Turing the Wheel : Bengali Dalit Literary Movements in Last Two Decades with Special Reference to Manohar Mouli Biswas. -Jaydeep Sarangi “Why do you play with that boy? Is there no one else in the whole village to play with? Don’t give him water in that vessel. If he touches it, he’ll defile it. Go away.’ I was upset because I couldn’t give water to a friend. Is one’s caste more important than one’s friend? Is caste more important than thirst? Wasn’t Arjya a human being? If so, how could he make water impure by merely touching it?”(Limbale 2003:20 )  (In this excerpt the narrator (Sharan) is being scolded for offering water in the same vessel as his, to Arjya, a Mang boy, whose caste was lower to the narrator’s caste, which was Mahar and he ponders upon the meaning of inhumane caste rules.) Arjun Dangle defining dalit literature, says “dalit literature is not simply literature … (it) is associated with a movement to bring about change … it (is) strongly evident that there is no established critical theory behind (dalit writings); instead there is a new thinking and a new point of view.” (Dangle 1994: vii-viii)Though the term “dalit literature” can be traced to the first dalit literary conference in 1958 in the state of Maharashtra, however, the literature by the dalits was being produced right from the 1920s. These were writers deeply concerned about the plight of the untouchables. The writings – articles, poems and stories were being published to propagate the message of Baba Ambedkar and Mahatma Phule.Such writings have been increasingly receiving academic and disciplinary recognition throughout the country. Mahatma Phule and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar provided primary impetus to the flourishing of such Dalit literary movement. Bringing forth the issues of the dalits,this literary movement intensified during the sixties and continued in full force till the 1980s in Maharashtra. This gave further momentum to dalit writers in other Indian languages, as Tamil, Kannad, Malyali, Gujarati, Punjabi and Bengali. But this new proposition which is intended to give a new society, its new literature and aesthetics, has many fresh concerns. The first one is whether the dalit writers really have their own language other than the language which they call brahmanical. One should not forget that in India language has regional variations, not only class variations. They use ordinary, day to day life language to share their experience. It seems that those who claim for a dalit language, they confuse the language with the dalit experience. The dalits are determined to narrate the dalit agony, resistance, strengths and path of liberation. It is important to note here that while responding to the past experience, the dalit writers are conscious of the present and give hint of the future prosperity. These make a fervent plea for a complete overhaul of society by questioning prevailing practices of caste and class in different parts of India. Manohar Mouli Biswas has been actively involved in the dalit literary movement of Bengal and has been one of the founding members of the Bengali Dalit Sahitya Sanstha (founded 1992), which has significant contributions in the movement. The Sanstha or Association aims at a casteless and classless society, based on human values of justice, equality and fraternity, which is to be attained through a cultural, primarily literary movement. In the understanding of the movement, Dalit as the one who is socially and economically oppressed. The dalit writers are compelled first to fight for a right place in the society and secondly a due place in the world of literature. They have to wage a double battle. They have to create a literature projecting real aspiration of the dalits and portray faithfully the battle which they are waging against exploitation, social and economical. The literature they create shall not only be the source of inspiration for the oppressed people but also an instrument which ignites consciousness and courage. (Biswas 2012) More specifically the manifesto of Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha upholds the following principles: (i)The writer shall hold the torch of liberation and participate in peoples’ movements of liberation. (ii) On social front, the dalits are against the caste-ism, communalism, fundamentalism and all kinds of inequality based on birth and sex. (iii) On economic front, the dalits are against feudalism and capitalism. (iv) On political front, the dalits are against imperialism and fascism. (v) We aim at emancipation of dalits from social, economic, political and cultural exploitation. (vi) We use literature as weapon for cultural revolution. We adopt the original peoples form of arts. (vii) Its program is to demolish cultural hegemony prevailing in the country. And (viii) Its aim is to open the doors of learning and culture to oppressed people and to blow up oppressive culture. (Biswas 2012) The aims and objectives written in the Constitution of Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha are as following: Art.3.(a) To promote dalit literature and culture. (b) To shun blind-faith, superstition, unscientific and inhuman social inequality and injustice as also to preach and spread the message of equality, liberty and fraternity through literature and performing arts. (c) To give due regards and recognition to Dalit Writers and Poets, Reporters, Artists, Craftsman, Musicians and Singers.  To institute different awards after the name of great Dalit-Champions and to offer those awards to eligible and renowned Dalits who have contributed in the field of literature, arts, culture etc. (d) To establish library and data-banking in order to help the writers. (e) To collect, retrieve and rewrite the lost culture, tradition and history to the dalits and to publish books, journals, etc. (f) To remove illiteracy, spread of education through traditional and non-traditional ways. (g) To help the poor but meritorious dalit students in the form of stipends, book-grants, scholarships, etc. (h) To publish or cause to be published books, journals, newspapers aimed at liberating the dalits. (i) To try to reach the illiterate rural dalits through the audio-visual media i.e. performing arts and make them conscious of their rights and duties and to liberate them from the age-old social injustices, superstitions and slavery which they are subjected to in the name of religion and destiny.(Biswas 2012) Biswas, an elegant wordsmith, served as the Secretary of the Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha for two years. Now he is the President of the organisation and the organisation is moving forth with powerful strides as a counter-cultural movement for Dalit assertion in Bengal.  Born in 1943 in a remote village, his was the first-generation to receive formal education in a very ordinary Bengali Medium village school. He started education amidst raging debate over the necessity of formal education for a dalit. His father believed that education would bring a new phase in their toiling life – there would be betterment in hereditary occupation. His autobiography presents a vivid record of Biswas’ early education and the uncertainties within the family for sending children to schools. Now Biswas has authored a dozen books — with five books of poems, one collection of short stories, books of essays as Dalit Sahityer Digboloy, Vinnochokhe Prabandhamala, Yuktivadi Bharatbarsha :Ekti Aitijyer Sandhan and Dalit Sahityer Ruprekha. His coedited work Shatobarsher Bangla Dalit Sahitya published in 2011is a phenomenal collection of dalit literature produced in the Bengali language over a century (1911-2011). Bikshata Kaaler Bansi (2013) is his latest book of Bengali poems. His selected poems have been translated into English in two volumes titled Poetic Rendering As Yet Unborn and The Wheel Will Turn. The socio-cultural specificities of the caste system in Bengal capture Biswas’s creative mind. For him, class, caste, gender, religion, ethnicity –all remain important factors of a marginalized ‘dalit’ predicament. He has taken part in different national seminars in different parts of India and read his poems. He is one of the leading dalit voices from Bengal writing for more than three decades. His autobiography (in Bangla)  has been published recently with the title Amar Bhubane Ami Beche Thaki(I Live in My World). The First All India Dalit Writers Conference was held on the 8-10th October,1987 in Hyderabad. Here he met some of the reputed dalit writers of middle and western India such as  Daya  Pawar, Professor Arun Kamble, Professor Yashwant Manohar, Waman Nimbalkar, Devanoora Mahadev, etc. These interactions have greatly inspired the writer in his works. Manohar Mouli Biswas conceived his literary vigour as a dalit writer when he was posted as an employee in Nagpur during 1968-69.Here he came in contact with leading Marathi dalit writers and activists, which inspired him into the dalit literary movement. Kalyan Das introduces Manohar Mouli Biswas with the words, “Today, Manohar Mouli Biswas has become the name of an institution. His single-minded efforts to publish the bi-monthly little magazine ‘Dalit Mirror’ in English; his enthusiasm that saw the birth of this powerful literary/cultural movement; his indomitable spirit which ensures that every year dalit writers of Bengal can organize ‘Sangitis’(Buddhist tradition of conferences) and commemorate the unfortunate demise of Chuni Kotal – all of these have made Biswas an ‘archive’ that contains the alternative historiography of this counter-cultural discourse.”(Das 2014: x) Professor Sanjukta Dasgupta translates one of Manohar Biswas’ poems which bear testimony to his daunting spirit of resistance to caste oppression: If I am called an untouchable (Sudra)  The fractured veena within Spreads fire instead of tears Your masks of conspiracy Are ripped off and crashes on the earth. Reverence just continues clapping its hands and declares This "is an insult to mankind"  Nothing else. (Biswas 2014:‘Reverence’) Dalit is not a caste but a realization and is related to the experience of joys and sorrows and struggle of those in the lowest stratum of the society. Biswas’ poems are window on culture – a Dalit culture that is the culture of exclusion and exploitation. Biswas walks through long corridors of ignited discourse  through which there is often no return;   but returns with the coloured wings of successive images and idioms. He captures each rainy moment of a dalit life's daily course. He has deep seated faith in the wheel of Justice, which may have got stuck for a while leading to the oppression of the powerless, but will turn again to re-establish a just society. The poet's job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it. With his poetic expertise, Biswas relentlessly articulates such feelings which deeply empathise with the plight of the socially oppressed: My authority to assert myself as human And stand with others as equal Is my audacity and blasphemy . Can this world approve it? (Biswas 2014: ‘My Birth’) Through its profound appeal to the mind, poetry penetrates deep into the heart. Manohar Mouli Biswas’ poems are about resistance and emancipation: My comrades, will you be doing this? With Invincible spirit if we are to break all barricades Breaking this wall , will go forward. Remember you all, never utter these three words: Brahmanism, Dalit and Ambedkar  Do inscribe these words in mind   These are not acceptable by your neighbours. (Biswas 2014: ‘Long Live, Revolution’) The poems are vibrant expressions of the Dalit interpretation of the cultural, political and economic milieu, highlighting concerns and amplifying interpretations that are otherwise elbowed to oblivion! The poems celebrate Dalit heroes, question mainstream ones, paint the strains of revolt, empathise with the powerless, but above all, inspire the fighters to persist. Well rooted into the context of the Bengali Dalit Literary Movement ManoharMouliBiswas’ poems unveil the coffer Bangla Dalit poetry: At the age of twenty four She gun fired all Against exploitation. Her determination registered Oh! Phoolan, you have come from The lowest caste From a remote and unknown village. Oppressors of women, be aware of it— She cannot be unnoticed. (Biswas 2014: ‘Phoolan Devi’) Unlike conventional autobiographies, which are products of bourgeois individualism where the narrator individual carves out his own subjective identity in opposition to the context, the socio-historical conditions in which he lives, the dalit autobiographical narrator/actant speaks as one among the family and community he lives. Manohar Mouli Biswas’ autobiography Amar Bhubane Ami Beche Thaki (I Live in My World) is a record of his searching for identity both as an individual and a collective mass. Actually, his community had fought long for establishing a dignified identity for generations. In his autobiography Biswas celebrates the fact that he belongs to the dalit Namashudra community. The whole text questions the development of human consciousness. He glorifies their occupation of agriculture which ‘feeds the nation’. Similarly Namashudra culture is empathetically represented and celebrated. This trend continues in his poems as: “Arrey, moshai, I am a Nama’s son, Your own ilk; permanently here since 1936, Nobody can imagine me to be a Bengali any more.” (Biswas 2014: ‘Chandsi Hospital’) In an Interview the author clarifies some of the hurdles that the dalit movement in various regions of India and especially West Bengal face: “… the Dalit movement has failed to gather the due momentum in most of the provinces of India including West Bengal. It was due to the fact that the Dalits particularly the educated Dalits have failed to capitulate to the political thought and philosophy of Dr. Ambedkar. They have lined themselves with the other premier political parties for self material gain and benefit instead of own community development. At present we do find the political power struggle between the Dalits and the non-Dalits all over India. In this struggle DALITS ARE USED AGAINST THE DALITS POLITICALLY for backbiting and destroying unity and integrity of community formation.” (Biswas 2012) His engagement with dalit identity politics is a telling cultural signifier through which the age-old caste stratifications and stereotypes are interrogated. True to the dictum that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, the process of change starts. In an Interview with Arjun Dangle: How will you define the term “Dalit” in the present context? Answer: Earlier Dalits were only the ones who were out-castes and had dwelling outside the native. However, we have tried to make it more pervasive and inclusive. We define and conceive Dalits as those who are depressed and unorganized socially, politically, economically and culturally. This is not a mere caste but a realization, feeling. The feeling is of oppressed and deprived by system. Nothing has changed so far as to change the meaning and scope of the word.  It is undeniable that in the recent past a steady chorus of dalit voices has been making itself audible in West Bengal through translations into English and Manohar Mouli Biswas spearhead the happenings. For many of us Biswas is like a Banyan tree of knowledge, dedicated for the service of his community and humane literature. Notes: Biswas, Manohar Mouli, “Manohar Mouli Biswas: In Conversation with Jaydeep Sarangi”, in muse india, Issue 46 , Nov.- Dec. 2012 http://www.museindia.com/focuscontent.asp?issid=46&id=3730 Biswas, Manohar Mouli, The Wheel Will Turn (ed. Jaydeep Sarangi), Allahabad, Cyberwit, 2014 Dangle, Arjun (ed) “Dalit Literature: Past, Present and Future” in Poisoned Bread, New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1994. Das, Kalyan, “Fourth Person” in the Whell Will Turn, (ed. Jaydeep Sarangi), Allahabad, Cyberwit, 2014 Dangle,Arjun, Jaydeep Sarangi : Interview with Arjun Dangle, Setu. Link: http://www.setumag.com/2017/01/arjun-dangle-in-conversation-with.html Limbale, Sharankumar. The Outcaste: Akkarmashi. Trans. Santosh Bhoomkar. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003. Dr Jaydeep Sarangi has delivered lectures/talks on Bangla dalit literature in several continents as invited speaker. His books on dalit studies have been reviewed extensively in reputed journals in India and abroad. He has also guest edited a special issue on Bangla dalit literature for muse india. He has translated Bengali poems, stories and autobiographies into English as well as edited a number of anthologies of translations of Bengali writings. He has been working for a translation project run by the International Centre for Nazrul, Dhaka. He has been anthologised as a translating contributor to Oxford University Press, India, in press. His two manuscripts of translation are with Samya,Kolkata. He is currently Associate Professor in English, Deptt. of English at Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri College (Calcutta University), 30,Prince Anwar Shah Road,Tollygunj PO; Kolkata-700033,WB, India. He edits, New Fiction Journal. Jaydeep Sarangi can be reached at jaydeepsarangi@gmail.com