The Dalit Liberation Movement In Colonial Period

About the Author

Bharat Patankar is a social actvist with th farmers’movement in Maharashtra; he is also a regular contributor to Marathi journals and newspapers.

G. Omvedt is currently a Senior Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. A prolific writer, she has published a large number of books including Dalit Visions (1975) and Dalit and Democratic Revolution (1994) besides having translated Growing up Untouchable in India: A Dalit Autobiography.

Extracts from “Dalit Liberation Movement in Colonial Period”

“No direct struggles for land for dalits were apparently taken up before Independence, but as far as Ambedkar at least was concerned it seems the issue of land was always present….Kisan Sabha organising, in its areas of strength, benefited dalits more directly. The fight against feudal forced-labour struck at bondage within the village; the organisation of agricultural labourers, which had its beginnings in the 1940s, also involved a challenge to feudal servitude: as a Kerala landlord put it, “His body and his father’s are my property and he dares to ask for wages?”