Bonington Gallery is delighted to host the culmination of this year’s CADALFEST (Celebrating Adivasi and Dalit Arts and Literature Festival).
After two successful festivals between 2022-24, at locations within the UK and India, this third instalment will culminate with a two-day programme of screenings, discussions, workshops and masterclasses at Bonington Gallery, offering audiences a closer, more sustained engagement with contributors than on previous occasions.
This new, more interactive format will allow audiences to work closely, and embark on a two-day journey, with the filmmaker Jayan K. Cherian, the writers and poets Gogu Shyamala and Jitendra Vasava, the writers and researchers Gopika Jadeja and Priteegandha Naik, as well as the Jangama Collective.
This year’s festival also celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the network on Dalit and Adivasi literature that was launched by the first conference on Dalit literature at Nottingham Trent University in June 2014.
10 am – 12 pm: Gopika Jadeja and Jitendra Vasava, ‘Adivasi lives in forest, village, city’.
Jitendra Vasava and Gopika Jadeja have been working over the past decade to translate and publish Adivasi poetry from western India, including Vasava’s own poetry. Beginning with a song in celebration of the Earth, Vasava and Jadeja will weave through Vasava’s poetry in Dehwali Bhili and English translation, video footage of readings by other Adivasi poets and reflections on poetry, orality and Adivasi struggles.
1 – 3 pm: Screening of Rhythm of Dammam, a film by Jayan K. Cherian, followed by a discussion with the filmmaker.
In Uttara Kannada, India, Jayaram Siddi, a twelve-year-old boy, is believed to be possessed by the spirit of his late grandfather, Rama Bantu Siddi. Despite seeking help from local black magicians, Jayaram’s condition remains unchanged. He escapes into a dream world, using ‘magical’ instruments from his grandfather to connect with his ancestors. However, he becomes overwhelmed by the agonizing history of his ancestors’ chattel slavery, losing touch with reality. Jayaram drops out of school, and his family strives to restore his balance by embracing tribal rituals and Dammam music, both vital to their cultural heritage. The film delves into Jayaram’s struggle with intergenerational trauma, emphasizing the challenges faced by him and his family in finding healing and stability.
Rhythm of Dammam is a groundbreaking production that brings to light the little-known Siddi community of India, also known as the Sheedi or Habshi, who primarily reside in regions like Karnataka, Gujarat, and Hyderabad in Telangana. The Siddi people trace their ancestry to the Bantu people from Southeast Africa, who were enslaved by Portuguese traders and brought to the Indian subcontinent between 1530 and 1740. While slavery was declared illegal in British India by 1835 (and continued until 1865 in Portuguese-controlled Goa), the Siddi people endured a different form of bondage within India’s complex caste system after abolition.
Despite some progress in Indian society, the Siddi community continues to experience discrimination and marginalization, limiting their social and economic mobility due to their position within the caste hierarchy. Nevertheless, the Siddi people have shown remarkable resilience in preserving their unique cultural identity. They have achieved this by maintaining their ancestral customs while incorporating elements of Indian culture, particularly traditional Dammam music and tribal rituals. The journey of the Siddi people—from enslavement to current caste-based challenges—is a moving tale of determination and survival. It highlights the enduring impact of societal oppression while showcasing the strength of cultural heritage and community solidarity. The film Rhythm of Dammam offers a fresh perspective on the complex dynamics of caste, race, and identity in contemporary Indian society. It encourages viewers to question their preconceptions and biases while acknowledging the resilience of the human spirit in its pursuit of dignity and freedom.
3:30 – 5:30 pm: Masterclass with Jayan K. Cherian.
In this interactive masterclass, Jayan K. Cherian will focus on the logistics of independent filmmaking in a remote village setting—navigating limited infrastructure, working with non-professional actors, and building a creative process rooted in mutual trust. He will also share insights from his experience living and working with the Siddi community—how they prepared documentary subjects to step into fictional roles and developed the screenplay through oral histories, local legends, and the mythologies shared by elders. These became the foundation for a story that reflects the community’s collective memory, while also raising questions about who gets to represent whom, and how (the politics of representation in cinema).
10 am – 12:30 pm: Priteegandha Naik’s workshop ‘Reclaiming Tomorrows: Liberation through Dalit Futurism’.
This workshop aims to re-imagine and rewrite the intended telos of the caste system as envisioned by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. It will employ speculative fiction to resist, challenge, and create anti-caste futures. The workshop uses Dalit futurism as a toolkit to build blueprints of tomorrows and bring them to life. It will use Dalit futurism to critique, dream, and create new narratives of hopeful and collaborative futures.
1:30 – 3:30 pm: Gogu Shyamala’s presentation ‘Pain resonates in speculative fiction’ and conversation with Priteegandha Naik, chaired by Basma Mahfoud-Vandermeersh.
In this presentation with poems, songs and stories, Gogu Shyamala will engage in a dialogue with the writings by Dalit women who unveil mundane lived and shared experiences of those who are located at the lowest strata of society and whose lives are coloured by divisions of class, caste and gender. The context of this intersectional oppression of Dalit women is a civil society that is fragmented by religion, while caste compartmentalises India into 3000 fragments and about 25,000 subdivisions. Unlike religion, the division among castes is invisible but firmly in place. This systematic division, called the ‘Caste System’, is premised on codification of the five-fold varna system. This codification subscribes to an ideology of divisions in a hierarchy akin to a vertical ladder, naturalising and internalising the idea of purity and pollution of castes by religion, effecting untouchability and inhumanity. All top four varnas thereby humiliate the last varna in terms of the economy, ethnicity, culture and assertion.
Gogu Shyamala will discuss how the form of speculative fiction is well suited to explore all these caste contradictions and dichotomies in order to create anti-caste literature and the history of contemporary conditions. She will draw on poems and songs as well as her recently published short story, “The Phantom Ladder” (in translation from Telugu by Divya Kalavala), in The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF by BLAFT Publications.
4 – 6 pm: Jangama Collective, represented by Lakshmana K P and Mohit Kaycee, screening of the play DaklaKatha DeviKavya, followed by a discussion with Lakshmana K P and Mohit Kaycee.
Daklakatha Devikavya is an experimental play drawing on the epic poetry and stories of the important Kannada writer and founder-member of the Dalit Sangharsha Samiti, K.B. Siddaiah. This experimental piece begins with a re- reading of a cosmogonic myth from a community that is oppressed even amongst the oppressed narrating the origins of the world and of life on it. The play progresses through weaving and unravelling untouchable rituals, beliefs, hunger and desires through song and storytelling. For untouchable communities nudi (speech, sound, voice, and word) is like breath that cannot be separated from the body. The play uses instruments such as the areye and tamte as vines of nudi that enmesh the narrative and sprout new directions from within. Thereby opening up the untouchable world as a world of deep sonic imprints. In a context such as this, the play confronts what happens when the ‘written word’ that has so far been unreachable collides with and becomes an organ of the untouchable body, giving rise to a new relationship of intimacy and struggle. The play provokes an exploration of how the received insights through the experience of untouchability and the ‘written word’ force us to confront what it means to be human in the depths of our being.
Jayan Cherian, from Kerala, holds an MFA in filmmaking from The City College of New York as well as a BA in film and creative writing from Hunter College. He has received numerous honours and recognition for his cinematic works, which have been featured at prestigious film festivals around the world, including the Berlin International Film Festival, Durban International Film Festival, BFI London Lesbian Gay Film Festival, NARA International Film Festival, Rio-de-Janeiro International Film Festival, Kolkata International Film Festival, and Montreal World Film Festival. His career features notable titles including Ka Bodyscapes (2016), Papilio Buddha (2014), The Shape of the Shapeless (2010), and the latest Rhythm of Dammam (2024). He has also contributed significantly to numerous documentaries and short films over the course of his career.
Basma Mahfoud-Vandermeersch is an ESL teacher based in Paris and pursuing a PhD at Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry (France) in co-supervision with BITS Pilani Goa (India). Her research focuses on the production and reception of translated Dalit writings by women from South India and the diaspora. While looking at the articulation of caste in migration, she is also interested in exploring the possibilities of transnational collaboration, dialogue, and creation between marginalized communities (Dalits x Blacks x Queers x Muslims x Adivasis).
Dr Gopika Jadeja is a bilingual poet and translator and writing in English and Gujarati, active both in her native India and internationally. As part of a broadly engaged creative, scholarly and pedagogical practice, Gopika is Editor-at-Large (Singapore) for Wasafiri: International Contemporary Writing and Coordinating Editor of the journal PR&TA: Practice, Research and Tangential Activities—a peer-reviewed journal of creative practice with a focus on SE Asia based in Singapore. Besides this, she publishes and edits a print journal and a series of pamphlets that are part of a performance-publishing project called ‘Five Issues’. A recipient of the inaugural PEN Presents Award (South Asia) and the Charles Wallace Scholarship for Creative Writing, Gopika’s poetry and translations have been published in Modern Poetry in Translation, Asymptote, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Wasafiri, Cordite Poetry Review, Indian Literature, Sahcharya, Vahi, etc. Her work has also appeared in anthologies like The Art and Craft of Asian Stories: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology, A Thousand Cranes for India: Reclaiming Plurality Amid Hatred, No News: 90 Poets Reflect on a Unique BBC Newscast, The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF, etc. Gopika is currently working on a project of English translations of poetry from Gujarat, including Dalit and Adivasi poetry as well as a monograph based on her doctoral research. Her collection of poetry, What Parvati Does Not Say is forthcoming from Red River Press, India.
Judith Misrahi-Barak is Professor in Postcolonial Studies at the English Department, Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry, France. She is a member of the research centre EMMA, and her areas of specialisation and publication are Anglophone Caribbean, Indo- and Sino-Caribbean literatures, diaspora and migrant writing, and Dalit literatures. Her monograph in French is entitled Entre Atlantique et océan Indien : les voix de la Caraïbe anglophone (Classiques Garnier, 2021). She is Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded Research Network Series ‘Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature’ and its Follow-on Grant ‘On Page and on Stage: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts’. She is also General Editor of the series PoCoPages (Pulm, Montpellier) and she has co-edited special issues for The Journal of Commonwealth Literature (‘Dalit Literature’, 2019) and for Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (‘Thanatic Ethics’, 2023). Among the volumes she has co-edited are the recent Kala Pani Crossings: Revisiting 19th century Migrations from India’s Perspective (Routledge, 2021), Kala Pani Crossings, Gender and Diaspora: Indian Perspectives (Routledge, 2023) and The Routledge Companion to Caste and Cinema in India (Routledge, 2023).
Shohini Barman is a Doctoral Candidate at the School of Arts and Humanities at Nottingham Trent University. She completed her Undergraduate and Master’s degrees in English from Jadavpur University (Kolkata, India). Her current research is on Dalit Literature in Bengal.
Mrigakshi Das is a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature at Nottingham Trent University, UK. Her research focuses on the assertion of Adivasi identity in Adivasi literature and cinema, with broader interests in Adivasi and Indigenous studies. She holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in English from the University of Delhi, India.
Dr Priteegandha Naik is an Assistant Professor at the Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management & Engineering, NMIMS University, where she teaches Communication Skills and other Humanities-centric courses. She is interested in exploring caste and gender in Indian Science Fiction. In particular, she has worked on Dalit Futurism and on understanding Dalit futures in speculative fiction, art, literature, and film and their consequent relevance to the anti-caste movement.
Dr Gogu Shyamala is one of the foremost contemporary Dalit writers in India, as an award-winning author, researcher, editor, and biographer writing in Telugu. Her collection of short stories Father may be an elephant and mother only a small basket, but… in English translation is a landmark in Indian literature, and her most recent publication is the short story ‘The Phantom Ladder’ (in translation from Telugu by Divya Kalavala), in The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF. Among her publications are anthologies of Dalit women’s writings in Telugu, and the biography of the first Dalit woman legislator, T.N. Sadalakshmi in the former state of Andhra Pradesh, India. She is the co-editor of the Oxford Anthology of Telugu Dalit Writing in English (OUP). She holds a PhD in the area of Dalit Women Biographies, Gender and Caste in Telangana, from the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. She studies Dalit women’s literature and the history and mythology of Dalit literature as well as collecting palm leaf manuscripts of Dalit Puranas for contemporary scholarly studies.
Dr Nicole Thiara is Senior Lecturer in English at Nottingham Trent University, UK, and Co-Lead of the Postcolonial and Global Studies Research Group as well as Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Research Network Series ‘Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature’ (2014-16) and its Follow-on Grant ‘On Page and on Stage: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts’ (2020-23). She teaches postcolonial and contemporary literature, and her area of research is Dalit, Adivasi and diasporic South Asian literature; her current research project is on the representation of modernity in Dalit literature. Her recent publications include ‘The Caste of Nature: Wholesome Bodies and Parasites in Bimal Roy’s Sujata and Gogu Shyamala’s “A Beauteous Light”, The Routledge Companion to Caste and Cinema in India, ed. by Judith Misrahi-Barak and Joshil K. Abraham (Routledge, 2023) and, with Judith Misrahi-Barak and K. Satyanarayana, the critical volume Dalit Text: Aesthetics and Politics Re-imagined (Routledge, 2019) and the special issue on Dalit Literature in the Journal of Commonwealth Literature 54 (1), March 2019.
Dr Jitendra Vasava is a poet from Mahupada village Narmada district of Gujarat, who writes in Dehwali Bhili, Hindi and Gujarati. He is the founding president of Adivasi Sahitya Academy and edits Lakhara, a magazine dedicated to Adivasi voices. Following his doctoral research on the cultural and mythological aspects of Dehwali Bhili oral narratives he is doing research on the environmental knowledge systems of the Bhils as a post-doctoral fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar. He has published five books on Adivasi oral literature, an anthology of Adivasi poetry from Gujarat and a book of poetry.
Jangama Collective is a Bangalore-based group of theatre artists with diverse cultural backgrounds who believe in creating cultural and political awareness choosing theatre as their way of expression. As an extension of this, the group has engaged itself in creative processes like education, literature, publishing, cinema and social struggles.
Lakshmana K P, founder member of Jangama Collective is an actor, director, poet, and performance educator from Karnataka, India. He graduated from the Intercultural Theatre Institute Singapore in 2018 and from Ninasam Theatre Institute in 2012. Lakshman has been exploring questions around Dalit aesthetics in performance, and his two recent plays We the People of India and Daklakatha Devikavya explore intersecting questions about Dalit political modernity and cultural memory.
Santosh Dindaguru is from Dindaguru of Channarayapattana-taluk-Karnataka. He holds a diploma from Ninasam and a master’s degree in Drama. He was inspired by Babasaheb Ambedkar’s thoughts and has persistently tried to bring awareness about caste discrimination and its impact on the society through poems, stories and plays. He is the founder of “Neladani”, an organization in his village-Dindaguru. Santosh is a recipient of DeccanHerald ChangeMaker-Award in 2023. Currently he is working as a theatre teacher in Poorna Learning Center in Bangalore.
Bharath Dingri is from Ashapura, Raichur District-Karnataka. He was introduced to the Songs of Resistance at a very young age by his father who is a street play artist and grew up traveling to different villages and regions and played the Tamate along with his father during performances. Having worked in well-known repertories in Karnataka, he did his Diploma from Ninasam. He also has a Diploma in Journalism.
Bindu Raxidi is from Raxidi of Sakaleshapura-taluk-Karnataka who grew up as a child artist. She completed her BBM. Later she worked in BPO agency in Mangalore. She holds a Diploma from Ninasam Theatre Institute and went on to be a part of Ninasam-Tirugaata Repertory for three years. She founded a theatre team called “Act-React” in Bangalore. She has established herself as an actress in Kannada and Tulu Cinema Industry and in Kannada theatre.
Ramika Chaithra is from Bangalore, Karnataka who has been doing theatre for the past 8 years. She completed her theatre course from Banna Abhinaya Rangashaale and attended various theatre workshops in Bangalore. She has acted in various theatre groups and also went on to act in TV serials and Cinema. After completing her B.Com., she has taken up acting and modelling as her profession.
Narasimharaju B K originating from Bevinahalli Sira, Karnataka, Narasimharaju’s expertise lies in playing the areye (urume). He comes from a lineage of areye players, having started when he was 6 years old. He commonly performs in festivals and ceremonies, and he has performed the areye in a contemporary performance setting in Singapore for a dance piece ’Yahi’. He also holds a master’s degree in Kannada literature and a bachelor’s in Education.
Shwetha Rani HK is a theatre practitioner from Hassan, working in theatre for the past 11 Years. She holds a Diploma in theatre by Ninasam and the National School of Drama, New Delhi, specialization in acting. She worked as an actress and technician in Ninasam, Shivsanchara and Janamanadaata Reportry Companies. She taught in Ninasam for two years. Currently, she is teaching and also the Principal of Sri Shivakumara Rangaprayoga Shaale, Sanehalli.
Poorvi Kalyani is a singer, composer and actor who grew up in the presence of theatre from a very young age as her parents are from Professional modern Theatre. Formally trained in theatre music by her mother, she later on practiced Hindustani and Carnatic Classical music. She is also a dancer who is trained in Bharatanatyam. Along with being an artist, she has also chosen a career in Finance and has a working experience in GST and is currently pursuing her law degree.
Mohit Kaycee is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Anthropology of Religion at Columbia University. Previously he worked at India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) and the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy (CSSEIP) at National Law School (NLSIU), Bangalore. Since 2012 Mohit has been closely associated with Kotiganahalli Ramaiah and his work in pedagogy and performance at Terahalli Hill in Kolar. He has also worked on documenting ritual cultures, oral-performative practices, and textual collections of marginal communities across Karnataka.
Skanda Ghate is from Bangalore. He began his theatre journey from a very young age and has been consistently working in Kannada Theatre since then. After completing his engineering degree, he decided to take up theatre as a profession and finished his diploma in theatre arts from Ninasam. Currently he is a member of Jangama Collective and has been a part of various plays and productions in different capacities.
Sriharsha G N is a Bangalore based theatre artist. Software Engineer by profession, he has worked in several theatre productions in Kannada, English and Hindi languages. He is currently a volunteer at Jangama Collective and Artists Conservatory.
Manju Narayan has been a Bangalore based freelance theatre practitioner in the lighting department for the past 15 years. He has been working with different genres such as classical and contemporary dance, ramp walk, and puppetry, predominantly in Kannada plays. Manju Narayan also holds PG in English from Bangalore University, a Diploma in theatre, a Diploma in Ambedkar studies, and a Diploma in Gandhi studies from the same University.
Sachin Ranganath is a Bangalore based theatre light designer. Civil Engineer by profession, he has worked in several theatre productions in Kannada.
Manoj Kumar K. is from Channarayapatna of Hassan district. From his schooling days, he learned Yaskshagana and performed in many plays across Dakshina Kannada. Along with his Bachelor’s, he has got a Diploma in Theatre arts from SDM College, Ujire. He is a Banker by profession. His major theatre plays are – A Mid-Summer Night’s dream, Maduve Hennu, Shashtravyuahagalu, Ooru-Keri, Krishna Sandhana, We the people of India.
Chandra Shekhara K, founder member of Jangama Collective, is an Actor, Director, Musician and teacher from Karnataka, India. He graduated from Ninasam theatre institute Karnataka and he has a Master’s Degree in performing arts from Bangalore University. He has been traveling across the world performing. He has performed in many national and international theatre festivals in India and abroad.
Image at top of page: Film still from Rhythm of Dammam (2024), directed by Jayan K. Cherian.
This online roundtable is a pre-conference event on Dalit magazines with editors and subject experts from West Bengal and Maharashtra. It is being organised in association with the Network on Dalit and Adivasi Literature and Bonington Gallery as part of our Formations Series.
Conceptualised to draw the attention of researchers working in this field within and outside India, the roundtable will be moderated by Dr Nicole Thiara and Prof Judith Misrahi-Barak.
Funded by the Research Seed Grant Scheme, GITAM (Deemed to be University), the project on Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines intends to critically engage with the underrepresented area of Dalit Periodicals within the broad research field of Dalit Studies. It aims to trace and collect periodicals published in Bangla and Marathi (1950-2000) and look into their publication process, circulation and readership.
Besides, it aims to build a digital repository of Bangla and Marathi periodicals to facilitate easier access, a historiographic narrative on the evolution of Dalit literary periodicals in Marathi and Bangla and encourage translations of Dalit writings published in these periodicals.
As part of the outreach programme, a three-day conference is being organised in GITAM, Hyderabad, titled “Vernacular Periodicals and Dalit Writing: Production, Circulation and Reception” from 1st March to 3rd March 2023 in association with the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore. This conference aims to bring together editors, subject experts, early career scholars and graduate students to initiate a conversation across Indian languages and to reflect upon the vernacular Dalit periodicals critically.
The discussion will primarily focus on:
1) the possibility and scope of research in the area of vernacular periodicals and Dalit writing,
2) the challenges in such research and
3) the significance of such research.
A retired central government employee, Dhurjati Naskar, is an essayist, poet, and novelist from South 24 Parganas of West Bengal. He has been involved in editing periodicals since the early 1970s. Some of the periodicals edited by him are: Bangla Maati (Soil of Bengal), Dakkhin Barasat Sahitya Patra (South Barasat Literary Magazine), Baridhati, Dakhina Path, Baruipur Sambad (Barupipur News), Bharatiya Pundra Samachar (Indian Pundra News) and Pundra-Poundra Badhav. These periodicals, predominantly literary, also published essays concerning the history, ethnonational and folk traditions of the Poundra community. He is a member of Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sangstha (Kolkata), West Bengal Dalit Sahitya Sabha and a founding member of Dr Bhusan Chandra Naskar Archive. He has been a recipient of the West Bengal Sahitya Akademy Award in the year 2019.
Prof. Sipra Mukherjee teaches English at West Bengal State University. Her areas of interest are religion, caste, folklore and orality. She has been a visiting fellow at the department of English University of Hyderabad, School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University. She has received many national and international research and travel grants. Some of them are – ICSSR research grant for a research project on ‘Interpreting Folklore: Understanding the relationship between folklore, religion and caste in East India’, 2013-2015; a Research Grant from the University Grant Commission, India, ‘Faiths in the Margins’, 2009; Luce Grant from Comparative Religion Programme, on Religion and Human Security: Negotiating the Power of Religious Non-State Actors, University of Washington, 2008. Besides her research on the intersection between caste and religion, she has been an avid translator. Her translated works include the Autobiography of Dalit writer Manoranjan Byapari, Interrogating My Chandal Life, 2018, and Under My Black Skin Flows a Red River: Translations of Dalit Writings for Bengal, 2021, which she co-edited along with Prof. Debi Chatterjee. She is also a member of Ebong Alap, a voluntary non-profit society which works with youth to encourage critical thought.
Dr Asit Biswas is an Associate Professor of English in West Bengal Education Service, currently posted at P.R. Thakur Government College, Thakurnagar, West Bengal. He completed his PhD research on the film adaptation of western texts in Bengali films from the University of Gour Banga, Malda, West Bengal. He has published seventeen research papers, six Dalit short stories, two Dalit plays and some poems in Bengali. He is the co-editor of the book Shotoborsher Bangla Dalit Sahitya; Dalit Poems, Dalit Literary Horizon (translation of Manohar Mouli Biswas’s book, Dalit Sahityer Digboloy), Songs and Dialogues from Bengal in English Translation and Dalit Protest Unbridled: Two Dozen Plays of Raju Das. He also published the book Pardon Not: Marichjhampi Massacre, a translation of the novel Kshama Nei by Nakul Mallik. Recently his translation of Kalyani Thakur’s novella Andhar Bil O Kichhu Manush (Andhar Bil and Some People) has been published by Zubaan. At present, he is translating a Bangla epic.
Urmila Pawar is a widely known Indian (Marathi) writer. She has been active in the Dalit and feminist movements in India since her early life. She was a part of the Marathi Dalit feminist magazine Aamhi Maitarni which was published during the 90s. She has eleven publications to her credit including the popular Marathi short story collection translated into English as Mother Wit by Prof. Veena Deo (Hamline University, USA), published by Zuban. Her Autobiographical narrative Aydaan translated into English as The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs by Prof. Maya Pandit remains most popular even today (it has been translated into other Indian languages as well – Hindi, Kannada and Tamil). Many of her short stories have been prescribed in the syllabus framework of Indian universities as well as universities abroad (Colombia University, USA).
A bilingual poet, translator, editor, critic and columnist, Dr Chandrakant Patil writes in Marathi and Hindi and occasionally in English. He has several publications – collections of Marathi poems such as Nissandarbh, Ittambhoot, Bayaka ani Itar Kvita, and a collection of Hindi poems Apni Bhasha Ke Sameep to mention a few. Besides, he has also published six critical essay collections and twenty-five collections in Marathi and Hindi translations. He is popularly known for his active engagement in the Little Magazine Movement in Maharashtra during the 1960s and 1970s. He acted as one of the editors and publishers of the highly discussed little magazine Wacha. Besides, he was also one of the founder members of Wacha Prakashan that published the first collections of avant-garde poets of Marathi, such as Bhalchandra Nemade, Manohar Oak, Satish Kalasekar, Dilip Chitre etc. He has been a recipient of national and state-level awards for his various contributions – Sahitya Akademi Translation award (1991), Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sahitya Akademi (1994), Bhasha Vruddhi Sammaan, Govt. Of Maharashtra (2022).
Prof. Dilip Chavan is an academic scholar and a professor of English at SRTM University, Nanded, Maharashtra. His doctoral work, Language Politics under Colonialism: Caste, Class and Language Pedagogy in Western India, was published as a book by Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars in 2013. He writes in Marathi and has published nine books on contemporary social issues such as language, caste, class, imperialism, and women’s education. Some of his notable works are – Phule-Shahu-Ambedkar ani Jativyawastha Ant (1998); Shikshan: Jatvargiya Vastav ani Samatavadi Paryay (1999); Stree Shikshanacha Sangharsha (2007); Dr Ambedkar ani Bhartiya Shikshanatil Jatisanghrsha (2003); Samrajyavad: Bhasha ani Sanskriti (2010); Corona ani Stree-Purush Vishamatecha Prashna (2022). He also has a keen interest in translations from English to the Marathi language (he is working on the Marathi translation of Braj Ranjan Mani’s book Debrahminising History). Besides, he has been a part of the widely read fortnightly ‘Pariwartanacha Watsaru’ as its executive editor. He has been associated with academic institutions, such as the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore.
A graduate from the University of Hyderabad, Dr Sayantan Mondal is currently an Asst. Professor in the department of English at GITAM, Hyderabad (Deemed to be University). His areas of interest are Reading-Print readership, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Dalit Studies and Translation. Sayantan has been an Erasmus Mundus Fellow at the University of Oxford during 2015-16. He has received the University of Heidelberg Travel Grant 2015 and the University Grants Commission Travel grant 2016. Presently, he is working on a research project titled “Mapping Vernacular Network of Ideas and Recovering the Ephemeral: Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines”, along with Dr Jondhale Rahul Hiraman. This project aims to trace Bangla and Marathi Periodicals and the exchange of ideas on the caste question. Some of his published works are – Of Caste-Class and Dalit Writing, 2015; An Introduction to the World of Monoranjan Byapari, 2015; Language and its People: A Comparative insight into the Kurdish and Rohingya Genocide, 2019; Prantik theke Dalit: Nandonikatar Rajniti o Dalit Chetona (From Marginalised to Dalit: Politics of Aesthetics and Dalit Consciousness), 2022; Migration and Cultural Identity: An Introduction, 2022.
Having received a doctorate in English (Cultural Studies) from The English and Foreign Languages University (EFL-U), Hyderabad, Dr Jondhale Rahul Hiraman is an assistant professor of English at GITAM (Deemed to be University), Hyderabad campus. His doctoral research, Religious Conversion and Dalit Experience: A Study of the Meanings of Conversion among the Neo-Buddhists, emphasises the phenomenon of Dalit conversion to Buddhism and studies the conversion movement in Nanded district (Marathwada region, Maharashtra) through collecting and analysing historical records – pamphlets, posters, record books etc. He is a recipient of a prestigious Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, doctoral fellowship for his doctoral research. He has been publishing in the area of Dalit Studies/literature on issues such as caste, colonial intervention into the caste question, Dalit identity and culture etc. Currently, he is involved in a research project, “Mapping Vernacular Network of Ideas and Recovering the Ephemeral: Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines”, along with Dr Sayantan Mondal.
This free, online-in conversation event with writer Gogu Shyamala is part of our Formations series, hosted in partnership with Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial Studies Centre. This segment of Formations, CADALFEST, relates to the Celebrating Adivasi and Dalit Arts and Literature Festival (CADALFEST) taking place across India and in Nottingham. CADALFEST is the first international festival series dedicated to artists whose work creatively resists caste discrimination and social exclusion in India.
This event will take start at 4 pm (GMT) and 8.30 pm Indian Standard Time.
Gogu Shyamala will discuss her literary and academic work to mark the republication of her short story collection Father May be an Elephant, and Mother Only a Small Basket, But…, by Tilted Axis Press in March 2022. Her focus on the perspective of Dalit women and children as well as her stories’ celebration of Dalit strength and culture will be explored. Gogu Shyamala will tell us about her choice of, and experimentation with, the short story form, and how she sees her role as writer, academic and activist. We will also discuss land relations and the link to caste, sexual violence, inter-caste love and other key concerns of her fiction and academic writing.
Gogu Shyamala will be in conversation with Sowjanya Tamalapakula, Bethan Evans, Judith Misrahi-Barak and Nicole Thiara and the session will conclude with Q&A with the online audience via YouTube chat.
Tilted Axis is a non-profit press publishing mainly work by Asian writers, translated into a variety of Englishes. Founded in 2015, Tilted Axis are based in the UK, a state whose former and current imperialism severely impacts writers in the majority world. This position informs their practice, which is also an ongoing exploration into alternatives – to the hierarchisation of certain languages and forms, including forms of translation; to the monoculture of globalisation; to cultural, narrative, and visual stereotypes; to the commercialisation and celebrification of literature and literary translation. Tilted Axis values the work of translation and translators through fair, transparent pay, public acknowledgement, and respectful communication. They are dedicated to improving access to the industry, through translator mentorships, paid publishing internships, open calls and guest curation.
Dr. Gogu Shyamala is one of the foremost contemporary Dalit writers in India, as an author, researcher, editor, and biographer writing in Telugu.
Her English collection of short stories, Father may be an elephant and mother only a small basket, but… is a landmark in Indian literature; the collection was also translated into German and some of the short stories into French. She produced an anthology known as Nallapoddu (Black Dawn), which is a collection of 51 Dalit women’s writings (from 1921 to 2002) from across the Telugu-speaking Indian federal states. It has one of critical acclaim in literary world. She wrote a biography of the first Dalit woman legislator, Cabinet member and Endowment Minister in the former state of Andhra Pradesh, India. She worked on domestic violence and Dalit women. She is the co-editor of Anthology of Dalit writing in Telugu published by Oxford University Press. She has participated in the World Conference against Racism, and in literary events in Australia, Germany and Jaipur. Mentoring rural students on access to Higher Education and researching specific causes for dropouts, Gogu Shyamala also made documentary film called Memetla Saduvaale (Merit Interrupted).
Her writings are part of the syllabus in higher education in several Indian states and as well as the University of San Francisco in the USA. Her writings were translated into Indian languages such as Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Urdu and Gujarati. She holds a PhD in the area of Dalit Women Biographies, Gender and Caste in Telangana, from the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. She received several awards including Gandapenderam, she been worked as Research Fellow at Anveshi and as residence fellow at IEA Nantes in France on Dalit folklore and art farms. At present she is working as an independent scholar researching and writing biographies of rural Dalit women. She studies Dalit women’s literature and the history and mythology of Dalit literature as well as collecting palm leaf manuscripts of Dalit Puranas for contemporary scholarly studies.
Sowjanya Tamalapakula holds a PhD in the area of Violence, Gender and Caste from the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad.
Areas of study include gender and intersectionalities with particular emphasis on the issues of Dalit women. She is currently teaching and guiding in the School of Gender Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad. She teaches intersectionalities, sexuality, cinema, media and women’s writing for post-graduate students. She has published in various national and inter-national journals on gender, caste, cinema and media. Her recent paper ‘Caste-ing Queer Identities’ published in NUJS-Law Review journal is a critique on how caste operates in the queer intimate spaces.
Another paper titled ‘Politics of Inter-caste Marriage among Dalits: “Political as Personal”’ has been published in Asian Survey, University of California, Berkeley. She has been invited to contribute a paper ‘“Whatever Happened to Jogta, Jogtin?: Instrumentality of Religion in non-Brahman Cultural Assertion and Marginalization of Dalits’ for the Journal of Critical Philosophy of Race, Penn State University. She contributes regularly to Asian Age, Deccan Chronicle, The Wire, The News Minute, The Citizen, The Print, Youth Ki Awaz, Velivada and Roundtable India.
Bethan Evans is a recently qualified Doctor of Philosophy in English, specialising in black British literature, specifically the black British short story and its position in the publishing industry. Her thesis is titled ‘Publishing Black British Short Stories: The Potential and Place of a Marginalised Form’. Bethan has written articles for the Literary Encyclopedia and the Routledge Companion to Literature and Feminism, and is currently co-editing a special issue of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing, due for publication in 2025. She is the Project Officer for ‘On Page and On Stage: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts’.
Judith Misrahi-Barak is Associate Professor at University Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, France, where she teaches English and postcolonial literatures. Her prime areas of specialization are Caribbean and Indo- and Sino-Caribbean literatures in English, diaspora and migrant writing. She has published numerous articles and book chapters in edited collections, among which Tracing the New Indian Diaspora (Om Dwivedi, ed. Rodopi, 2014); Turning Tides: Caribbean Intersections in the Americas and Beyond (Heather Cateau and Milla Riggio, eds. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2019); or Windrush (1948) and Rivers of Blood (1968): Legacy and Assessment (Trevor Harris, ed. Routledge, 2019). She is General Editor of the series PoCoPages (Pulm, Montpellier). Borders and Ecotones in the Indian Ocean is the latest volume (2020).
http://www.pulm.fr/index.php/collections/horizons-anglophones/pocopages.html
Her latest publications are a chapter on Edwidge Danticat’s short stories (Bloomsbury Handbook on Edwidge Danticat, 2021), an article in a special issue of The Caribbean Quarterly on Sino-Caribbean literature (2021), and Kala pani Crossings: Revisiting 19th century Migrations from India’s Perspective (co-edited with Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Routledge, 2021).
Her monograph entitled Entre Atlantique et océan Indien: les voix de la Caraïbe anglophone was published with Classiques Garnier (Paris, 2021).
Dalit literatures are among her more recent interests, and she was Co-Investigator on an AHRC Research Network series on ‘Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature’ (2014-16) and is now Co-Investigator on an AHRC Follow-on Funding for Impact and Engagement on ‘On Stage and on Page: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts’ (2020-23).
Caste in Cinema, co-edited with Joshil K. Abraham, is forthcoming with Routledge (November 2022).
Nicole Thiara is Co-Director of Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial Studies Centre and Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Research Network Series, ‘Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature’ and its Follow-on Grant ‘On Page and on Stage: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts’.
She teaches Postcolonial and Contemporary Literature at Nottingham Trent University, UK. Her area of research is Dalit and diasporic South Asian literature and her current research project is the representation of modernity in Dalit literature.
Her publications include Salman Rushdie and Indian Historiography: Writing the Nation into Being (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), ‘The Colonial Carnivalesque in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable and Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies’, Journal of Postcolonial Writing 52: 6 (2016), ‘Subaltern Experimental Writing: Dalit Literature in Dialogue with the World’, Ariel 47:1-2 (2016), pp. 253-80, and with Annapurna Waughray, ‘Challenging Caste Discrimination with Literature and Law: An Interdisciplinary Study of British Dalit Writing’, Contemporary South Asia 21:2 (2013), pp. 116-32. With Judith Misrahi-Barak and K. Satyanarayana, she co-edited the critical volume Dalit Text: Aesthetics and Politics Re-imagined (Routledge, 2019) and special issue on Dalit Literature in the Journal of Commonwealth Literature 54 (1), March 2019 with our Open Access editorial ‘Why Should We Read Dalit Literature’ accessible here.
This free, online-in conversation event with multimedia artists Subash Thebe Limbu and Osheen Siva is part of our Formations series, hosted in partnership with Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial Studies Centre. This segment of Formations, CADALFEST, relates to the Celebrating Adivasi and Dalit Arts and Literature Festival (CADALFEST) taking place across India and in Nottingham. CADALFEST is the first international festival series dedicated to artists whose work creatively resists caste discrimination and social exclusion in India.
This event will be streamed live on Bonington Gallery’s YouTube channel. Book your free place now.
In recent times, the rapidly changing socio-political, environmental, and technological changes have centralised focus on reimagining and reconfiguring futures. While the Futurism movement, which began in Italy and spread to other European countries, sought to cleave off from the past and prophesized exciting futures through new technologies, futurisms that emerged from the margins were motivated by different urges – to question Eurocentric ideas of progress, development, scientific rationality, and techno futures. Afrofuturism, Latinx Futurism, and different kinds of Subaltern Futurisms have imagined alternate futures through speculative art and fiction by firmly holding on to the past.
In the Indian subcontinent, artists Subash Thebe Limbu and Osheen Siva have conceptualised Adivasi Futurism and Tamil Dalit Futures respectively. This conversation will discuss how they utilise the anti-caste philosophy that guides their multimodal artwork. It will explore how the artists use speculative art to posit alternate futures that resist caste and privilege their identities. The conversation, moderated by Prof. K.A. Geetha and Priteegandha Naik will discuss Dalit and Adivasi futurism and the potential it offers to dream up new and equal futures.
Subash Thebe Limbu is a Yakthung (Limbu) artist from what we currently know as eastern Nepal. He works with sound, film, music, performance, painting and podcast.
Subash has an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins (2016), a BA in Fine Art from Middlesex University (2011), and an Intermediate in Fine Art from Lalit Kala Campus, Kathmandu.
His works are inspired by socio-political issues, resistance and science/speculative fiction. Indigeneity, climate change, and Adivasi Futurism are recurring themes in his works.
He is based in Newa Nation (Kathmandu) and London.
Osheen Siva is a multidisciplinary artist from Thiruvannamalai, currently based in Goa. Through the lens of surrealism, speculative fiction and science fiction and rooted in their Dalit and Tamil heritage, Siva imagines new worlds of decolonized dreamscapes, futuristic oasis with mutants and monsters and narratives of queer and feminine power.
K.A. Geetha is an Associate Professor the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Goa Campus, India. Her research interests are Dalit writing, Post-Colonial literatures, Women Studies and Cultural studies. She has worked extensively on the literary production and reception of Tamil Dalit literature.
Priteegandha Naik has submitted her thesis on Dalit-futurism which discussed Dalit Studies, Science Fiction Studies, Science and Technology Studies. She and is currently working as a Research Associate at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.