On Potrayal of Dalit icons

Here is an article on Ayyankali written by Anoop kumar of Insight magazine.

http://insightjnu.blogspot.com/2005/09/our-icon-ayyankali.html

Here is a review of a book on Ayyankali

http://www.countercurrents.org/nafih031108.htm


If you read Anoop's article Ayyankali comes out as a militant tough guy who stood up against injustice and beat the hell out of the opressors. He fits in with arhcetype of a universal hero. However the review of this book , shows him just as a gandhian of some kind. Nowhere are his proactive toughman measures even hinted at.

To a guy like me, who didnt even know about Ayyankali, reading the review of this book does not even make me associate with Ayyankali. I just saw honoring him as an intellectual excersice, without true emotional attachment. It was only when I read Anoop's small article that I realized what a legend Ayyankali really was and why discovering him is of prime importance to the national dalit movement.

I really feel that for a community like the dalits marginalized for such a long time and which has just started fighting back, explicit examples of their heroes fighting back should not be hidden, just to conform to the ethics of an excercise in academic political correctness.