Annabhau Sathe
Template:Infobox revolution biography Annabhau Sathe (Devanagari: (अण्णाभाऊ साठे) (1 August, 1920 - 18 July, 1969) was a social reformer and writer from Maharashtra, India.
Early life
Sathe was born in the village of Wategaon near Sangli in a family belonging to the Dalit Matang community. (The community has been identified by the Indian government as a scheduled caste.)
Poverty had prevented Sathe from obtaining formal education. His brother Shankarbhau recounts in his biography of Sathe, titled Majhe Bhau Annabhau, that the family members worked as laborers at the site of Kalyan tunnel when it was being constructed.
Writings
Despite lack of formal education, Sathe wrote in Marathi 35 novels, one among which was Fakira (1959). Fakira, which is is currently in its 19th edition, received a state government award in 1961.
There are 15 collections of Sathe's short stories. A large number of his short stories have been translated into many Indian and as many as 27 non-Indian languages.
Besides novels and short stories, Sathe wrote a play, a travelogue on Russia, 12 screenplays, and 10 ballads --powade.
Sathe wrote directly from his experiences in life, and his novels celebrate the fighting spirit in their characters who work against all odds in life.
Lok Rajya, a Maharashtra state government fortnightly, published on November 1, 1993, a special commemorative issue concerning Sathe. The state government also issued in 1998 a collection of his works under the title Lokshahir Annabhau Sathe Nivadak Sahitya.
Other achievements
Sathe worked among the poor.
To generate social awareness, he organized stage performances of powade and tamasha, ethnic dances chiefly performed by women, which are popular in rural Maharashtra. He produced 14 tamasha shows. In the late 1940s, the then Home Minister of the Bombay state government Morarji Desai had banned tamasha shows, but Sathe courageously defied the ban by renaming them as lokanatya. People in Maharashtra conferred the epithet lok shahir on Sathe.
Sathe was an important mobilizer in the Samyukta Maharashtra movement. He used the medium of powade to great effect in that movement.
Sathe was attracted to communism and had visited USSR. He was a founding member of the Lal Bawta Kalapathak of the Communist Party in Maharashtra.
Personal life
Sathe lived a life of destitution. After spending 22 years in a Ghatkopar slum, Sathe moved to a modest house in Goregaon which the state government provided him in 1968, one year before he died.
Honors
Many cultural organizations and roads in Maharashtra have been named after Sathe.
External link
The following link lists a few of Sathe's books.