Annabhau Sathe

Annabhau Sathe

Subject : History

Context :Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister and other leaders are in Moscow to unveil the statue of Lok Shahir (balladeer) Annabhau Sathe at the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature.

Concept :

• Tukaram Bhaurao Sathe, who later came to be known as Annabhau Sathe, was born in a Dalit family on August 1, 1920 in Maharashtra’s Wategaon village in Satara district.
• In 1934, Mumbai witnessed a workers’ strike under the leadership of Lal Bawta Mill Workers Union in which he participated.
• During his days at the Matunga Labour Camp, he got to know R B More, an associate of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in the famous ‘Chavdar Lake’ satyagraha at Mahad, and joined the labour study circle.
• Being a Dalit, he was denied schooling in his village. It was during these study circles that he learned to read and write.

Annabhau Sathe works

• Sathe wrote his first poem on the menace of mosquitoes in the labour camp.
• He formed Dalit Yuvak Sangh, a cultural group and started writing poems on workers’ protests, agitations.
• Progressive Writers Association was formed at the national level at the same time with the likes of Premchand, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Manto, IsmatChugtai, Rahul Sankrutyayan, Mulkraj Anand as its members.
• The group would translate the Russian work of Maxim Gorky, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev into Marathi, which Sathe got hooked on.
• It not only had an ideological impact on him, but inspired him to write street plays, stories, novels etc. In 1939, he wrote his first ballad ‘Spanish Povada’.
• Sathe and his group travelled across Mumbai campaigning for workers’ rights.
• Several of his works like ‘AklechiGoshta,’ ‘StalingradachaPovada,’ ‘MaziMainaGavavarRahili,’ ‘Jag Badal GhaluniGhav’ were popular across the state.
• His ‘BangalchiHak’ (Bengal’s Call) on the Bengal famine was translated into Bengali and later presented at London’s Royal Theatre.
• His literature depicted the caste and class reality of Indian society of that time.
• In 1943, he formed the Lal Bawta Kala Pathak.
• The group toured across Maharashtra presenting programmes on caste atrocities, class conflict, and workers’ rights.
• He dedicated his most famous novel Fakira to Dr Ambedkar.

What was his Russian connection?

• He was once called the Maxim Gorky of Maharashtra.
• He was immensely inspired by Gorky’s ‘The Mother’ and the Russian revolution, which was reflected in his writings.
• He travelled to Russia in 1961 along with a group of other Indians.