Poetics of Defiance: Language, Identity, and Aesthetic Revolt in Selected Dalit Poems

Dalit poetry in modern Indian literature is not only a medium of protest but a radical shift of poetic language and identity. This paper studies Namdeo Dhasal’s ‘Hunger’, N. D. Rajkumar’s ‘If Anyone Other Than Our Own People’, and Jayant Parmar’s ‘The Last Will of the “Dalit” Poet’ to argue that Dalit poetry constructs an aesthetic of defiance through a confrontational language, ancestral memory, and self-conscious assertion of identity. These poems use aggression, grotesque imagery, and direct address to dismantle upper-caste literary notions. The study focuses on how Dalit poetry transforms stigma into linguistic assertion and art into a political act of self-naming. Through close textual analysis, the paper highlights how poetic voice becomes a site of resistance and reclamation.