Does Dalit Literature Need Poetics?

B.M. Puttaiah
Questions and Answers

1. Why does Puttaiah say works of dalit literature are actually under attack by the usual
glowing tributes?
OR
Why does Puttaiah think that literary criticism, as we know it, serves only to destroy
Dalit literature?

Some critics praise dalit literary works as ‘the power of poor people’s laughter’. Some others
praise literary pieces written by dalits as ‘a peacock that no hands can seize’. According to
Puttaiah, these accolades and recognition by litterateurs and critics may initially appear to be
serious literary criticism, but they are shallow because they hinder the understanding of this
literature as the comprehensive articulation of dalits. Works of dalit literature are actually under
attack by glowing statements like these, which turn dalit expression into something that floats
around in an [abstract] world of aesthetics. This form of assault obstructs our looking at this
literature within the existing social framework. It is important to recognize this danger.

Analyses or close readings of texts are the principal means of building a literary poetics.
Language and structure are taken as the most important aspects of literature. But in the case of
dalit literature, the focus on canonical texts or accepted forms and definitions of literature is not
adequate. The dimensions of the dalit world in the past thirty years, its interiors and exteriors,
ups and downs, the injustices and crimes against dalits and their response or resistance, must all
feature in the discussion. In reality, dalit literature is the lamentation that arises out of dalit life, it
is the woes of dalit life expressed in speech and writing. But in the sphere of literary criticism, in
which beauty and pleasure are foregrounded, critics praise it saying ‘Aha!’ ‘Oho!’ and dance
around it in exaltation. For the rulers, the tears of the poor are, after all, just rose water. Some
traditional studies have made dalit literature their prey; others have made it a source [to affirm
their theories].

(Also read Answer no. 10)

2. Write a short note on the two ways of looking at Dalit groups.

There are two ways of looking at dalit groups: the bottom-up model and the top-down model.
Currently, the top-down model occupies the vanguard(=in the front; leading the way). AHINDA
[a coalition of dalits, backward castes and minorities] and reform politics [as against
revolutionary politics] use this model. When landlords and landowning powers meet dalits, they
assume that this is what the politics of backwardness is. This model encounters dalits in star
hotels, inspection bungalows, AC rooms in Bangalore, convent schools, and medical and
engineering colleges. And the landlords and pro-landlord forces, who are part of such
mobilizations, who encounter the dalits in them assume that these are the only dalits and expect
them to join with backward caste forces and believe that they will do so.
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Such landlord eyes don’t see dalits that work as coolies, carrying dung or sweeping the streets.
These dalits are purposely kept hidden and dalit writers are taken to hotels, made to sit on stages
and told insane things such as: ‘The backward castes should all unite in order to become the
ruling class and all dalit groups should rise to the occasion.’ The exploiters look at the dalits
from the top, which suits their interests. In order to take care of dalit interests, it is essential to
perceive dalits from the bottom-up.

This can be clarified through a historical example: in the past thirty years, the DSS has organized
protest movements, demanding land, in every corner of the region. Strangely, such protests have
never been organized by the district or state committees. The call for land came from the homes
of people in villages, who shared a relationship with the land, people in rural areas, people who
had been victims of the injustices perpetrated by landlords. It is important to note that India’s
great Naxalbari movement was also not in response to some call from a central committee. It is
important to stress this now because you cannot sample just a few dalit writings in order to get a
sense of the whole body of dalit writing. There is no need for the dalit movement to prove that
what scores of dalits have written is also poetry. If you engage in such an exercise, you will be
unconsciously following the parameters of the opponents of dalit literature. It is better to ignore
such arguments. Dalits must be viewed from below, through the eyes of those who labour and in
their interests. They should not be seen only through the eyes of dalit leaders, writers and
politicians.

3. Explain how Devanoora’s ‘Skip a meal, drink a sip of water’ campaign on 15 August 1985
backfired.
Dalits who have had an education make sense of their experiences only through that education.
Those who are uneducated use their experience to understand the world, while the educated
understand the world through received knowledge. Formal education has given rise to a wealth
of material based on dalit memories. For dalit writers, their memory became a source of
creativity. But through their writings, they separated themselves from dalits and also diminished
themselves in the process. Education and jobs created a dalit middle class. Through this middle
class, even capitalism was able to take root and expand. For example, Devanoora, who has
portrayed immeasurable possibilities in his creative writing, organized a programme called ‘Skip
a meal, drink a sip of water’ on 15 August 1985, when he was the convener of the DSS. This
episode made him an object of much ridicule and was later used against him. This programme is
as (in)famous in dalit history as his novels are famous in the literary world. What has to be noted
here is that the notion of skipping a meal comes from outside the experience of a dalit. A true
dalit would never think of fasting by choice because he has known starvation. His main anxiety
comes from having to stay hungry, being forced to fast. This shows that within the DSS, writers
such as Devanoora have neglected the primary angst of the dalits. The concerns and experience
of those dalits whose stomachs are full have instead been brought to the fore. When dalit
experiences are articulated in letters of the alphabet, it splits dalits’ experiences from their
existences.

4. Why, according to Puttaiah, are protests songs a truer form dalit literature?
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In Dalit literature, according to Puttaiah, living realities, the conditions that are eating up living
people, are the focus. Their life gains precedence over literary issues. Does ‘literature’ have the
ability or intent of registering or showcasing these things? This question has to be asked in a
manner that supersedes the ‘purity’ of literature. It has to be asked in the way dalits rend their
throats at protests. Singing is not quite possible in the circumstances that they live in. A burning
heart cannot be conveyed in song to passers-by. Communication that uses neither language nor
words is sharper and clearer—that is, the heart burning, the burning coal, the muscle, the flesh,
the hot blood of the heart. Therefore, understanding the ‘what’ and the ‘how much’ that are
expressed by language is child’s play. Dalit literature is not merely letters of the alphabet, it is
not something that can be expressed or understood as words or language. Dalit literature is not
merely what is available in the library. Dalit writers aren’t to be found in warm houses, reading
rooms, air-conditioned rooms. What is called ‘dalit literature’ is not simply literature that has an
ideology.

To explain this Puttaiah quotes from the world of protest songs. This dalit literature is the story
of wounds, wounds which contain a song of pain. And he laments that Dalit literature is
increasingly moving towards an idea of literature as a form of language and, that too, as
expressed by the written word. In such a construction, the idea of ‘literature’ is bound down,
restricted. Dalit literature is a complex phenomenon. It can broadly be understood as the
comprehensive expression of dalit experience. It includes the songs sung at protests, in which the
lead singer is no more important than the chorus. Slogans are also articulations of dalit
resistance. Yet these have not been recognized as literature.

5. Why, according to Puttaiah, is it ideologically difficult to talk about dalit poetics or

present a literary poetics for dalit literature?
OR
Why, according to Puttaiah, is the attempt to create a literary poetics for dalit literature is
bound to be fruitless?
In Dalit literature, according to Puttaiah, living realities, the conditions that are eating up living
people, are the focus. Their life gains precedence over literary issues. Does ‘literature’ have the
ability or intent of registering or showcasing these things? This question has to be asked in a
manner that supersedes the ‘purity’ of literature. It has to be asked in the way dalits rend their
throats at protests. It makes no sense to set aside these concerns and wrangle over literary
poetics. That is why it is ideologically difficult to talk about dalit poetics or present a literary
poetics for dalit literature.

6. Why do dalit texts oppose silent reading?

OR
Why, according to Puttaiah, are dalit texts oral in nature?

Often, dalit literature opposes silent reading through its form and structure. It begs to be read
aloud in a full-throated voice. It carries the spirit of the oral traditions, if not visibly in language,
then at least in essence. Protest songs are the best examples of this. Odalala and Kusumabale are
works of this kind. This quality is also present in Mogalli’s prose. If it is written, it is also meant
to be read. But the fact that this literature discourages reading and forces speech, and is
essentially aimed at the listener, is an interesting feature. Reading is a method ideologically
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projected by the State, while speech stems from the body of people. Speech aims at and
anticipates a listener, and demands an immediate response. Thus, it acquires a tangible character
and is structured as dialogue. Even though writing can also be characterized thus, there is a
difference. So, the tendency to oppose the silent reading of the written page is also in essence an
opposition to the State. Though the experiences of dalits may be manifest in written language,
they resist silent reading and require to be read aloud. This dialectic is deeply rooted in dalit
literature.

7. What is the problem with K.S. Bhagavan’s arguement in Shankaracharya Mattu

Pratigamitana?
OR
How are the Dalit aspirations for land derailed by the landlords?
OR
How does Puttaiah expose the dalit - brahmin opposition as false?
OR
How does anti-brahminism become a trap for the dalits?

The dalit movements are the fruit of historical change. They are a consequence of anguished
dissatisfaction with the feudal system and the desire to break free. Further, dalit movements, like
the DSS in Karnataka, arose from the demands of workers asking for land, ruining the sleep of
landlords. Therefore the landlords in general and those in Karnataka in particular have been keen
on derailing the dalit aspiration for land.

When the DSS was formed in Karnataka, it took up land as a major agenda. This political
message was repeated over and over in a series of protest songs that had spread from Telugu to
Kannada during the 1970s. Historically speaking, the exploitative system should have been
completely destroyed by these movements, or it should have transformed them completely. But it
did not happen because the landlords succeeded in derailing the dalit aspiration for land.

It is in the following way in which the exploitative landowning classes historically dealt with
these questions. For example, K.S. Bhagavan, in Shankaracharya Mattu Pratigamitana
(Shankaracharya and Reactionary Ideology), has explained it thus: ‘Let us assume that a brahmin
and a dalit are very poor. To make ends meet, the brahmin sits on the roadside and sells snacks
such as chakkuli or vada. If the dalit decides to start a similar business, how many people will
buy from him?’ Even posing this question will horrify some people, who worry that it may
become a reality!

According to Puttaiah,it is important to understand the dangerous hypocrisy in this example. In

this example, dalits are pitted against brahmins. It is trying to hide the fact that the landlord class
is the ideological enemy of the dalits. In the above example, instead of bringing in a brahmin, it
was possible to depict the opposition as one between the dalit and a person belonging to any of
the middle castes. By positing the opposition as one with brahmins, the example hides the day-
to-day atrocities committed by middle castes on dalits. Such hypocritical arguments have
deceived dalit intellectuals and writers for the past thirty or forty years.
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Positioned high on the exalted tenets of liberalism, dalit intellectuals and leaders turn their backs
on the present and drink the poison of focusing only on the injustices committed by brahmins in
the past. Abstract, intangible ideas, based on experiences not found in dalit colonies, have
become reality in the ideological and critical literature of dalits. ‘Brahmins, vedas and priests are
your foes.’ By quoting from the scriptures, a brahmin versus shudra ideological classification
was devised, in which people belonging to none of the four varnas—the panchamas— were
included in the shudra category. As a result, the cumulative anger against the feudal system in
contemporary times was redirected against brahmins and the Manudharmashastra. In the
ideological grip of liberal humanism, dalit intellectuals turned away from the present and began
fighting the brahmins who had wronged the dalits in the historical past. Anti-brahminism, which
is completely absent in dalit colonies, can be found in dalit intellectual discourse and literary
discussions.

NGOs have also been responsible for fanning this sentiment, purposely causing dalits to lose
their way in their struggle for land and even making a profit out of this argument. It has also
brought joy to the landowning classes. They are the people who gift money [to their dalit
workers] for a daughter’s wedding and keep the loan going for a lifetime. Those very people are
happy when they project dalits and brahmins as foes. As part of the opposition against brahmins,
dalits and other progressive people proudly conduct weddings without priests. But no one talks
about the cruelty of landlords who give money for a wedding and then with their false accounts
keep workers bonded to them as guarantee of repayment.

8. How does Puttaiah critique the modern state vis-à-vis its relation to the Dalits.

In Puttaiah’s opinion, the fruits of the formation of the modern state are literacy, formal
education and some jobs. Modern states have also initiated certain capitalistic reforms. Those
who wereeconomically and socially disadvantaged were given formal education and some
(‘some’ must be stressed) jobs. But such initiatives did not have the well-being or emancipation
of dalits at heart. Essentially, they were an eyewash to create make-believe that dalit groups
were giving capitalism and its handpicked government a grand welcome. That way, it tried to
draw dalits into feudal relations and capitalist relations, while exploitation continued unchecked.

The modern state also needed to be called secular. For this purpose it needed to create an image
of being inclusive(= catering to all sections of the people). Literacy and educational programmes
of the modern state is a good case in point. The few who had benefited from formal education
and jobs received an economic leap. But if we consider the total dalit population, this is only a
very small number. Yet this small group has decided that formal education is a dalit’s strength,
knowledge, and weapon of emancipation. This assessment was not based on a real appraisal of
the contemporary dalit situation. It was based on a weak appraisal that said: historically we have
been denied education or jobs, therefore what we need are jobs.

9. Explain how Puttaiah critiques traditional dalit literature.

The dalit writers who have hailed formal education and reservations are driven by a
historical memory that is moulded in their competition with landowning and brahmin
castes; they have not been inspired by the contemporary problems of dalits. It is from this
position that they give importance to English and literacy. But Puttaiah asks: How will
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English help dalits? What will it give them? Never in history were education, work, or
English the primary aspirations or objectives of dalits. As a result, dalits have become
bound to a system that does not have a primary relationship with their lives. The
education thus given to dalits has invoked curiosity, astonishment, enthusiasm and a kind
of delight in literate dalits who read dalit literature and in that section of the general
reading public that reads dalit literature some of whom have relished it.

In these writings, dalits have expressed their community’s joys, pains, problems, insults
and sorrows. The extent to which the unveiling of the dalit world in language and art has
been successful or unsuccessful comes to the fore in literary criticism [by these groups],
which is actually dependent on the calculations of the market. In reality, dalit literature
should have caused shame and embarrassment [not aesthetic pleasure] to the class that
caused the dalits’ hunger
and insult. But in the [academic] context of reading and critiquing dalit literature, the
sociological and legal demands at the heart of the literature have remained abstract.

10. The two ways of reading dalit literature.

There’s a stark difference between the way non-dalits and non-academic dalits respond to dalit
literature. Non-academic dalits do not count what they produce as literature; to them, it is their
very life that has been given tangible form. It is insulting for them to have someone lay open
their ‘deficiencies’ and ‘weaknesses’, and that too in writing. The opposition from uneducated
dalits to Malagatti’s autobiography, which lays bare their ‘deficiencies and bad qualities’, can be
seen in this perspective. The educated mind understands Malagatti’s autobiography from the
opposite perspective (i.e., it celebrates it).

You can speak about the humiliation meted out to you only when you are able to escape from it,
at least momentarily. While you are being humiliated, it is not possible to speak about it. As
such, when experiences become less sharp and recede, they grow closer to being rendered in
speech/writing. For those who undergo humiliation every day, having their experience captured
in writing is a source of embarrassment. Those who are able to express the humiliation that they
have undergone are the ones that have overcome their embarrassment or are emerging from the
experience. Those who study or do research on such expression simply view it in terms of
sources, themes and forms. Both writers and the researchers focus on the question of ‘social
justice’ in literature. But illiterate dalits know nothing about ‘social justice’ as a dimension of
literature. Non-dalits imaginatively enter the problems of dalits through literature and suggest
solutions to their imagined problems of dalits, while those who are in the thick of the problem
seem to be rejecting such ways of understanding as well as the solutions offered.

The class that reads dalit literature as source material for literary studies (ie, the non-dalits)
celebrates its ability to rouse curiosity, to shock, surprise and delight. This class has re-
represented, according to their (its) own sensibilities, the manholes, the urine, the lice, the
peacock’s picture, the groundnut shells burning in the fire, etc. This is the class that now delights
in (dalit) literature. Such an approach to dalit literature measures its aesthetic and artistic value,
and feels happy about that. In reality, dalit literature is not meant for such studies. It requires
overwhelmed responses that pour out like the predictions of a fellow in a trance.
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11. Explain how dalit movements did some damage to the social standing of feudalism.

Puttaiah thinks that Dalit movements, in general, have been largely ineffective in uplifting social
conditions of the dalits because they could not touch feudal production relations. However, for
the first time in history, they were able to do some damage to the social standing of feudalism.
Democratic independence is growing with dalit movements and feudalism is gradually losing its
hold. These two forces are now engaged in a social conflict. In the 1980s, the dalit community
underwent a social transformation. The new generation of dalits began changing their first
names. This was a silent revolution in the social history of Karnataka. It was not something that
happened consciously. In villages, the ‘middle castes’ used to routinely corrupt dalit names from
Manjaiah to Manja, Kalaiah to Kala, Thimmappa to Thimma, Kalamma to Kali and so on.
Suddenly, in dalit colonies and in the houses of landlords (where disparaging abbreviation of
dalit names used to be common), names such as Ramesha, Ganesha, Kamala, Sudha became the
norm. Since the names of the dalit labourers were the same as those living in the house (ie, the
landlords) it was difficult to corrupt the names. This was a sharp insult to the feudal system.

12. Explain the paradoxes and complexities of Dalit Literature.

●We have on the one side, treatment of dalits that would shock even our dalit brothers in
Bendigeri [the town where in 1987 dalits were forced to eat shit], but at the other end,
there are dalit literary works describing shit pits and literary criticism on shit pits. Shit
pits represent a decent and dignified way of meeting one’s primary needs. And they are
available to only a miniscule minority of dalits. Shit—from being forced to do open
defecation to being forced to eat shit—has been a source of utter humiliation for the
dalits. Shit pit, therefore, represent a much dignified way of life. Therefore, such
descriptions of shit-pits are possible only if you are outside the real experiences of the
majority of dalits in the country. And the paradox is that both co-exist as dalit
experiences and are represented in dalit literature.

• The meekness with which unspeakable violence was borne by dalits at one end, and the
courage of other dalit characters who resisted being beaten.

• On the one side, there are stories of dalits who, in their slavish subservience, let the
police take anything and everything they ask for; and at the other end, there are dalit
artists who create ‘objects’ that ‘no hands can seize’.

• One the one hand, an already canonized list of ‘noted’ dalit writers and works, and
criticism based on them; on the other hand, over 180 dalit writers and over 200 protest
songs.

• At one end, there are protest songs with such lines as

Our bones form the drapery on Doddagowda’s doorway,

Our people’s hands and legs are the pillars that hold up their cowshed .
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But the power of such fiery lines have been nullified by being praised as using the
utpreksha alankar [hyperbole], praise which is in itself a manifestation of feudalism. At
the other, there are tragedies in every street, the murders that rise out of the same
landlords’ arrogance and villainy.

• Dalit writers and critics are sharply divided in their opinion about the influence of great
dalit writers.

• On the one hand, a protest song that dubs former chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde’s
rule as shit raj but on the other, there are works that are dedicated to the same
Ramakrishna Hegde.

• Dalit opinion is sharply divided on the very nature and strengths of such celebrated dalit
works as Kusumabale.

● On the one side, there are reviews that celebrate such lines as ‘Ikkrala Vadirla’ (= Bash
them! Kick them!) as showing the power of the people. On other side there is the
contemptuous feudal dismissal of such lines as ‘not poetry at all’.

• Then there’s the call for reservation in the private sector that asserts that dalits will be
emancipated because of globalization. There’s also the grim situation in which this new
imperialism has globalized the hunger of dalits and the insults against them.

• At one end are dalit poems supporting formal education; at the other, there are protest
songs that criticize formal education.

• Dalit perception is again sharply divided on role and influence of Dr. Ambedkar in dalit
lives.
• Dalit positions are poles apart on the use of Marxism and Communism in their struggle
for emancipation from the feudal yoke.

● At one end, there’s the DSS slogan, ‘Forget your caste, build the nation,’ and at the
other, there’s the Samata Sainik Dal [a madiga-focused organization] slogan, ‘Forget
your country, build your caste’.

●At one end, there is the DSS stance: ‘Ambedkar is our vision, direction and path’,
while the DSS Coordination Committee stand is: ‘Ambedkar inspires, while Marx shows
us the way’.

• At one end, there’s the demand: ‘Dalits should be taught English from class I. It
suggests the importance of education for the emacipation of the dalits. But at the other
end there are such lines as:

‘Even a suckling child goes out for wage work every day’, and,
‘If you go to school, who will get you food?’
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They represent the terrible reality of the condition of the dalits.

• ‘The Manudharmashastra must be burnt,’ says the opposition to formal brahminism,

while ‘Enough chicken and arrack served, dalits are waiting for their land’ brings to the
fore the demand for land as a fundamental concern. The latter represent fundamental anti-
feudal stance of the dalits as opposed to the much propagated anti-brahminical stand
among them.

●At one end, there’s the spirit with which people adopt their caste names as last names as
in ‘Subbu Holeyar’, ‘Basappa Madar’; at the other, the hiding of caste names to secure a
house on rent in the city and the use of dalit names [by the upper castes] to obtain caste
certificates illegally, have houses allotted,
or claim reservations in jobs.

●Studies give us insights into how revising the worship rituals of village deities can
consciously but creatively subvert caste rules. However, across the land, dalits are not
allowed entry into temples and are killed or assaulted during village festivals.

• At one end, terms such as ‘brahminism’, ‘vedic’ and ‘priestly’ serve as fuel for those
riding on globalization and starting NGOs to oppose such things. There are also instances
of dalit men marrying brahmin women; at the same time, the reality is that dalits are
unable to marry into the non-brahmin
‘middle’ castes. If such an attempt is made, dalit colonies can suddenly fall prey to fire
and dalit corpses may fall.

These tensions and paradoxes comprise an overview of dalit existence, achievements, the
small steps that have supported it and the ways in which landlords have sabotaged dalit
missions and used them to serve their own ends. Because of these complexities it is
difficult to propose a critical framework, let alone a poetics (a distant dream) that
embodies the hunger in the hearts of the dalits, the insults heaped on them, the
intolerance and the opposition they experience and also their dreams. The contradictions
point to the cause behind these things—their relationship with the earth and production
relations. They inform us that dalits have problems within the zamindari system and
imperialistic regimes. They clearly highlight that capitalism and democracy do not solve
the problems of dalits.

13. How is Dalit literature impacted by the strategies used by the upper classes?

Read Answers 1 and 10 and then continue:

Dalit literature has been impacted by the strategies used by the upper classes. Forms of language
used by the exploitative classes are used by dalit writers. And also some questions that have not
been debated politically by dalits are included. For example, let’s take the common saying,
‘Dalits have been subjected to exploitation for centuries.’ The saying includes the social action
of exploitation. It also implies that there is someone who exploits, the exploiter, and someone
who undergoes the exploitation, the exploited. But to the question, ‘Who is responsible for this
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exploitation?’, the exploiters will reply: the dalits themselves, while dalits will say the exploiters
are. The sentence makes it seem that dalits are somehow responsible for their own exploitation.
The exploiters have not been named in the sentence. This means that the idiom, which is also
used by dalits, is not really their own. It is that of the exploiters. Dalits are using the language
and idiom of the exploiters to articulate their own thoughts and ideas.

14. How does Puttaiah resist dalit literature being taken over by mainstream poetics and
suggest the need for a separate poetics for it?

Refer to answers 1,4,5,6,9,10,12. And then read:

According to Puttaiah the search for dalit poetics should not fall into exclusion-inclusion
exercise. Such anexercise implicitly rejects a great number of works by a great number of
writers. . On the contrary, we should actively look for those works that will be rejected by
mainstream academia. It is important to bear in mind that dalit literature is not to be found only
in formal or printed forms. (eg. the numerous pamphlets, wall graffiti, banners, magazine
articles, protest songs; the inspiring and efficacious speeches, slogans shouted at marches; each
issue of the newspaper Panchama; reports of the many strikes held by the DSS; proclamations
made by newspapers; statements issued to the press by organizations;
heartfelt talk between dalit activists about these issues etc.) At its heart, dalit literature
rebelliously opposes any kind of hierarchy. In constructing a poetics, we should not forget that
both inclusion and exclusion are in operation. Exclusionary practices, which also place literary
texts, both written and oral, in a hierarchy, have no place in dalit literature.

Therefore Pauttaiah cautious about those critics who erase the real character, the strength, of
dalit literature with their nourishing ‘Ahas’ and ‘Ohos’, and work towards revealing the actual
vested social interests of those accolades.