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How Dalit Women Are Sidelined From Both The Feminist And Caste Movements

Sai Devi S

Dalit women inevitably belong to a social group with very particular lived experiences which are characterised by the intersectional oppression of two identities, of being a Dalit and a woman.

Such a status of being doubly marginalised makes them a “special category” whose experiences and needs cannot entirely be understood from the standpoint of either caste or gender alone.

Rather it requires a synthetic approach that entails a bilateral interaction between both caste and gender identities as they reinforce and reproduce each other in society.

Therefore, this paper primarily aims to analyse the effect of multiple converging identities on marginalised women. Further ahead, it looks at the concept of gender through the intersection of caste and particularly focuses on contextualising the oppression of Dalit women against the backdrop of a highly caste-ridden and patriarchal Indian society.

The paper also engages in a systematic critique of the contemporary mainstream feminist movement and makes a strong case for the emergence of a Dalit feminist movement led by Dalit women themselves, which is strictly rooted in an anti-caste discourse.

The feminist movement, which is theoretically meant for the holistic empowerment of women, has since its inception failed at representing the needs of those structurally disadvantaged women who are constantly beaten down by society and who lack enough resources to access knowledge or power in order to alter their living conditions in life.

This seminal observation made by Bell Hooks (1984) is highly relevant today as it clearly reflects the asymmetrical functioning of the contemporary feminist movement, particularly with respect to the Indian context.

Dalit women live with a double jeopardy.

Dalits, in totality, are depressed classes according to Ambedkar (1936) and women are the second sex according to Beauvoir (1989). Having to live with a “double jeopardy”, Dalit women are consequentially often seen on the receiving end of systemic subjugation, marginalisation and ostracisation from social spheres.

It is in such a context that many researchers such as Sharmila Rege (1998), Gopal Guru (1995) and Chhaya Datar (1999), through their works A Critique of ‘Difference’ Towards a Dalit Standpoint Position, Dalit Women Talk Differently and Non-Brahmin Renderings of Feminism in Maharashtra respectively identified and articulated the need for curating a Dalit feminist standpoint that is grounded on the lived experiences of these women using their own separate approaches.

Gopal Guru (1995) identified the patriarchal control exercised on Dalit women within their own caste and named it as an expression of “Dalit Patriarchy”. He insisted Dalit women to form a different category, distinct from both feminist groups as well as Dalits at large.

Uma Chakravarti et al. (2013), in their work Gendering Caste, discussed how Dalit men took out their aggression of being exploited and de-masculinated by the upper castes on Dalit women resulting in higher rates of physical and sexual atrocities. She positions the intersections of caste and gender within the discourse of female sexuality.

Sujatha (2004) has also written and critiqued the under reportage of domestic and sexual violence faced by Dalit women in families. Bhave (1988) in his work established how Dalit women gained a sense of power and agency in voluntarily retelling their lived experiences without being spoken for.

Tarbai Shinde’s Stree Purush Tulna (1882) was an exploratory text that talked extensively about the subordination of women by adopting a framework that was rooted in the Satyashodhak tradition.

Authentic Dalit writings that reflected upon the socio-cultural discrimination and oppression of Dalits made a leeway only in the 1970s and 1980s after the publication of An Anthology of Dalit Literature (1992).

The effect of caste on gender is dynamic.

But these writings still did not necessarily represent the particular sufferings of Dalit women and were more of a male-dominated collective resistance against general caste prejudice. However, eventually, there came about a surge in Dalit literature that captured the double and triple-layered oppression experienced by Dalit Women.

The Prison We Broke (2009) by Baby Kamble, Karukku (2000) by Bama, The Kaleidoscopic Story Of My Life (1986) by Shantabai Kamble, The Grip of Change (2006) by P Sivakami and The Weave Of My Life (2009) by Urmila Pawar are some of the many works, originally produced in regional languages/dialects (and later translated) by Dalit women.

Pawar’s work especially had a huge audience and made groundbreaking changes in the history of Dalit women and contributed heavily to the anti-caste movements.

The Interlocking Of Caste And Gender: “The Double Jeopardy” Of Dalit Women

Caste and gender work in a synchronised fashion in facilitating layered oppression in India. The institution of caste works in organised complicity with the discriminatory gender norms of society. In this sense, caste-gender relationships can be theorised in both direct and indirect terms.

Much like other forms of stratification, the effect of caste on gender is dynamic and cumulative in nature. In other words, one can say that the entire operationalisation of the caste system is strictly gendered. The traditional institution of caste thrives on completely controlling the lives and bodies of women.

As mentioned in the writings of Ambedkar, the conventional practices of endogamy, prohibition of pratiloma, sati, forced widowhood and numerous other discriminatory practices evidences the regressive and patriarchal foundations upon which the caste system has been built.

Ambedkar’s famous work Caste In India: Their Mechanisms, Genesis and Development truly reflects the interlinkages between caste and gender in the most unequivocal terms.

Patriarchy is practised across caste groups.

The caste-gender system can, therefore, be understood as a birth-related, highly graded and hierarchical structure that runs on the conditions of purity and pollution, primarily based on the laws of caste endogamy that exercises itself through an institutional arrangement which imposes lopsided gendered norms on men and women, where women are subjugated by just “having to be women” (Rubin 1975, 204).

Patriarchy practised across caste groups, be it within the Dalits or the Brahmins, unanimously works by men executing power over women within their castes and the trajectory of violence flows from the males to the females.

Caste hierarchy, on the other side, ensures the rampant domination of upper castes by subjugating the lower castes through mechanisms of violence and othering.

The vulnerability of Dalit women in such a caste-gender system can be understood through Ruth Manorama’s (a prominent Dalit woman activist) expression that renders them as “The Dalits of the Dalits” or “Thrice Dalits” (R. Manorama, 2006).

Dalit women are placed at the bottom shelves of South Asia’s class, caste and gender hierarchies. The caste system pre-establishes them as “untouchables” who are intrinsically impure, which further contributes to their social ostracisation and exploitation.

This insidious violence and systemic oppression faced by Dalit women are conveniently overlooked in the contemporary mainstream literature produced by elite, savarna feminists.

The complexity of the oppression faced by Dalit women is much more damaging and consequential than that of their Dalit men counterparts as they stand at the crossroads of synthesised experiences of multiple discriminations.

Trauma experienced by Dalit women is markedly different.

They are faced with the double jeopardy of being oppressed by the upper caste men and women for being a Dalit and simultaneously subordinated by the upper caste and lower caste men for being a woman.

The explicit impact of caste and gender-based power relations can be invariably observed in the social context where Dalit women are routinely meted out with all kinds of violence.

Even when the trauma experienced by Dalit women by virtue of their intersectional realities was markedly different from that of Dalit men, they could hardly find a legitimate space in the writings of caste at that time. The horizontal strata of patriarchy and the vertical structure of caste positions Dalit women at the lowest in the hierarchy.

To this date, the issues that are particular to Dalit women with respect to education, health care, property rights, etc., are either completely andro-centrised by the “male sphere” of Dalit politics or are blatantly homogenised and diffused with that of the upper caste women even when a Dalit woman is nothing like an upper-caste/elite woman.

She is much more demonised and displaced by the dominant that she is the victim of their atrocities. Therefore, the need of the hour is to realise these interjections between caste and gender and bring that equation into the public and academic discourses.

A Critique Of The Mainstream Feminist Movement In India: Drawing Parallels From The West

Understanding the heterogeneity and plurality of “woman” as a category in the world who has unequal access to basic rights and who deals with differential problems and possesses different identities is a major issue faced by the feminist movement all over the world.

The mainstream feminist movement in the West was brought under strict scrutiny after facing strong criticisms from the Black, African-American scholars for completely overlooking the racial implications of the gender issue and for its subsequent failure to capture the specific problems of women belonging to distinctly marginalised groups characterised by aspects of race, ethnicity, social origin, colour and nationality.

Savarna feminism has failed in addressing and representing the lived realities of Dalit women.

At that time, the mainstream feminist movement, which was predominantly led by white feminists, only represented the interests of dominant caste women under the blanket label of “women” in pretty much the similar way how libertarian ideas of citizenship have always been an overt representation of just the interests of dominant groups of men (Walby, 1996).

Black feminists constantly challenged the major theoretical underpinnings of the mainstream feminist movement that solely reflected the consciousness and lived realities of the upper class and middle-class women.

Feminists like Sylvia Walby (1990) were highly critical of this trend and especially criticised the movement for turning a blind eye towards the significant differences between women based on their unique intersectional positions in the social structure.

She also emphasised the need to re-examine the racial and ethnic issues within the feminist discourse by appropriately situating them within the context of gender and particular histories of slavery and colonialism.

Similarly, parallels can be drawn while trying to understand the oppressive episodes of Dalit women in India. The experiences of Black women in the West and Dalit women in India are synonymous in the sense that they have overlapping ordeals of marginalisation and invisibilisation that permeates their everyday lives and both of them are classic victims of double jeopardy.

Dalit women are perpetually pushed to the bottom of the social hierarchy because of their intersectionally disadvantaged identities. Both mainstream white feminism and Indian feminism have failed in addressing and representing the lived realities of Black and Dalit women, respectively. Their fight against patriarchy was limited to their own personal experiences of gender.

Indian mainstream feminist movement has been criticised multiple times for being Brahmanical in its theory and functioning. It has failed to recognise the specific issues of Dalit women in association with poverty, violence, sexual exploitation and caste discrimination.

There is strong Brahmanical othering of Dalit women.

The movement homogenised the category of women and considered Dalit women to be the same as upper-caste women. This obliterated the particular struggles of Dalit women and kept out of sight the nuances of their location, politics and experiences.

The savarna feminist writers have often reduced Dalit women to mere objects of their study rather than considering them to be equal participants of the feminist discourse.

They have moreover by-passed the copious body of knowledge produced by writers like Cynthia Stephen, Urmila Pawar, Meenakshi Moon, Sharmila Rege, Gail Omvedt, Samita Sen, Wandana Sonalksr, et al., who have made groundbreaking contributions to Dalit feminism and gender justice.

There was strong Brahmanical othering of Dalit women, which was inherent to the mainstream feminist movement that was hell-bent on undermining and overlooking their efforts at nation-building.

Or, in Rege’s words: “The masculinisation of the Dalit movement and the Savarnization of womanhood had inevitably led to a pervasive exclusion of Dalit women from the resistance and further put them under the interlocking oppressions of gender, caste and class (Rege 2003, 91)”.

The underrepresentation and exclusion of Dalit women from mainstream feminism, spearheaded by dominant caste women and from the Dalit movements, led by Dalit men, emphasises the need to engage in devising an alternate approach that can address both the issues of caste and gender in synthesis.

Towards A Dalit Feminist Standpoint

Dalit feminism has emerged to become a unique movement that is dedicated to striving for absolute social equality and justice by engaging in the politics of difference. The movement is focused on addressing all forms of violence, discrimination and hierarchy in society through a liaised approach that includes aspects of both caste and gender.

Representational image.

In the wake of the 21st century, India witnessed the presence of several groups of Dalit women who came to the forefront, trying to competitively assert their identity by being vocal about their struggles through the intersection of caste and gender.

Scholars like Gopal Guru (1995) have supported the emergence of Dalit feminism by citing two factors; the external factors, which include the blanket homogenisation of Dalit women’s specific issues by the non-Dalit forces.

This trend is rampantly seen in mainstream feminism and the internal factors that comprise the implications of the Dalit patriarchal domination within the caste group.

Scholars like Anandhi and Kapadia (2017) and Pail (2014) have also made similar observations on how Dalit men have a notoriously negative attitude towards Dalit feminism and even consider the movement to be a major impediment to the growth of the larger Dalit political struggles.

Guru has also boldly questioned and criticised the hegemonic tendencies of the dominant caste, dominant class Indian feminists to speak on behalf of Dalit women and theorise on them without having to ever live their lives of humiliation and pain. He was seconded by many other scholars in this regard through their respective works.

Sharmila Rege (2018) has argued along the same lines on how savarna feminists have systematically pushed Dalit and Adivasi women into the margins, hijacked their spaces and excluded them from exercising leadership and vocalising their experiences.

Shailja Paik (2009) has also reached similar conclusions where she opines that the dominant caste-led feminist movements have perpetually been unable to critically engage with issues of caste that have so deeply maligned Indian society.

A Dalit feminist standpoint is one rooted in intersectionality.

Making a case for a strong Dalit feminist standpoint, Guru (1995) opined that it is the direct, lived experiences and realities of historical discrimination and marginalisation faced by Dalit women that give them the legitimacy to their claims, something that the mainstream feminism, ridden with elitist voices is devoid of.

Supporting the stance of Guru, Rege (1998) also comes forward and establishes that Dalit women should indeed talk differently, but the nature of such a feminist standpoint that was supposedly originated from the works of Dalit feminist scholars cannot grow in isolation without constantly educating itself about the struggles, histories and utopias of the marginalised.

Rege is also of the opinion that non-Dalit, savarna feminists should revise the pitfalls of mainstream feminism. Instead of speaking “for” Dalit women, they should move towards reinventing themselves to become potential Dalit feminists.

But Ritu Chaudari (2016) is sceptical of this approach and instead calls upon the dominant caste feminists to critique the “self” by introspecting on the implications non-Dalit feminism can have on the progress of Dalit feminism in a deeply stratified society like India.

Jalli (2003) has talked about Dalit-Bahujan patriarchies and the homogenising effects of savarna feminism on Dalit women and vouched for an active deconstruction of existent theories whose epistemologies are largely produced by dominant caste scholars.

Dalit feminist theories give primacy to the experiences of the oppressed and its conceptualisations keep the potential to provide an inclusive space, unlike the mainstream feminist or Dalit men led movements. They would offer an integrated, headstrong counter epistemology against the status quo that would essentially transform the everyday lives of Dalit women.

A Dalit feminist standpoint is one firmly rooted in encouraging intersectional debates of caste, class, religion and sexuality in India. It is based on calling out the oppressive social structures and social relations that convert difference into systemic discrimination.

It is of utmost importance to give impetus to an active Dalit feminist discourse.

Dalit feminism consciously interacts with the structural and individual dimensions of caste in association with gender and endeavours to problematise the complex social positions that marginalised women occupy.

Therefore, such a Dalit feminist discourse can be highly revolutionary and emancipatory amidst the mainstream feminist practices rooted in conventional ideologies.

In the previous sections of the article, we have seen at length the close-knitted functioning of caste and gender-based systems, especially within the South Asian context. Looking at the recent set of data, one can easily observe the skyrocketing number of gruesome crimes unleashed on Dalit women, including the Hathras, Bajhang, Khairlanji and Bhanwari Devi cases.

In all these cases, the victims were Dalit women who came from intersectionally disadvantaged social locations. It is only fair to assume that these women would not have been victims of such heinous crimes had they belonged to any of the socially, economically, culturally or politically privileged categories.

It is unfortunate that our social hierarchies and structures put Dalit women in very vulnerable situations where they inevitably fall prey to the hegemony of supremacist groups.

With there being a lack of critique and stringent opposition against such Brahmanical and heteropatriarchal structures, the scope of realising the “difference” between the issues of Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi women and savarna women becomes slim to none.

This gap in the mainstream feminist discourse can only be satisfactorily bridged by a Dalit feminist standpoint that holds the question of caste and gender intersections at its epicentre of concerns.

Therefore, in order to put an end to the historical appropriation and exploitation of Dalit women’s spaces by both dominant caste women in feminist movements and lower caste men in Dalit movements, it is of utmost importance to give impetus to an active Dalit feminist discourse that is predominantly theorised on the harsh lived realities (of Dalit women) and executed as well as spearheaded by its true stakeholders.

References

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