Embracing Difference: Towards a Standpoint Praxis in Dalit Feminism

Abstract

The increasing visibility of dalit women in academia, literature and activism, has rendered the existing frameworks of mainstream Indian feminism and Dalit Politics as inadequate in exploring the concerns of dalit women. In mainstream Indian feminism and Dalit Politics, prevalence is given only to the concerns of “gender” and “caste.” They see caste and gender as two individual and mutually exclusive systems wherein dalit women are accommodated as either ‘women’ or ‘dalit’. The fact that dalit women’s oppression results simultaneously from the interrelated systems of caste and gender, remains completely ignored. Such ignorance necessitates a new framework suited to study the cause of dalit women. Emphasising that dalit women, the primary constituencies of Dalit Feminism, are located at the cusp of caste and gender, this paper aims to provide a theoretical frame to Dalit Feminism that calls for a radical rethinking of the viability of feminist and anti-caste epistemologies in exploring the cause of dalit women.

Keywords:

• Dalit feminism
• intersectionality
• caste and gender
• dalit feminist standpoint

Notes

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Dr SuchitraMathur, Professor of English, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, and Dr R. Azhagarasan, Professor of English, Department of English, University of Madras, for going through various drafts of this paper and giving their valuable suggestions and comments.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The term, “dalit” originates from Sanskrit “dalita” meaning “oppressed.” Usually referring to people of untouchable castes, the term has come to denote a collective awareness and resistance against oppressions on lower caste people by the upper castes. My use of the term “dalit” prevails upon this understanding.

2 The definition of Dalit Politics is based on Omvedt (2011) who points out that the three major characteristics of Dalit politics are:

(1) A challenge to the very definition of Hinduism as the majority religion and the core of Indian tradition; an insistence that it was rather a brahmanic Hinduism that represented the hegemony of an elite over that tradition, and that this hegemony of an elite over that tradition, and that this hegemony had to be overthrown. (2) A spreading of this theme beyond dalits themselves to involve all the sections of the oppressed, exploited and marginalized by the processes of caste exploitation, including adivasis and other backward casts (the former shudras), peasants, women, and oppressed nationalities. (3) A synthesis of a new economic and political direction with the cultural challenge. (2011, 87–88)

3 Since my attempt is to contour the dominant trends in Dalit politics, I focus on canonical and pan-Indian events and people rather than regional specificities.

4 This concept is explicated in Annihilation of Caste where Ambedkar’s idea of social reformation began with complete eradication of caste system.

5 For example, see short story, “Mother,” by Baburao Bagul where the dalit mother is presented as a mute victim. Ravikumar, in the introduction to The Oxford Anthology of Tamil Dalit Writing, credits the emerging dalit women writers like Bama, Sukirtharani and Thenmozhi for presenting an internal critique to caste system. See Bagul (2009). See also Ravikumar (2012).

6 Mayawati is a political leader and the national president of BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party). BSP, founded by Kanshi Ram in 1984, focuses on uplifting the downtrodden of India (primarily dalits). In 2001, Mayawati took hold of the party as the successor of Kanshi Ram. Mayawati’s presence as the leader, however, has done little to foreground the cause of dalit women and gender.

7 Dallit women’s autobiographies can be viewed as protest narratives against the exploitation by the external structures such as religion and Brahmanism, as well as the internal gender hierarchies. By establishing dalit women’s identity as that which is affected by mutual and intersecting structures of caste and gender, dalit women’s autobiographies therefore reinforce the Dalit feminist identification of the constituency, i.e., dalit woman, as an intersectional category. Baby Kamble, Bama Fasutina and P. Sivakami deserve special mention in charting a trajectory of autobiographical writings by dalit women. Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke (2008) speaks of the Ambedkarite movements in Maharashtra during 1950s and 1960s and dalit women’s participation in them. Bama’s Karukku and P. Sivakami’s The Grip of Change (2006), on the other hand, are published during a time when, owing to the emergence of the first national dalit women’s autonomous group, National Federation of Dalit Women (1995), dalit women and their voices started gaining recognition. The primary difference in these two time periods lies in dalit women’s solidarity with Dalit politics during the Ambedkarite movements, and dalit women’s claim for autonomy and separation from Dalit politics later on. These autobiographies reflect a transition from the faith that with the erasure of caste the condition of dalit women would improve, to the realization that centralization of caste in dalit movements results in the suppression of issues concerning dalit women. The former sentiment is captured in The Prisons We Broke where Baby Kamble talks about the internal patriarchal oppression on dalit women and later joins the Ambedkarite movement hoping for an overall emancipation of both dalit men and women of her community. On the other hand, The Grip of Change shows the disillusionment after Dalit politics fails to address dalit women’s issues. See Kamble (2008), Fasutina (2000), and Sivakami (2006).

8 In response to the beating of Dalit men for skinning a dead cow in Gujarat, thousands of Dalits participated in the 10 day march from Ahmedabad to Una to protest against discrimination and demand for freedom. Ending on 15 August, this march raised questions about the claims of democracy in a country where cow skin is considered more precious than Dalit skin.

9 From their proclamation in Social media: https://www.facebook.com/events/1076441669104519/ (accessed 25 November 2016).

10 Nivedita Menon, in her article, “Is Feminism about ‘Women’? A Critical View on Intersectionality from India,” mentions that the Shah Bano case gave rise to the fear that “reform of personal laws is only a pretext for eroding [the] identity [of minority communities]. This is why ongoing reform initiatives from inside the communities themselves have a better chance of succeeding” (2015) Menon’s observation can be seen as referring to the intracategorical approach mentioned by Leslie McCall in her article, “Complexities of Intersectionality,” where she opts for intersectionality as a methodology to question the sweeping categorization of “woman” (2005, 1779).

11 Post-independence Indian feminist movement centred on the issue of two kinds of rape – custodial and family. The Mathura rape case, Rameeza Bee rape case, are some of the noted cases dealt by Indian feminists. For more detailed reading see Gangoli (2007), and Sen and Dhawan (2012).

12 While Dalit Feminist reading of Khairlanji shows how gender gets erased in Dalit politics, to understand how mainstream feminism ignores caste the example of the film, The Dirty Picture, may be highlighted. Based on the life of Silk Smitha, an actress who dominated the 80s Tamil film industry as a vamp figure, The Dirty Picture portrays a lower caste woman, Reshma, who aspires to become an actress and becomes popular as a sex symbol in cinema. Highlighting the film’s narrative as portraying a lone woman’s fight against a male dominated world by challenging the moral codes of society, the popular perspective celebrates the success of the film as a victory of a woman’s right over her body, her right to choose an occupation, and live the way she wants. The idea of sexual agency in The Dirty Picture, however,is problematic when seen through a Dalit feminist perspective. According to Rowena, this false notion of agency ensues due to feminism’s ignorance of difference among women based on caste. And herein she links Silk the character with Silk Smitha, the lower caste Tamil actress on whom this film is based. Tracing the origin of the Silk’s hypersexual figure to the Hindu religious tradition of the devadasi system, Rowena argues that brahmanism maintains caste purity by pitting upper caste women’s sexuality against that of the lower caste women. The imposition of immorality and impurity on lower caste women’s body thus legitimizes their sexual control/exploitation by upper caste men. By understanding caste and gender as interlinked structures oppressing the lower caste women, Rowena offers an intersectional methodology to read The Dirty Picture. See Rowena (2012).

13 Discomforts about transparency of experience are expressed by critics who have pointed out problems in interpreting experience as “epistemically available prior to interpretation” (Heyes 2016, par. 8). Emphasising the limitations in considering experience as an unfiltered component of any project of difference, Joan W. Scott writes, “When experience is taken as the origin of knowledge, the vision of the individual subject becomes the bedrock of evidence upon which explanation is built. Questions about the constructed nature of experience, about how subjects are constituted as different in the first place, about how one’s vision is structured – about language (or discourse) and history – are left aside” (1998, 59). Experience is treated as a unique component uninfluenced by external forces such as culture, social systems, and institutions. Such assumption, Scott argues, removes the possibility of understanding experience as socially constructed. See Scott (1998), and Heyes (2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anandita Pan

Anandita Pan is a PhD student at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India. Her areas of research include Dalit feminism, Dalit studies, Indian feminism, and South Asian Studies. She has extensively published on Dalit feminism and has also presented papers in numerous conferences in India and abroad.