Literature very important for social transformation: Ex DGP

Metro India News | Hyderabad 

Literature that questions exploitation and discrimination in the name of caste is the most powerful instrument for social transformation, former DGP Dr J. Purnachandra Rao said at a poets’ meet organised by BC Kavita Bheri at Tyagaraya Gana Sabha in Chikkadpally on Sunday. Speaking on “BC Literature and Social Consciousness”, Rao expressed concern that Telugu literature had gradually drifted away from the lived realities of ordinary people and that the lives of Backward Classes had not found due space in mainstream literary discourse.

Rao said devotional literature, romantic poetry and later cinema culture had distanced literature from rural life and social realities. Folk songs and labor songs once heard in villages had faded away over time, he observed. He praised balladeer Gaddar for taking the language of the masses closer to the people. “Sri Sri brought revolutionary poetry into Telugu literature. Gaddar transformed people’s language into a movement. But society still awaits a powerful voice that can speak against caste oppression with the same intensity and reach,” he said.

Rao clarified that Bahujan literature was not merely about writing on BC communities, but about centering the dignity of oppressed sections, the lives of laboring classes, rural culture and social discrimination in literary expression. “People’s language, people’s songs and people’s suffering must become the core of literature,” he said, adding that literature propagated in the name of Sanatana Dharma often ended up justifying caste hierarchy and injustice against backward communities.

Rajya Sabha MP R. Krishnaiah, retired IAS officer T. Chiranjeevulu, Sangem Suryarao, Chenna Rama Rao, retired DEO Vijay Kumar, Bade Saab and several poets, writers and literary activists participated in the program.