This History of Telugu Dalit Literature is the first book of its kind in English. It mainly focuses on the Telugu Dalit Literature produced after 1980s. Dalit writers are earnestly desirous to remove the social exploitation and caste inequalities. They wish to falsify the view that literature leaves the world as it is. They wish to change the world. Through literature they are re-examining and redefining their place in Indian society. Dalit literature primarily focuses on fundamental human rights and human values. Energized by an aggressive expression Dalit Literature protests against the established unjust and graded social order and also rejects the religious and traditional hegemony. In Andhra Pradesh, the powerful Dalit Literature originated mainly from the atrocities on Dalits in Karamchedu (1985) and Tsunduru/ Chunduru (1991). The Dalit movements sprouted when the constitutional remedies failed and social democracy unrealized. This book, it is hoped, is particularly useful for all the non-Telugu scholars and students of literature in India and other countries. The brief biographical sketches of well known as well as lesser known writers are given due space. This work is also useful for comparative studies in subaltern literatures.

The anthology is an attempt to showcase over a hundred years of Dalit writing in Telugu, representing Dalit movements, Dalit activism, Dalit womens activism, and Dalit critiques of Hinduism and the Left, besides other specific concerns. Perhaps no other state in India has had an active Dalit movement alongside the movements led by the Left. Other states too have a formidable body of Dalit literature, but the Dalit movement in Andhra Pradesh has sustained itself despite a series of other mainstream movements. The selection represents nearly a century of Dalit writing and Dalit movements, and at every turn, bears proof to the fact that Telugu Dalit writing is diverse, deeply embedded in modernity, in changing culture, and in the politics of the region and the nation. The anthology brings together a living tradition that spans ancient and contemporary periods and all aspects of Dalit life. The selection begins with poems and songs from the oral tradition, the oldest known verbal art forms which is the backbone of Telugu Dalit arts and letters. Moving on chronologically, it includes poems, short stories, novel excerpts, critical writings, etc. capturing the Dalit nationalist, regional and feminist movements that ran parallel to elite movements.

The contributors to this major intervention into Indian historiography trace the strategies through which Dalits have been marginalized as well as the ways Dalit intellectuals and leaders have shaped emancipatory politics in modern India. Moving beyond the anticolonialism/nationalism binary that dominates the study of India, the contributors assess the benefits of colonial modernity and place humiliation, dignity, and spatial exclusion at the center of Indian historiography. Several essays discuss the ways Dalits used the colonial courts and legislature to gain minority rights in the early twentieth century, while others highlight Dalit activism in social and religious spheres. The contributors also examine the struggle of contemporary middle-class Dalits to reconcile their caste and class, intercaste tensions among Sikhs, and the efforts by Dalit writers to challenge dominant constructions of secular and class-based citizenship while emphasizing the ongoing destructiveness of caste identity. In recovering the long history of Dalit struggles against caste violence, exclusion, and discrimination, Dalit Studies outlines a new agenda for the study of India, enabling a significant reconsideration of many of the Indian academy's core assumptions. Contributors: D. Shyam Babu, Laura Brueck, Sambaiah Gundimeda, Gopal Guru, Rajkumar Hans, Chinnaiah Jangam, Surinder Jodhka, P. Sanal Mohan, Ramnarayan Rawat, K. Satyanarayana

This book breaks new ground in the study of Dalit Literature, including in its corpus, a range of genres such as novels, autobiographies, pamphlets, poetry, short stories as well as graphic novels. With contributions from major scholars in the field, it critically examines Dalit literary theory and initiates a dialogue between Dalit writing and Western literary theory.

This book, companion to the much-acclaimed Dalit Literatures in India, examines questions of aesthetics and literary representation in a wide range of Dalit literary texts. It looks at how Dalit literature, born from the struggle against social and political injustice, invokes the rich and complex legacy of oral, folk and performative traditions of marginalised voices. The essays and interviews systematically explore a range of literary forms, from autobiographies, memoirs and other testimonial narratives, to poems, novels or short stories, foregrounding the diversity of Dalit creation. Showcasing the interplay between the aesthetic and political for a genre of writing that has ‘change’ as its goal, the volume aims to make Dalit writing more accessible to a wider public, for the Dalit voices to be heard and understood. The volume also shows how the genre has revolutionised the concept of what literature is supposed to mean and define. Effervescent first-person accounts, socially militant activism and sharp critiques of a little-explored literary terrain make this essential reading for scholars and researchers of social exclusion and discrimination studies, literature (especially comparative literature), translation studies, politics, human rights and culture studies.

This study explores how Dalits in north India have used literature as a means of protest against caste oppression. Including fresh ethnographic research and interviews, it traces the trajectory of modern Dalit writing in Hindi and its pivotal role in the creation, rise and reinforcement of a distinctive Dalit identity. The book challenges the existing impression of Hindi Dalit literature as stemming from the Dalit political assertion of the 1980s and as being chiefly imitative of the Marathi Dalit literature model. Arguing that Hindi Dalit literature has a much longer history in north India, it examines two differing strands that have taken root in Dalit expression — the early ‘popular’ production of smaller literary pamphlets and journals at the beginning of the 20th century and more contemporary modes such as autobiographies, short stories and literary criticism. The author highlights the ways in which such various forms of literary works have supported the proliferation of an all-encompassing identity for the so-called ‘untouchable’ castes. She also underscores how these have contributed to their evolving political consciousness and consolidation of newer heterogeneous identities, making a departure from their long-perceived image. The work will be important for those in Dalit studies, subaltern history, Hindi literature, postcolonial studies, political science and sociology as well as the informed general reader.

"The story of anti-colonial nationalism in India as told in mainstream literary and historical writings presents privileged caste Hindus as heroes and founders. Dalits have mostly been viewed as passive subjects. This book inverts the dominant nationalist narrative and brings to the fore the unacknowledged contributions of Dalits towards the collective imagination of [the] nation of India. By using colonial archives, Telugu Dalit writings, and their political activities, this book presents a Dalit perspective on nationalism.