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There lingers a need to radically redefine feminism by introducing Dalits and the intersectional dual oppression Dalit women face, into the core of feminist thought. To supplement feminism by adding caste to its study and praxis; To re-examine and rethink Indian feminism by replacing it with a unique imagination. Seldom do we find any feminist inquiry offering a holistic vantage point for comprehensively addressing gender-based injustices—this article seeks to engage with the question of the rights of the most oppressed segment of demographics.
Caste and Gender both are forms of hierarchy, enclosing a relationship. Both are mediums to discriminate collectively, representing how the extent of oppression over a Dalit Woman is more than that of a Dalit Man. To inquire into the structural linkages, we have to consider the historical recognition of certain sexualities as acceptable (Anuloma) and condemnable (pratiloma). The selective acceptance of marriage practices, at times, transcending caste boundaries have remained pivotal in producing and sustaining the peculiar hierarchies of caste, here Upper Caste men have historically been allowed to ally with women from a lower caste in exceptional yet known cases, to produce offspring, that enjoys the same social privileges and status as any member of savarna community does, but the vice versa of same is considered sinful and punished by social purging of the respective women. To nourish the institution of caste, women are exploited of their reproductive agency more particularly by the upper caste men. These asymmetries of power are cultivated and irrigated, which have come down to forge the rigid framework of Indian Society with caste-based hierarchies as its mortar.
Compromise on Dalit Women's Stories.
Women holds collective experiences as the female sex, but the experiences of non-Dalit and Dalit women differ in terms of the historical, social, regional, cultural, and political rungs they occupy.
Major constraints with understanding the complex nature of Dalit womanhood have been caused by the over-emphasis on modern Indian historiography’s central dichotomy of colonialism and nationalism. This obsession with the binary of national and foreign experiences overlooked the underpinned in-exclusive perpetration of patriarchy combined with caste. It only resulted in the inadequate recording of oppression, in addition to that it also posed a serious challenge to anti-caste movements, denying Dalits the space to critique constructs of caste, community, gender, and the nation.
Historically, both nationalist and feminist reformers as well as scholarly historiographers sidelined the presence of “caste communities” to focus on their imagination of gender categories. Mainstream feminists masked the ways class, gender, and sexuality intersected with caste oppression to construct a homogeneous “Indian woman.” During colonial times, Shailja Paik argues that despite the efforts of some elite upper-caste women to the cause of Dalit women, the constraint of their caste locations and imminent gender dynamics, they remained complicit and reinforced the structures of difference and differentiation between castes and classes (Paik 2009). There was also a real fear of transgressing caste boundaries for respectable elite women. As a result, the upper caste brought about a culturalisation of caste, they reified caste differences and also hid their complicity in its production. In so doing, they reinforced the institution of caste, which demanded the production and performance of difference.
By excessively relying on the rhetorical unison of all women to strive for monolithic Indian feminism by making “gender oppression” the basis of a “natural” bond between different women, the post-colonial feminists have downplayed caste intricacies and underacknowledged the systemic sexual exploitation of Dalit women to focus on the unity among women as “victims”, disregarding the degree of oppression.
Brahamanisation of Women’s Movement
Scholarship on women’s experiences primordially being fixated on the Upper caste Women in Modern India (Forbes 1999), tended to focus on the concerns of savarna women, and most significantly, Brahmin women in terms of Sati, enforcement of widowhood, widow remarriage, child marriage, age of consent, and so on. Reformers and popular writers since the 19th century as well as scholars in the 20th century signified solely Brahmin women’s problems as those of Hindu Women and therefore, Indians (Chandra 2012; Paik 2014a). By fixing Brahmin women and Brahminical practices as “Indian”, scholars have subsumed the powerful collision of (dominant) caste, class, and patriarchy into Indian identity itself. Indian Feminism is yet to appreciate the discourse of Dalit feminism and analysis of interlocking caste, class, sexuality, and gender technologies emerging in the writings and actions of Dalit womanists–humanists.
These were tenuous processes that led to contestations and revealed the contradictions within and the limitations of Indian feminism.
The Difference in Differences
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Muktabai Salve, a teenage, radical, Dalit student, of the school run by Savitribai Phule in Maharashtra penned a revolutionary essay “Grief of Mang–Mahars” in the 19th century. While comparing the experiences of Untouchable and Brahmin women, Salve said that "our ladies give birth to infants and they do not even have a roof over their heads." She illustrates the discrepancies in treatment that women of different castes are exposed to. How they endure the cold and rain! Consider it in light of your personal experiences.
In other words, the pioneering feminist Muktabai asked, are not Untouchable women “women”, who suffered the pains of womanhood? She deployed motherhood to create a common cause among women of different castes and talk about the experiences of the woman caste. She exposed the caste game and the precarious status of Untouchable women’s lives at the centre of the caste mechanism. Muktabai’s assessment demonstrates how the caste mechanism subjected Dalit women to various forms of exploitation, prejudice, humiliation, and injury.
It was common during Muktabai’s time to speak about the collective stree jaat/jaati (the woman caste). By invoking the stree jaat and voicing the sufferings of women as reproducers of the caste mechanism, Muktabai created bonds with dominant caste women. Yet, at the same time, she deconstructed the concept of woman. She questioned the consolidation of dominant caste privilege by exposing the contradiction between the ideological myths constituting Brahmin womanhood and the reality of Untouchable women’s experiences. Muktabai also drew attention to the inequities of reproductive labour and Untouchable women’s double labour, as workers or producers of materials and (maternal) reproducers of the menial workforce. Most significantly, Muktabai tied her everyday experiences to systemic phenomena and analysed the anatomy of caste, class, and gender hierarchies.
She highlighted how Brahmins enjoyed their power and privilege and exploited the Untouchables. In the process, Muktabai contrasted two traditional and distinct dichotomies of the caste mechanism: the always and already-human Brahmins, and the non-human Dalits. In pointing to the polarity between the two communities, she focused on the abjection of Dalits, and the Brahmins’ relegation of Dalits to the status of non-human.
Muktabai’s description is intersectional. She narrates how Dalit Women experience their body being ridden by gender and caste mechanics simultaneously.
Discrete Exploitation of Dalit Women.
Dalit women are violated not simply because they are “women” but also specifically because they are “Dalit women,” where “Dalit” makes an explicit reference to the caste system. Practices such as that of Devdasi, are a euphemism for public sexual exploitation of lower caste women. Granting religious sanctions to prostitution is still prevalent and widely hailed as a celebration of traditions.
The assault on Dalit women is not only about sexual exploitation but also about ensuring the reproduction of dominant caste privilege and power, and also of vengeance as the gang rape in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh in 2020 reflects. Despite some change, there is a deep continuity between the structures of institutions and feelings of caste/race in colonial and postcolonial times. The state apparatus has been complicit in these oppressive practices and, thus, has exploited and alienated Dalit women further.
What has to be done?
Ambedkar identified the origin, range and apparatus of the caste system and its ramifications for gender relations by counting on the mechanics, genesis and development of caste. He reinforced Dalit women’s agency to fight against stigma and assert themselves through various strategies.
He underlined the significance of vidya (knowledge) and dhyana (learning) for both girls and boys, asserting that these “are not for men alone; they are essential for women too.” To him and other Dalit radicals, Dalit women and men should enter schools at the same time. Education and employment were central to the fight for social transformation.
Ambedkar also focused on robust body politics of comportment to transform Dalit women’s personhood. For example, he advised women at the Mahad Conference of 1927 that they should abandon all markers that will identify them as Untouchables. He stated, “Your style of draping saris is one such piece of evidence. You should destroy this evidence. You should make it a habit to drape saris like the high-caste women.” (Ambedkar 1927).
Conclusion
Dalit women straddle both identities—of Dalit and of women. The caste mechanism is an intricate process, operating through social, legal, economic, cultural, and political realities, which denies Dalits in general, and Dalit women in specific; the claims to privacy, protection, personhood, and prosperity. Dalit women live in a crisis—marked as female, sexualised, and without personhood, protection, and rights.
A re-imagination of Dalit feminism would provide for the prospects of an interpersonal understanding of differently disadvantaged lives and allow a widened feminist, anti-patriarchy, anti-caste, anti-untouchability, and anti-race analysis. It should be pressed that only such a comparative exercise, would enrich feminist theory, and gender praxis, and would work towards a greater liberation of women, who have received extra intersectional oppression.
BY ARPIT RITURAJ
Arpit Rituraj is a second-year student of B.A Program at Hindu College, University of Delhi.
Bibliography
Ambedkar, Dr B.R. “Caste In India: Their Mechanics, Genesis and Development.” 1916.
Chaudhuri, Ritu Sen. The Radical In Ambedkar. Edited by Suraj Milind Yengde and Anand Teltumbde, Penguin Allen Lane.
Hussain, Zoya. “Explained: Who Are Devadasis, Their History And Current Status.” Indiatimes.com, 18 December 2022, https://www.indiatimes.com/explainers/news/who-are-devadasis-their-history-and-current-status-587888.html. Accessed 4 March 2023.
Paik, Shailaja. “Dalit Feminist Thought.” Economic & Political Weekly, vol. LVI, no. 25, pp. 127-140.
Salve, Mukta. “165 years ago, the first female Dalit writer wrote about the ‘grief of the Mangs and the Mahars.’” Forward Press, 15 February 2020, https://www.forwardpress.in/2020/02/165-years-ago-first-female-dalit-writer-wrote-about-the-grief-of-the-mangs-and-the-Maharss/. Accessed 4 March 2023.