Baluta

Daya Pawar

Translated from Marathi by Jerry Pinto

Speaking Tiger, 336 pages, Rs. 350

As a Dalit autobiography, Baluta caused a sensation when it first appeared, in 1978. Set in Mumbai and rural Maharashtra in the 1940s and 1950s, it describes in shocking detail the practices of untouchability and caste violence, as well as the courage of the Dalit community as it fights for dignity. Baluta is also a frank account of the author’s own failings and prejudices, as well as those of some of the Dalit movement’s leading lights.