Commons, including rivers, water bodies, forests, land, air, and the earth, have served as a crucial reference point for various forms of environmentalism. However, when viewed from a Dalit perspective, commons acquire a multi-layered and intricate significance that encompasses social, economic, and environmental dimensions. They encapsulate the inherent tensions and conflicts between social integration and cultural diversity, playing a pivotal role in the expression and resolution of socio-spatial transformations within society. Moreover, commons serve as sites of Dalit creativity, enabling the exploration of self, space, spirituality, and freedom. Through the narratives, metaphors, and collective memories associated with commons, Dalit writers construct a historical account deeply rooted in the earth itself.

Dalit writer Adwaita Mallabarman was a poor Malo, born in 1914 in Gokanghat village, beside the river Titash, near Brahmanbaria town in Comilla district of present-day Bangladesh (it was East Bengal in undivided India until 1947, then East Pakistan until 1970). He lost his parents at an early age and lived with his uncle in the village until his teenage years. The Malo community raised subscriptions to support him, and he was the first child in the village and the nearby area to finish school. Mallabarman could not continue with college education because of financial problems and migrated to Calcutta (now Kolkata) in search of work. In 1950, he completed Titash Ekti Nadir Naam in the Bengali language, and after a few months, he died from tuberculosis in 1951 at the young age of thirty-seven. Titash was published in Kolkata five years after his death and became a highly acclaimed novel of Bengali literature.