ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how we might connect the space called Bombay with those forms of literary representation that go under the rubric of Dalit writing. It excavates something like the prehistory of a recognizable Dalit literature, itself a product of both the self-conscious identification of writers with a style and content associated with the representational strategies of Dalit sahitya, and the artifact of a vigorous market in publishing that has seen enormous growth in the last 40 years. The Delisle Road Friends Union was thus formed in an area historically associated with anti-caste and anti-poverty activism but focused on drawing Dalit young people into the working-class movement. R. B. More's account also counters the foreclosures of cultural nationalism, Stalinism and caste identitarianism; it takes us back to a time when Marxism was reinvigorated by caste radicalism, and vice versa.
