The first Dalit Literature Festival was celebrated from December 6 to 8 in Delhi. This was the first time ever that the fest was organized to create new opportunities to boost the Dalit literature across the country. According to the press release by the Dalit Literature Festival Planning Board, the festival was held to promote Dalit literature and was a non-profit initiative to focus on all the aspects of Dalits and their lives. The purpose behind the festival was to showcase Dalit culture and way of life, in terms of arts, movies and various food items.
The festival was part of an international program to bring Dalit writers together on a single platform from different corners of the country and to discuss about plans and opportunities. The various motives behind the fest included getting a common platform for Dalit literature which is strong and independent, to create opportunities for Dalit literature to be more focused, to expand the network for Dalit literature and to get more readers, to open doors of opportunities for the Dalit writers and artists and to promote Dalit culture, arts, films and food on a large scale.
According to the press release published, the Dalit Literature Festival Planning Board further added that Dalit literature has been part of Indian literary tradition for a long period of time and has strong bonds. Many writers, both Dalit and non-Dalit, have become part of Dalit literature and keep contributing in the journey of expressing and fighting for fundamental rights and developments of the community. Dalit literature which has been available in Marathi, Kannada, Bengali, Telugu, Hindi and many other Indian languages earlier, is now being actively translated into English, French, German and many other international languages and is getting the attention of the whole world.