Wamandada's Anti-Caste Poetry And Music

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In the fields, our sweat drips,
The thief steals and runs, with what isn’t his
The path through which these plunderers escape, where is it?
Law, forever, is hung to dry on a clothesline
Whose wealth has swollen, theirs or mine
Decide now, fetch the scale of justice
But its needle, where is it?
All the butter flows towards them slides
Here we are hungry for a bite
Dear Shopkeeper, our bag of flour, where is it?
Here our families sleep naked
There, they drape a saree over another
This impoverished woman’s clothes, where are they?
Here’s there’s just salt, chillies and some lentil broth
They dine on chicken, with a knife and fork
Our chicken cutlet and our fork, tell us, where are they?
Come, everyone, search together
Search all the mansions, streets
Waman dada, where are our anklet bells?

—Excerpts from a poem by Wamandada (Translated from Marathi by Mayabhushan Nagvenkar)

Waman Kardak (1992-2004)

Popularly known as Wamandada, was a Marathi singer, musician, poet and lyricist who changed the structure and politics of music. He used for his songs and poems a language which cannot be distinguished from the vernacular of the masses, the Dalit-bahujans of Maharashtra among whom he lived and wrote most of his songs. Wamandada wrote and performed for 55 years. He arrived as a poet when the Ambedkar movement was reaching its climax in the form of the Buddhist conversions of 1956. Wamandada’s songs amplified what Babasaheb Ambedkar had spoken about.