In today's world African-American Literature is shining, but the literature written by the depressed class in India is still considered Marginal, but it is not marginal in the real sense of the term.  It has its rich History, Reputation, and Significance and furthermore, it is Unique, so it stands its own.  The elite classes still consider their imaginative and religious literature significant but actually the literature written by them talks nothing but the fate, destiny, parapsychology, clairvoyance and astrology.  Literatures of the elite classes percolate discrimination in the Indian society and do believe in the Chaturvarna set up and consider it the ideal social system worthy to be accepted in all the ages .  In the world of globalization, the globalized world of the elite classes still consider Dalit Literature insignificant and furthermore blame Dalit Literature  by the assumption that it does not go beyond the caste and marginality.  Therefore an attempt is being made here in this research paper to prove how the blame of the so called Brahmin Ideology is baseless as the Dalit literature like African-American Literature, inculcates the universal values of love, freedom, fraternity, equality and the social justice which were never projected in the Brahmin Manupranit Ideology and literature.

Today, Hindu religion and its pernicious ideology is the source of inflicting atrocities on the dalits in the country. In this context Kamala Das raises her voice against the inheritance of religion in her poem TheInheritance. She calls the Inheritance of the religions a virus that has almost been infecting the minds of the people living in this country who follow all the religious rituals and believe in its order set by the so called God Brahma, the mother cum father of all the varnas.

She writes in her poem of the conformist order:

"Slay them who do not

Believe, or better still, disembowel their young ones

And Scatter on the streets the meagre innards."

It means those who oppose the rule of obnoxious religions and do not follow it destroy them and this act of obliteration will create a strong sense of perennial fear in the minds of the masses, and the system of so called conformist religion and its heritance will be continued and the voices of the non believers will be silenced forever in the religious order created by the so- called earthly Gods who produced the bogus religious books to dupe the large sections of society to serve their purpose of hierarchy in the Chaturvarna system.

Caste system in India propelled Dalits to accept the Chaturvarna set up as an ideal source of living that enslaved them in their motherland for more than three thousand years.  Racial ethnicity too propelled Afro-Americans to accept the racial set up that made them slaves in their motherland.  The colonizers called the blacks obstruction to progress. This is the mentality of the colonizers all over the world that they assume themselves intelligent and best in all the other human beings.  Such conformist races of people deny any contribution of the African-Americans and Dalits in the progress of the nations and regard them in terms of obstruction to the progress of the nations.  Alice Walker raises her protest here.  She writes:

 "So, then they said - we were

Obstructing Progress.

But we knew the rhythm of our days

and knew that we were not obstructing Progress"

Second, history has seen the protest of the African-Americans against the racism as the voice, asserting their human identities and the waging of civil war to put an end to the system of slavery.  The dalits did not wage any civil war as such to obliterate the caste system but they have penned their revolution with writings.

Ethnicity and racism destroyed the very existence of the African-Americans in their motherland.  Alice Walker puts this truth her words.  In the poem First They Said, she writes:

"They said: you are right.  It is not your savagery

or your immorality or your racial inferiority or

your people's backwardness or your obstructing of

Progress or your appetite or your infestation of the land that is at fault.  No.

What is at fault is your existence itself."

The poem "First, they said" is sung by the victims of discrimination ("we") about their perpetrators ("they").  So it becomes universal as it comments on the plight of the suppressed and oppressed people in the world.

Alice Walker, after projecting the truth, raises her voice as she desires for the change and progression in her society.  The poem On Stripping Bark from Myself, from her collection Good Night Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning embodies her ideas to an extent:

"I find my own

Small person

A standing self

Against the world

An equality of wills"

 

The colonizers were the outsiders.  They invaded the other countries and defeated the natives and started ruling through the pernicious religious system to strangle the natives in the web of slavery. Namdev Dasal's question is very heart touching in this context. In Golpitha he raises the strong voice. He writes:

"When Darkness encountered the sun

Words thundered

How long shall we remain trapped

Suffocating in the prison-hole of Hell?

The ruthless masters of cruelty and inhumanity ruled the natives in India for thousands of the years.  The Muslims, French, Dutch, Portuguese and then the British came but the conformist race of Brahmins kept strong hold over the religion and the people through their conformist religious order and did not allow others to interfere in the religious structure that they had inculcated in the mentality of the populations in this country.  One may have the curiosity here to know how they did it.  The answer lies in the concept of adaptability.  The Brahmins adopted the changes in rule but did not allow the rulers to interfere in the Brahmin religious order of the Chaturvarna Vyavasta.  Thus, one can understand here how the foreign invaders ruled this country for so long in any history of the world and how the Brahmin Ideology kept its firm holds on everything by throwing the untouchables permanently in the arena of darkness.

And it is Dr.B.R.Ambedkar, the lighthouse and the father of Dalit Literature ignited the hearts of the people with his knowledge ocean.  Namdev Dhasal's poem on Dr.B.R.Ambedkar is quite striking. 

He refers to the Father here:

 "Never leaves our company

And delivers us from exploitation

You are the one

The only one" (from Golpitha, translated by Dilip Chitre)

Thus, Hindu Spiritualism is the house of exploitation that trapped untouchables in its Hell and arena of Darkness for a long time in any history of the world. Dr.B.R.Ambedkar obliterated this darkness and abolished it permanently Dr.B.R.Ambedkar made the human beings rational and then they started thinking, raising their voice, analyzing the environment they were placed in through their dynamic Literature that they are creating and had created before and this same Literature created and produced by them is glowing in the Literatures of the Globe to reinstate the historical power and dignity.

Here I would like to quote the lines of my poem entitled "You Rashtradrohi, Dhurth Aryan Brain…."

 "You putrid, saffron drain

We demolish your terrorist religious train

That you moved high with religious game

And then the minds of the oppressed you tame

To gain the godly fame….

Now we diagnosis your religious tower

To reinstate our historical power

That you polluted through, religious bodies"

This demolition of the terrorist religious train is not through any war or any other means of violence but through the literature that the writers like Namdev Dhasal and Alice Walker are creating for reinstating the historically wiped out identity, its dignity and power.

Thus, Namdev Dhasal and Alice Walker make the nation and the world more Humanistic and Progressive by inculcating equality, freedom, fraternity and social justice in the societies where conformist religious orders continue the obnoxious rule.