D. R. Nagaraj
| D. R. Nagaraj | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | Doddaballapura Ramaiah Nagaraj 20 February 1954 Doddaballapur, Mysore State, India |
| Died | 1998 (aged 43–44) |
| Occupation | Literary critic, thinker |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Education | MA, PhD |
| Literary movement | Bandaya movement |
| Notable works |
Sahitya Kathana The Flaming Feet and Other Essays |
D. R. Nagaraj (1954–1998) was an Indian cultural critic, political commentator and an expert on medieval and modern Kannada poetry and Dalit movement who wrote in Kannada and English languages. He won Sahitya Akademi Award for his work Sahitya Kathana. He started out as a Marxist critic but renounced the Marxism framework that he had used in the book Amruta mattu Garuda as too reductionist and became a much more eclectic and complex thinker. He is among the few Indian thinkers to shed new light on Dalit and Bahujan politics. He regarded the Gandhi-Ambedkar debate on the issue of caste system and untouchability as the most important contemporary debate whose outcome would determine the fate of India in the 21st century.
He was one of the founders of the Bandaya movement along with Shudra Srinivas and Siddalingaiah, and gave the movement its famous slogan, Khadgavagali kavya! Janara novige midiva pranamitra! ("Let poetry be a sword! The dear friend who responds to the pain of people!")
Doddaballapura Ramaiah Nagaraj was born on 20 February 1954 to Ramaiah and Akkayyamma in Doddaballapur in the erstwhile Mysore State of India (present-day Karnataka). His family belonged to the weaver caste and his father was a teacher. Nagaraj was schooled in his home town, after which he studied at the Government Arts and Science College, Bangalore. He was known as an excellent debater in college and it was during these intercollegiate debates that he got interested in Dalit and Bahujan politics.
Nagaraj went to study further and obtained a master's degree and then a PhD from Bangalore University. In 1975, he joined Bangalore University as a research scholar in the Kannada Department (formally known as the Kannada Adhyayana Kendra), and subsequently became part of the Kannada faculty.
...
Wikipedia