MAHARASHTRA, INDIA, December 7, 2006: “For years, the Dalits were addressed with disrespect but now, if you call any scheduled class person ‘oyire’ he shouts back with equal scorn ‘kai re?” says Prakash Vishwasrao, Mumbai-based progressive publisher-owner of the New Age press. Literally, oyire means “Oh you,” and might be translated as “Hey, you!” or “You there!” delivered in a harsh tone. “Kai re” literally means “What do you want?,” and is delivered in an equally harsh voice.
The recent violence in Maharashtra against the desecration of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s statue at Kanpur and the Khairlanji killings in Bhandara district in which a Dalit woman and her daughter were raped and killed and her two grown sons were also killed has hardened the mood among the Dalits in India.
The Deccan Queen, a favorite of hundreds of daily commuters to Mumbai, was stopped by Dalit protesters on the outskirts of Mumbai. Commuters were asked to get off the train and an angry mob set the train on fire. Arjun Dangle, distinguished Dalit poet and one of the founder members of the Dalit Panthers in Maharashtra says, “For many decades the Deccan Queen was the symbol of Pune, seat of the Peshwa Brahminical rule. There is a meaning behind the burning of train.”
Dangle, who has chronicled underprivileged classes’ literary movement in Maharashtra, claims the current Dalit movement is not the movement of illiterates. Vishwasrao says, “The young generation is hungry of information. At the Nagpur book fair more than 100 titles on Dalit literature get released in a week. Dalit literature sales is above US$500,000 annually.” The biographies of Dalit leaders who have earned successes in mainstream India are in demand. Revolutionary poet Namdeo Dhasal and his contemporaries have also helped Dalits emerge out of darkness, says Vishwasrao.