Keshav Tanaji Meshram (24 November 1937 – 3 December 2007) was a Marathi poet, critic, novelist, and short-story writer from Maharashtra, India.
[1] Meshram was one among the six lakh Dalits who embraced Buddhism in the historic 1956 conversion rally held by Babasaheb Ambedkar.
His most popular novel Hakikat ani Jatayu portrayed the anguish of a brilliant dalit youth, Abhiman, who was sidelined because of his low social status.
In his presidential speech, he criticized the contemporary literary folks for confining their world only to elites without awareness of the lives of millions of poor people in India.
At the same time, he also criticized the extremist trend in contemporary dalit literature, which sharply attacked the privileged classes and then called itself "revolutionary."