Rhythms of Dalit Refusal in the Poetry of Namdeo Dhasal

This article develops a novel reading of the politics of Dalit writing in Namdeo Dhasal's poetry by tracing its sonic and performative resonances with tamasha, a Dalit folk art form. Against readings of Dalit literary politics as the restoration of a stolen humanity, I propose that reading Dhasal through tamasha evinces Dalit subjectivity as fugitive. Building on resonances across Dalit writing and Black studies — particularly the work of Fred Moten — this article shows how Dhasal's noisy, vernacular rhythms disrupt and distend literary order, refusing recognition and restoration into the imaginaries of the caste-ized subject proper to such order. Through close readings of four newly translated poems, the article follows how the cadence of Dhasal's refrains suspend Dalit bodies in an in-between that is both interstitial and surrounding. This fugitivity refuses a Dalit futurity along paths that seek the restoration of a humanity tainted with caste.