Formed in 1972 and inspired by the Black Panther movement, the Dalit Panther emerged as one of the most radical and influential movements in post-Ambedkarite India. A wave of brutal caste violence across Maharashtra in the 1970s had turned simmering resentment into mass fury—the Dalit Panther transformed this fury into a militant movement for dignity, justice and social change.
Led by powerful writer-activists such as Namdev Dhasal, J. V. Pawar, Raja Dhale, Bhai Sangare, Avinash Mahatekar and Arjun Dangle, the Panther mounted a fierce challenge to the casteist political and literary establishment of Maharashtra, while sharing solidarity with the struggles of workers, women and farmers. In documenting this history, Dangle also revisits the enduring debate on the relationship between the Dalit movement and the Left, and between Ambedkarism and Marxism.
Much of the history of the Dalit Panther has remained fragmented and partial, and largely unavailable in English. Dangle provides an insider’s account replete with detail, documents, analysis and insight. He illuminates the radical literary culture that shaped the movement—its poetry, journals, little magazines and debates—the influence of figures such as Dr. Ambedkar and Baburao Bagul, and highlights Dalit literature as a powerful medium of protest and identity. He also candidly examines the tensions between leaders like Dhasal and Dhale that eventually fractured the organisation.
This is a compelling, honest, first-hand account of the extraordinary energies, idealism and contradictions that shaped the Dalit Panther’s brief but transformative journey, and Dangle’s own role in it. Maya Pandit’s scholarly, meticulously annotated translation brings an essential chapter of modern India to a wider readership for the first time. A vital read for scholars of Dalit Studies, Dalit literature, politics and social movements.
The Author Arjun Dangle is a major writer and stalwart of the Dalit literary, socio-cultural and political movements in Maharashtra, who has through his writings lent a voice of reason to the angst of Dalits and a political edge to their struggle. A founder member of the Dalit youth organisation, the Dalit Panthers, he has also been the president of the State Unit of the Bharatiya Republican Party of India. His poetry, essays and short stories have been published to critical acclaim, awarded and translated into several Indian and foreign languages. His published works include Dalit Sahitya: Ek Abhyas (1978), his poetry collection Chhavani Halte Ahe, which won the Maharashtra State Award in 1978, and the edited volumes of translations from modern Marathi Dalit literature, Homeless in My Land (1992) and Poisoned Bread (2009).
The Translator Maya Pandit is an academic, translator, cultural critic and activist who has been involved with the women’s movement in India and alternative theatre movement in Maharashtra for the last three decades. A Charles Wallace scholar and an accomplished translator, she works with Marathi and English and has translated several plays, fiction and autobiographies across the two languages, including The Weave of My Life by Urmila Pawar (2007), The Prisons We Broke by Baby Kamble (2008, 2017) and Let the Rumours be True by Pradnya Daya Pawar (2017). A former professor and Pro-Vice Chancellor of the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, she has also published widely in feminist, Dalit and translation studies, and English language training (ELT).
List of Photographs Acknowledgements Translator’s Note Author’s Statement 1. Introduction 2. The Dalit Literary Movement 3. The Inception of Dalit Panther: The Background and Beginnings 4. First Steps Forward 5. The Progressive Literature Movement: 1967–1970 6. The Seventies: An Uneasy Period 7. The Birth of Dalit Yuvak Aghadi in Siddharth Vihar Hostel 8. Dalit Yuvak Aghadi: The Sequence of Events 9. The Sadhana Issue: An Intellectual Storm in Maharashtra 10. Some Landmark Events in Maharashtra 11. The Rise of Dalit Panther 12. The Establishment of Dalit Panther 13. Worli Riots, By-Elections and the Dalit Panther 14. Fractures and Ruptures, Part I 15. Fractures and Ruptures, Part II 16. Dalit Panther Dissolved! 17. Facts and Fabrications 18. The Epilogue 19. Down Memory Lane 20. Delving Deep Photographs Appendices
1. Fatwa I: The First Young Marathi Poet Namdev Dhasal and Others
2. Report on Meeting in Siddharth Vihar Hostel Where the Dalit Yuvak Aghadi is Formed Na. Na. Wandrekar, Sobat, 4 June 1972
3. We Must Face the Reality (Arjun Dangle, writing as) Jagdish Karanjgaonkar, Sadhana, 15 August 1972
4. Report on the Two Morchas to the Sadhana Office in Pune Anil Awachat, 8 September 1972
5. Snakes in the Sleeves of the Republican Party Rajneesh Kamble, Saptahik Republican, 6 October 1972
6. Fatwa II: Dalit Writers and the Fight with Chairs Raja Dhale, January 1973
7. Statement of the Morcha of Left Youth Organisations to the Maharashtra Government Bombay, 21 January 1974
8. The Spark from the Worli Chawl that Caused a Huge Fire: Report on Namdev Dhasal’s Speech Before the Morcha of Left Youth Organisations at Oval Ground, Mumbai Nava Kal, 22 January 1974
9. Report on the Huge Historic Joint March of Dalits and Workers on 5 February 1974 Nava Kal, 6 February 1974
10. Jahirnama: The Dalit Panther Manifesto Namdev Dhasal, November 1973
11. Jahirnama or Nama Jahir? Part I Raja Dhale, Nava Kal, 17 October 1974
12. Jahirnama or Nama Jahir? Part II Raja Dhale, Nava Kal, 18 October 1974
13. Enough is Enough—Let’s Start Work Again Arjun Dangle, Mahanagar, 13 January 2003
14. Eleanor Zelliot’s Letter to Arjun Dangle, 7 July 1992
Bibliography