Abstract

The Dalit Movement started as a protest movement in India. The Dalits (previously appropriately known as "Untouchables") alongside the "Other Backward Castes" represent the majority of the Indian population. The term "Dalit" means "crushed" or "Crushed into a mass”. Socio-cultural marginalisation, economic suffering and political exploitation of centuries led them to break free of such types of age-old biases. Hence, they started to resist with the use of literatures, or organizing organisation, which came to be known as the Dalit Movement. This dissertation is an effort to bring out the different features of Dalit’s life that lead to the movement, in the splendour of Dalit literatures and their contemporary populations, positions and constitutional remedies in the society. As untouchability was outlawed under the Constitution of the Republic of India, when that Constitution was adopted in 1951, and as a policy was put in place of reserving a few seats for Dalits in government schools, hospitals, bureaucratic jobs, and so on, the fortunes of some Dalits improved to the point that there is now a so-called "Creamy layer" among Dalits.

Key words: Caste, Dalits, Sudra, Untouchable, India.