This article seeks to examine a) the role and status of the dalits in the movement literature and b) the elite writers' attitude and world views vis-à-vis dalits and their writing during different literary movements. The activist-writer relationship is so inalienable that the two-way influence is comparable to the African/black writing that produced Ngugi Wa Thiango, Dennis Brutus, Benjamin Jephaniah, to name only a few. Most of the activists who participated in the movements were themselves literary writers. Beginning from the bhakti movement in the seventeenth century, the movements-social reformation, adi, progressive, digambara poetry, revolutionary, feminist, dalit and Telangana-have inalienable link with Telugu literature. I The tradition of movement literature in Telugu may be traced back to Bhakti movement. At the same time a specific language and literature also decline when culture itself suffers due to any reason Culture perishes when language and literature are neglected.
Language and literature are a part of culture and the latter also gets influenced by the former. In fact one finds the language of resistance including vulgar language as a means to express the anger and frustration towards to the established order and shock the complacency of the community. My paper studies the impact of language of resistance including the "vulgar" language in Telugu poetry from revolutionary poets such as Sri Sri and Alisetti Prabhakar and a few other representative poets from the movements of Digambara and Dalit movements. While Dalit poets used language uninhibitedly, feminist poets found fault with vulgar expressions used by the Dalit poets as something objectionable and gender-insensitive. Digambara poets used vulgar language to show their disgust towards the exploitative society in the late sixties and early 1970"s. Some people downplay the language of Maroaprasthanam as it ideologically and linguistically to an extent leans towards the extreme left. In the former, the language is mainly influenced by Sanskrit and Classical Telugu whereas in the latter the poet"s attempt to adopt dialect or people"s language is clearly visible. Leading poet of Telugu Sri Sri"s master pieces Maha prasthanm and Maro Prasthanam reveal influences of the Western literature and indigenous imagery used. At the same time a specific language and literature also decline when culture itself suffers due to any reason materialistic or otherwise.
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