Kumud Pawde Explained

Kumud Somkuwar Pawde (born 1938) is an Indian Dalit activist. She is the first Ambedkarite scholar of Sanskrit. Her autobiography Antahsphot discusses the issue of exploitation of Dalit Women.^[1] She is a founder member of the National Federation of Dalit Women.

She was born in 1938 into a Mahar Dalit family in Maharashtra. Later she became a Buddhist. She was witness to the historic Dhamma Deeksha ceremony (conversion to Buddhism) on October 14, 1956, as her parents were part of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Dalit Buddhist movement.^{[2] [3]} She studied Sanskrit at the time when untouchability was rife and Dalits faced barriers; she was amongst first Dalits to learn Sanskrit and became Sanskrit Pandita i.e. Sanskrit scholar.^{[4] [5]} She was the Head of Department of Sanskrit from Government College, Amravati, Maharashtra.^{[6] [7]}

Notes and References

1. Web site: Dalit Lives Matter: 8 Dalit Women Activists You Must Know About . Yahoo . Geetika Sachdev . 14 October 2020 . 15 November 2020.
2. Web site: Peoples Voice » when Nehru helped an Ambedkarite Sanskrit Scholar get a job. 2021-01-25. 2021-04-14. https://web.archive.org/web/20210414071139/https://peoplesvoice.in/2018/05/29/when-nehru-helped-an-ambedkarite-sanskrit-scholar-get-a-job/. dead.
3. Web site: How three generations of Dalit women writers saw their identities and struggle?. 27 December 2017.
4. Web site: Meet Dr Kumud Sonkuwar Pawde, Sanskrit Pandita And Dalit Activist . Femina . Kalwyna Rathod . 2 November 2020 . 15 November 2020.
5. Web site: The Dalit girl who became a Sanskrit Pandita: the incredible story of Dr Kumud Sonkuwar Pawde . . Sagarika Ghose . 25 March 2019 . 15 November 2020.
6. Web site: EVALUATION OF DALIT LITERATURE IN INDIA . Pune Research . YESUPAKU DINESH . 15 November 2020.
7. Web site: Social, Economic and Political Reverberations of Untouchability: Kumud Pawde's "The Story of My Sanskrit" . IUP Journal of English Studies . Jayasree, K. . 15 November 2020.