ABSTRACT
Focusing on Dalit discourse in the context of Telugu writing with a view to understanding the intriguing and complex relationships across class, gender and caste, this chapter reconceptualizes these categories with reference to Kalyana Rao’s Antarani Vasantam (Untouchable Spring) , first published in 2000. The 1990s saw the emergence of the Dalit literary movement. Many Dalit writers who felt oppressed by the domination of the uppercaste leadership within the ‘left’ movement began to chart their own course. Despite pointing in the direction of the armed struggle as perhaps the only way out of the problems that confront the Dalits, Antarani Vasantam is mainly about the issue of caste. Among other things, the novel is significant for providing a critique of Telugu literary historiography that has relegated certain art forms and genres that belong to the Dalits to inferior status.
