Namdeo Salubai Dhasal, one of the founders of the militant Dalit Panthers movement and whose stark imagery on the dalit experience stunned the literary scene in the seventies, lies today in hospital with myasthenia gravis, a rare ailment. The 58-year-old poet is in need of money for his treatment and his wife, Mallika Amar Shaikh, the daughter of legendary Shahir Amar Shaikh, whose folk songs played a crucial role during the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, has appealed for contributions.

Dhasal has lived life in its ironical extremes: from hutment homes to chauffeur-driven imported cars; from staunch Marxism to joining hands with the Shiv Sena. Brought up by his mother in extreme poverty in Mumbai’s redlight Kamathipura area, he lived among prostitutes, beggars, goons and eunuchs, surrounded by hooch dens and overflowing gutters. Violence was always in the air, with blood often being spilt. He did not graduate in literature or learn the finer aspects of language. But there was a simmering anguish within him and a flair for reading, even as he went about doing odd jobs and earning a living as a taxi driver. Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s political philosophy made a deep impact on his mind. But despite Ambedkar’s well-known reservations on the utility of Marxism in an India divided by castes and religions, Dhasal became a Marxist.

In the seventies a new generation of dalits were getting educated — their access to higher education having been made easier by institutions set up by Ambedkar in Mumbai and Aurangabad. This generation was disillusioned with the system. In 1972 they came together as the Dalit Panthers, inspired by America’s Black Panthers.

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