For Dhasal

Chandramohan's book, Letters to Namdeo Dhasal - his second after Warscape Verses (Authorpress, 2014) - pays tribute to the older poet

For four years now, April — the month in which BR Ambedkar was born — has been celebrated as Dalit History Month. This year, the celebrations, inspired somewhat by Black History Month celebrated in the US, are even more poignant than previous years’ because they follow the contentious verdict of the Supreme Court on the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Act in March and nationwide protest on April 2 that turned violent. Even as protests continue, with Dalit rights groups demanding more legislative protection for the law, I returned to Namdeo Dhasal’s poems, translated by Dilip Chitre, and the verses