Dr. J.Ravindranath
Professor &HOD
Department of
English
GVPCE (A)
Visakhapatnam-48
( Abstract :Language and literature are a part
of culture and the latter also gets influenced by the former. Culture perishes when language
and literature are neglected. At the same time a specific language and
literature also decline when culture
itself suffers due to any reason
materialistic or otherwise. All the three-language, literature and
culture influence one another. Language
is a powerful vehicle to pursue
alternative politics and aesthetics. The
language of poetry representing the
marginalized at times respects
no boundaries in projecting the alternative perspective.
Telugu leading poet Sri Sri’s master pieces Maha prasthanm and Maro Prasthanam reveal influences of
the Western literature and
indigenous imagery used. In the former,
the language is mainly influenced by Sanskrit and Classical Telugu whereas in the latter the poet’s
attempt to adopt dialect or people’s language is clearly visible. Some people
downplay the language of Maroaprasthanam
as it ideologically and linguistically to an extent leans towards the extreme left. While the
language of Mahaprasthanam made it unassailable from conservative as well as
progressive critics, the dialect used in Maroprasthanm got less appreciation even from the so called progressive people. Digambara poets used vulgar language to show their disgust
towards the exploitative society in the late sixties and early 1970’s. While
Dalit poets used language uninhibitedly, feminist poets found fault with vulgar
expressions used by the Dalit poets as something objectionable and gender-
insensitive. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s
dictionary gives the meanings of ‘vulgar’ as ‘not suitable, simple,
dignified or beautiful’, ‘common or not in the style preferred by the upper
classes of the society’ or ‘rude and likely upset or anger people, especially
by referring to sex and body in an unpleasant way.’ My paper studies the impact of language of resistance including the ‘vulgar’
language in Telugu poetry from revolutionary poets such as Sri Sri and
Alisetti Prabhakar and a few other representative poets from the movements of
Digambara and Dalit movements. In fact
one finds the language of resistance including vulgar language as a means to express the anger and
frustration towards to the established order and shock the complacency of the
community. One needs to see beyond the vulgar language to appreciate the language of resistance in its fullness.)
Language
and literature are a part of culture and the latter also gets influenced
by the former. Culture perishes when
language and literature are neglected. At the same time a specific language and
literature also decline when culture
itself suffers due to any reason
materialistic or domination by other cultures. All the three-language,
literature and culture influence one
another. Language is a powerful vehicle to pursue alternative politics and aesthetics. The language of poetry representing the marginalized at times
respects no boundaries in projecting
the alternative perspective. The language of literature has also been
changing under the impact of social,
historical and cultural causes. The language of poetry in Telugu has undergone
many changes in its struggle against native
conservative forces who collaborated with the British imperialists during the era of
pre-independence. From the language of the classical to to
free verse much change has come in.
Modern Telugu literature shows many
powerful voices against the status-quo . Many poets representing
various movements such as Romantic, Progressive or Abhudaya, digambara, revolutionary, dalit,
feminist poets used the language of resistance to question and
undermine the exploitative system. There
have been many poets who were inspired by the vision of another world without slavery and inequality.
The romantic movement in Andhra pradesh has been mainly concerned wuth nature,
subjective suffering and sympathy for the poor from distance. The Progressive
movement has been the precursor to other movements which challenged
conventional society. The righteous
anger of the poets who championed the marginalized classes such as
workers, farmers, dalits and women have used the idiom of resistance unhesitatingly
to call an end to the exploitative system. The poets at times used even vulgar or rude language to condemn the
exploiters and to challenge the polite or gentle idiom which has been thought
to be apt for poetry. Their aim is to shock and open the eyes of one and all
and jolt the people out of complacency and layers of maya which made people passive. according Kolakaluri Madhu
Jyoti, “Dalit’s is natural expression.
Limitless expression. Their idea of beauty belongs to life and without any
restrictions. (5) My paper makes the
point that language is a weapon of criticism and at times an aid to
the political project of criticism by
weapons. This doesn’t intend to be exhaustive or comprehensive to include all the poets or their language
but takes up representative poets from different movements and some of their poetic pieces for
amplification.
The progressive writer’s movement began in
1936 at All India level and in 1943 in Andhra Pradesh and continued during 1943-1948, 1955-58 and after 1979 with many
ups and downs.(KVR,421).Ramana Reddy mentions that the form and nature of the progressive movement was the collective result of poets such as Chilakamarti,Gurajada, Basavaraju, Unnava,
Garimella , Settipalli, Tummaa, Chadalavada, Sunkara, Prayaga. Sri Sri gave
literary respectability to progressive
movement. “He gave it form and inspiration. It means he is the beginner of
modern Progressive movement (1934-1964).” ( Reddy 249). Sri Sri , the leading
poet in progressive movement and later in Revolutionary Writers’ Association paved way for a new language of
resistance and uses words most
dexterously. Influenced by world literature showed new path to Telugu poetry and
translated poems of famous French poet
Swinburne , Russian Poet such as Pushkin
, American poet Poe and revolutionary poet such as Pablo Neruda. Though
he has started with the influence of
classical literature and Romantic
poetry, he soon embraced progressive and
revolutionary language of resistance and made a deep impact on the modern
Telugu poetry. He took inspiration from
Gurajada, the author of drama Kanya Sulkam and considered the father of
Modern Telugu literature. Sri
Sri’s master pieces Maha Prasthanm(1950)
and Maro Prasthanam(1980) reveal
influences of English, French on his language and imagery used. In the
former, the language is mainly influenced by Sanskrit and Classical Telugu whereas in the latter the poet’s
attempt to adopt dialect or people’s language is clearly visible. Some people downplay the language of Maroaprasthanam as it ideologically and
linguistically leans towards the extreme
left. While Sanskrit influence and revolutionary content of Mahaprasthanam
made it unassailable from conservative as well as progressive critics, the
dialect used in Maroprasthanam got less appreciation even from so called
progressive people. Chalasani Prasad , in his preface to Maro Prasthanam notes
ever changing quality of Sri Sri and writes “ those who want poetry and poets
to be nonaligned and beyond life and common people won’t like songs of Maroprasthanam ”(Prasad, preface to Maroprasthanam,7)
Sri
Sri’s lines
“Who
carried the bricks/ To build the Taj Mahal?
Not about
the palanquin of the lords/ Who are its bearers ?” firmly
revealed his bias for the working
classes. His clarion call for another world stirred the young and the
progressive minded.
The same poet in Maroprasthnam (1980)wrote a poem ‘ Yesterday’s jatkawala’ in people’s dialect. Writing about the anguish of the owner over the death
of horse, he writes that he hasn’t suffered so much even after the death of his
son or the elopement of his wife and expelling the thoughts of suicide , he
says :
I
will not die/live till death/kill those worth killing”
He also wrote that
“Swing
swing swing to the gallows/ When you swing, the enemy’s hearts get nervous.”
“Where
is revolution?/There your food, There your
house
If
you weep aloud/ None will come towards you
…
‘Swim
in the streams/ Of blood red / Brother my sibling”
( Maroprasthanam 11)
In
his poem, ‘Jhumjha’ Sri Sri writes,
“In
kurukhsetra of Bharat / I will flow Bhagavdgita of new age
Making
the flames speak/ Enable the singing by blood’(21)
Sri
Sri himself doesn’t feel shy of using vulgar words if necessary. Mourning the
death of his friend Kompella Janardhana Rao , he writes “Have you gone my
friend/ unable to live in the world of the bastards” in Mahapratahnam. In his poem ‘Good Morning’ in he writes as follows
“The
head fallen in the night/ Says ‘good morning’ in the dawn
The
star fallen in the moonlight at night / Says ‘good morning’ in the dawn
The
semen out in the sleep at night/ Says ‘good morning’ in the dawn
the
vulgarity flowed in the night of literature/ Says ‘good morning’ in the
dawn.”
Anisetti Subbarao
writes in his poem, “Whose Children
are You?” as follows:
“O my bosom friends!
The laws of this world / offer the
plates of leaves discarded/ Offer
the iron
bars
In the books of the judges/ Lines of letters
black / Nooses around your necks!”
(Chaitanya Dehali, 40-41)
He also
says that on seeing the orphan
children, the stony heart melts and flows compassion whereas the kind heart
turns hard and fights the world.
Gurram Joshua
can be called precursor of Dalit
consciousness and imbibed nationalistic spirit . He wrote more than seventy
works and emerged as the leading poet against heavy odds personal and social.
He writes in his verse autobiography, My Story as follows:
Observed history of birds countlessflying in colours beautiful
Reared baby Crows and mongoose
not for fun but as my children
Read the story of Gandhi hidden
in the cobweb of spider
Realized the love of dogs for master
by giving a handful of morsels
Grasped that in gaining peace
Animals are superior to man proud
over his “birth superior”
Why tales ten thousand?
While
the progressive writers have been questioning the status-quo in Andhra, there
arose a movement against the Nizam in Telangana. The Telangana armed struggle
led by the Communist party of India during
1946-51 gave rise to many poets such as Dasarathi, Suddala Hanumantu, Kaloji
and others. Dasarathi, a famous progressive poet who participated in
Telangana armed struggle later wrote as
follows;
“Until those who use brahmastra /Against a sparrow
No
peace on the earth/ No end to the war…
The
life which fought a great war / Against
the darkness is eternal
the
halo of poetry-/ The habitat of peace on the earth.” (Chaitanya Dehali, 81)
A lull in the progressive writers’ movement
has taken place due to the embracing of the parliamentary path by the
Left, the end of Telangana armed struggle and gravitation of many erstwhile
poets into films and other fields for their livelihood after 1951. When the
entire literary scene has turned drab, digambara poets entered the scene with their
language of resistance and vulgarity to
shake the sleeping conscience of the
nation on May 6,1965. Although many took exception to their language
Sri Sri and others supported them as they saw revolutionary potential in them. Among
Digambara poets Jwalamukhi,
Nikhileswar, Cherabandaraju marched
along with the revolutionary ranks and
embraced jails and mental suffering. Cherabandaraju died in jail due to cancer
worsened due to the governmental apathy
and repressive policies. True to their name ‘Digambara poets’ exposed the
grotesque nature of exploitation in a matching language and not in sanitized or
doctored language of the respectable middle class folk. Their words shook the
people pretending asleep and proved effective in firing the imagination of the
people. The gentle and decent poetic
language has had its day. Maha Swapna , A digambara poet writes in his poem “
“Glanirbhavati Bharata” as follows:
I
am coming Digamabara poet
I am the Sun rising in the night
…
With wounds of syphilis of various
countries
With banyan fruits full of insects
While the earth is fallen and
turned prostitute
When it is rotten and smells foul
I am being born a digambara poet
…I am coming the digambara poet
The fierce naked lion breaking the stagnant pillar of poetry
To enable the trees walk
To enable the buried rocks speak
To resurrect the corpses in the
graveyards (Chaitanya
Dehali, 60)
Another
poet Nikhileswar writes in his poem , ‘The Raga of Destruction’ as follows in
the background of attack on Vietnam by America :
“Over centuries soaked in semen
I can’t carry these gods and holy books
I can’t carry these jails shackles
laws
I can’t carry these wars and
fractured history “
(Chaitanya Dehali, 64)
Cherabanda
Raju, the digambara poet who later turned to revolution wrote as follows:
Bringing
a beautiful woman
Imprisoning
her in a room
Parading
her in a fantastic palanquin
Holding
and hanging to her feet
Poet
! When do you cure yourself of chronic disease?
(Chaitanya Dehali, 61)
Digambara
poets wrote that their poetry means
“telling truth nakedly” ( Ramana Reddy 416)Marxist critic KV Ramana Reddy
criticized them saying that” like common critics they also assumed that in
Marxism there was main contradiction between
individual and society, freedom and power.” (412) .But Ramana Reddy
also appreciated them saying that they were not “insubstantial
reverberations to American Beatniks or the English angry young men’ but theirs
is the sigh of a volcano which is erupting from their hearts without the
exaggeration of metaphors”(415). He finds fault with them for rejecting all
isms and for their apolitical
stance.(414)
Kalluri
Syamala in her preface to her anthology, Chaitanya Dehali writes that “digambara
poets were determined to uproot the atrocities in contemporary society and
wrote with wild emotions. Though such emotion was natural in that historical
backdrop, the influence of digambara poets didn’t last long.”(xiv) She also wrote that the wild emotional
articulation in the revolutionary
writers’ experiments and images in
1970’s led to moving away from the
diambara poetry. Both digambara and
revolutionary poets brought forth socially committed poetry. ( Syamala xv)
The
Revolutionary Writers’ Association was born in 1970 with Sri Sri as its president as a reaction
against stagnation and response to the revolutionary movement in Srikakulam and Naxalbari. In the
words of Ramana Reddy what differentiates the revolutionary poets from other is
their identification with Marxism , not
mere verbal loyalty”(119) He also says that the progressive poet evades the
real sufferings of human lives calling himself as humanist. He doesn’t come out of the circle of bourgeois
nationalism at any cost. The ‘progressive’
poet is none other than literary representative of the bourgeois ideas
who entered and settled down amidst the great movement of the working
classes”(160) Sivasagar, Cherabandaraju, Kodavatiganti, Raa vi Sastry ,
Tripuraneni, Panigrahi Subbarao, Gaddar, Vangapandu , Varavara rao,
Chenchaiah and many others contributed
to the growth of revolutionary literary and cultural movement.
Alisetti
Prabhakar writes:
Is history born
Out of the iron box
of / the money lender…?/
Or/ the nipples of the breasts of /modern film
star..?
Or/ hatched under the hat of the
politician?/ No
Bloodshed is the preface of history/
Drop of sweat is its basis /Hunger
is its stimulus. Prabhakar 50-51
K.Siva
Reddy writes in his poem, ‘Speak’ as
follows:
Let us not beg the right to speak/
Let’s speak naturally like air, freely fearlessly…
Let’s speak shamelessly and
fearlessly
And truthfully
(Chaitanya Dehali, 135)
When revolutionary movement faced severe state repression in the late 19’s and nineties and revolutionary poetry has become repetitive
and sloganeering, there emerged dalit movement and dalit movement poetry in Andhra. The killing of dalits in
Karamchedu, Neerukonda and Tsundur by the upper caste people led to the dalit struggles and strengthening
of dalit consciousness. Works of anthology
like Dalit Manifesto , The
Sharpening Song, The Thickenig Song
provided impetus to the dalit literary movement. Dalit poets have come into
their own. Among dalit poets the work
‘Nisani’ written by four poets Khaja, Paidi Teresh babu,Madduri Nagesh babu and
varadayya has become known for its frankest expression in questioning
the caste oppression. Teresh Babu writes
Writing is not
new to us/ when you were frogs in the wells of slates
We turned the
verse of crop on the hearts of the mother earth
When you were paper boats in the oceans of knowledge
We turned into
metal scripts on the brow of the factories
the letter became chaste in the fire when it fell
into our belly
Weapon has got motherhood when our fingertips touched it.( SV,111)
Writing
about their certainty of direction and
time that became their disciple, he writes as follows:
So far-
Six-feet of death that played with
our lives
Has adjusted into a six- inch
member on our bodies.( SV,112)
Sikhamani,
another poet in his ‘Language of Noisy Chappals’ writes as follws:
So
far…
I
am a sound of imitation /I have lost my real voice in cacophony borrowed voices
Now I
am turning / Letter into a raw hide and curing it in lande* ( Madhu Jyoti,67)
( *Digging
a hole in the earth for curing rawhide)
Katti
Padma rao in his poem, ‘For the sake of A Word’ writes as follows:
“That mother told only one word/ My
son Silence/
You will certainly die/ But live
for one word deathless
You will conquer death with that
one word.” (Chaitanya Dehali, 106)
Kalekuri
Prasad in his poem ‘For the Fistful of Self-respect’ writes as follows:
I am dependent for ages in a free
country
Subjected to insults, atrocities/
Rapes, tortures/
Held my head high for a fistful of
self-respect….
I am no victim but a martyr/ A Flag
of rebelliousness flying
Shed no tears for me/ If you please
Bury me in the heart of the city/
I’ll bloom like a bamboo garden that sings melody of life
( Chaitanya
Dehali, 126)
There
are many other dalit poets and leaders such as
Siva Sagar, Bojja Tarakam, Satish chandar Gaddar, Goranti Venjkanna,
Masterji, Sudhkar, Sunar raju, Sikhamani, Swaroopa Rani, Gowri Shankar
etc.
The marginalized people have been seen for
ages as uncreative, uncouth, untouchables, invisible, uncultured and beyond the
pale of literature by the conservative literature. As a reaction to this
exclusion of their language and lives, Some dalit poets cared nothing for ‘polite’
language in expressing their anger of ages. Varadayya wrote of the impending day when they could kick ‘ in
the dash’ of every rascal and Teresh spurned the idea of nonviolence of the
upper castes through writing about the rapes of their sisters. ( SV,113) Here the poet’s anguish at the
hypocrisy of the verbal chanting of nonviolence
and real atrocity on dalit women by the upper castes has been expressed.
Cambridge Advanced Learner’s dictionary gives the meanings of ‘vulgar’ as
‘not suitable, simple, dignified or beautiful’, ‘common or not in the style
preferred by the upper classes of the society’ or ‘rude and likely upset or
anger people, especially by referring to sex and body in an unpleasant way.’ For ages the exploitation
has gone on and resistance
to is thwarted in terms of language
and practice. Language has been
sanitized, upgraded or refined to brand some words and things as beyond the
scope of respectable literature. Against this Sri Sri wrote that dog, a matchstick,
a piece of soap are all poetic. People resort to coarse or swear words when
their anger reaches the peaks and polite classes impolitely and violently
subjugated the marginalized for very long. Having kept them under inhuman and
uncivilized conditions they contemptuously dismissed the language of the
marginalized as unfit for poetic respectability. The songs and vocabulary of
the people had to be relegated to the substandard position whereas Sanskrit and
regional languages influenced by them have been given the upper hand. Dalits who have been excluded from Sanskrit
language do not accept its supremacy and propel their own language which has
been more natural, richer and frank.
Teresh Babu writes, “There’s gentlemen’s language. Same poetry/Stagnant themes, Outdated
styles, Vomited expressions;” (qtd. from Madhu Jyoti,53) pointing out this linguistic domination,
Khadar writes, ‘Dream stop coming in my
mother tongue/ My ideas too resort to the language of the majority.”( qtd.
from Madhu Jyoti, 56).In the poetry of the angry young dalit poets , the physical
and cultural violence by the upper
castes is castigated to jolt them out of complacency perpetuated for ages. The
gentlemen and ladies have been embarrassed, ashamed, angry and stated
complaining against the direct and ‘vulgar’ language of the common people.
Dalit poets have expanded the domain of language, literature and culture by
writing in their own idiom, questioning the elite language and by demanding
inclusion in the national culture. Their literacy and cultural movement has
been a valiant battle to extend the boundaries of political and cultural democracy.
In
feminist movement which targeted patriarchy there are many poets such as Jayaprabha ,
Volga, Kondepudi Nirmala, Mahejabin, Savitri, Rajani, Hymavathi etc..
Jayaprabha remembers Kunti of the
Mahabharata as follows:
“She’s spark of fire never quenched/ A baby fish of five
colours in the mouth of a royal whale
A jasmine creeper crept over iron
chains/ A flute silent’
(Chaitanya Dehali, 150)
Rajani
in her poem, Abortion
Statement writes as follows:
Alas! / If only there were pills to
dry heart-
As
there are to dry milk! (Chaitanya Dehali, 176)
Mandarapu
Hymavathi in her poem, ‘Adjust’ writes,
‘Adjust’ these letters / demand
sacrifice of woman’s life!
(Chaitanya Dehali, 106)
The
feminist writers such as Volga, Vasanta Kannabiran, Kalpana Kannabiran pointed out how vulgar language has been the cultural property of the upper
castes imposed on dalits and rape has been the weapon in subjugating women
across the ages and the need for forging new insight and new language. .( SV,119-120 )
The language of resistance questions
the different structures of oppression
such as family, private property and the State. The Progressive, digambara, revolutionary,
dalit and feminist poets challenged the status-quo with their
powerful language. There have been differences among them in their
perception of the enemies and solutions to the fact of exploitation. The
revolutionary poets pointed out the limitations of the progressive poets and
digambara poets. Dalit poets questioned the revolutionary poets regarding
ignoring caste issue in the name
of class exploitation whereas the feminist poets who challenged gender inequality posed
questions to the revolutionary and dalit poets for underplaying gender issue and the use of
the‘vulgar’ words some dalit poets. While some critics like Denchanala
Srinivas and Lakshmi Narasaiah supported the language of dalits as an
expression of their indignation , Marxist
critics such as Chenchaiah criticized it and Addepalli Ram Mohan Rao expressed cautious optimism .The feminist
critics such as Volga, Vasanta
kannabiran and Kalpana Kannabiran pointed out how vulgar words undermine woman’s status further. All these literary controversies helped in clarifying
the issues involved and helped dalit literary movement to march ahead.
It
can be concluded from above that language of resistance in modern Telugu
movement poets has broken the restrictions on language. It has harnessed the
full force of language in challenging the status quo. Not withstanding the
shock or horror expressed by the gentle folk, it exposes the naked exploiting
nature of the system. In spite of the
apparent permanence of the present
order, the language of resistance has future. Papineni Sivasankar , a poet
questions the murders of the farmers in his poem, ‘When the Plough is Broken’
as follows:
I’ll
question those who mortgaged the spine of the nation
In transactions across the continent
I’ll
question black money its
watchdogs
Cursed
by corpses ( Chaitanya Dehali, 162)
References
Madhu
Jyothi,K. Aesthetics of Dalit Literature. Hyderabad: Telugu Academy,2010.
Ramana
reddy,K.V. Literary Essays. Part One.
Vijayawada, KVR., Saradamba Smaraka
Committee, 2013.
Satyanarayana,S.V.&
S .Vijaya bhaskar Eds. Dalitavada Vivadalu. Hyderabad:
Visalandhra Publishing House,2000.
Syamala,K.
Chaitanya Dehali: An Anthology of
Twentieth Century’s Telugu Poetry.New Delhi:
National Book Trust, 2002.
Tirumal
Rao Jayadhir, NizamVenkatesam and B. Narsan.
Alisetti Prabhakar’s
Poetry. Hyderabad: Alisetti Friends, 2013.
