On 26 April 2025, an event was held at the Leftword/Vam Prakashan Bookstore to promote a book of poetry by historian, poet and political commentator Ashok Kumar Pandey. He read his poems for more than an hour. About 15 people were present. Two friends and I also sat among the audience. After the reading, the poet took questions from the audience. Because I found his love poems to be individualistic, self-centred and idealistic, I asked him, “Why don’t your poems represent the material reality of love? People get killed for their inter-caste and inter-faith relationships.”
Pandey responded with a question, “Have you ever been in love with someone?” Then he went on, “I have not mentioned inter-caste and interfaith relationships in my poems because that is not my lived reality. I have not experienced such social constraints.” My next question was whether a writer or an artiste should raise political consciousness among the masses. He asked yet another question, “Whose political views are these – Marx, Lenin, whose?” He added, “One cannot write with a premeditated mindset. Writing comes from the inside. If you think before you write, you cannot write in the genuine sense. It is not a writer’s duty to raise political consciousness among the masses.” I reminded him that the Kabir Kala Manch artistes Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor, Jyoti Jagtap and Sachin Mali were in jail. “They have certainly been jailed for raising political consciousness among the Dalit masses,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean those who are outside are writing nothing.”
When I asked him why works of Dalit writers such as Om Prakash Valmiki and Suraj Pal Chauhan did not figure in popular discourse, his response was: “Have you read Joothan? Om Prakash Valmiki has mentioned the names of a few of his friends. My name is also there. When Om Prakash Valmiki needed financial assistance, it was I who helped him. Rajendra Yadav did not give him a paisa. You people come with the placards bearing the names of Omprakash Valmiki and Suraj Pal Chauhan and raising slogans. It was the people whom Om Prakash Valmiki wrote against and ideologically differed with, who helped him when he needed help the most. Today’s youth have been consumed by social media. Whatever information is available on social media is truth to them. I don’t like social media.”
Ashok Kumar Pandey appeared taken aback by my questions. His answers were contradictory. He said it was not the duty of a writer to raise political consciousness but he accepted that Kabir Kala Manch were doing just that. I mentioned Omprakash Valmiki and Suraj Pal Chauhan to highlight the lack of representation in literary discourse, but instead he harped on how he gave Valmiki money when he needed it. He said he didn’t like social media, yet he remains very active on social media platforms. Beyond appearing secular and liberal, Ashok Kumar Pandey belongs to that class that has all sorts of capital — cultural, political, economic and social. With such capital in tow, going against the interest of the ruling classes would take some introspection, self-awareness and denial of privileges. Ashok Kumar Pandey had a few patronizing words for Om Prakash Valmiki but not even that for Suraj Pal Chauhan. To come out of his blindness to his class and caste privilege, he should know the material reality that produced Suraj Pal Chauhan.
Suraj Pal Chauhan’s life
Suraj Pal Chauhan was born into a landless Valmiki caste in Fusavali village of Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh district. Being born into a caste whose occupation was forcefully confined to manual scavenging, Chauhan used to accompany his mother to the homes of Thakurs and Brahmins and assist her in the work. Chauhan was exposed early on to the merciless realities of casteism and feudalism. Her mother was sickly and had to report for work when she was not well. Perks for doing such work was “joothan” – the leftovers in the plates of the landed elite. It was due to these harsh conditions that his mother passed away when he was still young. After his mother’s demise, his father, who was already working as a daily-wage worker at Delhi’s Nizamuddin Railway Station, brought him to the city. His father could barely manage two meals per day. Chauhan lived in the slums of Delhi’s Khan Market and then in a toilet-turned-shelter of the National Stadium. Despite having grown up amid caste oppression and poverty, he somehow managed to get a job at a government office where his father once worked as a sweeper.
Suraj Pal Chauhan’s poems and short stories reflect his experiences of caste exploitation and class exploitation. He recalled in an interview that it was Om Prakash Valmiki who introduced him to Ambedkarite, anti-caste literature. Until then, he would participate in workshops and events organized by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Hindu Mahasabha and play to the crowd. While participating in a poetry reading in Delhi, he met Valmiki for the first time. Chauhan had only read Valmiki’s poetry in ‘Hans’ magazine. The poem that Chauhan read was a romanticized depiction of Indian villages, and Gopal Das Neeraj appreciated it. But, speaking with Chauhan after the event, Om Prakash Valmiki described it as “pathetic”, asking him whether Dalits even have a village they could call their own. Valmiki’s material understanding of rural India was in line with Ambedkar’s, which the latter called a “den of ignorance”. Yet it was under the mentorship of Om Prakash Valmiki that Suraj Pal rose to the heights in literature, exposing the “gappi” (frivolous) Savarna literature and becoming one of the flag bearers of “anti-caste” literature. His poems such as “Dalito ki Basti” and short stories such as “Badboo” unapologetically wage a literary struggle against the idealistic Savarna writings. Here the first three verses from “Dalito ki Basti”:
बोतल महंगी है तो क्या,
थैली बहुत ही सस्ती है।
ये दलितो की बस्ती है।।
ब्रह्मा विष्णु इनके घर में,
क़दम-क़दम पर जय श्रीराम।
रात जगाते शेरोंवाली की …
करते कथा सत्यनाराण…।
पुरखों को जिसने मारा था,
उनकी ही कैसिट बजती है।
ये दलितो की बस्ती है।।
तू चूहड़ा और मैं चमार हूं,
ये खटीक और वो कोली।
एक तो हम कभी हो ना पाए,
बन गई जगह-जगह टोली।
अपने मुक्तिदाता को भूले,
गैरों की झांकी सजती है।
ये दलितो की बस्ती है।।
हर महीने वृंदावन दौड़े,
माता वैष्णो छह-छह बार।
गुड़गांवा की जात लगाता,
सोमनाथ को अब तैयार।
बेटी इसकी चार साल से,
दसवीं में ही पढ़ती है।
ये दलितो की बस्ती है।।
[Branded liquor may be expensive but locally brewed alcohol flows in Dalit settlements. They have images of Brahma and Vishnu in their homes and they take every step with the invocation ‘Jai Shri Ram’. Satyanarayan Katha recitals ring through the night. The songs of those who killed their ancestors are played in these settlements. Chamar, Chuhda, Khatik and Koli – we have never been united and live in our own corners. They have forgotten their liberator and take out processions in honour of alien gods. Every month, run to Vrindavan, visit the Vaishno Devi shrine six times. Now that they have moved to Gurgaon, their next pilgrimage is to Somnath. But their daughter has been stuck in Standard 10 for four years. This is what it’s like in a Dalit settlement.]
Having read Om Prakash Valmiki and Suraj Pal Chauhan’s works and identified with the worlds they inhabited, and then one day listening to Ashok Kumar Pandey read his poetry, I could see what Chauhan meant by “gappi” literature.
(Read the Hindi translation here.)
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