Dalit fiction,
Dalit prose,
The literature of the downtrodden,
Crushed down,
Trampled,
Rights denied.
The literature of the oppressed and suppressed,
Exploited and tortured,
The have-nots,
The unresourced,
The poor and the weak
And neglected,
But why are they,
I cannot say?
By the Dalits,
For the Dalits.
A matter of the Dalits,
Let them.
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The fisherman working all daylong,
From early in the morning,
Casting nets,
Catching fish
And putting into the weal.
Dalit poetry,
Found I in the cobbler’s home,
Working from dawn to dusk,
Doing the leather work
At the city centre
Or the town square
By the footpath
Or on the platform,
Polishing the boots.
Dalit poetry,
Found I in viewing the gipsy girls,
Ill-clad and ill-clothed,
Asking for alms
Into the train bogies,
Holding the shoes
Or legs,
Cleaning the compartments
And asking for money.
Dalit poetry,
Found I in marking the washermen
And they going to the ghat
As for to wash clothes
And return back home late in the afternoon,
Exhausted and done with
And the ass too bearing the brunt.
Dalit poetry,
Fopund I in seeing them driven out of homes,
The old and the pensioners
When came they
The new members in the house,
The son turning into a bad son,
Which but the mother cannot generally.
Dalit poetry,
Found I in reservation,
The protesters and demonstrators
Doing self-immolation
And the rustic fellows,
The buffoons, clowns and scoffers
As the ministers stood they
Instigating and provoking
As for chair.
Dalit poetry,
Found I in watching the scavenger women
Going to throw off human excreta,
In the tin takers
Placed overherad or on the wheelbarrow,
They chewing paan
And going away
In toil, sweating and heat of the day
To the municipal garbage heap,
Where vats are cleared.