‘Mahatma betrayed Dalits often’

It was Gandhi Jayanti. But young Dalit poet Meena Kandasamy was not ready to spare the Mahatma. “Like many other Dalit writers, I have reservations about Gandhi,” she said at the DC Kovalam Literary Festival here. “He betrayed Dalits several times.” Ms Meena added the Poona Pact imposed on the nation by Mahatma Gandhi had effectively blocked the political rise of Dalits. “Dr Ambedkar agreed to it since he knew that upper castes would slaughter Dalits otherwise,” she said. The young poet literally flung her raw verses on caste, oppression of women and sexuality at the audience. “In poetry I can be upfront about what angers me,” she said. “In prose one has to be subtle. So I prefer poetry.” Many of her poems were subversive re-readings of the tales of women characters in the Puranas including Ahalya, Sita and Surpanakha. Ms Meena, who read out from her latest collection, ‘Ms Militancy,’ admitted that she was an angry poet. “But there are enough reasons for us to be angry,” she said. “The system is so oppressive. Dalits and women are oppressed everywhere.” Answering questions, she said that parliamentary democracy can only throw up Dalit leaders such as Mayawati and Ram Vilas Paswan who were convenient for the system. When asked whether her role model was Mayawati or Arundhati Roy, she quipped: “Neither; I identify more with the Naxalite leader Anuradha Gandhi.”