Listening to the call for social justice: on ambedkarite women’s songs and poetic expressions from Maharashtra, India

This paper attempts to engage with the artistic activism of Ambedkarite feminists from Maharashtra. It tries to analyze some of the modes of their artistic engagement within the other forms of activism of Dalits in Maharashtra in particular and India in general. Drawing on Marathi sources, one of the core interests of the paper is to delve into the social-political worlds of women activists that propagate Ambedkar’s core principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. At the same time, the ways in which Dalit women reflect on the questions of caste, gender and patriarchy will be analyzed in the context of the field of artistic (re)production of culture as a counter culture to the mainstream culture of India. Cultural practices of Maharashtra will be analyzed as a departure from the conventional folklore readings in order to differentiate its structured dispositions, bodily nuances and so on. Distinct art forms and poetic engagements among the marginalized sections will be subjected to close reading as well, especially the genres of Ovi, Powadas, Jalasa, Buddhageet and Bheemgeet. It thus turned into the weapons of the Dalits to unleash their political tirade against the Brahmanic culture. Hence it creates spaces for ontological and epistemic investigations within the rubric of Dalit culture. Thus, the primary and secondary sources and narratives will be deployed while researching artistic activism of Ambedkarite women in the context of songs and poetic expressions. This paper tries to explore the artistic activism of Ambedkarite feminists from Maharashtra.