D. R. Nagaraj | |
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| Born | Doddaballapura Ramaiah Nagaraj 20 February 1954 Doddaballapur, Mysore State (now in Karnataka), India |
| Died | 12 August 1998 (aged 44) |
| Occupation | Literary critic, thinker |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Education | MA, PhD |
| Literary movement | Bandaya movement |
| Notable works | Sahitya Kathana The Flaming Feet and Other Essays |
| Relatives | Kishore Kumar G |
Dr. D. R. Nagaraj (20 February 1954 – 12 August 1998)[1] 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 Marxist 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.[2]
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!")
- ^ "D. R. Nagaraj - Library of Congress". id.loc.gov. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
- ^ Vajpeyi, Ananya. ""Let Poetry Be a Sword!"". Archived from "let-poetry-be-sword" the original on 28 September 2015. Retrieved 30 September 2015.