombay . The family resided in a chawl and his father was a porter in a butcher shop. His poetry not only reflects the hypocrisy and harshness of this caste-ridden society, but also belligerently criticises it because he grew up in a life of perpetual struggle and drudgery. Himself considered ‘untouchable’, in Pune, Dhasal’s poetry waged a war against all kinds of exploitation. About his early life, Dhasal wrote: “I was born/On footpath/ when the Sun was leaked/ and being dimmed/into the bosom of night”.

About his life and poetry, the renowned poet once said- “Both my individual and my collective life have been through such tremendous upheavals that if my personal life did not have poetry to fall back on I would not have reached thus far. I would have become a top gangster, the owner of a brothel, or a smuggler.”

Nine poetry anthologies, as well as many pieces of prose, including a novel, were written by Dhasal. His 1971 debut poetry book Golpitha, for which he won the Soviet Land Nehru Award, is his most well-known piece. The strong language it contained shocked the Marathi literary community. It was called the "bibhatsa rasa" by Chitre (disgust). The situation of pimps, prostitutes, criminals, and other outcasts of society was discussed.

His poetry and prose were unapologetically and uninhibitedly expressed, earning him the Padma Shri and the Sahitya Akademi Lifetime Achievement Award. He was conferred with the Maharashtra State Award for literature four times — in 1973, 1974, 1982 and 1983.Dhasal employed words that are only heard, understood, and uttered by Dalits in their vernacular tongues in a racist literary situation where language is used not as a tool of dialogue but as a weapon of epistemic violence.

Dhasal didn't dim the innate brilliance of his raw pen despite upper-caste dominated elite educational institutions constantly encouraging Dalits to write as flowery as the "elites" and to conduct in an exquisite, or rather incomprehensible, manner as the dominant castes. His spontaneous poetry did not attempt to don the coat of "so-called class," instead using language common to the marginalized communities he grew up in. In its honesty, it liberated itself. Instead of attempting to disguise its difficult surroundings, it showed the truth. It is a failure of this pitiful caste-ridden society that his poetry, rather than being acute representations of a terrible past, instead remain tragically and stunningly relevant today.His works have been translated in English by Dilip Chitre under the title Namdeo Dhasal—Poet of the Underworld, Poems 1972-2006.

Along with poet-activists J.V. Pawar, Raja Dhale, and Arjun Dangle, Dhasal founded the "Dalit Panthers" in 1972, a social organisation that was influenced by the American Black Panther movement. Dhasal's disenchantment with traditional political parties and the growth of atrocities committed against Dalits in the 1960s led to this formation. Throughout the 1970s, the organisation was essential to Dalit politics. This movement and its participants not only made a significant impact on the literary and cultural landscape of resistance, but they also fostered a strong sense of self-assurance in the anti-caste generations born after the 1970s. Millions of Dalits are still inspired by its revolutionary nature and ways of fighting for justice today.

On May 19 of this year, we will commemorate DPM's 51st anniversary. On January 15, 2014, at the age of 64, Dhasal passed away in Mumbai from colon cancer after a protracted and incapacitating struggle. It is indisputable that Dhasal has helped several generations express or develop their sociopolitical and literary consciousness.

The dominant-caste norms are what people who claim Dhasal violated norms in his writings perceive to be the norms. Dhasal wasn't defying convention. He created his own standards. His writings weren't an argument. His writing was the source of his life. The pen was desecrated and made into a weapon by him. Dhasal opened up a new universe to popular literary culture through his social and political activism. Poetry, according to Dhasal, "is just as natural as eating."