Editing Namdeo Dhasal (section)

== Biography ==

Namdeo Dhasal was born in 1949 into a Mahar family, a community that Hovell describes as the Untouchable subcaste traditionally responsible for the disposal of dead animals, and he grew up in the slums of Bombay (now Mumbai).<ref name="Hovell1991">Hovell, Laurie (1991). "Namdeo Dhasal: Poet and Panther". ''Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars'' 23(2): 77–83. DOI: 10.1080/14672715.1991.10413153.</ref> He identified himself as a "Dalit," a term that Hovell glosses as "downtrodden, oppressed," in preference to "Untouchable" or "ex-Untouchable." Hovell also states that Dhasal was among the estimated six million ex-Untouchables who converted to Buddhism following Ambedkar's guidance. The sources available for this entry do not say when or in what form he adopted a Buddhist identity.

In 1972 Dhasal and Raja Dhale (1940–2019) founded the Dalit Panthers in Bombay. The organization took its name from the Black Panther Party in the United States, which Hovell reads as a sign of independence and militancy. According to Hovell, the original organization was active for only a few years but retained importance at the local level in Maharashtra at the time she wrote.

Dhasal's first book, ''Golpitha'' (1973), depicted Bombay's brothels and slums in shocking images and, in Hovell's account, made his name on the Marathi literary scene; ''Murkh mhataryane dongar halavila'' (1975) brought further acclaim.<ref>Hovell (1991), "Namdeo Dhasal," pp. 78–79.</ref> His later publications included the poetry collection ''Khel'', the long poem ''Indira priyadarshini'', dedicated to Indira Gandhi, the novel ''Hadki hadwala'', and, in 1982, the collection ''Tuhi iyatta kanchi''.<ref>Hovell (1991), "Namdeo Dhasal," pp. 78–79; the title poem of ''Tuhi iyatta kanchi'' is discussed at p. 79, n. 5.</ref> Hovell regards the last of these as the product of a transitional period, in which Dhasal was reflecting on Ambedkar's legacy some thirty years after Ambedkar's death, on his own marriage, and on the future direction of Dalit politics, although she cautions that a purely autobiographical reading of the poems is limiting.

Hovell stresses that Dhasal was never tied to a single political perspective: over the years he was associated with socialism, communism, and Maoism, and at one time he even wrote poems in praise of Indira Gandhi and her Congress Party.<ref>Hovell (1991), "Namdeo Dhasal," p. 78.</ref> By 1982 the Dalit Panthers had split into two factions. At the time of Hovell's writing, Dhasal headed one of them, the Bharatiya Dalit Panthers. He had also worked with a local group of prostitutes, and he had helped to organize a march of some 500,000 people in Bombay against the proposed government censorship of a book edited by Vasant Moon, in which Ambedkar criticizes Hinduism and which the Shiv Sena wanted banned. The book was published, an outcome that Hovell describes as a victory for Dalit solidarity. She also records, without endorsing it, a view current in 1989 that Dhasal's heyday was over and that he had "sold out."

Dhasal was married to the poet Malika Amar Shekh, whose father, Amar Shekh, was a well-known communist folksinger. Hovell's account effectively ends in 1989. He died in 2014.