This raises the issue of why the Dalit literary movement didn't take off until after Dr. Ambedkar's death, since Dalit writing had its genesis with him. There are many factors at play here. Poor, uneducated, and miserable, the untouchables lived their lives before Dr. Ambedkar. As a result of Dr. Ambedkar's exhortation, this ordinary Dalit guy committed himself fully to the cause. If they had just recently woken, they couldn't possibly have any literary awareness since they had no cultural or literary history to draw on. It's unrealistic to expect that of them, really.
However, Dalit artists did take part in the movement at the time via traditional folk arts like tamasha and jalsa, as well as through song writing and balladry. During his lifetime, Dr. Ambedkar's ideas and movement were reflected in works of literature along these lines. A combination of its propagandist foundation and fleeting relevance ensured its short lifespan.
Although the first works of writing on the plight of the Dalits were produced as part of Dr. Ambedkar's campaign, efforts were made by authors as early as the 1920s to convey the dire circumstances of the Dalits to the British authorities. These authors condemned Hinduism and the Manusmriti for its cruelty. They included Kisan Phagoji Bansod, Pandit Kondiram, and Gopalbaba Walangkar. When the British banned recruiting untouchable adolescents into the military, an Indian soldier named Gopalbaba Walangkar, who wrote in English, sought to rally public support. Despite his opposition to Dr. Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism in 1935 at Yewle in north Maharashtra, the poetry of Kisan Phagoji Bansod was scathing in its attacks on Hinduism. It follows that prior to Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the production of Dalit literature was very limited.