Mahatma Ayyankali s (1863 1941) social interventions were radical, secular and fundamental, aimed at ensuring dignity, social justice and economic equality for Dalits. Few people know that his famous Leave the fields fallow call to Dalits was aimed not at securing better wages, but for ensuring their right to education. His shrewd and practical political foresight is best evidenced in the manner in which he orchestrated the events that led to the rejection of the kallayum malayum-symbols of Dalit female enslavement.
M.R. Renukumar s biography of the reformer was first published in Malayalam in 2017. In Catherine Thankamma s translation, Ayyankali s life and work now comes to readers across the world.
About the Author
Born in 1969, M.R. Renukumar is best known as a poet and the recipient of the 2019 Kerala Sahitya Akademi award for his poetry collection Kothiyan. He has published nine volumes to date, Veshakkaya (winner of the 2008 SBT Kavitha award), Pachakuppi, Parichuputha and Palathine Thodumbol, being a few of them. He has also penned five collections of short stories, two travelogues and translated the graphic novel Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability into Malayalam. A collection of Malayalam Dalit short stories edited by him was published in English by Navayana as Don t Want Caste (2017). He won
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