: केशव तानाजी मेश्राम) (November 24, 1937 – December 3, 2007) was a Marathi

Marathi people

The Marathi people or Maharashtrians are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, that inhabit the Maharashtra region and state of western India. Their language Marathi is part of the southern group of Indo-Aryan languages...

 dalit

Dalit

Dalit is a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as Untouchable. Dalits are a mixed population, consisting of numerous castes from all over South Asia; they speak a variety of languages and practice a multitude of religions...

poet, critic, novelist, and short-story writer from Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. He wrote about 40 books.

Early life

Meshram was born in a poor dalit family in Akola. He spent his teens and early adulthood working as a railway wagon loader, a construction worker, and an oil mill worker. While struggling to make a living, he continued with his education. After graduation from college, he joined Western Railways as a clerk, but later secured the position of a Marathi lecturer at Maharshi Dayanand College in Parel

Parel

Lower Parel or Parel is central part of Mumbai. It is also lends its name to two railway stations on the Mumbai suburban railway. Most of the mills in Mumbai used to be in this area till some years ago...

 area of Mumbai

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

.

Literary Work

Meshram's collection of poems Utkhanan established him as an important dalit poet. His most popular novel Jatayu portrayed the anguish of a brilliant dalit youth, Abhiman, who was sidelined because of his low social status. Abhimaan fought against superstitions. He unsuccessfully tried to save a "possessed" girl from being molested and beaten up. His “interference” with the rituals of a tantrik priest brought him disaster. The girl died and the police framed him at just the time he had received his appointment letter for a job.

Meshram’s autobiography Hakikat shows the development of a sensitive mind in an adverse world. His other literary works deal with the plight of dalits, but he always exercised restraint in attacking the privileged classes for the plight.

"ज्वाला कल्लोळ" is the title of one of Meshram's works.

Marathi Sahitya Sammelan

Meshram presided over the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan

Marathi Sahitya Sammelan

Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan is a conference for literary discussions by Marathi writers. Though the conference has sometimes been held in a town outside the Indian state of Maharashtra, it is typically held annually in one of the towns in Maharashtra where Marathi is the mother tongue...

 held at Nashik in 2005.

In his presidential speech, he criticized the contemporary literary folks for confining their world only to elites without awareness of the lives of millions of poor people in India. At the same time, he also criticized the extremist trend in contemporary dalit literature, which sharply attacked the privileged classes and then called itself "revolutionary."

In his speech, Meshram suggested that the state government create a literary academy to translate great literary works from other languages into Marathi, and vice versa.

Death

Meshram died of lung cancer on December 3, 2007.