ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how, no matter how viable a theory like African-American critical theory may sound for analyzing Dalit texts, the cultural ramifications can best be understood in terms of locating a theory in its own social, historical and political contexts. In fact, Limbale, while seeing the similarities between African-American and Dalit writings, also alerts people to the thought that ‘aesthetic consideration of Dalit literature must be based on Ambedkar’s thought, and that this literature’s literary value is embedded in its social value’. In a very thought-provoking essay titled ‘Translating and Teaching Dalit Texts’, Meena Kandasamy, Dalit woman scholar, poet and translator, says: The tendency to read/interpret Dalit literature has been coupled with reading Black literature, Aboriginal literature and other literatures of protest. It is considered as an important theme in cultural studies and is (mis) read as being the voice of the marginalized people.
