Anna Bhau Sathe

Tukaram Bhaurao Sathe (1 August 1920 – 18 July 1969), popularly known as Anna Bhau Sathe (Marathi pronunciation: [əɳːaːbʱaːu saːʈʰe]), was a social reformer, folk poet, and writer from Maharashtra, India. Sathe was a Dalit born into the untouchable community, and his upbringing and identity were central to his writing and political activism. Sathe was a Marxist-Ambedkarite, initially influenced by the communists but he later became an Ambedkarite. He is credited as a founding father of Dalit literature and played a vital role in the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement.

Early life He was born on 1 August 1920, in Wategaon village, part of present-day Maharashtra's Sangli district, to a family that belonged to the untouchable Matang caste. Members of the caste used to play traditional folk instruments in Tamasha performances.

Annabhau Sathe did not study beyond class four. He migrated from Satara to Bombay, present-day Mumbai, in 1931, on foot, over a period of six months, following a drought in the countryside. In Bombay, Sathe undertook a range of odd jobs.

The urban environment of Bombay significantly influenced his writings, which depict it as a dystopian milieu. Aarti Wani describes two of his songs – "Mumbai Chi Lavani" (Song of Bombay) and "Mumbai cha Girni Kamgar" (Bombay's Mill-hand) – as depicting a city that is "rapacious, exploitative, unequal and unjust".

Politics Sathe was initially influenced by communist ideology. He was a significant figure also in the Indian People's Theatre Association, which was a cultural wing of the Communist Party of India, and in the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement, which sought the creation of a separate Marathi-speaking state through a linguistic division of the extant Bombay State.

He said that "Dalit writers are entailed with the responsibility of liberating and shielding Dalits from the existing worldly and Hindu tortures as the long standing conventional beliefs cannot be destroyed instantly." organise jayanti (processions) in his name and those of Babasaheb Ambedkar and Savitribai Phule. Political parties, such as the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena alliance, have attempted to appropriate his image as a means of drawing electoral support from the Mangs.

Sathe was commemorated with the issue of a special postage stamp by India Post on 1 August 2002. Buildings have also been named after him, including the Lokshahir Annabhau Sathe Smarak in Pune and a flyover in Kurla.

In 2022 a statue of Sathe was installed at the Margarita Rudomino All-Russia State Library for International Literature in Moscow.