Dalpat Chauhan

Dalpat Chauhan is a veteran Gujarati Dalit writer waiting to be discovered by the non-Gujarati readership, academia and world literary cultures. Chauhan’s work unfolds at the intersection of social and literary movements that the Dalits of Gujarat waged in 1970s and 80s. While his activism led him to actively associate with the Gujarat Dalit Panthers (1974) and Dalit Sangharsh Sangh (1982), the radical little magazines like Kalo Suraj (The Black Sun), Akrosh (Outrage) and Sarvanam (Pronoun) that he edited served to pioneer the Dalit Literary Movement in Gujarati. Between 1982 and 1985 when Gujarat burned with anti-reservation riots, Chauhan brought out anthologies of Dalit Poetry, little magazines and investigative booklets that condemned atrocities on Dalits and questioned Government reports on them. Due to his untiring literary activism, Gujarati Dalit literature could chalk out a radical literary manifesto in 1987, sealing the boundaries of its definition and functions for future generations of Dalit writers.