Book Reviews : DAVID SHULMAN, The Wisdom of Poets Studies in Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 384

Abstract

militaristic tone animates the cadre of the Samta Sainik Dal (SSD) formed in Maharpura 1938, and there are interesting juxtapositions with other such militaristic formations. The youth who joined the SSD were thus drawn from the youth that earlier attended RSS meetings in the area, and once the ’turf battles’ had been settled, there was also constant participation in the programmes of each other. Volunteers were organised in platoons, sections and companies, and taught military drills (through with sticks serving as substitutes for rifles) that remind the author of Russian soldiers. These skills were useful not only in organising large meetings, but were also tested in the rather violent atmosphere of the 1946 elections when a huge poster proclaimed that ’We will play holi with the blood of Mahars’ and ’a sort of war atmosphere spread in all Mahar neighborhoods’. And finally, there is the world of militant mill workers, especially of women leaders such as Radhabai, member of the INTUC and later of Ambedkar’s Independent Labour Party, and of student leaders such as Kausalya Nadeshwar and Shanta Shabharkar who organised meetings of the Scheduled Caste Student Federation, whose public activities complemented the day-to-day struggles of workers such as Pumabai. To conclude, this is a refreshing account, especially for those who wish to look at Dalit lives beyond the narrow political understanding anchored in the GandhiAmbedkar divide. The narrative is steeped in nostalgia and sometimes jumps from one theme to another rather abruptly (a chapter on Politics and Pigeons discusses the 1942 movement together with the passion for raising pigeons), both of which may not be to the liking of all readers. But to this reviewer, these ’faults’ are more than made up by the richness of detail. The one quibble that I do have relates to translation, wherein Marathi caste names have been rendered into English on the basis of traditional profession. These names-Oilpresser, Ropemaker, Gardener, Farmer, Stonebreaker and Writer-are simplistic, if not misleading, and it would perhaps have been a better strategy to include them in the glossary with brief descriptions that are suggestive of the complexity of caste identities