In a first for the capital, Delhi University’s Kirori Mal College organized a Dalit literature fest on February 3 and 4. Organized by the Ambekarwadi Lekhak Sangh in association with the college’s Hindi department and with the support of organizations like Rashmi Prakashan Lucknow, Ridam Patrika, National Alliance for People’s movements and Delhi Solidarity Group, the fest was set up with the aim of bringing together “various cultural and artistic minds who believe in social change and justice,” as stated by the fest’s website.
The event saw a range of writers, artists, singers, actors and historians from over 15 languages including the likes of Laxman Gaikwad, Shantha Naik, Nirmala Putul, Medha Patkar and Jai Prakash Kadam.
In an interview to NewsLaundry, Suraj Badtiya, a founder-member of the festival remarked on the usage of fests for entertainment purposes alone. Talking about several literary festivals taking place across the country, he said, “Of course, they will leverage upon the entertainment value of it [literature]. So they continue to sell it. Literature is not a joke that it is meant to entertain you.”
He went on to describe how the festival was strongly aimed at redefining the word Dalit. This fact is supported by the festival’s official website that defines ‘Dalit’ as a symbol of ‘Pain-Struggle-Resistance.’ It talks about the word as a “carrier of the values of struggle and resistance and this word has taken the shape of struggle and resistance against injustice and equally acts as a flag for all the marginalized who face injustice, pain, deprivation on a regular basis.”
Nirmala Putul, an Adivasi writer, poetess and a social activist, who was one of the speakers at the festival said, “We can see today how the Adivasis have begun to live in their own safe spaces now. We can see how their fights and their demands have been restricted to those of Jal, Jungle and Jameen (water, forest and land).” She went on to talk about how the government repressed the voices of the involved communities by, “declaring them as desh-drohis (anti-nationals) and henceforth erasing their identities.”
As a result, she called for the need of a united front of Adivasis, once again justifying the idea of a Dalit Sangh, commenting, “Today, we have gathered here together to present and discuss our issues in a consolidated way. This shows that our communities can build a good platform for representation and further use it for the protection and progress of the oppressed communities.”
In an interview with InUth, expanding on the role of Dalit literature against the existing oppression, Balbir Madhopuri, a Punjabi writer said, “The silence of Dalit leadership against the acts of caste-based discrimination and injustice has forced the literary community’s hand and has put them up as a form of opposition against the prevalent systems.”
Lakshman Gaikwad, a writer from Maharashtra who was also speaking at the festival, posed the rattling question of the alienation of the Vimukt Ghumantu caste. He said, as quoted by NewsLaundry, “We were given freedom but we were slaves even after Independence. The situation is such that in this country, a budget is there for the animals, but there’s no budget for Adivasis from Vimukt Ghumantu caste. Why?”
Dhiren Borisa, a Dalit queer activist, on being asked about the perception of younger Dalit activists towards the festival, says, “I feel that our stories have been stifled throughout history over which we have no control. We have been continuously represented, or rather misrepresented, by savarna people who either exoticize us or miss us out completely in their stories.”
While talking about how mainstream literature fests fail to be inclusive enough, he says, “Fests that are highly sponsored only have a tokenized form of Dalit literature. Platforms like this festival, or many like it that happen at smaller scales, usually go unreported by the mainstream media.”
This concern was also echoed by the media head for the festival, as seen in this video. Borisa goes on to say, “While these kinds of smaller platforms give spaces to newer publishing houses with relevant pieces of literature, one often misses out on voices of women, queer and trans folk as they rarely get a stage.”
Expanding on this idea, he talks about how even the Dalit literature fest, despite best of its intentions, had to mention Medha Patkar as the first name in their poster. He says, “Even in the poster for this event that lists out the involved speakers, the first name is that of Medha Patkar’s and not of a Dalit writer’s, let alone a Dalit woman’s. This speaks a lot about these places and how and what they have become.”
There has been a continuous trend of stifling minority voices for a few years now with steps like slashing various benefits to protect marginalized communities in education. Other than this, ideas like the 13-point roster that aims to harm implementation of reservation for teachers, or the continuous battle between the centre and the Adivasis for the latter’s land rights are a few more examples of what seems like a concentrated effort to silence a few selected voices in the discourse. In times like these, spaces like the Dalit literature fest succeed in providing the oppressed communities with a platform to voice their concerns.
What I didn’t fail to notice about the festival was the fact that it was run solely on donations. On being asked about this step, Badtiya responded to Newslaundry by saying, “We had no funds. We kept a donation box to raise funds, and we are putting everything in the records. Had we collected funds from outside entities, we would’ve had to follow their instructions and agenda.”
This, in my opinion, is where the problem, as well as the solution, lies. The idea to deny funding from corporations for the fear of conforming to their agendas is appropriate, especially for a festival like this. In turn, the only way this could survive would also be if people in positions of economic and social power realize the need to provide a microphone for these voices.
Historically, communities which have been the oppressors are deemed to have come out on top now, and as a result, bear both the responsibility and the resources to help the oppressed get back up. For example, a festival like the Jaipur literary festival, which had Zee as its title sponsor and people like William Dalrymple, Sanjoy K. Roy and Namita Gokhale as its festival directors, is meant to generate enough media traction to make its name.
For something like the Dalit literature fest to generate a hype of that sort, funds must pour in and this again justifies a need for those in positions of power to check their privilege, to provide for initiatives likes these and in the process, become better allies.