Mapping Dalit Feminism

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Mapping Dalit Feminism
Mapping Dalit Feminism
Towards an Intersectional Standpoint
Anandita Pan
Foreword by J. Devika
Copyright © Anandita Pan, 2021
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Contents
Foreword by J. Devikaix
Prefacexiii
Introduction1
1 Theorizing ‘Intersectional Standpoint’ 21
2 Being a ‘Dalit Woman’ 47
3 Representing a ‘Dalit Woman’ 109
4 Exercising Agency 139
5 Revisiting History 159
6 Becoming a Dalit Feminist:
Towards a Conclusion 201
Appendix213
Bibliography235
Index261
About the Author265
vii
Foreword
J. Devika
When I see something that looks racist, I ask ‘Where is the patriarchy in
this?’ When I see something sexist, I ask ‘Where is the heterosexism in this?’
When I see something that looks homophobic, I ask ‘Where are the class
interests in this?’~ Mary Matsuda, 1991
I ntersectionality is one of those unique ideas the usefulness of

which seems to vary from researcher to researcher. Or, each
of us has a unique reason for finding the concept useful. Much
discussed as a path-breaking innovation arising from gender
studies but relevant across the social sciences, poised tantalizingly
between quantitative and qualitative methodologies, the idea of
intersectionality refuses to condense into a concept with clear-
cut meaning and significance. Perhaps the only other concept that
matched the intellectual excitement it generated was Amartya
Sen’s understanding of ‘capabilities’. Both concepts are of liberal
provenance but seem to promise much more.
In general, the interest in the idea of intersectionality marks a
time of intellectual maturity in which the limits of identity politics
and the scholarship accumulating around it could no longer be
ignored; but identity politics in itself could by no means be treated
as irrelevant. Whatever its origins may be, or however it may be
characterized (as a heuristic device, a buzzword, or analytical tool,
and so on, to mention just a few), intersectionality forces us to ask
‘the other question’, as Mary Matsuda puts it.
ix
x Mapping Dalit Feminism
In India too, feminist researchers have debated the idea closely.

For many, the idea was merely putting a name on a practice already
underway in Indian feminist research, if not in activism. They
pointed to key concepts of Indian Feminism like ‘brahmanical
patriarchy’ which clearly conceive Indian patriarchy as produced
in the intersection of two axes of power, caste and gender. Many
raised objections to this claim, pointing to intersectionality as
entwined inextricably with the standpoint of Black/Dalit women.
In this view, identifying such concepts as ‘brahmanical patri-
archy’ as a product of intersectional analysis could potentially be an
elite appropriation of the very idea. For me personally, the crucial
advantage that the idea may yield, when recalibrated effectively
for Indian feminist activism, is the potential it opens up for femi-
nist maitri (in the Ambedkarite sense). That is, it could potentially
work to ameliorate the rigidifying of identities which cuts off effec-
tive and non-reductive communication. As I have argued else-
where, a framework for intersectionality ‘adequate to the spaces of
feminist maitri would perhaps be a version that can be deployed
as a tool of self-reflexive analysis to theorize the different experiences of all
feminists who have quarrelled with their respective caste-communities of
birth. In other words, we must forge it as an “unhoming tool”—
that makes us feel sufficiently not-at-home in our familiar environ-
ments.’ For Pan, the intersectional standpoint is central to Dalit
Feminism but is conceptualized as ‘a way of looking … concerned
less with who is speaking for/as a dalit feminist … a mode of analy-
sis of a text/issue/event from a caste-gender angle that challenges
dominant readings and thereby transforms our understanding of
the text and of the intersecting systems of oppression. It is in these
interventionist and transformative capacities that Dalit Feminism
may be seen to be operative’ (p. 209).
For those who wish to join the debate in Indian Feminism on
intersectionality, the urgency of which is surely accentuated by the
stifling political climate prevalent in the country now, Anandita
Pan’s book is a very accessible introduction. It contextualizes
Foreword xi
the interest in the idea within the rise of Dalit Feminism in the
1990s as a unique movement with transnational connections and
echoes, which advanced a searing critique of both mainstream
Indian Feminism and the Dalit movement. The critique, Pan
argues, was shaped in and through the lens of the ‘intersectional
standpoint’. In her chapters, Pan takes the reader through some
of the most important moments in radical dalit self-actualization
through cultural production, specifically, through the genre of
autobiography to demonstrate the intersectional standpoint articu-
lated in the autobiographical writings of dalit feminists; she
introduces some of the most productive and significant debates
in Indian Feminism, around sexuality and caste. She also shows
how an intersectional reading allows us to break the victim/agent
binary in understanding the everyday struggles of dalit women.
In the end, Pan leaves the question open, adding an appendix
which allows the reader to explore the idea by herself. Reading
her, I have had many questions; and that is probably what she
expects of the reader.
Centre for Development Studies

Thiruvananthapuram
Reference
Matsuda, M. 1991. ‘Beside My Sister, Facing the Enemy: Legal Theory out of
Coalition’, Stanford Law Review 43, 6: 1183–92.
Preface
M y engagement with Dalit Feminism began purely as an

academic venture, and ended up as an adventure of sorts.
I still remember the day I was introduced to Sharmila Rege’s
article, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’ as a part of the feminist
theory syllabus.1 It was a moment of inspiration, revelation and
retrospection. I was excited to have come across a field that
interested me (and continues to do so), and at the same time,
I became aware of my sheer ignorance about the area. What
ensued from this fortunate discovery was a feverish energy to
procure every possible document/text in the area that I could
access. When the time came to choose a ‘topic’ for my doctoral
dissertation—a compulsory process faced by all students pursuing
a doctorate degree—there began the moment of truly thinking
about what and how I could contribute to the field called Dalit
Feminism. This attempt at mapping the field, to give this vast
area some coherence, is my answer to that. In this endeavour, my
thesis supervisor, Professor Suchitra Mathur, has been my greatest
support. It was due to her guidance and encouragement that
I dared lay my hands on mapping a discourse. In her, I found the
researcher and the teacher I always aspire to be.
A research, as I would gradually come to understand, is a
collective process. Though penned by me, it has been immensely
inspired by my teachers who instilled in me the spirit of a learner
and the seed of critical thinking. I owe immensely to conversations
with my teachers, Professor G. J. V. Prasad and Professor Saugata
xiii
xiv Mapping Dalit Feminism
Bhaduri of Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Professor Ananya

Dutta Gupta of Visva-Bharati University, which enriched the
research further. Special thanks to Dr. Navneet Sethi of Jawaharlal
Nehru University. I will carry her ideals of dedication and love for
the rest of my life.
I owe a tremendous debt to Gogu Shyamala, author and poet,
and Professor. R. Azhagarasan at the University of Madras for
their suggestions and comments on various aspects of this work,
both creative and academic.
During the course of writing this book, discussions with my best
friend and husband, Sreenath, helped me shape my ideas to a greater
precision and clarity. Our mutual interest in varied areas of research
has both enriched and expanded my perspective as a researcher.
Sajit, with his expertise in editing and writing, constantly came at
my rescue.
This book would not have materialized without Stree’s support.
My gratitude also to the reviewers and the editors who gave their
valuable inputs and went through several drafts of the manuscript.
This acknowledgement would be incomplete without expressing
my debt to my parents who enabled me to bring this book come
to life.
Bhopal, April 2020Anandita Pan
Note
1 Sharmila Rege, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of ‘Difference
and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position’, Economic and Political
Weekly (31 Oct 1998).
Introduction
T he Una March in 2016 marked new directions in Dalit Politics

with its call for coalition among dalits, the Left, Muslims,
OBCs, and adivasis, and in its interpretation of caste as material
oppression functioning through ownership of land.1 The dalit
women leaders of the Dalit Mahila Swabhiman Yatra—a protest
march held in Rajasthan from 18–28 September 2016 addressing
‘multiple levels of violence faced by Dalit Women’2—who also
participated in the Una and Udupi marches, however, pointed
to the fact that dalit women were not included in the decision-
making bodies of the dalit organization in Una. Gowri, a member
of Karnataka Janashakti, emphasized in an interview that, ‘As
women we have to fight to be heard, we have to yell louder in
comparison to men.’3 In the same interview, another dalit woman
activist, Sanghapali Aruna Lohitakshi, said that in Una, ‘barely
any other Dalit women were allowed to speak. At the end,
Manisha Mashaal [another dalit woman activist from Haryana]
tried to step up to the mic, but one of the men on stage actually
grabbed her hand and tried to pull her back. She had to physically
pull herself free to be able to go up and speak.’4 These narratives
reveal how silence is forced on dalit women in order to retain the
focus exclusively on caste. Such binarism of caste and gender as
envisioned and practised by Dalit Politics emphasizes the ever-
increasing need to recognize intra-group division within the
anti-caste struggle, its patriarchal attitude and the importance of
dalit women’s voices.
1
2 Mapping Dalit Feminism
More recently, the #MeToo movement that has taken the

world—including India—by storm, also initiated important con-
versations about its constituency: women. In India, the #MeToo
movement has encompassed the fields of academia and media,
specifically cinema and journalism.5 The #MeToo movement is
seen as initiating a new wave of feminist consciousness in India
across different realms.6 In the process, however, the constituency
of this movement, that is, women, and the idea of Feminism, have
been contested by dalit feminists who have argued that the concept
of sexual harassment in the workplace—on which the #MeToo
movement is built—comes at the cost of erasing caste and pro-
moting a savarna perspective. In this connection, dalit feminists
have invoked Bhanwari Devi’s case7 to show that the caste-gender-
based implications of violence on dalit women gets erased in the
generalized interpretation of ‘sexual harassment in the workplace’
in the Vishakha guidelines.8 In their approach to the #MeToo
movement, dalit feminists highlighted the importance of inter-
sectionality by criticizing the shortcoming of mainstream Indian
Feminism in failing to address the cause of dalit women and the
issue of caste,9 and called for a solidarity-based Feminism which
recognizes difference.10
Contesting such erasure/ignorance Gopal Guru points out
that dalit women need to talk ‘differently on the basis of external
factors (non-dalit forces homogenizing the issue of dalit women)
and internal factors (the patriarchal domination within the
dalits).’11 Thus, in Guru’s conceptualization, what characterizes
Dalit Feminism is the emergence of dalit women’s voices. Pointing
towards the necessity of recognizing ‘dalit woman’ as an identity
distinct and different from ‘women’ and ‘dalits,’ Guru maintains
that the retrospection should be internal. Following the casteist
and classist attitude of mainstream Indian Feminism—wherein
prevalence is given to issues concerning upper-class upper-caste
women—Guru argues that ‘the claim for women’s solidarity at
both national and global levels subsumes contradictions that exist
Introduction 3
between high caste and dalit women… . Thus beneath the call
for women’s solidarity the identity of the dalit woman as dalit
gets whitewashed and allows a ‘non-dalit’ woman to speak on her
behalf.’12 Guru’s comment problematizes the issue of representation.
He speaks in favour of an identity-based articulation where dalit
women, having experienced the reality of caste- and gender-based
oppressions, are supposedly more authentic narrators of their
experiences. Whereas, when a non-dalit speaks for dalit women
there is always the danger of misrepresentation and appropriation.
This claim however is not restricted only to the contradiction
between feminist politics and dalit women. As Guru mentions
further in the article, ‘Besides these external factors, there are
certain internal factors that have prompted dalit women to
organize separately vis-à-vis the dalit men.’13 And here he focuses
on political and cultural marginalizations of dalit women. While
dalit leaders subordinate ‘independent political expression of dalit
women’,14 in the cultural field dalit men dominate the literary
scene. As such, dalit women’s discrimination by dalit men lead to
the understanding that:
(i) It is not only caste and class identity but also one’s gender posi-
tioning that decides the validity of an event; (ii) dalit men are repro-
ducing the same mechanisms against their women which their high
caste adversaries had used to dominate them; (iii) the experience of
dalit women shows that local resistance within the dalits is import-
ant. The whole situation compels us to defend the claim of dalit
women to talk diferently.15
Guru establishes Dalit Feminism as a moment where dalit women

speak as and for themselves. Thus, what defines Dalit Feminism in
Guru’s conception is the emergence of dalit women’s voice.
While the primary constituency of Dalit Feminism are dalit
women, the anxiety over who are dalit feminists also continues to
persist.16 Central to this debate is the contradiction between iden-
tity and positionality. With respect to the term ‘dalit,’ the duality
between identity and positionality continues to pervade. While

identity is preferred for its direct association with experience,17
the authenticity of experience has been challenged by envisioning
‘dalit’ as a position-based politics.18 Arjun Dangle notes that con-
tradiction also exists in self-identification among the dalits with
the majority consciously attributing ‘assertion’ to the term ‘dalit’,
while a few groups such as the new Buddhists of Maharashtra pre-
ferring the term Buddhist because they find ‘dalit’ to be ‘negative
and confining’.19 Writer and critic and Baburao Bagul reimagines
dalit as a human figure.20 Bagul provides an alternative historiogra-
phy linking dailt suffering to that of the Vedic culture and champi-
ons Buddhism and Western enlightenment for their contribution
in dalit self-assertion. The term, ‘dalit’, for Bagul, symbolizes ‘total
revolution’ against Brahmanism.21 Satyanarayana invokes this
debate in the Telugu dalit literary scenario to argue that dalit is
a ‘conscious identification with the untouchable community’ and
that it need not be based on caste as the single denominator of
dalit.22 In this context, he refers to Telugu poet, Satish Chandar,
for his assertion of being a Marxist dalit. Satyanarayana argues,
‘Dalit is a position that allows some members of the Scheduled
Castes to identify with the dalit identity but also draws on the
legacy of Marxist, Ambedkarite and other ideologies.’23 In this
sense, the definition of ‘dalit’ gets built on intersectionality, stand-
point and solidarity. In challenging the exclusivity of caste in
defining ‘dalit’, Satyanarayana also notes the contribution of dalit
feminists and writers such as Volga who have highlighted the
forced separation, erasure, and segregation of the gender question
within anti-caste politics and have pointed at the patriarchal atti-
tude latent therein.24
How re-centering ‘caste’ through the lens of ‘caste-gender’
can provide an alternative knowledge about the caste system can
be seen through the immense controversy that was raised after
Rohith Vemula’s suicide in 2017.25 The debate over Vemula’s caste
and the subsequent affirmation of him adopting the caste of his
Introduction 5
mother (dalit) highlighted the obsession over the patriarchal and

patrilineal caste system. Satyanarayana notes that this moment
marks a doubt in the authenticity of a birth-based dalit identity.
This obsession over Vemula’s lineage underscores the close con-
nection between caste and gender and his subsequence defiance
of the norms. Fixation of marriage within castes, also known as
endogamy, ensured the perpetuation of caste segregation. Mixed-
marriages and the resultant sankara (mixed) children posed a threat
to clearly determine a caste. To resolve this matter, exogamy was
(and continues to be) severely punished. The caste system also
thrived through gender discrimination in the form of patriliny
where a child was always assigned the father’s caste.26 Vemula,
by opting for his mother’s caste, defied both the norms. He was a
sankara child who did not take his father’s caste (which was higher
than his mother’s) and chose to opt for his mother’s caste. In this
way, Vemula can be seen as consciously choosing to become a dalit.
It is for this reason that Satyanarayana views dalit as a category
that can be ‘productively employed to consolidate the marginalized
untouchable caste groups and its literary cultures’.27
My use of the term ‘dalit’ in this book develops from iden-
tity and highlights positionality. I draw on Ambedkar’s usage
of the term, that is, dalit as an agential position, to denote the
untouchables (also known as shudra-atishudra, lower than the lower-
caste shudra. Their experience of untouchability becomes the base
where caste oppression can be observed operating most prom-
inently. This categorization also arises from the fact that many
lower castes, often classified as OBCs, practise caste-class based
segregation and oppress dalits similarly like their upper-caste
counterparts.28 At this point I would like to clarify that this classi-
fication of ‘dalit’ as an identity-based category, is not intended to
remain restricted within the boundaries of narrow identity politics.
Instead, I use the experience of untouchability as the starting point
to explore the larger systemic implications of caste oppression.
Hence, crucial to my usage of terms such as ‘Dalit Politics’, ‘dalit
historiography’ (see Chapter 5) is the recognition of an awareness

of the caste system as a systemic form of oppression that devalues
and dehumanizes dalits based on untouchability. In this way, my
conceptualization of, for instance, a ‘dalit historian’29 encompasses
both dalits and non-dalits who consciously achieve awareness
about caste oppression.30
The contentious relation between identity and positionality has
loomed large in Dalit Feminism as well. Owing to the assumption
that dalit women, being the most obvious group to have experi-
enced caste- and gender-based oppression are the most authentic
speakers, men and non-dalit women are seen as incapable of rep-
resenting/speaking for dalit women as they have not experienced
the life of a dalit woman.31 This postulation about Dalit Feminism
holds true if Dalit Feminism is understood as an epistemic praxis to
represent authentically what it feels to be a dalit woman. However,
Dalit Feminism is not about authentically recording and represent-
ing what it feels to be a dalit woman. It is a methodological praxis to
identify and analyse how various modes of caste and gender-based
oppression intersect with each other to oppress dalit woman.
Sharmila Rege in her article, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’,
proposes a standpoint perspective32 where she places emphasis on
recognizing that ‘the subject of dalit feminist liberatory knowledge
must also be the subject of every other liberatory project and this
requires a sharp focus on the processes by which gender, race, class,
caste, sexuality—all construct each other’.33 In other words, Rege
conceptualizes Dalit Feminism as a framework that has the poten-
tial to inform and possibly work with other marginalized groups
by establishing solidarity. Also notable in this article is Rege’s con-
ceptualization of ‘dalit woman’ as a constructed category rather
than an essentialist one. For Rege, attaining dalit feminist stand-
point does not entail the existence of the biological factor of being
a dalit woman, but rather an active struggle through which con-
sciousness about caste- and gender-based oppression is gained.34
Rege challenges separatist identity-based politics and urges other
Introduction 7
groups to ‘educate themselves’ about the struggles of dalit women.35

It is in this way that Rege aims to reinvent non-dalit feminists as
dalit feminists. Hence, being a dalit feminist is not a pre-given
notion that one naturally attains by being born as a dalit woman.
On the contrary, the subject position of a dalit feminist is something
that one attains through ‘positionality’. Closeting Dalit Feminism
as a politics by dalit women and for dalit women runs the danger of
ghettoizing it. While by no means I undermine the importance of
dalit women’s voice, it is important to distinguish between a move-
ment that is focused on dalit women and a dalit feminist politics. It is
for this reason that I view Dalit Feminism as a position rather than
an identity.
My conceptualization of Dalit Feminism addresses some of these
serious concerns about identity. This book conceptualizes Dalit
Feminism as a transformative interpretative framework which
I term dalit feminist intersectional standpoint.36 As an intersec-
tional standpoint, Dalit Feminism looks at how the systems of caste
and gender function intersectionally. The focus on the process and
functionality of systemic oppression expands our understanding
of how these systems operate in other instances as well. As an
intersectional standpoint, Dalit Feminism does not restrict its
conceptual understanding only to dalit women. As a theoretical
framework it provides a lens to reinterpret any text/event from a
caste-gender angle.
Herein lies the significance of this study. It recognizes differ-
ence as the base on which Dalit Feminism establishes itself in
contradistinction to mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit
Politics. However, it does not merely identify what is different, but
rather investigates how Dalit Feminism is different. Conceptualized
as a methodology, a lens and a way of looking, Dalit Feminism
emerges as a useful method to analyse how caste and gender simul-
taneously influence not just dalit women but also upper-caste
men and women and dalit men. This would mean recognizing
that according to the brahmanical dictates of purity, upper-caste
women are kept within the house and dalit women—due to their
visibility in the public—are seen as sexually available. As Uma
Chakravarti writes, ‘brahmanical codes for women differ accord-
ing to the status of the caste group in the hierarchy of castes with
the most stringent control over sexuality reserved as a privilege
for the highest castes.’37 The distinction between dalit woman and
dalit feminist is that while the former indicates an identity group
constituting of only dalit women, the latter refers to a position
that one consciously occupies in order to critically understand the
various contours of caste- and gender-based oppression. A dalit
feminist lens, therefore, is particularly enabling because it does not
ghettoize Dalit Feminism to dalit women, and instead emerges as a
transformative framework. It is for this reason that this mapping is
both interventionist and transformative. The mapping highlights
how Dalit Feminism intervenes into mainstream Indian Feminism
and Dalit Politics by challenging the assumed homogeneity of
‘women’ and ‘dalits’. Conceptualized as a lens, Dalit Feminism
also helps us to look at mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit
Politics differently by transforming our understanding of casteism
as casteist sexism and sexism as sexist casteism.
Mapping the Field
The idea and process of mapping a field, as conceptualized in this

book, is similar to that of Jane Gallop’s Around 1981,38 an example
of the publication of a feminist text at an important historical
juncture. For Gallop, the journey begins on a personal note when,
around 1981, she comes across mainstream academic literary
feminism in the United States while writing a response to the fem-
inist issue of Critical Inquiry in 1981 for the Modern Languages
Association (MLA). Her book explores the many travels academic
feminism—which was well-established in the US by the 1990s—
makes from being a theoretical framework to a historicized
Introduction 9
feminist criticism. Gallop’s attempt differs from previous feminist

histories which progressed in a chronological manner document-
ing the growth of Feminism according to historical times. Gallop
on the other hand, presents a theoretical framework to address
some major questions of feminist theory, revisiting the 1970s
and 1980s Feminisms, as well as post-structuralism. In this way,
she conceptualizes how knowledge is produced through different
strands of feminist articulations. Commenting on the necessity
of such mapping, Gallop adds that, the idea is to show how
Feminism in the US, at different junctures of times, has been a
collective and political effort, joined by groups with shared as well
as conflicting interests.
While Gallop’s mapping focuses primarily on the institution-
alization of Feminism in the U.S., Moraga and Anzaldúa’s This
Bridge Called My Back question the constituency of Feminism, that
is ‘woman,’ highlighting its heterogeneity. It takes a break from
Feminism that focused almost exclusively ‘on relations between
sexes’ instead concentrating on ‘relationships between women’.39
The feminist voice that they promote brings out the fissures within
the category called ‘woman’. Beginning as a reaction to the ‘racism
of White Feminism’, their book celebrates the culmination of soli-
darity among feminists of colour. Considering the voluminous
work by the feminists of colour—‘from extemporaneous stream
of consciousness journal entries to well thought-out theoretical
statements; from intimate letters to friends to full-scale public
addresses … [to] poems and transcripts, personal conversations
and interviews’, one can claim that articulations of feminists of
colour have reached a point where it could be mapped.40 Their
book stands at the juncture of marginal voices to come out and
collaborate. It opens new possibilities cutting across several polit-
ical, theoretical, academic, as well as conceptual fields by making
it truly interdisciplinary in nature, and showing that formula-
tions about race, gender, and class, permeate through various
discourses and practices and, hence, its resistance also requires a

combined view of all these factors.
Mapping Dalit Feminism follows a similar purpose of mapping.
This book emerges at a moment when dialogues and contesta-
tions pertaining caste, gender and identity are on the rise. These
conversations not only point at the hegemonic power structures,
they also create a platform for counter-narratives to emerge. In
such context, Dalit Feminism has emerged as a vanguard of an
alternative perspective that challenges casteist sexism and shows
new scopes for coalition across identities, communities, regions
and religions. The time, therefore, is ripe to capture the broad
contours of Dalit Feminism. This mapping is done keeping this
idea in mind. I would also like to clarify that by discursive mapping
I do not mean to impose any homogeneity, especially across
regions. Dalit women’s movements emerged at different times in
different regions and have their own histories to follow.41 What I
attempt through this mapping is to chart out the dominant con-
cepts so as to provide an introduction to the discourse called Dalit
Feminism. For this reason I specifically choose the 1990s because
it marks Dalit Feminism’s entry in the academia and in the
global platform.
Radha Kumar’s The History of Doing stands as a benchmark of
such kind of a mapping where she highlights the overall contours
of Feminism in India within the timeline of the nineteenth century
to the late 1980s.42 Her book, instead of restricting Feminism to
one history, initiates many varied dialogues around and from it.
It traces a long trajectory of women’s activism in India from the
nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. Beginning with
the liberal feminist claim of equality of sexes, Kumar shows how
Indian Feminism moves toward a socialist feminist attitude. The
mapping is meant to address ‘the paucity of literature available as
a source, and the unevenness of the sources which were traceable’
especially on the nineteenth-century women’s movements, as
well as the post-Independence period which documents collective
Introduction 11
struggles rather than individual biographies and autobiographies.43

By the 1990s Indian feminist movement had already branched
out in three directions: (i) activism concerning feminist issues
(right over body, physical violence); (ii) activism showing huge
participation of women (Tebhaga and Telengana movements);
and (iii) activism where women’s issues emerge as a side issue
(anti-patriarchal movements).44 Kumar thus seems to indicate
that it is the right time to begin a conversation between Indian
Feminism and struggles by other marginalized groups in order to
bring issues of representation, ethnic and religious identities, and
nationalism, to a broader level. These mappings, of Feminisms in
India and the West, do not intend to provide a new knowledge
that is radically different from what is already known about the
histories of Feminism; rather these mappings mark interventionist
and transformative moments in the many histories of Feminisms
across the world at different times.
This book attempts a similar mapping of Dalit Feminism. Over
the past two decades Dalit Feminism has been established not
only at the institutional level through the publication of scholarly
articles on the subject, but also through autobiographies and
literary writings by dalit women (in various regional languages
that have then been translated into English as well as writings
originally in English) which have marked an explosion of dalit
women’s voices. The range of dalit feminist discourse is also evident
through cultural productions and cultural critiques. In 2002, the
establishment of Kabir Kala Manch, provided a platform to voice
a cultural resistance to caste- and gender-based oppression where
students and young activists engaged in shaking up the cultural
scene through their musical and theatrical performances in the
slums and streets. Documentaries and films such as Turup (2017)
have highlighted the perspectives of dalit women in showing how
the intersection of caste-gender produces specific situations for
them. Websites such as countercurrents.org and roundtableindia.
co.in, though begun as online repositories promoting dalit voice,
have started incorporating large numbers of articles focusing

on dalit women’s issues and have included a separate section
on ‘patriarchy’. Dalitweb.org, also known as Savari, is a website
dedicated to dalit women. Dalit Feminism, therefore, has emerged
as a distinct theoretical formulation, and this became evident
through the vast multi-faceted discourse of Dalit Feminism, from
literary texts, scholarly articles, cultural productions and political
configurations.
These recent debates show that Dalit Feminism has not only
reached its peak in terms of emergence of dalit women’s voice
in literary, political and scholarly spheres, but also the different con-
versations regarding autonomy and solidarity emphasize the need
to have conversations conceptually between mainstream Indian
Feminism, Dalit Politics and Dalit Feminism. However, due to its
vast spectrum, discussions about and approaches towards Dalit
Feminism remain sprinkled around in the fields of activism, lite-
rature and popular culture. This book analyses this vast field
to extract from it the underlying ideas and concepts that tie it
together as a theoretical framework. To address the discourse
of Dalit Feminism the texts in this book include literary articu-
lations, movements, scholarly writings and popular culture. I use
a comparative framework in all the chapters wherein I analyse
Dalit Feminism vis-à-vis mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit
Politics in order to elucidate the epistemological interventions
Dalit Feminism makes and how simultaneously it transforms
mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics.
At this point the question may arise as to whether this mapping
is at all necessary. Considering the large textual field already
available in this area, how will mapping contribute in generating
a different understanding of Dalit Feminism? It is important
to mention that this mapping does not intend to offer a single
meaning to Dalit Feminism. The purpose here is not to give Dalit
Feminism a definitive, totalizing shape. Quite contrarily, the aim of
this project is to identify the underlying connections between the
Introduction 13
scattered events and show the specific conceptual contributions

of Dalit Feminism.
This mapping, therefore, becomes a praxis in challenging
totalitarianism in politics and theory. Pointing at the drawback of
totalitarianism in theorization, Foucault notes that,
It is not that these global [totalitarian] theories have not provided

… useful tools for local research … . I believe these tools have only
been provided on the condition that the theoretical unity of these
discourses was in some sense put in abeyance, or at least curtailed,
divided, overthrown, caricatured, theatricalized, or what you will.
In each case, the attempt to think in terms of a totality has in fact
proved a hindrance to research.45
Foucault’s observation provides an important corrective to claims

of unity both at the political and the theoretical levels. In fact,
this observation also forms the core of Dalit Feminism as it chal-
lenges the ‘sisterhood’ of mainstream Indian Feminism and the
centralization of caste in Dalit Politics. In Foucauldian terms,
Dalit Feminism emerges as ‘a non-centralized kind of theoretical
production … whose validity is not dependent on the approval
of the established regimes of thought’.46 As a subjugated form of
knowledge, the project of Dalit Feminism consists of recovering
dalit women’s voice and reinterpreting the contours of mainstream
Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics. Dalit Feminism therefore can
serve as a model for other marginalized politics; ones that acknow-
ledge the ‘local’ without imposing totalitarianism. Moreover,
such a praxis reinforces the need to go beyond identity-based
politics. Foucault argues that subjugated knowledge comprises
of two components: ‘historical contents that have been buried
and disguised in a functionalist coherence or formal systemization’
and ‘naïve knowledges, located low down on the hierarchy,
beneath the required level of cognition or scientificity.’47 In Dalit
Feminism the former component is dalit women’s voice, hitherto
deemed irrelevant, and the latter is the intervention Dalit Feminism
makes in mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics. Hence,

the dalit feminist intersectional standpoint, in its very methodo-
logical framework, is interventionist and transformative.48
These interventionist and transformative aspects of Dalit
Feminism are explored in this book in the fields of difference,
identity, representation, agency and positionality. Chapter 1
Theorizing ‘Intersectional Standpoint’ elaborates on the key aspects
of Dalit Feminism, its contradistinction vis-à-vis mainstream Indian
Feminism and Dalit Politics in redefining the categories ‘women’
and ‘dalits,’ and the concept of dual patriarchies in revising the
contours of patriarchy and Brahmanism through brahmanical patri-
archy. Emphasizing on the core theoretical framework of intersec-
tionality, it theorizes Dalit Feminism by developing a new framework
called ‘intersectional standpoint.’
The concept of intersectionality, while critical of identity poli-
tics for its focus on a single axis of identity, also posits an alterna-
tive intersectional identity, which in the case of Dalit Feminism
is the dalit woman. Therefore, Chapter 2 ‘Being a Dalit Woman’
explores identity constitution by dalit women themselves. Dalit
women’s autobiographies (autobiographies being the most self-
evident genres articulating ‘selfhood’), read in contradistinction
to autobiographies canonised by mainstream Indian Feminism and
Dalit Politics, not only reveal the savarnization of ‘Indian woman’
and masculinization of ‘dalit’, they also explore the complexity
and specificity of dalit women’s intersectional identity through the
notion of dual patriarchies: brahmanical and dalit.
However, Dalit Feminism is not limited only to the self-
articulations of dalit women (which would trap it in the authentic-
ity debate); it is also a political intervention. This is evident in how
it engages with the politics of representation. Therefore, Chapter
3 ‘Representing a Dalit Woman’ and Chapter 4 ‘Exercising
Agency’ explore how dalit women are perceived and what the
enabling modes of dalit feminist representations are. With respect
to dalit women’s representations vis-à-vis sexuality and work,
Introduction 15
Chapter 3 explores how Dalit Feminism problematizes mainstream

feminist notion of agency through choice and challenges dalit rep-
resentations of dalit women as victims. Chapter 4 goes beyond
the binarism of victimhood/agency and discovers newer ways of
achieving agency through negotiation and solidarity.
This representational analysis shows that Dalit Feminism is
an epistemological project that intervenes in how/what knowl-
edge is produced about dalit women and who can be/become a
dalit feminist which leads to Chapter 5 ‘Revisiting History.’ This
chapter investigates the contribution of Dalit Feminism to the
entire project of knowledge production. It probes into the rela-
tionship between power and knowledge and sees how it affects the
production of knowledge. Drawing on the dalit feminist intersec-
tional standpoint, as elaborated in Chapter 1, Chapter 5 explores
how this lens can be utilized not only to read contemporary texts/
events but also to contest and recreate history. History, then, is
presented as events that are documented by different groups dif-
ferently. Drawing on feminist standpoint theory as the theoretical
framework and historiography as the realm of study, this chapter
looks at how dalit feminist historiography emerges as a transform-
ative epistemology by recovering dalit women activists/ thinkers
and by reinterpreting dalit leaders and events canonized in dalit and
mainstream Indian feminist historiographies.
Chapter 6 ‘Becoming a Dalit Feminist: Towards a Conclusion’
summarizes the overall contours of the mapping, giving it coher-
ence through the idea of ‘intersectional standpoint.’ By proposing
the framework of ‘intersectional standpoint,’ I argue that a dalit
feminist standpoint, while premised on giving primacy to dalit
women’s voices and experiences, also emerges as a mode of analysis
from a caste-gender angle that challenges dominant readings and
transforms our understanding of intersecting systems of oppression.
Chapter 6, that also concludes the book, delves into the idea of who
can be/become a dalit feminist. It revisits Chapter 2 to highlight
the complexities and nuances of the position of a dalit feminist.
Through analysis of texts that are neither centered on dalit women

nor are written/produced by dalit women, I show that a dalit fem-
inist standpoint is concerned less with who is speaking for/as a
dalit feminist, and is more a mode of analysis of a text/issue/event
from a caste-gender angle. ‘Becoming’ a dalit feminist emphasizes
one is engaged in consciously identifying the intersections of caste
and gender. Thus, Dalit Feminism is not just about the identity-
category, ‘dalit woman,’ but is an epistemology that uses the stand-
point of dalit women to intervene both in the dominant systems
of oppression and the resistance politics of mainstream Indian
Feminism and Dalit Politics.
Notes
1 In response to the beating of four dalit men for skinning a dead cow in
Gujarat, thousands of dalits participated in a ten-day long march from
Ahmedabad to Una to protest against discrimination and demand for
freedom.
2 Accessed from their proclamation on social media https://www.facebook.
com/events/1076441669104519/ accessed 25 November 2016
3 Ananya, ‘Chalo Udupi: ‘Women Started Coming Out Only When They
Saw Women Leaders In It Too’ (2016).
4 Ibid.
5 Geetha, ‘Raya Sarkar’s List of Sexual Predators Not the Problem, Allowing
Harassers the Benefit of Anonymity Is’ (2017a); Thusoo, ‘From #MeToo
to #HerToo’ (2018).
6 Vijayalakshmi, ‘Extending the Boundaries of #MeToo: Sexual Harassment
in the Lives of Marginalised Women’ (2018).
7 Bhanwari Devi was a Saathin in Rajasthan who actively participated
in preventing the marriage of a one-year old girl. As retaliation she was
raped by five upper caste men in front of her husband. Predominantly
represented as a case of gender violence, the Bhanwari Devi case led to
the famous Vishakha judgment (1997) on women’s sexual harassment at
workplace. Mainstream feminist interpretation of the issue presumed the
category ‘woman’ to be a homogenized whole, wherein sexual harassment
was assumed to be operative similarly for ‘all women’ with same intensity.
Mainstream feminism, therefore, viewed ‘woman’ solely through the single
axis of gender and erased the specificity of caste. See Patel, ‘A Brief History
of Battle Against Sexual Harassment At Workplace’ (2005); Mody, 10
Introduction 17
Judgements that Changed India (2013); Sarpotdar, ‘Sexual Harassment of

Women at Workplace in India’ (2014).
8 Geetha, ‘Sexual Harassment and Elusive Justice’ (2017b); Rowena, ‘The
Sexual Harassment Discourse’ (21 November 2017); Stephen, ‘#MeToo:
The NGO Sector Systematically Silences Dalit, Tribal and Bahujan Voices’
(2018).
9 Rowena, ‘The Sexual Harassment Discourse’; Stephen, ‘#MeToo: The
NGO Sector Systematically Silences’.
10 Geetha, ‘Sexual Harassment and Elusive Justice’; Roy, ‘#MeToo Is A
Crucial Moment to Revisit the History of Indian Feminism’ (2018); Tella,
‘#MeToo: An International Conversation on Sexual Violence Impacting
Feminist Discourse Across Borders’ (2018); G. Chadha, ‘Towards Complex
Feminist Solidarities’ (2017).
11 Guru, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’ (1995): 2548.
12 Ibid.: 2549.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Rege, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of Difference and
Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position’ (1998a); Writing Caste/
Writing Gender (2006); Satyanarayana, ‘Identification, Belonging and the
Category of Dalit’ (2018).
17 Satyanarayana,’ Identification’: 2–4.
18 Popularized by B. R. Ambedkar, the term, ‘dailt,’ signifies a group/people
that is oppressed or ground down. The term gained momentum in the
1970s when the Dailt Panthers used the term in a more inclusive manner
referring to all those oppressed by the caste system. Instead of referring to
only people of ‘untouchable’ caste, dalit is envisioned by Dalit Panthers as
a political position.
19 Dangle, ed., Poisoned Bread (1992): xvii.
20 Bagul, ‘Dalit Literature is but Human Literature’ (1992a): 293.
21 Ibid.: 293.
22 Satyanarayana, ‘Identification’: 5.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Apparasu, ‘Rohith Vemula Not a Dalit, Belonged to Other Backward Class’
(2017).
26 This idea legally persisted till 2012 when the Supreme Court recognized the
right of the child to claim his/her mother’s caste in cases where the father is
dead/absent. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/197038546/
27 Satyanarayana, ‘Identification’: 8.
28 This aspect is explored in detail in Chapter 2 in the discussion on dalit
men’s autobiographies. Moreover, my usage of the term ‘upper-caste’ is not
limited to the brahmin caste. It refers to the castes who practice casteism
and are higher than dalits.
29 Similarly that of a dalit feminist.
30 This ‘awareness’ is discussed in detail through standpoint theory in Chapter
1 and Chapter 5 of this book.
31 Kulkarni, ‘Reconstructing Dalit Feminist Standpoint Theory: Looking
at Sharmila Rege’s Work’ (2014): 5; P. M. Lata, ‘Silenced by Manu and
‘Mainstream’ Feminism’ (2015).
32 For a detailed understanding of feminist standpoint as challenging male
supremacy in sociology and science see respectively Dorothy E. Smith,
‘Women’s Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology’ (1974): 1–13;
Sandra Harding, ‘Introduction: Standpoint Theory as a Site of Political,
Philosophic, and Scientific Debate’ (2004): 1–15.
33 Rege, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’: 45.
34 This perspective is radically different from Gopal Guru’s who in his
article ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’ (1995), argues that dalit feminist
articulations should remain exclusively ‘by dalit women, for dalit women’
due do the misrepresentation they face in the writings of dalit men. Guru
thus opts for an exclusivist politics, and Rege argues for a position-based
approach.
35 Rege, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’ : 45.
36 This framework is explored at length in Chapter 1 of this volume, and is
elucidated with examples in later chapters.
37 Chakravarti, Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens (2003): 34.
38 Gallop, Around 1981: Academic Feminist Literary Theory (1992).
39 Moraga and Anzaldúa, eds., This Bridge Called My Back (1983).
40 Ibid.: xxiii-xxiv.
41 Such histories are explored by Pawar and Moon (2014) who collected
narratives of Amebdkarite dalit women, and the Stree Shakti Sanghatana
(1989) that investigated the role of dalit women in the Telangana Peasants’
Revolt and the Left Party’s attitude towards the question of gender.
42 Kumar, The History of Doing (1993).
43 Ibid.: 1.
44 Ibid.: 1–5.
45 Foucault, ‘Two Lectures’. In C. Gordon, ed., Power/Knowledge: Selected
Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (1980): 80–81.
46 Ibid.: 81.
47 Ibid.: 81–82.
48 It is important to note that scientificity has been challenged by feminist
standpoint theorists such as Sandra Harding and Dorothy E. Smith. In the
context of scientific knowledge, Harding observes that modern science
enjoys epistemic supremacy by emphasizing ‘objectivity’ (Harding 1993:
49) and ‘neutrality’ (Harding 1995: 321). Both objectivity and neutrality
Introduction 19
assume subject’s/researcher’s distance from the object of research as

the ground for authenticity and impartiality in the reading/analysis of the
object(s) (E. Anderson 2017). Science proves authenticity of its claims by
providing statistical or experimental methods which are viewed as fair or
rational in order to ‘maximize standardization, impersonality or some other
quality assumed to contribute to fairness’ (Harding 1995: 332). Moreover,
neutrality ‘depicts the grounds for accepting social, political and moral
values as utterly detached from evidence about human potentialities and
about what happens when people try to realist these values in practice’
(E. Anderson 2017). In other words, science depicts knowledge as mutually
divorced from the social and the everyday experiential. Harding argues
that these parameters of scientific objectivity are necessarily patriarchal
in nature because the practitioners of science are also mostly male. She
maintains that by attributing objectivity to ‘certain kinds of knowledge-
seeking communities [such as] modern science’ (1995: 332), scientific
knowledge determines who/what gets included or excluded from the field
of knowledge. And this critique becomes possible by adopting a feminist
standpoint. Similar analysis has been provided by Dorothy E. Smith (1974)
in the context of sociology as a discipline. For a detailed reading see
Sandra Harding, ‘Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What Is ‘Strong
Objectivity’?’ (1993): 49–82; Harding, ‘Strong Objectivity: A Response
to the New Objectivity Question’ (1995): 331–349; Dorothy E. Smith,
‘Women’s Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology’ (1974): 1–13;
E. Anderson, ‘Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science’ (2017).
1
Theorizing ‘Intersectional Standpoint’
The Emergence of Dalit Feminism
The 1990s is credited with the emergence of independent and

autonomous dalit women’s organizations such as the National
Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW) in 1995 and the All India
Dalit Women’s Forum (AIDWF) in 2006, which evolved out of
a strong feeling that dalit women need to organize themselves
in order to address their ‘special needs and problems.’1 What this
‘special needs and problems’ signified was a difference in dalit
women’s condition from that of upper-caste women and dalit men.
In other words, it identified the necessity to recognize difference
among ‘women’ and ‘dalits’.
Mangala Subramaniam points out that ‘assertion of the dalit
women’s experience through the forum of their organizations drew
the attention of mainstream feminist activists and academicians
and led to a major debate on the plurality versus unity within the
women’s movement’.2 It is important to note that in the Indian
context, the Shah Bano case in 1985 created an environment
for different feminist perspectives to grow. However, they were
not always perceived favourably by mainstream Feminism. Even
21
when communal difference among women was recognized with

the Shah Bano case,3 caste was never brought to the analytical
frame of mainstream feminist discourse. Mary E. John argues that
although caste and communalism have touched the women’s
movements since the early twentieth century, ‘it is a matter of
historical record that women’s organizations were unable to
sustain their early efforts towards a more inclusive politics’.4 In
order to represent ‘a unique moment of liberal universalism
in India’, the early twentieth-century leaders who propounded a
new India boasting gender equality, came to subscribe to a politics
that was effectively ‘elite, Hindu and upper caste’.5
NFDW’s participation in the UN World Conference against
Racism, held in Durban in 2001 marked a watershed moment for
dalit women’s organizations as the ‘NFDW asserted itself as speak-
ing for dalit women and started taking up dalit women’s issues at
the international level’.6 Atrey notes that dalit feminists’ alignment
with international forums served two purposes: to make their own
voices heard and to create pressure on the Indian government
through international organizations.7 Dalit Feminism’s visibility in
the international forums helped bring out how ‘caste, class and
gender discrimination prevents dalit women from enjoying their
basic human rights, particularly dignity, equality and development’
and that ‘atrocities and violence against dalit women … [help]
preserve the existing caste and gender disparities’.8 These observa-
tions highlight why it was necessary for Dalit Feminism to begin its
journey in the international forum and also how caste and gender
simultaneously affect dalit women. According to Mahanta, ‘The
Dalit women’s movement in India made conscious attempts to
align themselves with transnational advocacy networks to further
the cause of their domestic struggle’.9 This strategy was specifically
intended to challenge the disregard to the marginalized voices by
the government.10 Alliance with transnational networks helped
create pressure over the nation by instilling ‘shame’ and marring a
nation’s ‘international prestige’.11
Theorizing ‘Intersectional Standpoint’ 23
Hardtmann notes that dalit women’s presence in Durban should

also be seen ‘in contrast to the dominance of men in leadership
positions within the Dalit movement locally/regionally in Indian
and also in the Dalit diaspora’.12 Dalit women’s organizations
unveiled the discrimination of dalit women by dalit men and the
difference among women based on caste which had so far remained
unrecognized by mainstream Indian Feminism. The emergence of
dalit women’s organization, therefore, challenged the universality
of ‘woman’ and ‘dalit’ by highlighting the specificity of the category,
‘dalit woman,’ through difference. As Vidyut Bhagat remarks: ‘The
women’s movement has in its enthrallment of “sisterhood” failed
to note the “caste” factor while the Dalit movement has remained
patriarchal and sees the dalit women’s oppression merely as a caste
oppression.’13
Intersectionality: Conceptualizing Difference,

Solidarity and Dual Patriarchies
At the core of Dalit Feminism is the understanding that ‘dalit

woman’, which is its primary constituency, is located at the inter-
section of caste and gender. Dalit women are not monolithic enti-
ties who can be neatly categorized either as ‘women’ or ‘dalits’. In
mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics, caste and gender
are considered two individual and mutually exclusive categories
defining ‘women’ and ‘dalits’ respectively. As a result, dalit women
and their concerns get erased or subsumed. In a succinct under-
standing of the dalit women’s situation and its possible redressal,
Urmila Pawar observes,
The Dalit movement is a movement for total human freedom. It

does not however seem to pay adequate attention to the women’s
question. Women’s liberation movement also should really be a
part of this movement for human liberation. It is not. A myth is
harboured that unlike the Brahmin woman the Dalit woman is free
from bondage and stifling restrictions. The pain of the Devadasi, the
deserted woman and the Murali is ignored in this stand… . Dalit
educated women also should come out of the wrong impression
that only with the help of men they can stand out in the world.
These women should fight for their rights both as dalits and as
women.14
Pawar’s statement here foregrounds two important analytical omis-

sions: of gender in Dalit Politics and caste in mainstream Indian
Feminism. Pawar’s statement defines Dalit Feminism as an inter-
ventionist position that seeks to address the intersectional nature
of dalit women’s identity. Dalit Feminism’s difference from main-
stream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics, therefore, is articulated
through the idea of intersectionality.
Intersectionality is a theoretical framework that investigates
how systems of oppression operate in conjunction with each other.
Intersectionality emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s from
the legal academy, specifically with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s path-
breaking article ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity
Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color’. Its primary
aim has been to develop a framework for analysing power that
encompasses and connects gender, class, and race-based subordi-
nation. The notion of intersectionality arose out of the theoriza-
tion by feminists of colour which focused on the triply oppressed
black women. Crenshaw takes black women as an example and
shows how intersectionality rejects the single-axis framework
often embraced by both feminist and anti-racist scholars, analys-
ing instead ‘the various ways in which race and gender interact to
shape the multiple dimensions of black women’s … experiences’.15
Intersectionality questions the homogenization of categories such
as ‘woman’ and ‘black’ by recognizing that there are multiplicities
and differences within these two categories.16
Intersectionality provides an enabling methodology for feminist
analysis by proposing an approach that recognizes multiple-axes
of oppression affecting black women and challenges the homogen-

eity so far assumed by both feminist and anti-racist discourses.
In this context, Leslie McCall’s theorization of intersectional-
ity through inter-categorical and intra-categorical approaches
becomes important. By inter-categorical approach, McCall refers
to the recognition of ‘relations of inequality among social groups
and changing configurations of inequality along multiple and con-
flicting dimension,’ while the intra-categorical approach ‘interro-
gates the boundary-making and boundary-defining process itself’
where it maintains a critical stance toward categories that are pre-
dominantly seen through a single axis of identity.17 Political formu-
lations based on single axis of identity have been strongly criticized
by theorists of intersectionality. Terming such identity politics as
‘vulgar constructivism’,18 Crenshaw states that the ‘problem with
identity politics is not that it fails to transcend difference, as some
critics charge, but rather the opposite: that it frequently conflates
or ignores intra-group differences’.19 She argues that in minority
politics such as anti-racism and Western Feminism, black men
and white women gain prominence, thereby erasing black women
who face both racist and sexist oppression simultaneously. Hence,
a major drawback of identity politics is the inability to perceive
subjects through multiple axes of identity and understand the
multi-pronged facets of oppressions. It is in this more-nuanced
strategical possibility that intersectionality is seen as an enabling
methodology through its acknowledgement of difference.20
In Western feminist politics, the concept of difference is
invoked by Black Feminism to problematize the category, ‘woman’.
Conceived as a homogeneous category wherein oppression is
linked to womanhood, women in general were seen as a ‘minor-
ity group’ by White Feminism.21 This universalization presented
‘woman’ as a unitary subject that cuts across race, class, ethnicity.
Such an epistemological postulation highlights a unitary form of
patriarchal oppression and a universalized experience of wom-
anhood, resulting in the erasure of differences among women in
an attempt to homogenize feminist politics. As a result, women

belonging to minority groups, such as women of colour, come to
be excluded as a structural consequence of the classification of the
category ‘woman’ and its subjective experience. Black feminists
have pointed out that while the feminist view of sisterhood helps
in constituting a collective resistance, it empowers only certain
groups of women while marginalizing others.22
Moraga and Anzaldúa’s This Bridge Called My Back questions
this constituency of Feminism, that is, ‘woman’, highlighting its
heterogeneity. In her foreword to the second edition, Moraga
emphasizes that this book takes a break from Feminism that focuses
almost exclusively on relations between sexes, concentrating
instead on ‘relationships between women’.23 The feminist voice that
they promote brings out the fissures within the category called
woman. Beginning as a reaction to the racism of White Feminism,
this book celebrates the development of solidarity among feminists
of colour. Thus, as Baca Zinn writes:
Many women began to argue that their lives were affected by

their location in a number of different hierarchies: as African
Americans, Latinas, Native Americans, or Asian Americans in the
race hierarchy; as young or old in the age hierarchy; as heterosex-
ual, lesbian, or bisexual in the sexual orientation hierarchy; and
as women outside the Western industrialized nations, in subordi-
nated geopolitical contexts. These arguments made it clear that
women were not victimized by the gender alone but by the his-
torical and systemic denial of rights and privileges based on other
differences as well.24
The realization that concerns projected as universal are far

removed from the realities of many women’s lives, reveals the
power relations that create hierarchy among women. It then
becomes evident that an exclusive and unitary focus on gender
highlights the issues pertaining to a specific group of women and
diverts attention from other structures and systems such as race,
which crucially contribute in perpetuating the oppression of differ-

ent categories of women. Women of colour, therefore, have chal-
lenged the sisterhood notions of Western Feminism arguing it to
be white middle class-centric. They argue that conceptions about
gender and oppression of women categorically ignore marginal-
ized women and the attempt to achieve a universal politics often
results in privileging a single perspective. Recognizing difference
therefore becomes crucial in interventionist politics such as Black
Feminism in order to avoid the influences and pitfalls of dominant
structural models and forge a more effective politics.
Intersectionality highlights not only the uniqueness of black
women’s experiences but also difference within. This intra-
categorical difference is recognized vis-à-vis white women and
vis-à-vis black men. ‘The Black Feminist Statement’ by the
Combahee River Collective mentions how they realized that ‘as
children … we were different from boys and that we were treated
different, for example, when we were told in the same breath to
be quiet both for the sake of being “ladylike” and to make us less
objectionable in the eyes of the white people’.25
Black Feminism, therefore, unveils the complexity and specificity
of race and gender oppression of black women which both anti-
racists and White Feminism failed to see. Black feminists argue
that black women are either represented as victimized objects by
black male writers, or are included as tokens by white feminists out
of guilt.26 Moreover, As Kimberly Springer points out,
Black feminists faced the black community’s accusations of inau-

thentic blackness because of their gender concerns. The Sandy
Springs transcript reveals that black women also needed to
beware of white feminists who considered them ‘the worst kind’
of black women because of their alleged betrayal of blackness. Both
black nationalist and white feminist judgments on black women’s
racial authenticity assumed that a truly revolutionary black woman
prioritized her racial oppression over any gender considerations.
Like black men, white feminists in this particular discussion refused
to recognize the complexity of race and gender oppression. Instead,

they chose to see black women as solely black, but not as women.27
As a result, black feminists realized that ‘the master’s tools will

never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily
to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring
about genuine change.’28
This focus on the importance of recognizing difference in
developing an understanding of oppression as well as resistance
in relation to multiple structures of power makes Black Feminism
similar to Dalit Feminism. While Black Feminism locates black
women at the intersection of race and gender, Dalit Feminism
identifies dalit women in terms of the intersection of caste and
gender in formulating and informing dalit feminist politics. Similar
to Black Feminism’s articulation of its politics in contradistinction
to White Feminism and anti-racism, Dalit Feminism identifies its
difference from mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics
through intervention.
Even though the term was not coined/used in India, the practice
of intersectionality, Nivedita Menon points out, has been pre-
valent for a long time among marginalized groups in India.29 She
articulates a mistrust about using intersectionality as a theoreti-
cal framework to analyse and understand ‘the Indian experience’
because firstly, she argues, ‘theory must be located’ and secondly,
the practice of validating any study on the ‘non-West’ by reading
it through a ‘Western’ theory, should be challenged.30 Noting
that intersectionality is a mere ‘buzzword’,31 Menon highlights
that the term gained currency due to the prominence of the place
of its origin, and that intersectionality is unsuitable in the Indian
context because of the already existing multiple layers of identities
in India.32 Menon draws specific attention to caste, community
and sexuality to highlight how they continue to fracture the cate-
gory ‘woman’ and destabilize the subject of feminist politics. With
such methods of identifying and confronting difference already
in place in marginalized politics in India, Menon asks, ‘How does

intersectionality figure in this analysis?’33 She finds fault with the
very discipline, that is, law, from which intersectionality originates
and notes that law has been the most restrictive mechanism to
bind and fix identities according to convenience. Therefore, it
is futile to go to law and search for answers.34 Moreover, Menon
notes that Crenshaw, in proposing the idea of intersection of iden-
tities, assumes that identities are a-priori.
Mary E. John revisits Menon’s article to engage with intersec-
tionality as it gives space to all marginalized voices instead of priv-
ileging one over the other. John notes that Crenshaw and other
theorists of intersectionality do not claim to invent the theory
at all. In fact, they repeatedly draw on Black Feminism which
goes as far back as 1851 when Sojourner Truth pronounced her
now iconic speech, ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’35 Intersectionality there-
fore, John suggests, should not be seen as a recent phenomenon
even though it has become a buzzword now. John further argues
that in case of Indian Feminism, despite mentioning difference,
it has not always engaged with intersectional identities. With a
brief exception of community,36 Feminism in India continues to
remain caught up in difference of sexes rather than ‘unequal patri-
archies’ that are responsible in creating and perpetuating hierar-
chies among women of different classes, castes and communities.37
John argues that instead of rejecting intersectionality altogether,
it needs to be utilized as a method to interrogate existing identi-
ties and politics and to forge solidarity. Intersectionality, there-
fore, has the potential to become the starting point for initiating
conversations.38
Dalit Feminism highlights how dalit women are erased/ignored
by mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics, and how the
constructions of ‘woman’ and ‘dalit’ give prominence to savarna
women and dalit men. Dalit Feminism addresses these erasures
and additions by invoking intersectionality. As mentioned earlier,
Dalit Feminism’s relation to the concept of difference can be
mapped in terms of identifying its constituency, ‘dalit woman,’ as

intersectional and thereby distinct from ‘woman’ in mainstream
Indian Feminism and ‘dalit’ in Dalit Politics.39 The 2009 declar-
ation of the National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW) in
its VIII National Convention on 26 June 2009 held in New
Delhi states:
We are concerned that dalit women in India suffer from three

oppressions: gender, as a result of patriarchy; class, being from the
poorest and most marginalized communities; and caste, coming
from the lowest caste, the ‘untouchables.40
This declaration points at three intersecting factors of gender,

class and caste, and shows that inequality and difference exist not
only among those in the binaries of rich/poor, upper-caste/dalit,
but also leads to differences among women, and between men and
women within the dalit community. In their 2008 report the Dalit
Mahila Samiti writes,41
The agenda of the women’s movement at the national level is

still framed by middle-class women’s perspectives… . Issues of
identity are difficult to incorporate into the national movement,
and mainstream Indian feminists need to bring in the politics and
priorities of other identities. For instance, when national women’s
groups determined that the focus of Women’s Day events would be
violence against women, but for the local women, the critical issue
was access to water.42
This marks a shift from imposing homogeneity to the acknowl-

edgement of difference in seeing how different structures, through
their intersection with gender, affect different groups of women
differently. Commenting on the importance of particularity in
intersectionality, Catharine MacKinnon notes that particularity
does not mean considering knowledge arising from the experience
of a particular group as narrow, static and restrictive. Rather par-
ticularity is invoked to provide a more nuanced understanding of
systems. MacKinnon writes, intersectionality ‘reveals the simple

falsity of the standard post-Enlightenment opposition between par-
ticularity and universality not only in exposing that particularity is
universal but in making a universally applicable change—including
men—through embracing, not through obscuring or denying or
eliding, particularity.’43 Similarly, Dalit Feminism emerges as an
intersectional politics because it accounts for difference within
and among groups, and in the process transforms the frameworks
of mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics. As the report
by DMS reads,
We realize that a feminist perspective has meant dealing with a

very wide range of issues, while our image of a movement is quite
narrow. The ‘enemy’ (patriarchy) manifests itself in many ways,
and is therefore everywhere. It is not a monolithic structure to
be overcome or brought down. Hence the meaning of what is a
movement needs to be expanded to integrate the whole range of
activities and processes, which a feminist organization working for
fundamental change has to undertake to build a movement.44
This statement emphasizes on the need to integrate difference within

the purview of mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics.
While autonomy has been seen as the most crucial feature of
Dalit Feminism,45 dalit feminists have also resisted the ghettoizing
of Dalit Feminism to a politics practised only by dalit women.46
The report by DMS elaborates that a dalit feminist movement is
not separatist.47 The women in DMS ‘invite the men to become
sathi dars, givers of support’.48 Ruth Manorama clarifies that
even though ‘the call for a separate platform’ by dalit women’s
organizations such as NFDW ‘could be interpreted as a divisive
move by both dalit men and non-dalit women, the proponents of
such as special forum emphasize that their initiative must not be
mistaken for a separatist movement’.49 She adds, ‘Rather they assert
that there is need for strong alliances between the dalit movement,
the women’s movement and the dalit women’s movement if their
common vision of social, economic and political equality and

justice for all is to be realized.’50 This call for solidarity, in fact,
does not remain restricted only to dalit men and upper-caste
women joining hands with dalit women. The need for solidarity
also extends across international communities as emphasized in
the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 and
in the World Conference Against Racism in Durban in 2001. In
an interview with Meena Kandasamy, Ruth Manorama describes
how her participation in a cross-cultural study comparing African-
American people in the US and dalits in India in 1986 helped her
understand the necessity of having conversations between dalit
women and black women.51 Lauding the coming together of black
and dalit women in the conference in Durban in 2001, Shailaja
Paik argues,
Despite the seemingly vast differences in the history and contem-

porary politics of India and the United States … [practising soli-
darity] helps to rethink and revitalize feminist theory and praxis by
sharply focusing on the interlocking engagements between femi-
nist work and histories of colonialism, nationalism, law, culture,
the nation-state, capital, labour relations, religion, human rights,
and struggles around sexuality. It illustrates that learning about
specificities and differences and making a common cause between
dalit and African American women is significant for constructing
solidarity, outlining certain political possibilities, and fighting dif-
ferent forms of Brahmanism, in India, and white supremacy, in the
United States.52
By highlighting the possibilities of solidarity across gender and

race without erasing specificities and differences, Dalit Feminism
stresses on conversation rather than opposition. And it is in this
sense that understanding Dalit Feminism in terms of the idea of
difference makes it possible not merely to highlight the lacunae in
mainstream Indian Feminism or Dalit Politics, but also to show
how understanding the intersectionality of caste and gender may
lead to more productive conceptual conversations. The concept

of difference in Dalit Feminism goes beyond identifying ‘dalit
women’ as different from ‘women’ and ‘dalits,’ and extends to
building an affinity-based politics that recognizes the potentials of
the particular.
Another major contribution of the concept of difference in
Dalit Feminism is the identification of dual patriarchies: brah-
manical and dalit. The recognition of brahmanical and dalit
patriarchies has proved instrumental in highlighting the fact that
the oppression of Indian women is not one dimensional. Uma
Chakravarti defines brahmanical patriarchy as:
A set of rules and institutions in which caste and gender are linked,
each shaping the other and where women are crucial in maintaining
the boundaries between castes. Patriarchal codes in this structure
ensure that the caste system can be reproduced without violating
the hierarchical order of closed endogamous circles, each distinct
from and higher and lower than others. Further, brahmanical codes
for women differ according to the status of the caste group in the
hierarchy of castes with the most stringent control over sexuality
reserved as a privilege for the highest castes. Finally, it incorpo-
rates both an ideology of chaste wives and pativrata women who
are valorised, and a structure of rules and institutions by which
caste hierarchy and gender inequality are maintained through both
the production of consent and the application of coercion.53
Coded in the brahmanical prescriptive texts such as the

Manusmriti, the ideologies of brahmanical patriarchy are struc-
turally integrated into the caste system, setting different sets of
rules for upper-caste and dalit women in terms of sexuality, mar-
riage and labour.54 Interpreting patriarchy in the form of brah-
manical patriarchy becomes an enabling feature of dalit feminist
politics because the term ‘brahmanism’ accommodates different
categories of oppressive characteristics affecting different groups
of women. Dalit women writers like Bama and Sivakami in their
autobiographies Karukku and The Grip of Change, respectively, show

how systemic oppression of caste and gender function in simulta-
neity where dalit women face sexual and physical abuse not only
by upper-caste people but also by dalit men.
Dalit Politics has tried to bypass every claim of such occurrence
on the grounds that there is no notion called dalit patriarchy
because all dalits are oppressed. Even if there are traces of
patriarchal tyranny, they claim that it is brahmanical patriarchy
which should be blamed for suggesting models of domination to
dalit men. In Why I Am Not a Hindu, Kancha Ilaiah links women’s
oppression to brahmanical ritualistic practices and points out
that women in the dalit communities do not suffer similar kind of
patriarchal control as their upper-caste counterparts. He writes,
A Dalitbahujan woman does not have to perform padapuja (wor-

shiping the husband’s feet) to her husband either in the morning
or in the evening. She does not have to address her husband in the
way she would address a superior. In a situation of dispute, word in
response to word, and abuse for abuse is the socially visible norm.
Patriarchy as a system does exist among Dalitbahujan, yet in this
sense it is considerably more democratic.55
Ilaiah, while acknowledging the presence of patriarchy in dalit

communities, foregrounds it as being emancipatory in compari-
son to upper-caste patriarchy. Thus, dalit women are mentioned
solely in relation to brahmanical patriarchy to essentially highlight
their difference from upper-caste women. Gopal Guru emphasizes
this particular point as he writes: ‘Dalit men are reproducing the
same mechanisms against their women which their high-caste
adversaries had used to dominate them.’56 The surprising lack of
academic attention to this area also indicates the general consen-
sus of its non-existence. On the other hand, Challapalli Swaroopa
Rani maintains that the idea of dalit culture having a democratic
patriarchy is false. She writes,
If we come now to the issue of patriarchy, as the proverb goes, ‘the

size of the tree determines the force of the wind’, meaning that a
man will oppress those who depend upon him to the extent that
his power allows. As a dalit man doesn’t have in his hands the
same facilities that an upper-caste landlord does, he carries out
oppression within his own limits. But it is not true that democracy
is present in that patriarchal system.57
Swaroopa Rani notes that dalit women are ‘cruelly humiliated

in public places’ and they ‘face domestic violence and physical
problems’. She classifies dalit women’s oppression as ‘brahmani-
cal’ and ‘patriarchal’. She challenges this ‘democratic’ rendering
of dalit community by pointing that a dalit man ‘carries out the
oppression within his own limits’.58 Moreover, dalit patriarchy not
only exists in a powerful form, it often operates from within while
keeping itself veiled under the larger notion of the dalit as a sin-
gular, fixed category where caste becomes the only determining
factor of analysis.
By conceptualizing patriarchies in their multiplicity and placing
Brahmanism as the root cause, Dalit Feminism succinctly focuses
on the intersection of caste and gender and the need to approach
them simultaneously. Such analysis of patriarchies in its multiple
form changes the understanding of feminism as well.
The Dalit Feminist Position: Theorizing

‘Intersectional Standpoint’
While difference and dual patriarchies are the constituents of dalit

feminist theorization, Dalit Feminism, as mentioned earlier, also
challenges ghettoization. Hence, it becomes imperative to recog-
nize that Dalit Feminism as a politics is different from dalit women
the persons. This position (which I substantiate with the feminist
standpoint theory) becomes vital in creating an understanding
of the relationship between caste and gender through the concept
of casteist sexism. This is what formulates a dalit feminist intersec-

tional standpoint.
Dalit feminist intersectional standpoint begins by viewing caste
and gender as mutually intersecting. This intersectional perspec-
tive also makes it possible to bring in its intersectional purview
other systems, such as class and community. The simultaneity and
mutually constitutive intersection of these structures is used to
see how knowledge about monolithic categories and concepts as
developed by mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics gets
transformed.
Dalit feminist standpoint uses intersectionality as a tool. As
mentioned earlier, intersectionality is the study of intersections
between systems of oppression. This recognition, as Crenshaw
has pointed out, is crucial in social justice movements and legal
systems to rectify homogenization and is a more effective solution
for groups that are marginalized even within marginal groups,
such as women of colour.59 Intersectionality, however, as Suzanne
B. Goldberg notes, continues to be seen sceptically by critics.60
Despite the growing acceptance of intersectionality, especially
with the emergence of marginality politics, the concerns regard-
ing intersectionality as a methodology continue to be viewed
as the ‘infinite regress problem’ where coherence gets lost in
numerous particularities.61 This concern has been answered by
Catharine MacKinnon where she points at the enabling feature
of particularity in recognizing inter- and intra-categorical differ-
ences.62 This argument answers the accusation of ‘infinite regres-
sion’ by noting that intersectionality is not additive, and that by
acknowledging difference within groups intersectionality can, in
fact, help formulate an understanding that encompasses a larger
group rather than being restricted to one particular dominant
section of a marginal population. Intersectionality as a method
therefore foregrounds the need to recognize difference and build
solidarity, which may be accomplished through the development
of a standpoint.
In her introduction to The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader

Sandra Harding elaborates that a feminist standpoint analysis
may be seen to involve three processes. Firstly, a standpoint research
begins from women’s lived experiences and different activities
and from collective feminist discourses. Standpoint argues that
those in the marginalized position tend to express a more objective
view of reality than members of privileged groups. People outside
the dominant power structure are forced to adapt to the dominant
culture. They, therefore, know both sides of the scale; that of the
oppressor and the oppressed. This, in turn, leads to the second
process: recognizing that due to its more holistic perspective, the
marginalized standpoint helps avoid assumptions established by
dominant institutions and structures. Thirdly, standpoint under-
stands the conceptual practices of power by ‘studying up’. The
process of ‘studying up’ begins at the lower rung of hierarchy and
goes ‘up’ to understand how power works in a pecking order.63 As a
methodology, therefore, standpoint provides valuable resources to
social justice movements because it explains the hierarchical and
discriminatory nature of social relations which is usually ignored/
silenced in dominant epistemologies.
Harding writes, ‘The remedy for the inadequate philosophies of
science, epistemologies, and methodologies justifying and guiding
mainstream research … [is] to start off thought and research from
women’s experiences, lives, and activities (or labour) and from the
emerging collective feminist discourses.’64 Experience therefore
becomes the primary source from which knowledge for women
from women’s perspective is built. Harding points out that since
‘knowledge is based on experience’, it is through the material
lived experiences of the oppressed groups that a perspective about
the power relation between the dominant and the oppressed can
be developed.65 The process of knowing themselves and their
oppressor gives epistemic privilege to the oppressed to understand
how power functions.
Harding, however, understands that experience is always

socially and culturally mediated and conditioned by prevailing
ideologies. She recognizes that taking experience as the ground of
knowledge runs the risk of easily ascribing legitimacy and authen-
ticity to oppressed voices without any investigation of the frame-
works that structure these articulations. Furthermore, there is also
the problem of only a certain faction of the oppressed getting to
speak. Harding therefore proposes ‘political engagement’ as an
epistemological tool which helps recognize that experience, too,
is a product of power relations.66 This recognition not only helps
counter the problematics of essentialism, but also prevents privi-
leging one oppressed group’s experience over everyone else’s. In
the process, Harding questions the validity of experience as linked
to authenticity, making it clear instead, that a group successfully
transforms its experiences into a standpoint only when it learns ‘to
identify its distinctive opportunities to turn an oppressive feature
of the group’s conditions into a source of critical insight about
how the dominant society thinks and is structured’.67 Standpoint,
therefore, becomes the foundation of a politicized new knowledge
when it is used to understand and consciously intervene into domi-
nant knowledge systems.
As Dorothy E. Smith postulates, ‘As a theory [standpoint] is
a systematic formulation of a method of developing investiga-
tions of the social that are anchored in, although not confined
by, people’s everyday working knowledge of the doing of their
lives.’68 Smith views standpoint’s methodology of ‘working from
experience’ as a way to probe into the ‘forms of exploitation, of
patriarchy, of racial subordination, of the forms of dominance’.69
Smith, therefore, envisions standpoint as emerging from women’s
experiences to achieve a political understanding of the intercon-
nected frameworks of patriarchy, race and knowledge with respect
to women’s subordination. Hence, the agenda of feminist stand-
point is not merely archiving women’s life experiences, but to
understand how power structures enforce and retain hierarchies.
This is why Harding writes, ‘a standpoint cannot be thought of as

an ascribed position with its different perspective that oppressed
groups can claim automatically. Rather, a standpoint is an achieve-
ment, something for which the oppressed groups must struggle.’70
A dalit feminist standpoint has been similarly conceptualized
by Sharmila Rege. In her article, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently,’
as mentioned earlier, Rege describes dalit feminist standpoint as a
position where
The subject of its knowledge is embodied and visible (i.e., the

thought begins from the lives of dalit women and these lives are
present and visible in the results of the thought)… . It places
emphasis on individual experiences within socially constructed
groups and focuses on the hierarchical, multiple, changing struc-
tural power relations of caste, class, ethnicity, which construct
such groups. It is obvious that the subject/agent of dalit women’s
standpoint is multiple, heterogeneous—such a recognition under-
lines the fact that the subject of dalit feminist liberatory knowledge
must also be the subject of every other liberatory project and this
requires a sharp focus on the processes by which gender, race, class,
caste, sexuality—all construct each other. Thus we agree that the
dalit feminist standpoint itself is open to liberatory interrogations
and revisions.71
At the root of a dalit feminist standpoint is the awareness that

its marginalized position is significant in its ability to both inter-
vene and transform existing knowledge systems.72 Dalit feminist
standpoint, as conceptualized by Rege, valorizes marginality as a
resource and sees marginality as a politically achieved position.
This is the precise reason why in Dalit Feminism, the identity-
category ‘dalit woman’ becomes the constituency whose experi-
ences of simultaneously being oppressed by structures of caste and
gender becomes the starting point for achieving an intersectional
standpoint. It is significant to note that intersectionality functions
as the tool to formulate a dalit feminist standpoint. A dalit feminist
standpoint is a position that critically examines how intersections

function in relation to dominant power structures. It is this per-
spectival privilege through which dalit feminist intersectional
standpoint emerges as an effective tool to unravel the complex-
ities of dominant structures and challenge them. The following
chapters explore how we can utilize the intersectional standpoint
framework through a close textual reading.
Notes
1 M. Subramaniam. The Power of Women’s Organizing (2006): 59.
2 Ibid.: 60.
3 For a detailed account of the case see Radha Kumar, The History of Doing
(1993): 161–71. A gender-religion-community-based intersectional reading is
provided in Kumkum Sangari, ‘Politics of Diversity: Religious Communities
and Multiple Patriarchies,’ Part 1 (1995a): 3293–300.
4 John, ‘The Problem of Women’s Labour: Some Autobiographical
Perspectives’ (2015): 74; See also Banerjee, Sen and Dhawan, Mapping the
Field: Gender Relations in Contemporary India (2012): 5–6.
5 John, ‘The Problem of Women’s Labour’: 74; Banerjee, Sen and Dhawan
provide an elaborate analysis of the effects of a brahmanical nationalism
on women of different castes and classes. They write, ‘[The] debates over
social reform led to the imposition of marriage systems which eroded the
customary rights of poor, labouring and lower-caste women. They found
entry and exit into marriage more difficult. This, social reform and the shifts
in marriage regimes had the opposite effect on two classes of women; the
middle classes were able to defer marriage, access education and the public
world of employment and politics, while poor women found themselves less
able to access remunerated work, more trapped in marriages and in inten-
sive regimes of labour within marital households. The hierarchies of class
and caste overlapped; they cleaved and deepened differences between the
two groups of women’ (Ibid.: 6). The nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries’
social reform movements, therefore, whitewashed the difference among
women and reinforced caste hierarchy.
6 Subramaniam, The Power of Women’s Organizin): 59–60.
7 Atrey, ‘Women’s Human Rights: From Progress to Transformation, An
Intersectional Response to Martha Nussbaum’ (2018): 893.
8 Subramaniam, The Power of Women’s Organizing: 3.
9 Mahanta, ‘Transnational Activism and the Dalit Women’s Movement in
India’ (2012): 143.
10 Keck and Sikkink, ‘Transnational Advocacy Networks in International and

Regional Politics’ (1999): 93.
11 Mahanta, ‘Transnational Activism and the Dalit Women’s Movement in
India’ (2012): 145.
12 Hardtmann, The Dalit Movement in India (2009): 219.
13 Bhagwat, ‘Dalit Women: Issues and Perspectives—Some Critical
Reflections’ (1995): 4.
14 Pawar, ‘What Has the Dalit Movement Offered to Women?’ (1994): 94.
15 Crenshaw, ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and
Violence against Women of Color’ (1991): 1244.
16 Moraga and Anzaldúa, eds., This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical
Women of Color (1983); hooks, ‘ “Ain’t I a Woman?”: Black Women and Feminism
(1982); Cho, Crenshaw and McCall, ‘Toward a Field of Intersectionality
Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis’ (2013); Brah and Pheonix,
‘ “Ain’t I a Woman?” Revisiting Intersectionality’ (2004); Sharon Smith,
‘Black Feminism and Intersectionality’ (2018); Roth, Separate Roads to
Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America’s Second
Wave (2004).
17 McCall, ‘The Complexity of Intersectionality’ (2005): 1773.
18 Crenshaw, ‘Mapping the Margins: 1297.
19 Ibid.: 1242.
20 MacKinnon, ‘Intersectionality as Method: A Note’ (2013); Yuval-Davis,
‘Power, Intersectionality and the Politics of Belonging’ (2011); Verloo,
‘Intersectional and Cross-Movement Politics and Policies: Reflections
on Current Practices and Debates’ (2013); Kapilashrami et al., ‘Feminist
Movements and Gender Politics: Transnational Perspectives on
Intersectionality’ (2006).
21 Hacker, ‘Women as a Minority Group’ (1951): 60–61.
22 Lorde, ‘Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference’ (2005);
Collins, Black Feminist Thought (2000); Anzaldúa, Borderlands: La Frontera,
The New Mestiza (1987).
23 Moraga and Anzaldúa, eds., This Bridge Called My Back.
24 Zinn, Hondagneu-Sotelo, and Messner, eds., Gender Through the Prism of
Difference, 3rd ed. (2005): 3.
25 Combahee River Collective, ‘A Black Feminist Statement’ (1983): 211.
26 Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983): 231–32.
27 Springer, Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1960–1980
(2005): 35–36.
28 Lorde, ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House’
(1983): 99.
29 Menon, ‘Is Feminism about “Women”?’ A Critical View on Intersectionality
from India’ (2015).
30 Ibid.: 37.
31 The term is popularised by Kathy Davis in her article, ‘Intersectionality as

Buzzword’ (2008), where she observes that despite the confusion regarding
its open-endedness, intersectionality is a ‘good theory’ to explore complex
relations and structures.
32 According to Menon, intersectionality in India ‘goes back to the early
twentieth century and the legacy of anti-imperialist struggles in the
global South’ where multiple axes of identities have been recognized and
contested. See Menon, ‘Is Feminism about “Women”?’: 37–38.
33 Ibid.: 40.
34 Ibid.: 40–41.
35 John, ‘Intersectionality: Rejection or Critical Dialogue?’ (2015): 73.
36 Here the reference is made to the Shah Bano case. See above, n3.
37 John, ‘Intersectionality: Rejection or Critical Dialogue?’: 74.
38 Banerjee and Ghosh (2018) argue that intersectionality as a methodology
has been more prevalent in the anti-caste politics propounded by Phule,
Ambedkar and Periyar who recognized the myriad ways in which caste
and nation-state, caste and gender function (see Banerjee and Ghosh,
‘Introduction. Debating Intersectionalities: Challenges for a Methodological
Framework’, 2018: 4–6). This recognition, however, did not prevail in later
Dalit Politics. Dalit women activists have repeatedly pointed at the erasure/
ignorance of gender in Dalit Politics. While Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar
do invoke gender, Dalit Politics as we see it now recovers gender only in
the sphere of anti-casteism. Even when Dalit historiography mentions
individual dalit women, they are added as exceptions. A case in point is
Dalit History Month, an online repository. It is a collective attempt to
gather ‘history from Dalits around the world’ with the purpose of changing/
challenging ‘the savarna narrative of our experience as one solely of
atrocity into one that is of our own making … [and] continue forward by
emphasizing our assertion and resistance’. Retrieved April 27, 2018, from
http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/423929/Dalit-History-Month/.
39 Pawar, ‘What Has the Dalit Movement Offered to women?’ (1994); Rani,
‘Caste Domination Male Domination’ (2013); Raj, ‘Dalit Women as Political
Agents: A Kerala Experience’ (2013); Lata P. M., ‘Silenced by Manu and
‘Mainstream’ Feminism: Dalit-Bahujan Women and their History’ (2015);
Guru, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’ (1995); Rege, ‘Dalit Women
Talk Differently: A Critique of Difference and Towards a Dalit Feminist
Standpoint Position’ (1998a).
40 NFDW, ‘Declaration of the National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW)
in its VIII National Convention’ (26th June 2009).
41 Hereafter referred to as DMS.
42 DMS. The Dalit Women’s Movement in India (2008): 11.
43 MacKinnon, ‘Intersectionality as Method: A Note’ (2013): 1026.
44 DMS, The Dalit Women’s Movement in India: 12.
45 Guru, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’: 2548–49.

46 Rege, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently:’ 39. In identifying the pitfalls of
exclusivist politics in Western Feminism and feminisms of colour Cherrie
Moraga notes two tendencies. She states how on the one hand White
Feminism ignores the racism factor by claiming, ‘Well, we’re open to
all women; why don’t they (women of color) come? You can only do so
much…’ On the other hand, ‘women of color and working-class women
often shrink from challenging white middle-class women.’ While the
former strategically ignores racism latent within White feminism, the latter
highlights a coping mechanism created by the oppressed group to live in
fear, because as Moraga observes, ‘It is much easier to rank oppressions
and set up a hierarchy, rather than take responsibility for changing our
own lives.’ In both cases, then, women of colour continue to get erased.
Hence Moraga emphasizes on creating dialogues across feminist groups
and breaking silence. She writes, ‘We women need each other. Because
my/your solitary, self-asserting “go-for-the-throat-of-fear” power is not
enough. The real power, as you and I well know, is collective.’ From
‘La Guera’ in Moraga and Anzaldúa eds., This Bridge Called My Back: Writings
by Radical Women of Color (1983): 33–34.
47 Laura Brueck (2014) gives the example of Dalit Lekhak Sangh, an
organization comprising of Hindi dalit writers, which perceived the
issues of dalit women as ‘divisive’ and as hindrance to ‘the construction
of a collective Dalit public identity’. Brueck points out that many women
writers of the Dalit Lekhak Sangh felt that they were ‘marginalized within
the [dalit] counterpublic discourse … [and were] frequently made to
feel under attack by male writers who construe[d] feminist expression as
aggression toward Dalit men and as a divisive influence on the counter
public identity’. Brueck, Writing Resistance: The Rhetorical Imagination of Hindi
Dalit Literature (2014): 38–39.
48 DMS,. The Dalit Women’s Movement in India): 8.
49 Manorama, ‘Background Information on Dalit Women in India’ (Retrieved
September 20, 2018).
50 Ibid.
51 Kandasamy, ‘On Caste and Patriarchy: An Interview with Ruth Manorama’
(2007).
52 Paik, ‘Building Bridges: Articulating Dalit and African American Women’s
Solidarity’ (2014): 92.
53 Chakravarti, Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens (2003): 34.
54 The Manusmriti (translated into English by Doniger and Smith as The Laws
of Manu) is an ancient Sanskrit legal treatise that provides extensive dicta
on laws pertaining people of each caste and gender. The casteist sexist
attitude is visible in the Manusmriti through its strict dicta on endogamy.
With reference to marriage among upper castes, the Manusmriti states: ‘a
twice-born man should marry a wife who is of the same class and has the
right marks’ (p. 43). It further narrates that a husband’s duty is to ‘guard’
his wife by keeping her within the house (p. 198) and a wife’s duty is to
be ‘worthy’ of the husband, beget children and rear them (200). Such
extensive inventory of qualities of women is made by keeping upper-caste
women as the parameters. Stringent rules of endogamy were imposed on
upper-caste women in order to maintain purity of blood (Chakravarti,
Gendering Caste, 2003: 66–68 The Manusmriti states that any deviation
from these rules—in terms of exogamy—was severely punished (189–93).
Even there a gradation followed according to caste. Thus, upper-caste men
having sexual union with lower-caste women were punished monetarily
(193), whereas lower-caste men having sexual union with upper-caste
women were punished both monetarily and corporeally which ranged
from dismembering to being ‘burnt up in a grass fire’ (192). The severity
of punishments on lower-caste men owed to the brahmanical patriarchal
fear of the mixing of blood. In a patrilineal, patriarchal society, a child born
of a lower-caste man and an upper-caste woman was a problem due to his/
her undetermined caste identity. Since children (sons) were progenies who
also owned their fathers’ property, it was important to ensure the child’s
paternity. It is for these reasons that upper-caste women were kept within
the house to retain control over their sexuality. This is a clear example
of brahmanical patriarchy. See Doniger and Smith eds., The Laws of Manu
(1991).
55 Ilaiah, Why I Am Not a Hindu (1996): 34.
56 Guru, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’: 2549.
57 Rani, ‘Caste Domination Male Domination’ (2013): 707–08.
58 Ibid.: 708.
59 Crenshaw, ‘Mapping the Margins’: 1242–45.
60 Goldberg,’ Intersectionality in Theory and Practice’ (2009): 124–26.
61 Ehrenreich, ‘Subordination and Symbiosis: Mechanisms of Mutual Support
Between Subordinating Systems’ (2002): 267.
62 MacKinnon, ‘Intersectionality as Method: A Note’: 1026.
63 Harding, ‘Introduction: Standpoint Theory as a Site of Political, Philosophic,
and Scientific Debate’ (2004): 1–10.
64 Ibid.: 6.
65 Ibid.: 7.
66 Ibid.: 6.
67 Ibid.: 7.
68 Smith, ‘Comment on Hekman’s “Truth and Method”: Feminist Standpoint
Theory Revisited’ (2004): 267.
69 Ibid.: 266–68.
and Scientific Debate’ (2004): 8.
71 Rege, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently: 45.

72 In the advocacy of marginalization as a valuable perspectival position, Dalit
Feminism aligns with black feminist standpoint as conceptualized by Chela
Sandoval in her article, ‘U.S. Third World Feminism’ (1991) and bell hooks
in ‘Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness’ (2004). bell hooks
sees margin as a ‘space of radical openness’ which enables black women
to formulate an oppositional consciousness for survival and resistance
(2004: 153).
2
Being a ‘Dalit Woman’
I need a language
Still afloat in the womb
Which no one has spoken so far
Which is not conveyed through signs and gestures.
It will be open and honourable,
Not hiding in my torn underclothes.
It will contain a thousand words
Which won’t stab you in the back
As you pass by.1
T hese lines are from a poem titled, ‘Infant Language’, by

Sukirtharani, which opens onto the core framework of this
chapter, identity. It represents the poet’s quest for an ‘infant
language’ hitherto unspoken. The pursuit for a new language is
a recurrent method approached by writers and scholars of non-
mainstream literatures. While Cixous has popularized the concept
of ‘l’écriture feminine’ in women’s writing in the West,2 Marathi
dalit writers like Namdeo Dhasal have used slang as a power-
ful tool to voice their rage and create awareness and discomfort
among the readers about caste.3 What makes dalit women writers’
47
search for a new ‘language’ different from that of feminists and

dalit writers is their expression of their experiences of oppression
simultaneously by caste and gender. The poem quoted above is
part of Wild Words, a collection specifically catering to challenge
‘the traditional values prescribed for the ‘Good’ Tamil woman and
instead highlights ‘the opposite virtues of fearlessness, outspoken-
ness and a ceaseless questioning of prescribed rules.’4 Language,
therefore, becomes the mode to challenge normative casteist
sexism and unearths voices hitherto hidden or ignored. As such,
in this poem, ‘Infant Language,’ language is used as a metaphor to
articulate the ‘self.’ In this case, a specific ‘dalit woman self’.
The ‘self’ represented in the poem marks the poet’s transition
from a scared dalit woman ‘hiding in my torn underclothes’ to a
resistant speaker whose voice is ‘open and honourable’. Her ‘torn
underclothes’ indicate violent rape; a common occurrence for
dalit women who are routinely gang raped due to the brahmanical
assumption of dalit women being impure, lustful and sexually
available for use. The poet, however, challenges this pre-given
stigma and denies to be identified only by her ‘torn underclothes’.
She asserts that her letters of her ‘alphabet’, ‘sticky with blood’,
are intended to scare those who oppressed her. In the process,
it is not only the poet’s own narrative that is framed through an
‘infant language’, but also the formulations of specific caste and
gender oppression on dalit women and dalit women’s assertion of
their own voice. The infant language challenges innocence that
is predominantly associated with infanthood and shows how
the poet’s own innocence is marred by her ‘torn underclothes’. The
poem, therefore, foregrounds the caste and gender intersection
as having specific impact on dalit women’s oppression. It is this
specificity that goes in the making of a dalit woman’s identity.
As mentioned earlier, Dalit Feminism proclaims its difference
from mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics by recog-
nizing caste and gender as intersectional, and thereby identifying
its constituency, that is, ‘dalit woman’, as different from ‘woman’
Being a ‘Dalit Woman’ 49
and ‘dalit’ as defined by mainstream feminism and Dalit Politics

respectively. What then is the identity of ‘dalit woman’ as con-
ceived by Dalit Feminism? The answer to this question is explored
through an examination of how dalit women’s ‘selfhood,’ under-
stood through the self-representations of their intersectional iden-
tity, challenges the single-axis identity proclaimed by mainstream
Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics. This exploration is made by
foregrounding the issues that emerge through this intersectional
understanding of caste and gender: domesticity and sexuality,
education, and emancipation, which, however, are not specific
only to the self-articulations by dalit women. They also inform
and formulate the identities constructed by mainstream Indian
Feminism and Dalit Politics. Since this mapping is intended to
highlight Dalit Feminism’s conceptualization of caste and gender
in contradistinction to mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit
Politics, I opt for a comparative study to see how these issues are
represented in all three theorizations.
To focus on the notion of selfhood and identity, I incorpo-
rate autobiographies for textual analysis. Associated with arti-
culations of the self, the genre autobiography is used by various
marginal groups as a powerful tool to make visible the identities
of those who are repressed or unheard by/in mainstream society
and literature. Expressing these voices thus entails not only the
recovery and reclamation of hitherto suppressed identities, but
also an intervention into dominant representations and notions
of the self. This oppositional stance is visible in autobiographies
canonised by mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics that
challenge patriarchy and Brahmanism respectively. However, their
construction of single-axis identities for ‘woman’ and ‘dalit’ largely
erases dalit women. Dalit women’s autobiographies highlight the
specificity of caste and gender-based intersectional oppression
while also focusing on the dual forms of patriarchies: brahmanical
and dalit. How do dalit women construct their identities in ways
that are different from ‘Indian women’ and ‘dalit’? I explore what
kind of issues emerge through dalit women’s autobiographies that

are distinct.
Let me give a brief outline of ‘selfhood’ as constructed
through autobiographies and elucidate oppositional approaches
propounded through autobiographies canonised by Western
Feminism and Dalit Politics. I invoke black feminist theorizing
of black women’s autobiographies to substantiate how intersec-
tional identity poses a challenge to ‘woman’ and ‘black’ as con-
ceptualized by White Feminism and Dalit Politics respectively.
I then analyse autobiographies canonised by mainstream Indian
Feminism, Dalit Politics, and Dalit Feminism to show the different
constructions of ‘woman’, ‘dalit’ and ‘dalit woman’ in terms of the
relationship between self and society. This exploration is made by
foregrounding the issues that emerge through this intersectional
understanding of caste and gender: domesticity and sexuality,
education and emancipation. These issues are not specific only
to the self-articulations by dalit women—they also inform and for-
mulate the identities constructed by mainstream Indian Feminism
and Dalit Politics. Since Dalit Feminism propounds its politics
in contradistinction to mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit
Politics, it often revisits and revises the events and issues raised
by the latter two. In such situations, we may find several over-
laps in the concerns expressed by mainstream Indian Feminism,
Dalit Politics and Dalit Feminism. I especially draw upon these
overlaps because this mapping is intended to highlight how the
‘dalit woman’ that dalit women’s autobiographies create is dif-
ferent from the ‘woman’ and the ‘dalit’ constituted by the earlier
canonised autobiographies. Thus I disentangle the problematics
of caste and gender intersection in the creation of dalit woman’s
identity as opposed to the predominant view of their exclusivity.
I aim to explore the following questions: what kinds of knowledge
emerge from all three positions of mainstream Indian Feminism,
Dalit Politics and Dalit Feminism? How does the intersectional
lens of caste and gender bring about a new/different understanding
of the same issues? What kinds of ‘self’ (‘woman’, ‘dalit’ and ‘dalit
woman’) do we see emerging from this reading of autobiographies?
Autobiography and the Notion of Selfhood
The importance of autobiography in representing the identity of

the narrator lies in the authorial injunction. Defining autobio-
graphy as a ‘retrospective prose narrative written by a real person
concerning his own existence, where the focus is his individual
life, in particular the story of his personality’, Philippe Lejeune
postulates that
by bringing up the problem of the author, autobiography brings

to light phenomena that fiction leaves in doubt: in particular the
fact that there can be identity of the narrator and the principal
character in the case of narration ‘in the third person’. This
identity, no longer being established within the text by the use
of ‘I’ is established indirectly, but without any ambiguity, by the
double equation: author = narrator, and author = character, from
which it is deduced that narrator=character even if the narrator
remains implicit.5
The major contentions of autobiographies written by male authors

from the dominant sections of society are the establishment of the
individual ‘self’ and its authenticity. In a specified cultural realm,
autobiography thus aims to present the individual self. In a femi-
nist critique of the postulation on autobiography as a model of
separate and unique selfhood, Susan Stanford Friedman argues,
‘First, the emphasis on individualism does not take into account
the importance of group identity for women and minorities.
Second, the emphasis on separateness ignores the differences in
socialization in the construction of male and female gender iden-
tity.’ 6 The idea of selfhood in Western men’s autobiographies does
not take into account the role of collective identities propounded
by feminists and minorities, and ignores the structural differences
that construct and shape identities based on gender, race, and

other minority positions. Anglo-American women’s autobiogra-
phies celebrate femalehood as a challenge to the predominance of
masculinity. As a corollary of such feminist theorization, women’s
autobiographies deal with issues that specifically concern women.
Due to their focus on ‘women’s lives’ women’s autobiographies
have been seen as rich sites exploring negotiations and resistances
that go in the making of the female self.7
Women’s autobiographies, then, emerge as a resistance to
the male ‘self’ which was normative in autobiographical articu-
lation. Women autobiographers negotiate with that normative
selfhood through their own self-constitution by emphasizing
women’s issues, by highlighting relationality and thereby claim-
ing agency. Women’s autobiographies emphasize the personal
and the relational in contrast to the individualized ‘self’ of men’s
autobiographies. Postulating the importance of women’s auto-
biographies in feminist constructions of subjectivity, Smith and
Watson write:
Processes of subject formation and agency occupy theorists of

narrative and, indeed, of culture as never before. If feminism has
revolutionized literary and social theory, the texts and theory of
women’s autobiography have been pivotal for revising our con-
cepts of women’s life issues—growing up female, coming to voice,
affiliation, sexuality and textuality, the life cycle. Crucially, the
writing and theorizing of women’s lives has often occurred in texts
that place an emphasis on collective processes while questioning
the sovereignty and universality of the solitary self.8
Two things that become important in feminist theorization of

women’s autobiographies are firstly, the emphasis on the notions
of women’s issues, and secondly, emphasis on relationality. The
concept of relationality is propounded by Nancy Chodorow in
her reformulation of the category ‘woman’ by invoking sexual
difference.9 Chodorow makes a valuable contribution by analysing
‘basic sex difference in personality’ among boys and girls, and

pointing out that ‘feminine personality comes to define itself in
relation and connection to other people more than masculine
personality does… . [In other words] women are less individuated
than men and have more flexible ego boundaries’.10 Feminine
experiential self therefore is rooted in relationality as opposed
to that of the male who is alienated. Self-construction through
autobiographical narratives becomes a way to challenge prescribed
normative identities. For marginalized groups such as women,
autobiographical narratives which claim to create the self, become
the tools for fashioning their identity. Harlene Anderson defines
self-agency as ‘the ability to behave, feel, think, and choose in a way
that is liberating’.11 The idea of autobiography as liberating self-
creation, therefore, is linked to both a non-normative notion of
selfhood (the relational idea) and the emphasis on women’s issues
as distinct and worthy of attention.
This notion of articulation being linked to liberating selfhood
was the reason why autobiographical narratives flourished in
Black Politics as well. While a challenge to patriarchy underpins
women’s autobiographies, the experience of racial discrimination
informs autobiographies by black writers. According to Paul
Gilroy, these autobiographies ‘express in the most powerful way
a tradition of writing in which autobiography becomes an act
or process of simultaneous self-creation and self-emancipation’.12
Kenneth Mostern defines autobiography as a ‘process’ which
enables ‘an articulation based on determinate memory and recall
of experience via the lens of traumatically constrained ideology, to
describe the continuing racialization of politics’.13 Autobiographies
by black writers, as Mostern elaborates, showcase ‘personal stories
as a means of theorising their political positions’.14 Being reflective
of their politics, the subjects of their autobiographies do not
conform to the idea of an alienated ‘self’ (as claimed by white male
autobiographers), being rooted instead in the community.15 To
quote from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in black autobiographies ‘the
narrated, descriptive “eye” was put into service as a literary form

to posit both the individual “I” of the black author as well as the
collective “I” of the race’.16
Black feminists, however, have questioned both ‘woman’ and
‘black’ as constituted in autobiographies by white women and black
writers. Their emphasis on the relationality and the collective
involves its own homogenization and erasure. These autobiogra-
phies create a sense of selfhood that is homogeneous, and as such,
they create their own normativity that excludes the specificity of
black woman’s sense of selfhood.
To counter the alienation, otherization and invisibilization of
women of colour, black feminists turn to narratives by women
of colour as their starting point. Barbara Smith expresses her
anxiety at finding existing theories by feminism and anti-racism
inadequate to understand black women’s writing ‘which goes
beyond anything that either black men or white women experi-
ence and tell about in their writing’.17 Hence, Smith embarks on
a mission to formulate a black feminist criticism that would be
able to properly identify and substantiate intersectional selfhood.
She writes, ‘A black feminist approach to literature that embodies
the realization that the politics of sex as well as the politics of race
and class are crucially interlocking factors in the works of black
women writers is an absolute necessity.’18 According to Smith,
writings by black women narrating their lives directly contribute
in constructing a ‘viable, autonomous black feminist movement’
which in turn redefines and revises the goals and strategies of the
feminist and anti-racist movements.19
Similarly, in the case of dalit women’s autobiographies, inter-
sectionality of caste and gender and the notion of dual patriarchies
provide a different knowledge about dalit women. This is evident
through a comparative exploration of how selfhood gets articulated
differently in autobiographies canonised by mainstream Indian
Feminism, Dalit Politics and Dalit Feminism.
Constructing the ‘Woman’
In Anglo-American feminist theorization, women’s autobio-

graphies are seen as an enabling mode that revises the notions
about what are the issues that women face, and emphasizes the
collective which cannot be subsumed within the individual which
is most often male. Women’s autobiographies have also been read
as rich sites exploring negotiations and resistances that go in the
making of identity for the self. The autobiographical explora-
tion of identity as socially constructed foregrounds two images of
women: a dominant image dictated for women to follow, and an
alternative image constructed by women themselves. As Sheila
Rowbotham points out,
But always we were split in two, straddling silence, not sure where
we would begin to find ourselves or one another. From this divi-
sion, our material dislocation, came the experience of one part of
ourselves as strange, foreign and cut off from the other which we
encountered as tongue-tied paralysis about our own identity. We
were never all together in one place, were always in transit, immi-
grants into alien territory… . The manner in which we knew our-
selves was at variance with ourselves as an historical being-woman.20
This contradiction creates a division amongst ‘the self as cultur-

ally defined and the self as different from cultural prescription’.21
Rowbotham, however, finds in this duality a potential for a ‘new
consciousness’ that allows negotiation and resistance to take place.
Similar to Du Bois’ conceptualization of ‘double consciousness’
for blacks living in dominant white culture, Rowbotham’s under-
standing of the invisibility and silencing of women in patriarchal
society throws light on the alienation of marginalized identities.
This awareness of alienation urges the autobiographical narratives
from the margins to establish a self that is fraught with the duality
of identity and that which claims agency through negotiation and/
or resistance.
Exploring the ways in which the identity of ‘woman’ is con-

structed and contested, I look at autobiographies canonised by
mainstream Indian Feminism. The bifurcation of identity, in gen-
dered terms, arose in India during the colonial period with the
social reformist agenda of fashioning the ‘new woman’ who would
become the role model of modern, independent, non-Western,
nationalist India. The ‘order of gender’, as J. Devika puts it, was
projected to be an ideal social ordering maintained through clear
demarcations between gender roles. Men were posited in the
external realm of the public, political, economic, and intellectual,
and women were supposed to ‘naturally assume’ the role of an
efficient homemakers and true ‘partners’ of the men.22 In order
to maintain this ‘natural’ binary, women’s education aimed to
develop a modern individual who would be able to conform to the
‘idealized modern gendered subjectivities’. The modern women,
‘culled out of the traditional order’ and created to be ‘free from
bondage to tradition’, were to exist ‘as the guardian[s] of the home
and hearth … in a relation of complementarity with Man’.23
The nineteenth century becomes an interesting starting point
to examine the constitution of ‘woman’ because on the one hand
tracts were being written dictating modes of behaviour for young
and educated women, and on the other hand there was an upsurge
of women writers narrating their life histories. The juxtaposi-
tion of the ‘official construction of femininity’ (defined in terms of
chastity, obedience, and docility), with the personal narratives
of women, presents more than one construction of femininity.24
The notion of constructed identity (as opposed to fixed, given
identity) shows that ‘woman’ is not a fixed category. A reading
of women’s autobiographies belonging to different times would
throw light not only on the dominant constructions of ‘woman’
from the nineteenth century but also on the strategies of self-
fashioning and self-reconstruction by these women.
For this purpose, the autobiographies that I have chosen are
Rassundari Devi’s Amar Jiban (My Life) (1876) and Kamala Das’s
My Story (1977) which are considered exemplary texts in the history

of Indian Feminism. The question that drives Ranjana Harish to
read women’s autobiographies is ‘how did they differ from men,
especially in their autobiographical writing?’25 Autobiographies
of women, therefore, have been seen in contrast to that of men
and have reformulated the ‘I’ as relational and personal/domestic.
Women’s autobiographies in India have significantly contributed
in creating a feminist insight into notions of patriarchy, and
the contours of femininity/masculinity, from the perspective of
women. Their personal narratives reflect an emergence of polit-
ical consciousness about the systemic disadvantages experienced
in lived realities, thereby creating a scope to seek social justice.
My reading goes beyond the examination of dominant representa-
tions of ‘woman’ and the subsequent challenges put forth by the
women autobiographers, and examines the identities that get sub-
sumed or silenced within this overarching, homogenized catego-
rization. Identifying the identity ‘woman’ as ‘mutable’ and rooted
in difference, I urge a continual revising of the Indian feminist
discourses of selfhood and conceptualization of its constituency,
that is, ‘woman’.
Amar Jiban (1876)

Written at the moment of the burgeoning nationalist reconstruc-
tion of the ‘new woman,’ Rassundari Devi’s autobiography, Amar
Jiban, was lauded by nineteenth-century male writers and critics
for staying within the prescribed boundaries of the ‘private’ and
for representing the concerns about education that went into
the making of a bhadramahila (gentlewoman). In the preface to
Amar Jiban Jyotirindranath Tagore validates the book by saying
that ‘even though it is written by a woman, it is worth reading’.
In the introduction, Dinesh Chandra Sen further corroborates
this statement by writing: ‘This autobiography should not be
ignored as a personal narrative. It is an authentic portrait of an old
Hindu woman. Through her simple writing, she presents a picture

of the society. Amar Jiban is not just about Rassaundari; it is the
story of all Hindu women.’26 Rassundari is praised for being a
true modern Hindu woman defined in terms of her qualities as
a homemaker, strong religiosity, and interest in education.
The autobiography, therefore, negotiates with the national-
ist construction of ‘woman’. Partha Chatterjee postulates, these
nineteenth-century autobiographies focused on ‘the facts of social
history and the development of new cultural norms for the col-
lective life of the nation, rather than the exploration of indi-
viduality and the inner workings of the personality’.27 Inscribing
the ‘individual’ within the narrative of the nation became an act
of reclamation of citizenship that was denied by the colonial
regime. Such reclamation entailed a restructuring of the world by
dividing it into the outer material world and the inner spiritual
world. The former represented the colonial rule and the latter
‘became the site for the development of an indigenous identity
through the hegemonic discourse of nationalism’.28 Mathur goes
on to explain that since ‘this nationalist ideology was inscribed
primarily on the body of the woman, who was deliberately re-
fashioned during this period to become the embodiment of an
inviolable “Indian” identity, the notion of subjectivity in women’s
autobiography was tied, even more so than in the men’s, to the life
of the nation’.29 The over-determining presence of the nationalist
question in Indian women’s life histories, however, did not always
ascertain an unquestioned acceptance of patriarchal nationalisms.
As Vina Mazumdar points out, although the nineteenth-century
women’s autobiographies were seen to be representing the social
condition of its times where women were the ‘observers’ rather
than participants in social change, their writings, in fact, urged
the readers ‘for a fresh look at the social ideology and gender
relations of “an unequal stratified society”.’30 Nineteenth-century
women’s autobiographies are analysed from a feminist point of
view as representing an image of ‘woman’ that is different from the

dominant representations.
Amar Jiban has been read by feminists as foregrounding women’s
issues such as marriage and education from a woman’s perspec-
tive. Malavika Karlekar explores the agential subjectivity as con-
structed through Rassundari Devi’s re-defining of antahpur or the
inner world.31 Antahpur, or the secluded domestic realm, was
a vital location which helped sustain the male world and also
organized a rigid, gendered internal hierarchy. Karlekar writes,
‘A primary role of the antahpur vis-à-vis the man’s world was one
of ensuring ritual purity for the family. It included strict adherence
to rules of commensality, provided physical sustenance as well
as sexual services.’32 She further mentions that the nineteenth-
century ‘antahpur was symbolic of the physical and emotional
experiences of its members. It was the world of the aturghar or
lying-in room, rituals or bratas, an endless repertoire of food
items being prepared according to specific rules. An in-marrying
woman’s identity was shaped and organized by the norms of the
antahpur dictated usually by senior female affines.’33 Rassundari
Devi’s marriage at the age of twelve brought her directly into the
realm of the antahpur which was so far alien to her in contrast
to her mother’s house. Although Rassundari writes about her
mother-in-law in loving words,34 she likens her married life to
being in a prison: ‘People imprison birds for their own delight.
My condition is the same. I was also locked within the cage for
the rest of my life.’35 According to Karlekar, Rassundari Devi
defies the dictations of antahpur in two ways: by identifying it
as a restrictive space and through her quest for God (whom she
calls Parameshwar) that leads her to do the activities prohibited to
women, namely, reading and writing.
In such troublesome conditions, the only thing that keeps
her going is her undaunted faith in Parameshwar and her desire
to learn how to read and write. Tanika Sarkar, in her reading
of Amar Jiban, argues that the invocation of God highlights ‘the

social making’ of gender roles that define boundaries for women;
Rassundari refers to the social order as a part of God’s design, ‘but
she does, nonetheless, have a clear sense of the social making of
it’.36 Underlying Rassundari’s repeated claim that it is God who
is shaping her destiny, is her awareness that all the duties that
are assigned to women are social mandates. Sarkar adds, ‘On
certain issues, [Rassundari] speaks in a declamatory voice, where
she describes the painful consequences of social regulations. She,
clearly, is addressing a modern readership here which is already
debating these matters: on women’s education, about the restric-
tions of old times, about the relentless pressure of domestic labour,
the problems of motherhood.’37 According to Sarkar, therefore,
Rassundari’s autobiography reflects acute consciousness about
the Indian woman as a patriarchal construct. Her experience is
not an automatic process; it is a political understanding arrived
at through lifelong struggle. It is this consciousness that makes
her realize that men and women occupy differing and skewed
positions in society and within the house.38
Amar Jiban also challenges the idea of the individual created in
male autobiographies by invoking the autobiographical subject
in relational terms. In Amar Jiban, Rassundari’s life revolves
around the people in her family. This corresponds to Chodorow’s
idea that while men are encouraged to express themselves as
individuals, independent from familial ties, women grow up within
families, learning to relate themselves to different communities.
According to Meena Sodhi, ‘A woman’s autobiography generally
focuses on the various relationships like those with her parents,
her siblings and later with her spouse, children and her mother-
in-law. This last is a typical characteristic of an Indian woman
autobiographer… . But a man’s autobiography is mainly concerned
with his success story, his achievements in his life, and very rarely
does he give a vivid account of his wife and children.’39
What seems to dominate the feminist readings of Amar Jiban

is the gendered re-interpretation of ‘woman’ specifically in the
spheres of domesticity, marriage and education. Rassundari is
seen to portray an alternative identity of ‘woman’ who is not a
mute observer but has the ability to critically understand women’s
oppression and defy the norms by learning to read and write.
Although the act of writing an autobiography brings Rassundari’s
private life out in the public, she does not necessarily challenge
the public/private dichotomy. Karlekar claims that Rassundari’s
agency comes when she converts the antahpur, a realm where
gender hierarchies are at play, into a location to negotiate with the
outer world. Rassundari however does not step out of the antah-
pur. Her resistance remains within the kitchen where she hides
the leaves of Chaitanya Bhagwat. In this way, the negotiatory iden-
tity of ‘woman’, that Rassundari creates, retains the dictations of
gender. This becomes visible through her invocation of God which
serves a dual purpose: it validates her thirst for knowledge and
retains the boundaries within which she seeks knowledge. Despite
her critique of patriarchal regulations for women, Rassundari
retains the gender hierarchy within her family. She repeatedly
mentions that although her venture into education began as a
solo journey, the ultimate success came with the guidance of
her sons. She in fact erases the ‘public’ and ‘material’ aspects to
education by arguing that knowledge is not just about earning
money, it is about exploration of the inner being.40 In this way, she
domesticizes education.
Amar Jiban problematizes the universalized images of pre-con-
structed and re-constructed ‘woman’ strictly defined in terms of
modern nationalized ideologies. The autobiography, however,
depicts the ‘woman’ as representing a single group of women
in India. The ideologies of chastity, purity and obedience, that
Amar Jiban enforces, are specific to the upper-caste and upper-
class families that Rassundari belonged to.41 Sumanta Banerjee
points out how the central focus on women in the antahpur (which
he calls andarmahal) hides the vast majority of working women:
‘either self-employed [women] like naptenis, sweepers, owners of
stalls selling vegetables or fish, street singers and dancers, maid-
servants, or women employed by mercantile firms dealing in seed
produce, mustard, linseed, etc.’42 What gets erased in Rassundari’s
identification of dominant representation of ‘woman’ and her
self-construction of the same is the difference among women
based on class and caste.43 Rassundari belongs to an upper-caste
upper-class landlord family who enjoys class privilege (in the sense
that she does not need to provide economically for her family).
She mentions that the possibility of women going out for work
and earn money was considered a ‘shame’ on the entire family.44
In fact, the binaries of internal/external, home/world depended
on marking the former as the ‘spiritual’ in which the ‘new women’
resided as opposed to the latter ‘material’ world of men. The prev-
alence of ‘ideal womanhood’ as equated to restricted domesticity,
therefore, naturally devalued the lower-class lower-caste women,
who participated in work outside their house, as ‘impure’ and
‘inferior.’ Partha Chatterjee writes,
The ‘new’ woman was quite the reverse of the ‘common’ woman
who was coarse, vulgar, loud, quarrelsome, devoid of superior
moral sense, sexually promiscuous, subjected to brutal physical
oppression by males… . It was precisely this degenerate condition
of women which nationalism claimed it would reform, and it was
through these contrasts that the new woman of nationalist ideol-
ogy was accorded a status of cultural superiority to the westernized
women of the wealthy parvenu families spawned by the colonial
connection as well as the common women of the lower classes.45
Although Amar Jiban recognizes the restriction on women from

going out to work as being patriarchal, the text does not question
or challenge it. Moreover, Amar Jiban completely silences the
maids in Rassundari’s house who are merely mentioned in terms of

the number of workers in the house.46 Such erasure of lower-class
lower-caste women highlights that the ‘woman’ that Amar Jiban
constructs is implicitly an upper-caste upper-class woman.
My Story (1977)
Kamala Das’s My Story remains a stalwart in Indian feminist liter-
ature for providing a new representation of the ‘woman’ quite dif-
ferent from its nineteenth-century predecessor. In the mainstream
male-dominated literary circles, Kamala Das’s autobiography was
deemed unfit since, unlike the works of well-known Indian male
autobiographers, it is seen to delve too much into the realm of
the personal. In a review published in World Literature Today, E. V.
Ramakrishna maintains,
My Story describes a life of frolicking in sex… . Sincerity, valuable

though it is in itself, can enrich an autobiography only if it has
a social and cultural frame of reference. The autobiographies of
Andre Malraux, Arthur Koestler, Simone de Beauvoir and Nirad
C. Chowdhuri have validity beyond that of mere sincerity because
they identify themselves with ideas which are beyond the merely
personal. Kamala Das studies her life in relation to itself. She has
no sense of anything real beyond her own ego.47
Interestingly, these alleged limitations of this autobiography high-

light the much ignored realms of the personal and the body which
constitute two dominant strands in Indian Feminism. My Story
came out at a time when women’s social reformation had already
taken place under the rubric of nationalism and the modernized
form of gender was suited to fit newly emerging institutions such
as the modern family. In this modern avatar, the ideal woman, as
Devika argues, was supposed to be an amalgamation of ‘domestic
woman’ and ‘aesthetic woman’. Devika writes,
While the former was the provider of progeny, the manager

of material and the guardian of souls in the modern home, the
aesthetic woman had a function which was almost in antipathy to
this. The aesthetic woman was the provider of pleasure, she who
cemented modern conjugality through ensuring pleasure.48
In My Story, Das mentions this ideal as she notes how her husband
expected her to effortlessly discuss and understand Oscar Wilde
and Aldous Huxley and be ready to ‘bare [her] breasts’ when he
demanded.49 In the autobiography, the balance between the two
kinds of women is best maintained by the wife of her grand-uncle
who listened to her husband’s mockery without any qualm all
through the day, thereby presenting the image of a perfect docile
wife, and at night, ‘enslaved him with her voluptuous body’.50
Das writes,
I have heard my grand-uncle tell his wife that she was the most
empty-headed woman he had known. She used to laugh melo-
diously at such comments. At night she enslaved him with her
voluptuous body. So she could well afford to humour him in the
day. Each night she came to our house accompanied by her maids
and a lantern, looking like a bride. And, she walked up the steep
staircase of the gatehouse to meet her famous husband in their lush
bedroom, kept fragrant with incense and jasmine garlands…51
In her, we see the perfect combination of a wife and a whore. In the

morning, she listens to her husband’s mockery without any qualm,
thereby presenting the image of a perfect docile wife, and at night
she dresses up like an entertainer, but only to please the husband.
By remaining within the boundaries of marriage and monogamy,
the duality of the wife’s character is thus legitimized. My Story thus
underscores the influence of patriarchy that goes into the making
of this ‘ideal woman’.
In her own self-construction Kamala Das questions the thin line
between ‘aesthetic’ and ‘erotic’ through the perpetual spilling over
of the two. Here we see the supposed ‘aesthetic woman’ revolting
by bringing in ‘the body—marginalized and de-eroticized in

dominant reformist discourse—into her revision of the womanly’.52
Devika adds, ‘In her open admission of her love for “female
frivolity”, in her insistence on the pleasures of beautifying the
(admittedly ephemeral) body, the aesthetic woman not only cuts
loose, but also positions herself against domestic woman.’53 Firstly,
by writing, Das deliberately puts herself out in the public sphere.
Autobiographical writing by a woman becomes subversive of both
social norms and rules of the genre by displaying the ‘personal’
to an ‘impersonal public’.54 Linda Anderson theorizes this aspect
of women’s autobiographical discourse in the following manner:
‘It is necessary to take into account the fact that the woman who
attempts to write herself is engaged by the very nature of that
activity itself in rewriting the stories that already exist about her
since by seeking to publicize herself she is violating an important
cultural construction of her femininity as passive or hidden.’55
Secondly, in My Story, women’s roles as reproducers and ‘vessels
of culture’56 are challenged by expressions of the bodily desires
that break the norms of legitimacy, marriage and heterosexuality.
The aesthetic female body loved, caressed, and kissed by a girl
in the night rain, is contrasted to the ‘extreme brutality’ of the
husband on the wedding night which left the rape unsuccessful
but bruised her for life.57 In a society where sexual union within
marriage is considered consensual duty especially on the part of
the wife, the possibility of rape remains ignored. By showing the
homosexual union as more fulfilling than the heterosexual one,
Das not only emphasizes the distinction between love and sex,
she also challenges the patriarchal assumption that sexual union
within marriage is always a consensual duty. My Story presents
sexuality as a ‘political institution’58 by ‘addressing sexual rela-
tions, their spheres of legitimacy and illegitimacy, through the
institutions and practices, as well as the discourses and forms
of representation, that have long been producing, framing,
distributing and controlling the subject of “sex”.’59 The ‘self’ that
My Story represents is one that breaks the boundaries of body and

sexuality prescribed by patriarchy.60
Though it remains, like Amar Jiban, within the sphere of the
domestic, My Story emphasizes different issues and also different
systems that Indian women negotiate with: from marriage and
education in Amar Jiban to body and sexuality in marriage in
My Story. The interpretation of the domestic also differs in these
two autobiographies. Rassundari describes the domestic as a
space defined by women’s confinement within marital relation-
ships which also limits their access to education (which is seen as
external to the family), while Kamala Das in My Story focuses on
what Sen and Dhawan call, ‘the family as a site of women’s oppres-
sion … [and] the ideological and social apparatus of patriarchal
control, especially in the domain of sexuality and motherhood’.61
My Story represents a shift in feminist consciousness from women
negotiating with their roles within the domestic sphere (as seen
in Amar Jiban) to the ‘present-day feminis[t] ‘… struggle for the
achievement of women’s equality, dignity and freedom of choice
to control our lives and bodies within and outside the home’.62
Inclusion of My Story in this section therefore helps trace a trajec-
tory of different constructions of ‘woman’ over time.
This ‘self,’ however, is an upper-class upper-caste woman. In the
autobiography Das mentions that a kitchen maid at their ancestral
house, Kunhukutty, was thrown out because she performed an
abortion on herself.63 For a poor single woman like Kunkukutty,
abortion was probably the only way towards survival. Although
Kamala Das, throughout her autobiography, is conscious of her
body and craves to reclaim it, when it comes to a similar situation
in the case of a lower-class and lower-caste woman, Das is quite
dismissive of it as seen in the way she briefly mentions the incident
only to dismiss it as a possible accident. By emphasizing the upper-
class upper-caste woman, the female autobiographer deliberately
ignores this difference in its construction of the selfhood of the
‘woman’.
These texts chosen in this section shows that the constituency

of mainstream Indian Feminism, that is, ‘woman’, is articulated
primarily in terms of its opposition to patriarchy. In the process,
these autobiographies address different issues that emerged during
the times they were written and published. Thus, Amar Jiban fore-
grounds issues of marriage and education, and My Story focuses
on the representation of ‘woman’ through notions of body and
sexuality. In Amar Jiban and My Story, the autobiographical subjects
are clearly defined in terms of their gendered experiences, con-
structing a female selfhood for ‘woman,’ which, however, remains
implicitly exclusive of the working maids in the house. It is impor-
tant to acknowledge that pointing out these erasures is not meant
to devalue or diminish the literary, social and political importance
of the autobiographies. I specifically bring out these examples to
reflect on the times and places in which these women were writing
often in compliance with the Hindu social order. The inclusion of
these texts are intended to highlight the implicit erasure of dalit
women through history.
Constructing the ‘Dalit’ Identity
Autobiographical writing has also come to occupy an important

position within the field of Dalit Politics. Marked as the ‘lit-
erature of revolt,’ dalit writers believe that writing is a part of
their movement against the system of caste that perpetuates in
Indian society.64 Observing on what constitutes dalit literature,
Sharankumar Limbale writes, ‘Dalit writers believe that Dalit
literature is a movement. They see their literature as a vehicle
for their pain, sorrow, questions and problems.’65 Dalit literature
reflects their consciousness of oppression and becomes a platform
to express their dissent. In fact, the term ‘dalit’ underlines a resist-
ance by those who challenge the ascriptions of untouchability and
formulate a new collective identity borne out of the awareness of
oppression. Underlying the term is a sense of political awareness,
rejection of state created categorization, and rejection of the caste

system where caste-names perform a major role in determining
and perpetuating caste hierarchies. Satyanarayana and Tharu
argue that dalit activists ‘contested the tendency to treat caste
only as an instrument of oppression (untouchability, violence and
dehumanization) and recreated it as a new identity of self-assertion
and pride’.66 The shift in treating caste as ‘the subjectively effec-
tive identity of a social group’ rather than ‘an objective structure’
meant for empirical information has contributed significantly in
the agential formulations of Dalit Politics.67
In dalit autobiographies the act of speaking/writing becomes
crucial in their construction of identity. For dalits, writing auto-
biographies and narrating stories of their own lives becomes an
intervention in brahmanical control over production and dis-
semination of knowledge. Kancha Ilaiah declares that personal
experience of the marginalized is important to understand social
contexts that are different from those the powerful and powerless
live in. The dalit experience provides an alternative perspective of
the caste system, showing that the beautiful village portrayed by
upper-caste Hindi poets is not where the dalits live. As Valmiki
points out, a dalit village is muck strewn where ‘the stench [is] so
overpowering that one would choke within a minute’. According
to Ilaiah this alternative perspective is available only because
the ‘day-to-day experiences of the Dalitbahujan castes … is the
only possible and indeed the most authentic way in which the
deconstruction and reconstruction of history can take place’.68
Sarah Beth maintains that the emergence of dalit autobiograph-
ical narratives functions as a counter-symbol to contest tradi-
tional conceptions and representations of dalits.69 To challenge
untouchability, dalit autobiographers reject and transform the
markers and symbols that represented their untouchable state.
Elaborating on the characteristics of dalit writing, Sharatchandra
Muktibodh writes,
The Dalit point of view constitutes a clear diagnosis of a particular

social reality and a sanguine hope for its desirable transformation.
The Dalit sensibility shows a deep concern for the Dalit point of
view and an outstanding work of Dalit literature would be born
only when Dalit life would present itself from the Dalit point
of view.’70
What dalit writers promote through their writing is a political aware-

ness of their oppression arising from the caste system and under-
standing the system not as inherent or given, but as constructed
by Brahmanism to maintain a power hierarchy. In Maharashtra,
dalit literature gained popularity through the writings of a group
of educated dalit graduates, who, inspired by Ambedkar, set up a
literary body, the Siddharth Sahitya Sangh.71 Their writings marked
a tremendous struggle to establish the dalit subject and find an
authentic voice that emerges out of experiences of untouchabil-
ity. The new generation of writers, notably Baburao Bagul and
Namdeo Dhasal, ‘wanted neither sympathy nor solidarity; they
wanted agency’.72 It was a moment of creativity springing from
feelings of sufferings. Dangle writes:
Dalit literature portrays the hopes and aspirations of the exploited

masses. Their fight for survival, their daily problems, the insults
they have to put up with, their experiences and their outlook
towards all these events are portrayed in Dalit literature.73
Satyanarayana and Tharu mention that Tamil dalit literature in

the 1990s coincided with several significant historical and political
events that shaped the perpetuation of the caste system in modern
India. These events, namely, the Mandal Commission, the rise
of Hindutva politics and the Kilvenmani massacre, mark ‘the
escalating violence on dalits in both the northern and southern
regions of the state [Tamil Nadu]’.74 Dalit literary expression has
thus continued in conjunction with dalit movements in unveiling
the different ways caste oppression pervades contemporary India.

In the process, along with their critique of Brahmanism, they also
reveal a dalit perception of education, class, religion and culture.
Dalit literature, therefore, is an important counter-narrative.
Among the texts that have attained canonical stature for high-
lighting caste oppression as well as the opposition to it, I will be
discussing Omprakash Valmiki’s Joothan (2003), Sharankumar
Limbale’s The Outcaste (2003), and K. A. Gunasekaran’s The Scar
(2009). The dalit ‘self’ that these autobiographies foreground is in
opposition to Brahmanism and in alliance with the dalit commu-
nity. Distinguished by languages, writing styles and social settings,
these autobiographies often present similar concerns about the caste
system and methods of anti-caste struggle. Arising from discontents,
dalit autobiographies challenge not only the caste system, but also
literary representations of dalits. Thus, these autobiographies are a
mouthpiece to voice resistance, and this is what makes their litera-
ture an indispensable component of their movement.
Joothan (2003)
Omprakash Valmiki’s Joothan is one of the pioneering autobiogra-
phies in Hindi dalit literature. First published in Hindi in 1997, it
was translated into English by Arun Prabha Mukherjee in 2003.
As mentioned earlier, progressing parallel to dalit political move-
ments, dalit literature, especially autobiography, has been seen as
an indispensable component to reclaim a ‘dalit’ identity which
is not victimized. Joothan, by narrating the lived experiences of
caste discrimination and the author’s emancipation, portrays
a liberated dalit ‘self’. As Arun Prabha Mukherjee writes in the
introduction to Joothan, ‘Dalit autobiography … is not just a
remembering of things past, but a shaping and structuring of them
in such a way as to help understand one’s life and the social order
that shaped it, on the one hand, and to arouse a passion for change
in the Dalit reader.’75
This characteristic has been explored at length by critics of

Joothan. By narrating the lived experiences of caste discrimination,
Joothan is seen as bringing into light authentic representations
of dalithood. According to Laura Brueck, Joothan’s resistance is
marked by its intervention in dominant literary representations
of dalits in upper-caste writers such as Premchand who equated
caste with class. Referring to Premchand’s story, ‘Kafan’, Brueck
observes that although the story has been highly celebrated for its
critique of how institutionalized oppression leads to dehumaniza-
tion, dalit writers have criticized for its lack of awareness of caste
oppression. This lack, Omprakash Valmiki states, arises from
‘a confusion between caste and class-related oppression’. Valmiki
writes, ‘The characters of Ghisu and Madhav in his story “Kafan”
are Chamars, but the story does not raise any issue that is related
to the problems of Chamars or Dalits. There is only a detailed
depiction of their idleness and heartlessness.’76
Sarah Beth explores the construction of identity through
communal experience in Joothan where the ‘I’ in dalit auto-
biographies is inextricably linked to the collective. Beth writes,
‘Since Dalit autobiographies are meant to be the life-story of an
ordinary Dalit, to symbolically represent the experiences of every
Dalit, the Dalit protagonist is established as the representative
of the Dalit community and Dalit identity.’77 Beth, however, does
not perceive the overlapping of collective onto the individual
as a complete loss of the individuality of the subject. She argues
that Valmiki asserts his ‘personal agency’ through instances such
as his marriage with the girl of his own choice rather than the
one selected by his community. The criticisms of Joothan thus
primarily seem to focus on reclamation and celebration of the
‘dalit’ identity wherein agency is gained by challenging passivity.
My reading, however, explores the instances that get silenced in
the autobiography.
Joothan portrays a society where dalits are treated as joothans or
‘leftovers.’ The hypocrisy of the caste system becomes visible in
an incident recounted by Valmiki. While visiting the house of his

non-dalit teacher the author becomes thrilled at the rare and nice
treatment by the teacher’s father. He not only asks the author to
sit with him, but urges him to eat food together. These gestures
are unthinkable in a caste-ridden society that thrives on social
practices of untouchability. The author’s happiness however is
short-lived once the teacher’s father comes to know of his caste.
‘Lifting a heavy stick from underneath the charpai, the elder
hit Bhikhuram on his back… . Obscenities began to rain from
the elder’s mouth. His eyes were fierce and his skinny body was
harbouring the devil. We had dared to eat in their dishes and sit
on their charpai, a crime in his eyes.’78 This incident unveils the
discriminatory nature of a society where people are judged solely
on the basis of their caste.
Valmiki’s engagement with caste also takes the form of an
internal critique of casteism by showing how dalits internalize
such caste discrimination. He writes that during a wedding, the
Churhas were given leftovers after all the guests had eaten their fill.
After that ‘the dirty pattals or leaf-plates were put in the Churhas’
baskets, which they took home, to save the joothan sticking to
them’.79 What makes the author angry is how the leftovers were
eaten with ‘a lot of relish’.80 Joothan thus combines the author’s
struggle with both external and internal enemies. The oppression
by non-dalits as well as the internalization of brahmanical values
which leads to voluntary subordination by dalits, both these
aspects come under scrutiny in the autobiography.
The dalits however do not remain mere victims. We see how
the author’s father breaks the tradition and insists on educating
his sons; the author himself refuses to collect animal carcasses, a
profession specifically meant for the Churha caste that he belonged
to; and the author asks the teacher ‘How come we were never
mentioned in any epic? Why didn’t an epic poet ever write a word
on our lives?’81 Joothan thus shows a political awareness of caste
oppression and rejects it by asserting a questioning, resistant self.
Valmiki’s assertion of identity, however, is more individual

than collective. Unlike what Beth claims, the autobiography
progresses very much like that of the Western male individual.
It narrates the life of the author who gradually detaches himself
from the daily drudgeries of caste. Such distancing is visible
through the author’s rejection of practices and customs marked
by caste. The first instance is when Valmiki identifies caste-based
professions such as skinning carcasses of animals with stigma. He
writes, ‘My hands were trembling as I held the knife… . That day
something broke inside me… . I felt I was drawn into the very
quagmire that I had tried to escape from.’82 His rejection of par-
taking in caste-based professions and his physical distancing from
his community by moving to a city is marked by a desire for class
mobility. Interestingly, even though Valmiki claims that Joothan is
a story of the dalit community, he seems to establish an emanci-
patory individual identity by moving away from the community.
In this scenario, invocation of collective serves merely to draw
examples of caste oppression.
The autobiography ends with Valmiki’s reclamation of dalit
identity through the retaining of his dalit surname. Such aware-
ness arises out of the political implications of identity-based asser-
tion. Valmiki owes it to his readings of Ambedkar. He says that his
participation in dalit political and cultural movements ultimately
made him realize the need to have a holistic resistance to caste
system. In the final section of the autobiography Valmiki writes,
Why is my caste my only identity? Many friends hint at the

loudness and arrogance of my writings… . That is, my being Dalit
and arriving at a point of view according to my environment and
my socio-economic situation is being arrogant. Because in their
eyes, I am only an SC, the one who stands outside the door.83
The belief that the author had during his youth—that with class
mobility caste will be erased—vanishes when, even after getting
a high-ranking job, he faces discrimination due to his caste. His

awareness, therefore, is both personal and political. It is personal
experience that drives him to make political assertion. Valmiki
asserts his identity by retaining his caste name as his surname. This
marks a celebration of ‘dalithood’ and also poses a challenge to
the stigma that is attached to dalits. The ‘dalit’ self that Joothan
envisions is an agential self.
But even as this ‘dalit’ agential self recognizes and resists the
caste violence experienced by the dalit community, it naturalizes
the patriarchal oppression of dalit women within the house. For
example, Valmiki’s father fights with the upper-caste people
and sends his sons to school, but no such effort is made for the
daughter. Valmiki too dismisses the entire problem with one
sentence: ‘There was no question of sending our sister to school.’84
This naturalizing of education as a male privilege leaves the
gender hierarchy within a lower-caste family unproblematized.
One incident that further reveals the naturalization of the internal
oppression of dalit women by dalit men is the beating of chachi
(aunt) by Valmiki’s father. The widowed chachi’s relationship
with another relative, Shyamlal chacha (uncle), causes enormous
furore in the family, making Valmiki’s father shower blows on
chachi out of anger. Valmiki describes how his father ‘picked up
a stick lying in the courtyard and struck chachi’s back with it.
Chachi had doubled up under his blow’.85 Soon chachi is sent back
to her house, and Shyamlal chacha is married off to another girl.
The entire episode is seen by the author’s family as chachi’s fault as
chacha goes unscathed. Interestingly, though the author is heavily
critical of caste oppression, he accepts this violence by dalit men
on a dalit woman without any question. The violence is simply
accepted as punishment of the ‘pretty’ widow, chachi, who defied
the norms of celibacy and had a sexual relationship with another
man.86 This acceptance reveals the existence of dalit patriarchy
(reflecting an internalization of brahmanical gender norms for
upper-caste women) which exacts physical retribution from the
dalit woman when she dares to step outside the prescribed role of
a widow. What this incident implies is that the ‘dalit’ identity that
the text constructs is in opposition to casteism wherein the caste
system is seen to be operational only in the public sphere in relation
with the upper castes. In the process, this ‘dalit’ identity ignores
violence against dalit women, thereby defining the oppressed as
well as resistant ‘dalit’ self implicitly as ‘dalit man.’
The Outcaste (2003)

In Sharankumar Limbale’s The Outcaste (translated from the
Marathi original, Akkarmashi) (2003) the identity of a dalit is com-
plicated by the author’s negotiation with dual identities. Born of
an upper-caste Patil father and a dalit Mahar mother, the author
portrays the hybridity of his identity as the cause of his social
ostracization. Estranged and discarded by both upper- and lower-
caste communities, Limbale perceives the caste system as the
main cause of his oppression. The Outcaste shows the never-ending
journey of the author’s identity as his question ‘Who am I?’ reso-
nates throughout the autobiography.87
The reviews of the autobiography primarily focuse on the factu-
ality of caste oppression and the author’s struggle against it.88 The
Outcaste has also been seen as a gender-sensitive autobiography for
giving space to several women characters and highlighting their
oppression by upper-caste men.89 On the other hand, G. N. Devy
in his Introduction to The Outcaste, finds Limbale to be similar to
a Western detached individual. Devy writes, ‘In the life narrative,
one finds that whereas the narrator should be boiling with anger,
he is meditating on the very fundamental issues related to social
relationships and ethics.’90 The absence of ‘anger’ which Marathi
dalit writers like Namdeo Dhasal expressed through their writings,
appears for Devy a drawback in The Outcaste. Marathi dalit writ-
ings pioneered the nation-wide phenomenon of establishing a body
of literature unique to their experiences. The first generation of
dalit writers such as Namdeo Dhasal, Daya Pawar, and Baburao

Bagul, contributed immensely in shaping dalit literature in com-
plete opposition to brahmanical politics and literary practices. In
the process, as mentioned earlier, they often incorporated slang
and everyday languages in their writing to express their anger.
But to claim, like Devy, that anger is the only authentic way to
portray dalit discontent is, in my opinion, simplistic. Limbale’s
contemplative style offers an equally effective resistance because
the evaluation of events provides a critical perspective on the
complexity of the caste system.
Central to the autobiography’s argument is the author’s nego-
tiation with the identity of an illegitimate son. He writes, ‘It is
through the Dalit movement and Dalit literature that I under-
stood that my mother was not an adulteress but the victim of the
social system.’91 Limbale feels ashamed at his dalit identity and
tries to hide it. He not only writes letters only to his upper-caste
friends, he also hides photographs and books of Ambedkar in the
trunk instead opting for novels by V. S. Khandekar (an upper-
caste author), and feels ashamed of his relatives. Foregoing of ties
with the past rural community seems to be the precondition of
asserting an identity that is based on the new urban middle-class
values. Limbale writes, ‘We were ashamed of our past. We hid our-
selves as a leper hides patches of rash on his skin. They couldn’t
guess my caste on the basis of my surname, so when they became
suspicious they kept asking for the surname of my in-laws. I told
lies. I said their name was Bhosale or Pawar or some other high-
caste name instead of the real one, Kamble.’92
His quest for his identity leads him to realize that his ‘hybrid’
birth will forever mark him as an outcaste. This realization leads
him to understand his mother’s rape by the upper-caste landlord
as a consequence of caste oppression. By forcing Ithal Kamble
(Masamai’s husband) to leave Masamai (Limbale’s mother), the
upper-caste landlord, Hanmanta Limbale, had procured Masamai
as his concubine. The rape of Masamai is thus viewed by Limbale
as a way to assert caste supremacy by the upper-caste landlord

over the dalit husband and wife. Limbale, therefore, identifies
his mother’s rape as ‘caste oppression’. This interpretation leads
Limbale to believe that the only way to take revenge for the rape
of his mother is by raping an upper-caste girl. He writes, ‘Finally
Parshya and I had dared to insult Shobhi. In fact we wanted to rape
her by way of revenge. Shobhi stood before us as a symbol of the
caste system. Her feet, her thighs, her arms, her face—everything
was a part of the system she belonged to.’93
These incidents reveal that Limbale invokes the sexual
exploitation of his mother only to highlight his illegitimacy and
the discriminations he faces because of it, while himself subscrib-
ing to the method of patriarchal sexual control (i.e., rape) fash-
ioned on the upper-caste model as seen in this idea of revenge.
This particular idea of revenge masculinizes dalit identity in terms
of empowerment, thereby making ‘dalit’ synonymous with ‘dalit
man.’ Moreover, in the autobiography, Limbale’s mother being
raped becomes a problem for Limbale only as it impacts him; the
specific implications for dalit women of such sexual violence as
part of caste oppression is not the focus of his self-construction of
‘dalit’ identity. The ‘dalit’ self that emerges through The Outcaste is,
therefore, implicitly coded as masculine with dalit women defined
only in relation to this normative identity.
The Scar (2009)

The Scar by K. A. Gunasekaran is considered the first modern
Tamil dalit autobiography. According to Ravikumar, The Scar
emerged out of the classic autobiographical ‘yearning to create
their society’s history through their individual life story’.94 Along
with the simplicity of language, the relatability of the events
and characters are considered the greatest achievements of this
autobiography. Kandaswamy writes, ‘When I had first read Vadu
[the Tamil original] a few years ago, I felt I was listening to my
dad’s story, to my lover’s story, to almost every other rural dalit’s

story.’95 This association makes the particularities of Gunasekaran’s
experience universal. Therefore, even though the autobiography
begins with the individual narrator, it succeeds in presenting life-
histories of the collective. As a narrative of pain, The Scar has been
treated as a social document that brings forth the realities of caste
oppression.96
Like Joothan and The Outcaste, The Scar highlights the caste
system in its internal and external forms. Its criticism of external
practices of caste is explicated through the numerous prohibitions
imposed on dalits in terms of accessibility to water and roads, while
the internalized form of caste is shown through the dalits accept-
ing the higher-caste Konars as their masters when they ‘proudly
refer to “my master’s house” and “your master’s house” in their
conversations.’ 97 Furthermore, the author shows how it is not just
Hindu society that identifies him by his caste, but constitutional
rights such as the Reservation policy (strongly supported by Dalit
Politics during its implementation) also legalize caste hierarchy
by branding people as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
He recounts the shame he used to feel while filling up forms for
scholarship for reserved category students. During class, the clerk
would ask, ‘How many in this class are Parayars? … . Put up your
hands! How many are Pallars? Stand up, I will count.’98 The ‘scar’
in The Scar symbolises ‘the identity mark of the times’ when he was
both physically and psychologically scarred by caste oppression.99
The Scar, therefore, creates a ‘dalit’ self as constantly struggling
with caste oppression.
Gunasekaran, however, refuses to align with Dalit Politics.
In an interview with Bharathiraja, he mentions, ‘My writings
and folk songs aim at liberating Dalits in all possible means. They
are reaching all the people.’100 Therefore, what Gunasekaran
emphasizes is a dalit cultural identity. Unlike Valmiki and
Limbale who posit the individual in relation to the community,
Gunasekaran’s resistance to caste through cultural activism makes
it a collective effort. This shows that movements are never static

and there are many ways to pose political resistance. Just like Dalit
Politics, cultural activism also serves as a method of resistance.
Gunasekaran mentions that the purpose of writing this autobio-
graphy is to incite dalit youth to understand caste atrocities and
struggle against them, and introduce to the non-dalits what caste
atrocity looks like.101 Gunasekaran, therefore, does not limit the
scope of anti-caste movement only among those who are born
dalits. By making non-dalits aware of caste atrocity, Gunasekaran
broadens the scope for affiliative politics.
Cultural identity also becomes a representative of liberatory
dalit identity. Through the cultural activism and the valuation of
oral culture, Gunasekaran reclaims dalit collective identity. He
asserts that songs are one of the most popular media in dalit activ-
ism to communicate with the masses.102 Such modes of expres-
sion not only give visibility to the voices of dalits, but these songs,
poems and dramas also create an alternative body of knowledge
wherein subjugated knowledge and subjugated modes of articu-
lation gain recognition. Furthermore, in The Scar, Gunasekaran
says with pride, ‘If Tanjavur is still famous for karagattam it is
because of the Parayars, who have settled down in Mettu Street
… . The artists who performed the nayandimelam were all from
Mettu Street. They would wash their shirts and vettis in the river
and dress up smart.’103 Gunasekaran also describes a karagattam
performer, Seenivachagam Annan, who was so popular that he
could even afford pipes ‘embellished with gold lockets’.104 In this
way, Gunasekaran shows that cultural activity creates an avenue
for dalits to rise in class and also gain respect as ‘artist[s]’.105
Gunasekaran, therefore, creates an agentive ‘dalit’ selfhood in the
cultural realm.
This ‘dalit’ cultural identity includes dalit women. While
Joothan and The Outcaste largely ignore dalit women, including
them in the texts only as victims of caste oppression, The Scar
does focus on dalit women and not always as victims. One such
example is the karagattam dancer, Mallika. The author narrates

that Mallika, despite being a dalit woman, is an established dancer
and earns a lot of money, as evident through the ‘gold on her
ears and nose’.106 Mallika’s rise in class is seen as a challenge to
the caste system and also highlights dalit assertion and agency
in the cultural sphere. In the process, however, the aspect of gender
remains unaddressed. The specificity of her experience as a dalit
woman is not recognized. Mallika is hailed as the icon of the ‘dalit’
agential self who has overcome caste barriers through upward
class mobility. Empowerment, therefore, is coded in terms of cul-
tural agency leading to economic power, but in the process, what
gets erased is the gender specificity. It is assumed that all dalits
in the cultural realm, irrespective of their gender, are empowered
through cultural agency resulting in economic upliftment. Hence,
this ‘dalit’ identity subsumes dalit women within the general cate-
gory of ‘dalit’.
These three autobiographies present different views of the caste
system and different ways of dealing with it. However, the ‘dalit’
identity that these autobiographies formulate is predominantly a
male identity. Even though several dalit women appear in these
autobiographies, their issues are not seen as constitutive of dalit
identity in specifically gendered terms. In Joothan, the agency of
‘dalit’ selfhood is linked to education which is denied to dalit
women. Consequently, ‘dalit’ identity foregrounds dalit men and
dalit women remain excluded from its agential purview. In The
Outcaste, ‘dalit’ is identified exclusively in terms of caste. In cases
when dalit women’s oppression actually comes to the fore, their
experience of violence is understood in terms of how it affects dalit
men as a form of caste violence. This shows how dalit identity, once
again, is masculinized in terms of its assertion/agency, while dalit
women remain the ‘other’ to this sense of selfhood. Unlike Joothan
and The Outcaste, the ‘dalit’ identity in The Scar is not necessarily
masculinized and dalit women are not always victimized (as is
visible through its inclusion of dalit women like Mallika being
agentive). However, The Scar conflates men and women within the
‘dalit’ identity without recognizing any gender specificity. Once
again, the focus remains on the single axis of caste.
Constructing ‘Dalit Woman’: An

Intersectional Identity
Scholars have pointed out that women are fragmented into different
groups not only based on caste, religion, and class,107 but there are
also disparities of gender and class within dalit communities.108
Hence, to understand dalit women’s issues, caste and gender cannot
be treated as two mutually exclusive categories. Dalit women’s
writings are rooted in this realization that caste and gender are two
interlinked systems of oppression. This intersectional understanding
of identity challenges the singularity of gender and caste as the
defining features of identity in mainstream Indian Feminism and
Dalit Politics respectively, and emphasizes the notion of difference:
both within and among groups.
The three autobiographies chosen for this section are Baby
Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke (1984 [2009]), Bama’s Karukku
(1992 [2000]) and Ami Keno Charal Likhi (Why I Write Charal as My
Name) by Kalyani Thakur Charal (2016). These three texts together
help to trace the evolution of the constituency of Dalit Feminism,
that is, ‘dalit woman’, through history in different regions and dif-
ferent times. The Prisons We Broke (originally serialised in Marathi
in 1984) speaks of the Ambedkarite movements in Maharashtra
during the 1950s and 1960s and dalit women’s participation in
them. Karukku (originally published in Tamil in 1992) was pub-
lished during a time when dalit women and their voices, as dis-
tinct from dalit men’s, started claiming recognition, and the first
national dalit women’s autonomous group, National Federation
of Dalit Women (1995), was born. The primary difference in these
two time periods lies in dalit women’s solidarity with dalit men
during the Ambedkarite movements, and later on, dalit women’s

claim for autonomy from dalit men.
These autobiographies reflect a transition from the faith that
with the erasure of caste the condition of dalit women would
improve automatically, to the realization that centralization of
caste in dalit movements results in the suppression of issues con-
cerning dalit women. The former sentiment is captured in The
Prisons We Broke where Baby Kamble talks about the internal patri-
archal oppression of dalit women and later joins the Ambedkarite
movement hoping for an overall emancipation of both dalit men
and women of her community. While writings by dalit women
from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have become canonical in
representing a dalit feminist voice, recent emergence of dalit
writings in Bangla has introduced a new facet to the caste system,
that is, the refugee issue in the caste and gender context. The
inclusion of Ami Keno Charal Likhi, therefore, becomes crucial
in highlighting the complexities of caste, gender and citizenship
and also pointing at the pervasion of casteism in Bengal. Through
the study of these autobiographies I intend to explore how the
identity of the dalit woman is constructed in contradistinction
to ‘woman’ and ‘dalit’ through a simultaneous negotiation with
gender and caste dynamics.
The Prisons We Broke (2008)

Terming it a ‘socio-biography rather than autobiography’, Maya
Pandit in the Introduction to The Prisons We Broke writes about
its foregrounding of the collective in contrast to the individual
sense of selfhood that is evident in dalit men’s writings.109 In her
interview with Maya Pandit, Baby Kamble says,
The suffering of my community has always been more important

than my own individual suffering. I have identified myself com-
pletely with my people. And therefore Jina Amucha was the autobi-
ography of my entire community.110
What becomes central to the selfhood envisioned by Kamble is

a collective identity. Especially notable is her allusion to ‘we’ in
the title of the autobiography. Furthermore, in contrast to Joothan
and The Outcaste where the sole experience of caste oppression is
highlighted, the ‘we’ in The Prisons We Broke emphasizes the need
for solidarity among dalit men and women to achieve freedom. In
the process, The Prisons We Broke refines the idea of the collective,
in terms of a collective containing men and women, recognizing
gender specificities and taking these differences into account while
forging a solidarity.
In comparison to Joothan and The Outcaste where community
is invoked as a context and extension to substantiate the strug-
gle that the individual narrators go through, in The Prisons We
Broke Kamble recognizes that the collective experience of oppres-
sion shapes her own consciousness. In her narration of collective
oppression, she brings out the gradations of oppression that exist
within her community:
If the Mahar community is the ‘other’ for the Brahmins, Mahar

women become the ‘other’ for the Mahar men.111
Kamble thus understands the oppression of dalit woman, not only

in relation to the brahmanical hegemony of the caste system, but
also in relation to dalit men.
Kamble recognizes the category ‘dalit woman’ as being simul-
taneously oppressed by caste-gender through her identifica-
tion of dual patriarchies: brahmanical and dalit. She writes that
dalit women confront ‘brahmanical hegemony on the one hand
and … patriarchal domination on the other’.112 As an example
of brahmanical hegemony, Kamble refers to her father who
aimed to achieve social respectability and power by emulating the
upper-caste practice of keeping his wife within the house;113 and
to highlight dalit patriarchy, she describes the heavy physical
and verbal abused experienced by dalit women at their in-laws’
house.114 Kamble’s awareness of dalit women’s oppression comes

from seeing her father taking pride in keeping her mother at home.
She writes,
In those days, it was the custom to keep women at home, behind

the threshold. The honour enjoyed by a family was in proportion
to the restrictions imposed on the women of the house. when no
one could see even a nail of the woman thus confined within the
four walls of the house, then this ‘honour’ became the talk of the
town—a byword among the relatives and friends in the surrounding
villages. Then people would tell each other, how one Pandharinath
Mistry kept his wife completely hidden in the house and how even
the rays of the sun did not know her.115
Kamble’s father represents an internal patriarchy which emulates

the upper-caste practices of keeping women within the house.
Moreover, he educates his wife about the value of morality over
the importance of money. About her mother’s situation Kamble
writes, ‘My father had locked up my aai in his house, like a bird in a
cage.’116 This is reminiscent of Rassundari Devi in Amar Jiban who
likens marriage to a prison.117 Rassundari Devi’s condemnations
of marriage lay in the imposition of household duties and rules of
morality, and the restrictions on women about getting education.
Kamble recognizes this practice as a structural problem as result
of brahmanical hegemony. Moreover, by showing that it is the
dalit man who implements such rules on dalit women, Kamble
confronts the internal patriarchy as well.
However, this internal patriarchy is not just a reflection of
brahmanical patriarchy. It has its own workings of patriarchal
systems. In Baby Kamble’s narrative we hear stories of girls married
off at young age, becoming subject to the verbal and physical
tortures of the mothers-in-law. Along with the heavy household
work, the daughters-in-law have to listen to the mothers-in-law
accusations: ‘Look at the bhakris this slut has prepared. She
cannot even make a few bhakris properly. Oh, well, what can one
expect of this daughter of a dunce?’118 In cases when daughters-

in-law could not stand the suffering and ran away from house,
heavy physical torture was awaiting them. Kamble writes how the
mother-in-law would instigate her son by saying, ‘Dhondya, what
good is such a runaway wife to you? Some bastard must have made
her leave you. She must be having an affair… . Don’t let her off
so easily. Dhondya, cut off the tip of her nose; only then will my
mother’s heart breathe easy!’119 Dhondya’s father would reinforce
this even more by saying ‘You are a man. You must behave like
one!… . Never mind if you have to go to prison for six months!
You must chop off your wife’s nose and present it to her brother
and father. They mustn’t have any respect left to sit with the
members of the panch.’120 The dalit patriarchy here functions at
two levels: on the one hand, the assumed affair of the wife justifies
her punishment, and on the other hand, it serves as a means to
display the husband’s masculine prowess over the wife and the
men in her family. Such claiming of masculinity, exercised through
the mutilation of the dalit woman’s body-part, marks a distinctive
nature of dalit patriarchy.
Kamble also goes on to show that it is not only dalit men who
often imbibe brahmanical models, dalit women also internalize
caste. These women’s lives are dictated by Hindu religious rituals
and superstitions. One such superstition is that dalit women would
be possessed by goddesses and would supposedly tell the fortune of
the people and point out their faults. Kamble mentions how being
possessed would leave enormous emotional and physical toll over
women. Along with ‘earsplitting screams’ these women would
dance ‘in frenzy till they collapsed in a heap on the floor, their jaws
locked’.121 ‘What kind of life did these people really lead?’ Kamble
asks. Kamble argues that such perpetuation of blind faith occurs
due to the brahmanical control over knowledge. She writes, ‘The
entire community had sunk deep in the mire of such dreadful
superstitions. The upper castes had never allowed this lowly caste
of ours to acquire knowledge. Generations after generations, our
people rotted and perished by following such a superstitious way

of life. Yet, we kept believing in your Hindu religion and serving
you faithfully.’122
The dalit women in The Prisons We Broke, however, are not
victims; they struggle and survive. Kamble mentions that starting
from catching mice within the house123 to taking initiative to send
their children to schools,124 all were done by dalit women. She
argues that memories of humiliation and perpetual slavery need
to be reiterated because future generations must know the fiery
ordeal that the earlier generations have gone through. Threaded
within the narrative are occasional recounts of dalit women’s par-
ticipation in activism. In the autobiography we see people gather-
ing to discuss about Ambedkarite movement, his conversion, and
their opinions on these movements. Dalit women’s narratives thus
voice protest against the exploitation by the external structures
such as state, religion, and Brahmanism, as well as the internal
gender hierarchies. Their writing emphasizes that their theorization
grows out of their activism. Kamble believes that the Ambedkarite
movement would end both caste and gender oppression on dalit
women. She writes how Ambedkar’s call to dalit women as the
frontiers of ‘change’ instilled hope in the women in her community
that by educating their next generation, converting to Buddhism,
and participating in movements, the overall condition of the dalits
would improve.125
Kamble’s realization of the anti-caste movement as a key to
dalit women’s liberation shows that in this construction of iden-
tity, ‘dalit woman’, while recognized in her gendered specificity,
is not seen in opposition to dalit men, but as standing in soli-
darity while also demanding accountability. This identification
is reminiscent of Alice Walker’s notion of womanism defined as
commitment ‘to survival and wholeness of entire people, male
and female’,126 and the vision of the Combahee River Collective
which states, ‘We struggle together with Black men against racism,
while we also struggle with Black men about sexism.’127 Understood
through solidarity, ‘dalit woman’ then is identified as a collective,

politicized ‘self’.
Karukku (2000)
Bama’s Karukku focuses on caste and gender-based oppression in
a Tamil dalit Christian community. Written as a bildungsroman,
Karukku traces Bama’s journey from being a believer in God as a
child, to becoming a devoted nun, to becoming a disillusioned but
politically enlightened ‘dalit woman’. It is through her experiences
of caste and gender-based oppression that Bama realizes that dalit
women are located in completely different spheres than upper-
caste men and women, as well as dalit men.
The ‘selfhood’ that Bama constructs presents a critique of ‘dalit’
identity by highlighting its patriarchal undertones, and fractures
the notion of ‘woman’ by showing caste division among women. The
former aspect is exemplified through the games she played as a
child. In these games, the boys invariably acted ‘as if they had
a lot of power over us’.128 The latter aspect is seen when Bama is
demoted by an upper-caste nun from her post as a head teacher
(despite having ten years of experience) because of her dalit iden-
tity.129 This difference of ‘dalit woman’ from both ‘woman’ and
‘dalit’ reinforces the notion of intersectionality of caste and gender
as creating specific conditions for dalit women, and challenges the
erasure or the subsuming of dalit women within the generic iden-
tities of ‘woman’ and ‘dalit’ as seen in the autobiographies, namely,
Amar Jiban, My Story, Joothan, and The Outcaste.
Karukku also highlights the hypocrisy of Christianity that sus-
tains caste discrimination. Tamil Nadu has had a long history
of dalits’ converting into Christianity. Rupa Viswanath provides
a remarkably detailed study of the conversion of dalits in the late
nineteenth-century Madras Presidency.130 She notes that even
though dalits saw Christianity as ‘an opportunity to escape’ from
the oppression of their ‘landed caste masters’, they were not readily
welcomed within the ‘Christian fold’.131 Viswanath quotes an

instance where the entry of dalit Christian children to a mission-
ary school was met with severe opposition by high-caste parents.
Moreover, ‘Separate Pariah quarters were set up in famine-relief
camps in response to the fact that if Pariahs were indiscriminately
mixed with the rest of the population no one but they would
seek relief’. To resolve this issue even the kitchen was labelled
‘Pariah’ or ‘Caste’. 132
Karukku highlights the continuation of such discrimination
against dalit Christians in Tamil Nadu. Bama says that even though
nuns were taught to live in poverty and humility, they lived lavish
lives looking after the children of the rich upper-caste people and
neglecting the poor lower-caste kids. The hypocrisy becomes clear
through Bama’s recounting of the scriptural lessons on the Devil.
Bama writes how the nuns ‘told us that if we kept on committing
sins, the Devil would put them all down in a long list written in a big
notebook, which he would show to God… . [and] if we committed
so many sins that the notebook actually filled up, then he would
peel the skin off our backs and write our sins’.133 Bama argues that
this obsession with sin deepened her sense of inferiority. She writes
that the convent life had changed her so much that she ‘who had
once been bold had become an extremely timid person, fearful of
everything, ready to burst into tears, and without any strength’.134
This conceptualization of sin as perpetuation of discrimination
and hindrance to knowledge differs from that of Kamala Das’s My
Story where sin is manufactured to instil among young girls the
notion of morality. By showing how the Church catered only to
the needs of the upper castes, by providing them with benefits
and comforts and reserving the higher posts of priest and nuns
for the upper castes, and purposefully perpetuated caste hierarchy,
Bama highlights the intersecting way in which caste and religion
function.135 Bama also realizes the futility of the Church-run
boarding schools, which rather than educating the dalit children
and making them aware of their situation, ‘suggested that this was
the way it was meant to be for dalits; that there was no possibility
of change’.136
Bama’s portrayal of education lies in identifying brahmanical
control over knowledge as the root of the problem. To challenge
this deliberate imposition of ignorance, Bama had decided to
become a nun. Her desire to bring a change from within was not
driven by assimilation or appropriation, but through interven-
tion and reformation. Her realization that the hypocrisy of reli-
gion which interpreted ‘one God within the church and another
outside’, was in fact a human construct, led her to proclaim:
We should never believe one thing and do another. We should

speak up about what we believe, and act according to that. That is
being true to oneself. Everything else is play-acting. I never cared
to survive by acting out a role.137
This ‘dalit woman,’ however, is not a separatist identity. Bama’s

self-representation as a ‘Dalit woman … [living] as an independent
woman … [and working] for the liberation of Dalits’ in the
last part of her autobiography, presents her identity as arising
from the textured experiences of caste and gender realities and
therefore aligned in solidarity with dalit men and women in the
community.138 In her introduction titled ‘Ten Years Later’, Bama
writes how the autobiography, which was originally meant for
healing her ‘inward wounds’ became ‘a means of relieving the pain
of others who were wounded’.139 Writing and publication thus not
only gives the author and her voice visibility, they also create an
opportunity for others to relate to the experiences of oppression.
This is reminiscent of the excitement Barbara Christian expressed
when, as a graduate student in 1967, she came across Paule
Marshall’s autobiographical novel Brown Girl, Brownstones: ‘[it] was
not just a text; it was an accurate and dynamic embodiment both
of the possibilities and improbabilities of my own life. In it I as
subject encountered myself as object… . It was crucial to a deeper
understanding of my own life.’140 For Bama, the writing of her

autobiography becomes a political act because, as Bama claims,
‘Karukku stands as a means of strength to the multitudes whose
identities have been destroyed and denied.’141 Hence, like Kamble
in The Prisons We Broke, she envisions a solidarity-based identity as
defining the selfhood of ‘dalit women’.
Ami Keno Charal Likhi (2016)

While The Prisons We Broke represents the Ambedkarite movement
and Karukku brings out the complexities of caste, gender and
religion in Tamil Nadu, Ami Keno Charal Likhi makes an important
contribution by focusing on caste, gender and citizenship in
Bengal. This literature holds special significance in the pan-Indian
spectrum of dalit literature due to its unique narration of and
experience as ‘dalit refugee’.
Citizenship as dictated by the Constitution of India has been
a matter of immense debate and dissent since its first drafting.
The Constitutional ideas of who is a citizen and what constitutes
citizenship in India have been challenged through the lenses of
caste, gender and religion. Post-Partition India saw an increas-
ing debate over the question of the rightful citizens of the nation.
This discomfort resulted in incorporating the refugees within the
‘Hindu’ fold.142 This new nation, according to Haimanti Roy, ‘pro-
duced categories, debated within the hallowed halls of officialdom
in Delhi, Calcutta, and Dacca, and given legal sanction through
ordinances and laws debated and passed by parliamentary and
state legislations’.143 The subject of Constitution and citizenship
recently gained renewed attention with the Indian government’s
imposition of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in 2019.
This policy has come under fire for implementing religious seg-
regation and wasting time and money. The CAA aims to iden-
tify illegal immigrants and deport or keep them in isolation. In
actuality, however, this move is also seen as catering to a unified
‘Indian’ (and Hindu) identity. India after Partition struggled to

turn colonial subjects into national citizens. In this context, the
identity as a ‘Hindu’ served as a means to ‘otherise’ Muslim dom-
inated Pakistan and East-Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and unify
‘Hindu Indians’ against Islamic oppression. This new category
incorporated dalit refugees within its fold.144 Roy further adds that
‘these identities were produced discursively, mediated through
the actions of officials located at the periphery of the nation, espe-
cially at the borders and diplomatic missions… . Implicit within
these redefinitions were the attempts of each state to establish a
minority citizen’s loyalty to the state’.145
In a detailed historical investigation of the question of caste
and caste prejudice within progressive Bengali society, Sekhar
Bandyopadhyay reveals that in ‘the complex interplay between
social and ideological factors and political circumstances … caste
was as much a potent factor in determining social relations in colo-
nial Bengal as it was in any other region of India’.146 The Bengal
partition is tarnished by bloodied histories of Marichjhapi,147
economic exclusion and struggle for survival. This strategic seg-
regation was not only directed to resolve the ‘refugee problem,’
it also absorbed within itself the brahmanical hierarchization
through caste. The detailed studies on the Marichjhapi massacre
bear evidence to the mainstream erasure of caste genocide.148 The
newly emerging scholarship on partition in Bengal and writings
by Bengali dalit writers have contributed immensely in bringing
out the complex interrelation between caste and citizenship.
Terming it as ‘a consolidated movement within Bangla liter-
ature’, Manohar Mouli Biswas views Bengali dalit literature as
challenging the brahmanical supremacy over mainstream Bengali
literature and views dalit writings in Bengali as ‘revolutionary’
activism that can ‘actually bring about social change’.149 Bengali
dalit literature, therefore, marks a systemic and epistemolog-
ical intervention. This holds special significance in the context
of Bengal where the early arrival of Marxist ideology created a
sense of political awareness among the Bengali intelligentsia who

viewed oppression in terms of class and ignored/denied the exis-
tence of caste.150 Bengali dalit literature challenges the belief that
the Bengali educated and Left-aligned community is unmarked by
caste. While the status as a dalit refugee in West Bengal in India
brought into focus the pervasiveness of the caste system, it would
be wrong to assume that even as dalit refugees, their experiences
are similar. Herein the issue of gender as a category intersectional
with caste becomes important. Bengali dalit women’s writings,
therefore, provide a different and new layer of understanding
through an intersectional perspective and an unconventional
counter-narrative.
Ami Keno Charal Likhi (2016), literally meaning Why I Write
Charal as My Name, is rooted in the construction of her identity.
The author, Kalyani Thakur Charal, mentions that after their
arrival in West Bengal (India), they faced caste discrimination
and changed their surname to ‘Thakur’. She writes, ‘All our
relatives, including my father and father’s cousins, changed their
surname into “Thakur”.151 They were forced to take this decision
because of social pressure and with the expectation to erase caste
stigma. But a change in surname does not ensure a change in
one’s caste identity. Even if we replace the word, “untouchable”
with “harijan” or “dalit”, the situation does not change.’152 The
author experiences caste discrimination in school despite having
a surname not indicative of her caste. That is why she decides to
add ‘Charal’ to her surname.153 She mentions an incident on her
first day at an office: ‘One by one people came and interviewed
me… . Once they left, I saw the fox-like Dey babu and Bhattacharya
babu whispering among themselves, “Which caste?” To this I
loudly replied, “Charal”. My sudden bold proclamation shocked
everyone. They were not used to a dalit openly identifying his/
her caste.’154 Much like Baby Kamble, Thakur Charal considers
the proclamation of her dalit identity as agential. This sensitivity
comes from her disillusionment that a change in surname never
ensures erasure of caste.155 Like Bama, she gets educated, gets

a job, but soon realizes that these institutions are the locations
where caste gets continually implemented and reproduced.
Thakur Charal experiences a life which is thrice displaced: as
a dalit, a woman, and a refugee. She mentions how dalit women
refugees bore the brunt of this displacement. In relation to the
impact of Partition in Bengal, academic discussions have fol-
lowed the failure of ‘alienation to integration’ policy156 especially
in the context of the Marichjhapi massacre.157 Displacement and
the problem of citizenship, however, had specific consequence
for dalit women. Thakur Charal writes, ‘It was common among
poor dalit refugees to sell their girl children in exchange of money.
They took my aunt’s daughter to Delhi in promise of giving work.
She did not know that she was sold. Next day she sent a postcard
begging uncle to bring her back. When I demanded to see that
postcard, uncle angrily retorted that it was lost.’158 While refugee
women (especially those without the protection of men) were
often subject to rapes and abductions,159 the specificity of dalit
women refugees’ condition (as seen in case of Thakur Charal’s
cousin) is a result of caste, gender and poverty. U. Sen notes,
Within the population of East Bengali refugees, those most able to

actualise an alternative vision of rehabilitation were the relatively
elite bhadraloks from Eastern Pakistan who had fallen upon hard
times, but were far from destitute. In stark contrast, the most
marginalized amongst the refugees—the Namasudra peasants of
eastern Bengal—towed the line of official policy and completely
internalised the hegemonic discourse of rehabilitation.160
U. Sen further points that the bhadralok refugees occupied the

better colonies of Calcutta, while dalit refugees were often sent
to the Andaman Islands and to Dandakaranya.161 Sen’s argu-
ment reveals the close interlink between caste and class. The
segregation of dalits in distant rehabilitation camps indicates the
perpetuation of the stigma of untouchability. Even in Calcutta,

Thakur Charal mentions that upper-caste and dalit refugees lived
on different sides of the street.162 Coupled with untouchability was
poverty which pervaded the lives of dalit refugees. And it was dalit
women who received severe consequences in the form of being
sold for money. Partition, therefore, reveals specific consequences
on dalit women.
Thakur Charal’s autobiography forces us to see that violence
inflicted on dalit women refugees is not merely a result of their sex;
it is a structural issue where dalit women’s bodies are made into
sites to exercise control. The Marichjhapi massacre, in fact, began
with police brutality directed towards dalit women. Some survi-
vors recount how the police killed a few dalit women by drowning
their boats, and how dalit women were taken to the police station
by force and were gang raped for days.163 These events caused
confrontation between the refugees and the police, the ultimate
outcome of which was that massacre of Marichjhapi. Dalit women
refugees became the immediate victims of the structural conse-
quences of caste, partition, relocation and government policy.
In this context, MacKinnon’s reading of the genocide in Bosnia
(1995) may be useful. MacKinnon criticizes the legal representa-
tion of the issue as solely a matter of racial or ethnic discrimination
and points out that,
The destruction of the women of an ethnic community through

rape [should be] recognized as destroying their community.
Genocide was not marginalized; instead, women were made central
in its more capacious frame… . The fact that this genocide was in
part conducted through gender crimes did not mean that the acts
were not also ethnically and nationally and religiously destructive.
It meant they were.164
MacKinnon thus provides an important corrective in the domi-

nant understanding of rape as solely gender violence, instead
reframing it through the intersectional lens. Similarly, the rapes of
dalit women in the Marichjhapi massacre need to be re-scripted

within the broader frameworks of caste and citizenship, and seen
how control over a community is exercised by making gender
oppression central. As Maria Mies argues, ‘Women are seen as
the only property that pauperized men still possess. The rape of
their women teaches poor men the lesson that their status is one
of absolute powerlessness and propertylessness.’165 Rape, therefore,
is utilized as a tool to oppress the marginalized community as a
whole. Gender oppression within dalit refugees was also a common
practice. Thakur Charal recounts innumerable incidents, including
her own sister’s gang rape, pregnancy before marriage, pregnancy
of widows, severe domestic violence on the girls at their in-laws’
houses, and desertion by husbands.166 This is a clear mark of dalit
patriarchy bearing similarity with that in The Prisons We Broke.
Dalit women refugees’ physical oppression is not the only content
of Thakur Charal’s autobiography, she also mentions the erasure/
ignorance in academia and activism. Contesting such erasures,
the identity that Thakur Charal creates is a collective identity.
Her autobiography is strewn with the lives of other dalit women,
especially her sister, her grandmother and her mother. It was pain
which made this bond stronger. Thakur Charal mentions how,
throughout her life, she has lived as a caregiver for her sister who
often suffered from mental illness. But her death left an enormous
emptiness within the author. She writes, ‘Relatives, neighbours,
everyone heaved a sigh of relief at her death. That person, who
had captured a lot of my time, left me completely empty. She
wanted to live so badly! For one year I could not keep even a
picture of hers in the house—such was her presence.’167 This bond
is not limited only to interpersonal relationships. Thakur Charal
mentions that publishing the magazine, Neer, a Bangla magazine
that publishes writings on and from dalit literature, created a
space for her to engage in a collective process of protest against
dalit women’s oppression.168 She, in fact, views writing as activism.
In the introduction of the autobiography, Thakur Charal mentions
that this book is a conscious intervention in dominant Brahmanism

and patriarchy. It promotes a particular perspective to destabilize
dominant ideologies. This conscious ‘self’ believes in solidarity.
The ending of the book is the most reassuring and rewarding.
Thakur Charal ends by documenting a workshop organized in
Pondicherry in 2012 by Sparrow Women’s Archive that brought
together twelve dalit women writers from six states across India.
This workshop consisted not only of dalit women writers sharing
their writings it also showcased drama, autobiographical accounts,
narratives by dalit women activists and so on.169 This workshop
highlighted dalit women’s organizational power and the need to
build solidarity across regions, cultures and modes of articulation.
The identity that Thakur Charal creates as a ‘dalit woman’, is
hence, an affinity-based identity.
The Prisons We Broke, Karukku and Ami Keno Charal Likhi show
how an intersectional identity, that is, ‘dalit woman’, challenges
the single-axis formulation of ‘woman’ and ‘dalit’. In the process, the
concept of dual patriarchies revises the mainstream feminist
notion of patriarchy (understood only in terms of gender) and
the anti-caste notion of the caste system as the primary source
of oppression for all members of the dalit community irrespective
of gender. Dalit women’s writings, therefore, highlight the spec-
ificity of gender within dalit communities and urge a recognition
of difference among women. The ‘dalit woman’ that emerges
through these varied constructions of selfhood in dalit women’s
autobiographies is a politically aware and consciously chosen
‘self’ that is quite distinct from the ‘self’ constituted through indi-
vidual experiences of the subject in autobiographies canonised by
mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics.
Conclusion
The ‘self’ constructed in all these autobiographies present three

different identities: the ‘woman’ as implicitly savarna, the ‘dalit’ as
implicitly dalit man (which includes dalit women insofar as they

are considered exclusively in terms of their caste identity), and the
‘dalit woman’ as an explicitly intersectional category. Although
all these autobiographies have contributed immensely in redefin-
ing the contours of gender and caste, this comparative analysis of
the three sets of autobiographies points out that the exclusivity
of single-axis identity in the construction of ‘woman’ and ‘dalit’
erases, or at the very least, fails to address the dalit woman in
her intersectional specificity. By establishing dalit women’s iden-
tity as that which is affected by mutual and intersecting structures
of caste/and gender, dalit women’s autobiographies highlight
the dalit feminist identification of the constituency, that is,
dalit woman, as a specific category. In the process dalit women’s
autobiographies also highlight how different issues—the dichot-
omy between public and private, the issue of sexuality and
domesticity, the liberatory potential of education, and the idea of
collective emancipation—are redefined in relation to this specific
intersectional identity.
Dalit women’s autobiographies challenge the mainstream
feminist understanding of women’s oppression in terms of their
confinement to the domestic within a strict personal/public
dichotomy (as seen in Amar Jiban and My Story). For dalit women,
whose work necessitates their presence in the public sphere, con-
finement to the domestic is not an issue. The perceived dichot-
omy between the public and the private is linked to sexuality.
For example, in My Story the author narrates how, after marriage,
she was expected by her mother-in-law to fulfil her ‘domestic
responsibilities’170 by housekeeping, sewing buttons and providing
her husband with daily amenities, while also giving in to her hus-
band’s demands of sexual union which often equalled to marital
rape.171 Imprisonment of women within the domestic therefore
served as a controlling mechanism to keep not only women’s sex-
uality in check, it also actively worked towards moulding young
wives into ideal wives. This is indicative of patriarchy within
mainstream Indian Feminism. It is for this reason that exploration

of sexuality outside the domestic marital relationship is seen by
Kamala Das as liberatory. On the other hand, Ami Keno Charal
Likhi shows the problematics of sexuality through dual patriarchies
where the elder sister, due to the brahmanical assumption of dalit
women’s sexual availability, is raped by her upper-caste teacher,
and after her marriage her in-laws throw her out of the house
blaming her for being raped.172 This shows that unlike upper-caste
women, dalit women’s sexuality is not liberatory: it is casteist
sexism that underwrites dalit women’s sexual oppression.
Dalit women’s autobiographies also reveal the inextricable link
between the public and the private in the way they redefine caste
oppression as caste and gender oppression. While in Joothan, The
Outcaste and The Scar, the dalit male protagonists negotiate with
the caste system outside their homes, on the streets, in schools
and at workplaces, dalit women autobiographers focus on internal
oppression such as dalit women’s confinement within the house
and abuse by their husbands. For example, in Joothan the author
feels contemptuous to see dalits eating leftovers with ‘a lot of
relish’,173 The Scar scorns at how dalit people address higher castes
as ‘master’.174 Internalization of casteism, therefore, is criticized by
dalit writers to express how these specific feelings of inferiority
need to be challenged through a ‘dalit’ identity-based assertion.
Contrastingly, in The Prisons We Broke, Kamble writes that if
a dalit husband suspected his young wife of adultery, he would
chop her nose off as punishment and ‘present it to her brother
and father’ to display his masculine prowess over the wife and the
men in her family.175 Kamble also writes that her father wanted
to achieve social respectability and power by emulating the upper-
caste practice of keeping women within the house.176 Here we see
an emulative form of dalit patriarchy which aspires to become
brahmanical by imposing the brahmanical ideas of ‘honour’ on dalit
women. While dalit autobiographers challenge internalization
of casteism to create opposition between upper castes and dalits,

dalit women writers show that the internalization of brahmanical
patriarchy by dalit men leads to specific gendered power relations
within the dalit community. What dalit women’s writings reveal is
the need to recognize the caste system existing not only in the public
sphere, but also in conjunction with gender within the domestic.
In terms of education, dalit women’s autobiographies contest
the mainstream feminist notion of education as agency (in terms of
freedom from, and opposition to, patriarchy) and the dalit idea
of education as economic independence, by expressing distrust
about formal education. In Karukku, Bama is initially led to believe
by her father and brother that ‘if we study and make progress,
we can throw away these indignities’.177 But she is disillusioned
when she joins a boarding school as a nun only to find out that
the dalit students are made to do all the menial work in the school
and are taught that ‘there was no possibility of change’.178 Karukku,
therefore, provides a different approach to education compared
to Amar Jiban, The Scar and Joothan. In Amar Jiban, Rassundari
mentions that the ability to read and write gives her voice and
provides a way to escape the daily drudgeries of household work.
Access to education, in mainstream feminist articulation, is
seen as self-assertion and defiance of patriarchy. For dalit men
in texts such as The Scar and Joothan, education becomes a way
to achieve liberation from caste oppression through economic
independence. Karukku however highlights the failure of formal
education as a means of liberation. Bama, in fact, transforms the
notion of education to take it beyond its formal associations with
literacy and economic mobility to define it in terms of achieving
political awareness through experience which is articulated in a
collective manner.179
This emphasis on collective emancipation, rather than the
liberation of the individual, makes dalit women’s autobiographies
challenge the conventional autobiographical ‘self’. For example,
in Joothan, it is the individual’s emancipation through economic

independence which gains prominence. Although Joothan does
invoke the community, it is only to provide the necessary context
of caste oppression against which the individual is seen to struggle
and rise. Throughout the autobiography, it is Valmiki and his
life that are central to the emancipatory aspects of the narrative.
On the other hand, in Karukku and Ami Keno Charal Likhi, the
authors locate themselves within the collective. In Ami Keno
Charal Likhi, other people’s stories and lives are incorporated to
show how they shape the protagonist’s outlook towards life. In
the introduction to Karukku, Bama mentions that her writing
of this autobiography has been a means to heal the pains of all
those who were wounded by similar experiences of oppression.
In The Prisons We Broke, Kamble argues that for a more effective
opposition to casteism and sexism, men and women need to
stand in solidarity. Dalit women’s intersectional identity and
the notion of dual patriarchies therefore not only fracture the
homogeneous constructions of ‘woman’ and ‘dalit,’ they also
change the way caste and gender are looked at by emphaisizing
different perspectives on issues such as sexuality, education and
the meaning of emancipation.
Through this study of autobiographies what becomes clear is
that it is impossible to conceptualize identity in singular terms.
Systemic hierarchies create internal divisions within categories
(of women as well as dailts). This is the precise reason why Dalit
Feminism claims that while analysing and formulating dalit
women’s identity, it is necessary to recognize the implications of
simultaneous oppression by caste and gender. Recognizing how
the given structures constitute identities that vary from group
to group, Dalit Feminism challenges unitary identities such as
‘woman’ and ‘dalit,’ and proceeds to intervene in these singular
constructions by foregrounding the constituency ‘dalit woman’ as
an intersectional identity.
Notes
1 Sukirtharani, ‘Infant Language’. In Wild Words: Four Tamil Poets (2012): 77.
2 Following Lacanian concept of the split subject, Cixous locates ‘woman’ as
forever defined through ‘dual, hierarchical oppositions’ (1997: 232). She
argues that in order to resist their silencing, women need a language, an
‘écriture feminine’, to write towards their difference. Defining women’s
writing as ‘a new insurgent’ that creates ‘indispensable ruptures and transfor-
mations in her history,’ Cixous points out that by writing, a woman returns
to the body ‘confiscated’ from her. Writing also marks a ‘woman’s seizing the
occasion to speak, hence her shattering entry into history, which has always
been based on her suppression’. Hence women’s writing signals a feminist
reclamation of agency and awareness of the self. This method of women’s
alternative writing style was seen as an enabling mode which, through its
‘disconnected, fragmentary’ nature, challenged the coherence propounded
in male autobiographies (Jelinek 1980: 17). Their chaotic language reflected
the social conditions they live in, and in terms of language, this mode of
writing became an alternative site to express their desires and difference.
See Cixous, ‘Sorties’ (1997): 231–35; Jelinek, Women’s Autobiography: Essays
in Criticism (1980).
3 The Introduction by Arjun Dangle in his edited book, Poisoned Bread,
provides a detailed study on the emergence of dalit literature in Maharashtra
and its characteristics (Dangle, Poisoned Bread (2009): xxiv–xxxii. For more
on Dhasal, see ibid.: xxxviii–xli).
4 Holmström, ‘Translator’s Note’ (2012): 104.
5 Lejeune, On Autobiography (1989): 4–6.
6 Friedman, ‘Women’s Autobiographical Selves: Theory and Practice’
(1998): 72.
7 Heilbrun, Writing a Woman’s Life (1988): 20.
8 Smith and Watson, eds., Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader (1998): 5.
9 Chodorow, Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (1978).
10 Ibid.: 44.
11 Anderson, Conversation, Language and Possibilities: A Postmodern Approach to
Therapy (1997): 231.
12 Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1994): 69.
13 Mostern, Autobiography and Black Identity Politics: Racialization in Twentieth-
Century America (2004): 10; see also Bloom, Composition Studies as a Creative
Art (1998): 64–75.
14 Mostern, Autobiography and Black Identity Politics: Racialization in Twentieth-
Century America (2004): 12.
15 Hodges, ‘The Divided Self and the Quest for Wholeness in Black American
Autobiography’ (1990): 439.
16 Gates, Jr., ‘Writing ‘Race’, and the Difference It Makes’ (1985): 11.
17 Smith, ‘Toward a Black Feminist Criticism’ (1978): 20.

18 Ibid.: 21.
19 Ibid.: 20.
20 Rowbotham, Women’s Consciousness, Man’s World (1973): 31.
21 Friedman, ‘Women’s Autobiographical Selves: Theory and Practice’
(1998): 75.
22 Devika, Her-Self: Early Writings on Gender by Malayalee Women (2008): 139; in
the Indian context, the idea of women as partners of men, or sahadharmini,
contributed immensely in neatly dividing the ‘public’ and the ‘private.’
Deemed to be a dharma or a scriptural rule, women naturally internalized
this position. The term saha, meaning together/along with, neutralized
any sense of hierarchy and created a false notion of equality. Sahadharmini
became a popular trope in the nineteenth-century reformation because it
ensured that even when women became part of the progressive narrative,
they never crossed the limit allowed to them. See P. Chatterjee, ‘The
Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question’ (1989).
23 Devika, Her-Self: Early Writings on Gender by Malayalee Women: 139.
24 Karlekar, Voices from Within: Early Personal Narratives of Bengali Women
(1993): 12.
25 Harish, Indian Women’s Autobiographies (1993): 8.
26 Dinesh Chandra Sen (1866–1939). Vanga Sahitya Parichaya or Selections
from the Bengali Literature, vol. 2 Calcutta.; All translations from Amar Jiban
hereafter are mine.
27 Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories
(1993): 138.
28 For a detailed analysis see Partha Chatterjee, ‘The Nationalist Resolution
of the Women’s Question’ (1989).
29 Mathur, ‘De-scribing the Indian Woman: New Autobiographical Ventures
by Indian Women Writers in English’ (2008–09): 47–48.
30 Mazumdar, ‘Foreword’ in Voices from Within: x.
31 Karlekar, Voices from Within: Early Personal Narratives of Bengali Women
(1993): 61–62.
32 Ibid.: 61.
33 Ibid.: 7.
34 Rassundari writes that after her departure from her mother’s house all she
used to do was cry. ‘At that time my mother-in-law used to take me on her
lap and console me. I give my thanks to Parameshwar. Such a beautiful
incident!’ R. Devi, Amar Jiban (1876): 24.
35 Ibid.: 22.
36 Sarkar, Words to Win: The Making of a Modern Autobiography (2013): 220.
37 Ibid.: 220.
38 Rassundari writes: ‘At that time women did not get education. After the
work in the house and lunch, the little bit of time that was left, women were
supposed to stand very humbly near the karta of the house. As if women
did not have any other work. At that time people used to treat women
like this. Especially there was a rule for wives that they will have to wear a
foot-long veil and work in the house. She was considered a very good wife if
she refrained from speaking to anybody. At that time the clothes were not
soft like now—they were thick. I used to wear such clothes and draw my
veil to my chest and work. I never used to speak to anyone else. Like the
oil-churning ox, our eyes were always covered. We could not see anything
except for our own feet. These kind of rules prevailed the entire life of the
wives. I, too, followed them.’ Amar Jiban: 29.
39 Sodhi, Indian English Writing: The Autobiographical Mode (1999): 52.
40 R. Devi, Amar Jiban: 57.
41 Deboshruti Roychowdhury mentions that the autobiographies written by
women in the nineteenth century ‘testifying to the valour, vigour, strength,
and determination’ through which they broke free ‘from indigenous customs
such as purdah and the ban on female education’ could be accessible only
to ‘a few women of advantageous position’. She further states that this
was a specifically brahmanical paradigm where women’s apparent freedom
was continuously kept in check by keeping alive the tradition of docility
towards the husband. Roychowdhury, Gender and Caste Hierarchy in Colonial
Bengal: Inter-caste Interventions of Ideal Womanhood (2014): 149–50.
42 Banerjee, ‘Marginalization of Women’s Popular Culture in Nineteenth
Century Bengal’ (1989): 129.
43 Such attitude of ignorance/non-engagement towards marginalized women
was a common phenomenon in Western Feminism till as late as the 1960s.
Pioneering feminist texts such as The Second Sex (1953) by Simone de
Beauvoir, the sexed/gendered body presented a specific, white, western
image of women which omitted experiences and oppressions of black
women.
44 R. Devi, Amar Jiban: 56–57.
45 Chatterjee, ‘The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question’: 244–45.
46 R. Devi, Amar Jiban: 27.
47 Ramakrishnan, ‘Review’ (1977, Spring): 332.
48 Devika, ‘Housewife, Sex Worker and Reformer: Controversies over Women
Writing Their Lives in Kerala’ (2006): 1676.
49 Das, My Story (1977): 78.
50 Ibid.: 21.
51 Ibid.
52 Devika, ‘Housewife, Sex Worker and Reformer’: 1676.
53 Ibid.: 1676.
54 S. Smith, ‘Autobiographical Manifestos’: 436.
55 Anderson, ‘At the Threshold of the Self: Women and Autobiography’
(1986): 59.
56 Devika, ‘The Aesthetic Woman: Re-forming Female Bodies and Minds in

Early Twentieth-Century Keralam’ (2005): 484.
57 Das, My Story: 75; 84.
58 The phrase is borrowed from Adrienne Rich who stresses on the neces-
sity of doing a feminist critique of compulsory heterosexuality. In her
criticism of Chodorow, Rich argues that feminist theory till Chodorow, has
viewed lesbianism as an ‘alternative lifestyle’ and has accepted heterosex-
uality as norm. Thus, the feminist critique of women’s roles as mothers,
ironically presented motherhood resulting from heterosexual union as
the norm. Rich argues that women’s emotional and erotic sentiments are
always regulated by society. Restraining homosexual union and presenting
heterosexuality as the ‘normal’ way of fulfilling desires/duties are socially
dictated. It is for this reason that Rich calls heterosexuality as a ‘politi-
cal institution’. Rich, ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’
(1997): 321.
59 John and Nair, A Question of Silence: The Sexual Economies of Modern India
(1998): 1–2.
60 Feminist scholarship on the question of sexuality in India have made some
groundbreaking contributions. In the introduction to A Question of Silence:
vii, John and Nair argue that we need to be cautious about the conspiracy
of silence regarding sexuality in India. Sexuality as a feminist issue, as John
and Nair point out, emerged in Indian Feminism only during the late 1990s
and early 2000s. John and Nair, A Question of Silence: The Sexual Economies of
Modern India (1998).
61 Sen and Dhawan, ‘Feminisms and the Politics of Gender: A History of the
Indian Women’s Movement’ (2012): 12–13.
62 Bhasin and Khan, Some Questions on Feminism and its Relevance in South Asia
(1986): 2–3.
63 Das, My Story: 24–25.
64 Omvedt, ‘Literature of Revolt: Prefatory Note’ (2009): xiii.
65 Limbale, Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Literature (2004): 105.
66 Satyanarayana and Tharu eds., No Alphabet in Sight (2011): 13.
67 Ibid.:13.
68 Ilaiah, Why I Am Not a Hindu (1996); Valmiki, Joothan (2003): 1; Ilaiah, Why
I Am Not a Hindu (2006): xii
69 Beth, ‘Hindi Dalit Autobiography: An Exploration of Identity’ (2007):
545–74.
70 Muktibodh, ‘What Is Dalit Literature?’ (1992): 270.
71 Dangle, Poisoned Bread (1992): xxiv–xxxii.
72 Nandy, ‘Foreword’ (2010): xi.
73 Ibid.: xlviii.
74 Satyanarayana and Tharu eds., No Alphabet in Sight: 21.
75 Valmiki, Joothan (2003): xxix.
76 Brueck, ‘Valmiki, Premchand: Sandarbh Dalit Vimarsh’ (2004) quoted in

Brueck, Dalit Chetna in Dalit Literary Criticism’ (2006); 28.
77 Beth, ‘Hindi Dalit Autobiography: An Exploration of Identity’ (2007): 551.
78 Valmiki, Joothan: 51.
79 Ibid.: 9.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid.: 23.
82 Ibid.: 35.
83 Ibid.: 134.
84 Ibid.: 2.
85 Ibid.: 26.
86 Ibid.: 26.
87 Limbale, The Outcaste (2003): 39.
88 Ramnarayan, ‘Voice of the Oppressed’ (2003).
89 Mangalam, ‘A Disturbing Tale’ (2004).
90 Limbale, The Outcaste: xxv.
91 Ibid.: ix.
92 Ibid.: 105. It is important to note that these Maratha surnames, though
referring to higher caste, were not brahmin. This shows the existence of
casteism in other castes as well.
93 Ibid.: 71.
94 Gunasekaran, The Scar (2009): x.
95 Kandasamy, ‘When the Word Is Made Flesh’ (2010).
96 Bharathiraja, ‘A Study of Social Realism in the Select Indian Dalit
Autobiographies’ (2012): Unpublished thesis.
97 Gunasekaran, The Scar): 41 and 36.
98 Ibid.: 5.
99 Ibid.: 85.
100 Bharathiraja, ‘A Study of Social Realism in the Select Indian Dalit
Autobiographies’.
101 Gunasekaran, The Scar: viii.
102 Ibid.: 95.
103 Ibid.: 87.
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid.
106 Ibid.: 88.
107 U. Jadhav, ‘Dalit Women: Issues and Redressal’ (1995): 169–70.
108 Pawade, ‘The Life of a Dalit Woman’ (1995): 159; A. S. Jadhav, ‘Dalit
among Dalits: Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Women’ (1995):
180–82.
109 Kamble, The Prisons We Broke (2008): xiii.
110 Ibid.: 157.
111 Ibid.: xv.
112 Ibid.: xiii.

113 Ibid.: 5.
114 Ibid.: 94–100.
115 Ibid.: 5.
116 Ibid.
117 R. Devi, Amar Jiban : 22.
118 Kamble, The Prisons We Broke: 94.
119 Ibid.: 99–100.
120 Ibid.: 100–101.
121 Ibid.: 22–23.
122 Ibid.: 37.
123 Ibid.: 13.
124 Ibid.: 138.
125 Ibid.: 113.
126 Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983): xi.
127 Combahee River Collective, ‘A Black Feminist Statement’ (1983): 213.
128 Bama, Karukku (2000): 56.
129 Ibid.: 124.
130 The term, ‘Pariah’ is British coinage. Dalits who worked hereditarily as land
labourers in the Tamil-speaking region of Madras belonged to Paraiyar,
Pallar, and Chakkiliyar communities. Viswanath notes that the term,
‘Paraiyar,’ meaning ‘slave,’ was used by upper-caste people to indicate all
lower -caste people. ‘By the 1890s, the caste name Paraiyar was anglicised to
Pariah (whence the English term ‘pariah’) and was used as an inclusive term
by officials to refer to all dalit castes, not just Paraiyars.’ What, therefore,
was a region, caste, community and labour-specific term, underwent a
complete transformation to signify dalit people as a whole. Resultantly, the
fluidity of caste as a category and its qualitative differences were erased,
and homogeneity was imposed to highlight how caste as a system affected
all dalits in general. It is for this reason that ‘caste in general—understood as
an India-wide system of exclusive endogamous groups that determine social
interaction—was thrust to the centre of administrative practice through
well-known mechanism such as the census.’ See Viswanath, The Paraiah
Problem (2014): 3–9.
131 Ibid.: 6.
132 Ibid.: 95.
133 Bama, Karukku: 83.
134 Ibid.: 78.
135 Ibid.: 80.
136 Ibid.: 103.
137 Ibid.: 105–107.
138 Ibid.: 137.
139 Ibid.: ix–x.
140 Christian, ‘Being the Subject and the Object: Reading African-American
Women’s Novels’ (1993): 197.
141 Bama, Karukku: x.
142 Bandyopadhyay and Basu Ray Chaudhury, ‘Partition, Displacement and
the Decline of the Scheduled Caste Movement in West Bengal’ (2014): 5.
143 Roy, Partitioned Lives: Migrants, Refugees, Citizens in India and Pakistan
(2012): 4.
144 Bandyopadhyay and Basu Ray Choudhury, in explaining the extant of such
appropriation, note that when the Namasudra (a dalit group in Bengal
mostly consisting of dalit migrants from East Bengal) peasants fought for
social justice under the Left party in 1948, ‘the state in Pakistan represented
the Namasudra peasant rebels as ‘Hindu’ miscreants. This process of
‘Othering’, not only tended to exclude them from the Pakistani nationhood
by imposing on them a ‘Hindu’ identity, but also helped the corresponding
Hindu nationalism in India in trying to appropriate them as oppressed
Hindu minority.’ See Bandyopadhyay and Basu Ray Choudhury, ‘Partition,
Displacement and the Decline of the Scheduled Caste Movement in West
Bengal’ (2014): 3.
145 Roy, Partitioned Lives: Migrants, Refugees, Citizens in India and Pakistan
(2012): 5.
146 Bandyopadhyay, ‘Partition and the Ruptures in Dalit Identity Politics in
Bengal’ (2009): 456.
147 Marichjhapi massacre (1979) refers to the forced eviction of dalit refugees
from the island of Marichjhapi by the then ruling Left government of
Bengal. This forced eviction resulted in subsequent death of thousands
of dalit refugees due to police brutality, starvation and disease.
148 U. Sen, Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition (2018);
Mallick, ‘Refugee Resettlement in Forest Reserves: West Bengal Policy
Reversal and the Marichjhapi Massacre’ (1999).
149 Biswas, ‘Dalit Literature: Search for a Pan-Indian Identity’ (2017): 13–14.
150 Ibid.: 15.
151 It is important to note that the two gurus of the Matua cult were known as
Sri Sri Harichand and Sri Sri Guruchand Thakur and many followers who
were Namasudras took that name, Thakur.
152 Thakur Charal, Ami Keno Charal Likhi (2016): 45. All translations from Ami
Keno Charal Likhi hereafter are mine.
153 A colloquial form of ‘Chandal’ in Bengali, the term ‘Charal’ refers to a
person who cremates dead bodies for a living. This work is specifically given
to the untouchable communities as cremation is considered ‘polluted work.’
Associated with untouchability, this term signifies caste-based stigma. The
Chandals under Sri Sri Guruchand Thakur had lobbied to have their name
changed to Namasudras, which was granted by the British government a
couple of decades before independence.
154 Thakur Charal, Ami Keno Charal Likhi: 82.

155 Ibid.: 45.
156 D. Sen, ‘Caste Politics and Partition in South Asian History’ (2012): 2–4.
157 Jalais, ‘Dwelling on Marichjhanpi: When Tigers Became Citizens’ (2005):
1757–62; U. Sen, Citizen Refugee:: 67–68.
158 Thakur Charal, Ami Keno Charal Likhi: 35.
159 U. Sen, Citizen Refugee: 201.
160 Ibid.: 246.
161 Ibid.: 246–47.
162 Thakur Charal, Ami Keno Charal Likhi: 12–14.
163 D. Halder, Blood Island: An Oral History of the Marichjhapi Massacre,
HarperCollins (2019); N. Mitra, ‘Illegitimate’ (2006): 297–312.
164 MacKinnon, ‘Intersectionality as Method: 1026–27.
165 Mies et. al., Women: The Last Colony (1988): 138.
166 Thakur Charal, Ami Keno Charal Likhi: 56–57, 70, 108–09.
167 Ibid.: 134.
168 Ibid.: 102.
169 Ibid.: 135–36.
170 Das, My Story: 92.
171 Ibid.: 84.
172 Thakur Charal, Ami Keno Charal Likhi: 56–57.
173 Valmiki, Joothan: 9.
174 Gunasekaran, The Scar: 36.
175 Kamble, The Prisons: 101.
176 Ibid.: 5.
177 Bama, Karukku: 18.
178 Ibid.: 103.
179 Ibid.: 104–06.
3
Representing a ‘Dalit Woman’
The concept of ‘representation’, it seems, is useful precisely because and

to the extent that it can serve a mediating function between the two
positions, neither foundationalist (privileging ‘reality’) nor superstructural
(privileging ‘culture’), not denying the category of the real, or essentialising
it as some pre-given metaphysical ground for representation… . Our
understanding of the problems of ‘real’ women cannot lie outside the
‘imagined’ constructs in and through which ‘women’ emerge as subjects.
Negotiating with these mediations and simulacra we seek to arrive at an
understanding of the issues at stake.1
The theory of representation is suitable in delineating the con-

tours of hegemonic epistemologies. Dominant representation
helps shape knowledge about something/somebody in a particu-
lar fashion. Therefore, an analysis of popular representations
unveils the complex and implicit ways in which dominant power
functions. Critiques of representations both materially and met-
aphorically appear in feminist and black feminist theorizations.2
Representational analysis shows that the stereotypes about certain
groups operational in society are results of the knowledge created by
hegemonic powers. This hegemonic enterprise of representation
109
also functions by interpellating women to occupy their roles pre-

scribed for them by the social order. These stereotypes not only
shape our assumptions about those groups, but are also responsible
for dictating the course in which those groups are made to inter-
nalize those assumptions as natural and given.
Representations are results of varied layers of mediations and
discursive strategies. Therefore, engaging with representation as
a domain of analysis reveals the process of representations and
its implications. In the process, it also problematizes the position
of the representer as a crucial determinant in the production of
knowledge. Analysing the problem of representation, I focus
specifically on the constituency of Dalit Feminism, that is, ‘dalit
woman’. How is a dalit woman (recognized as an intersectional
category) represented (i.e., in terms of victim/agent/survivor)?
What are the purpose and politics of such representations? What
can be termed as a dalit feminist representation?
Stuart Hall’s theory of representation, where he focuses on the
constructionist approach is useful in understanding representa-
tion in terms of power relations.3 It recognizes the ‘public, social
character of language’ and ‘acknowledges that neither things in
themselves nor the individual users of language can fix meaning
in language. Things don’t mean: we construct meaning, using
representational systems—concepts and signs.’4 This notion is
important in identifying how discourse functions in close rela-
tion with the processes of representation in order to promote
certain kinds of ideas and practices. The constructionist approach
therefore focuses on the politics of representation and recog-
nizes representation as a consequence of discursive formations.
The approach claims that it is us, the language users, who give
meaning to objects. Herein a hierarchy is also maintained as to
who has the right to assign meaning. A discursive approach,
to borrow Hall’s definition is ‘concerned with the effects and conse-
quences of representation—its “politics”.’5 Hall, therefore, directly
links representation to power. According to him, representation
Representing a ‘Dalit Woman’ 111
is a medium or process through which meaning, associations, and

values are socially constructed and reified by people in a shared
culture. Asymmetries of representation indicate asymmetries of
power as well. This perspective then challenges the seemingly
given binaries such as self/other, man/woman, culture/nature, and
shows them as constructed.
Commenting on the politics of representation as a constructed
element and its contribution in shaping a feminist critique,
Rajeswari Sunder Rajan maintains,
[The] central and repeated concern [here] … is the (re)constitu-

tion of female subjectivity in the interests of a feminist praxis. If
my interest in gender leads primarily to reflections about female
subjectivity, my cultural analysis necessarily focuses on representa-
tion as the process by which the female subject is constructed in
response to a variety of ideological imperatives.6
Such analysis not only emphasizes the complexity in the process

of representation where the power dynamics gets highlighted,
but also the position of the representer in its effect upon the
representation. The constructionist approach becomes useful
to understand how representations are rooted in and reflective
of the dominant power structures in society. I go on to explore
how gender is seen through the lens of caste, how caste is seen
through the lens of gender, and what a dalit feminist representa-
tion looks like. Using a comparative framework to elucidate
dalit feminist representation of dalit women vis-à-vis main-
stream Indian feminist and dalit representations of dalit women,
this chapter highlights issues of sexuality and labour. It also
raises the question of who can represent a dalit woman (see also
Chapter 4).
My purpose here is not to invoke a value judgment regard-
ing representations and interpretations. What I intend here is to
highlight the consequences of representations in creating certain
assumptions. Representation, therefore, is viewed as an epistemic

endeavour. I specifically draw on texts that have attracted dif-
fering responses from mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit
Politics because Dalit Feminism proclaims itself in contradistinc-
tion to them and thus we need to consider the issues that are given
primacy, and the consequence of such interpretation. I would
also like to emphasize that in their respective politics, all these
different and differing perspectives have had immense impact
in shaping and enhancing our ideas about caste and gender.
However, mainstream Indian Feminism, Dalit Politics and Dalit
Feminism are ongoing movements whose constitutions and con-
tours are dynamic and in continuous flux. Hence, exploring differ-
ent and differing debates may help direct us towards a more potent
understanding of caste and gender.
Gender through the Lens of Caste
The Dirty Picture (2011)

In terms of mainstream popular representations of dalit woman,
the film The Dirty Picture is an important contemporary example.
Based on the life of Silk Smitha, an actress who dominated the
1980s Tamil film industry as a ‘vamp’ figure,7 The Dirty Picture
portrays Reshma, who aspires to become an actress and becomes
popular as a sex symbol in cinema. The film shows the journey
of Reshma/Silk (played by Vidya Balan), focusing on how she
utilizes the male gaze to her advantage to gain popularity, and,
in the process, dismisses public opinion while choosing to live
the way she wants. The director, Milan Luthria, has claimed The
Dirty Picture to be a woman-centric film that challenges the taboos
regarding women and sexuality by presenting lust as a part of life
and nature.8 Silk’s speech in the film during an award show where
she proclaims that she will keep flaunting her body and keep
making dirty pictures, is showcased as an attack on patriarchy.9
After its release, the film received rave reviews from film critics
as well as feminists for its unabashed portrayal of female sexuality
and female agency.10 In an interview, director Milan Luthria said
that through the film he wanted to show ‘a woman who has guts
and glory’.11 In popular newspaper reviews, the film’s praises ranged
from being ‘free, sexual and female’12 to ‘a seminal work that will
be studied in feminist discourses’.13 According to these reviews,
rather than remaining closeted in shame and guilt and suffer from
sexual domination, Silk’s open articulation of her sexuality and
her desires create a new way of looking at women. In these review-
ers’ opinion, therefore, what seems to make the film feminist is its
representation of women’s sexual liberation. The factor of choice
in this representation of female sexuality becomes important in
feminist scholarly arguments but in a more complex manner.
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.14 Feminists
such as C. S. Venkiteswaran, on the other hand, have defined
the film as merely a ‘body show’ that ultimately victimizes Silk.15
Annie Zaidi adds that the only lens through which Silk is allowed
agency in the film is through sexuality, which she questions.16
Celebrity feminist and journalist Shobhaa De raises similar con-
cerns when she says that rather than making a statement, the film
becomes purely an entertainment ‘that manages to stay a hair’s
breadth away from unadulterated porn’.17 Such feminist readings
of the film, The Dirty Picture, therefore complicate the notion of
sexual agency.
The idea of sexual agency in The Dirty Picture is also problematized
by Jenny Rowena through an identification of the caste factor.18
Rowena argues that in the film, as well as in the reviews of the film,
the angle that gets sidelined is Silk’s dalit identity. And herein she
links Silk the character with Silk Smitha, the Tamil actress on
whom this film is based. Rowena contextualizes the film historically

by analysing caste and gender as intersectional. Tracing the origin
of Silk’s hypersexual figure to the Hindu religious tradition of
the devadasi system, Rowena argues that Brahmanism maintains
caste purity by contrasting upper-caste and lower-caste women in
terms of their sexuality. While the ‘protected/controlled’ body of
the upper-caste woman becomes ‘the adored and worshiped site
of caste purity’, lower-caste women are ‘repeatedly portrayed as
sexually loose, hyper and “immoral”, a process that starts right
from the representation of Sita and Shoorpanaka in Ramayana’.19
This imposition of immorality and impurity on the dalit woman’s
body thus gives an opportunity to exercise sexual control/
exploitation by upper-caste men, executed through methods like
the devadasi system and public rape of dalit women. Rowena claims
that The Dirty Picture represents the way in which this legacy is
carried forth in cinema, a popular media wherein ‘caste differences
between women has been … powerfully institutionalized’.20 In the
film, Suryakant’s wife and Silk fit perfectly into this brahmanical
patriarchal binary wherein the sexual purity of upper-caste
women (portrayed through Suryakant’s wife) is contrasted with
the impurity of dalit women (portrayed through Silk) which is
seen to make them sexually accessible to upper-caste men.
By understanding caste and gender as interlinked structures
oppressing the dalit women, Rowena offers an intersectional
methodology to read The Dirty Picture. In her article, ‘Mapping
the Margins’, Crenshaw uses the intersectional methodology to
understand how black women’s oppression is caused simultaneously
by race and gender. In the context of the controversy over 2 Live
Crew, a black rap group prosecuted in Florida in 1990 for writing
obscene lyrics, Crenshaw mentions that on the one hand, they were
critiqued for writing ‘misogynistic filth’, and on the other hand
they were praised for its dealing with ‘popular racist stereotypes
in a comically extreme form’.21 Interestingly however, both the
so-called feminist and anti-racist arguments remained confined to
white/black binarism. Crenshaw points out that, the reference

to ‘misogynism’ was made in connection to an incident of white
women’s rape by black men, wherein the lyrics of 2 Live Crew
were blamed for endorsing such violent acts. Thus, the feminist
voice got located in white society. On the other hand, the lyrics’
overtly sexual and racist language was praised by the anti-racist
camp for challenging those very stereotypes the blacks were
relegated to. In such anti-racist/feminist tussle what gets ignored is
that the lyrics directly refer to black women. As Crenshaw writes,
‘The fact that the objects of these violent sexual images are black
women becomes irrelevant in the representation of the threat in
terms of the black rapist/white victim dyad.’22 Moreover, the rhetoric
of anti-racism provides an opportunity to defend misogynism.
The ‘joke’ that seemingly challenges the stereotypes about black
men, interestingly also highlights the social relations of power
within black communities, whereby the black men of 2 Live
Crew enjoy the liberty to represent black women through overtly
sexual and obscene images. Crenshaw’s analysis shows that 2 Live
Crew’s representation of black women results in ‘the reproduc-
tion of racial and gender hierarchy’ wherein ‘the devaluation
of women of color’ gets linked to ‘how women of color are
represented in cultural imagery’.23 The method of representational
intersectionality thus becomes useful in including ‘both the ways
in which these images are produced through a confluence of
prevalent narratives of race and gender, as well as a recognition
of how contemporary critiques of racist and sexist representation
marginalize women of color’.24
This is reminiscent of Sunder Rajan’s observation quoted in
the beginning of this chapter where she argues that the study of/in
representations reveals the enmeshing of the ‘real’ and the ‘imagi-
nary’ in ways that they form and inform each other. Representation
is a product of and in turn produces dominant cultures and ide-
ologies. It is in this way that a study of the representation of Silk
in the film The Dirty Picture becomes important in revealing the
intersection between caste and gender. An intersectional study

foregrounds that Silk’s sexuality is not a matter of sexual agency
(as debated in mainstream feminist reviews and analyses), but a
mechanism deployed by brahmanical patriarchy to preserve the
differences between the sexualized dalit woman (to be enjoyed
outside the domestic) and the chaste upper-caste woman (who
fulfils the demands of father/husband/son within the sacred
domain of home). As Rowena explains, ‘though Silk Smitha’s
image as a sex goddess grew to mythical proportions, being the
embodiment of … a “dirty”, worthless, “use-and-throw” woman,
who marked the boundaries of caste and gender decency with
her lustful body, this might not have actually translated into real
power and privilege in her everyday life.’25 According to Rowena,
this false notion of agency stems from the ignoring of difference
among women based on caste by mainstream Feminism. Rowena
identifies The Dirty Picture as reproducing caste and gender hierar-
chy and the devaluation of dalit women’s sexuality. It is this reco-
gnition of caste and gender intersection that makes Rowena’s
reading of The Dirty Picture dalit feminist.
Mumbai Dance Bar Ban

The problematic of dalit women’s representation is not limited
only in creative articulations; it also exists in socio-historical
events. To elucidate my point I invoke the debates amongst
different groups of activists regarding the Mumbai Dance Bar
Ban in 2005. The Maharashtra government proposed the ban in
2005 to end the ‘unsavoury’ activities reportedly thriving in dance
bars that were allegedly corrupting the youth.26 What ensued was
an extended political and legal battle over ‘obscenity’ in public
space.27 In Maya Pandit’s re-articulation, ‘the ban was couched
in the language of cleansing the city of sex, sleaze and immorality’.28
Feminist groups therefore responded to the issue in terms of the
state’s suppression of women’s sexuality and women’s right to
work.29 As the Statement of Women’s Groups in Mumbai on

22 April 2005 reported, ‘Instead of creating spaces and conditions
that ensure that women are not sexually exploited and their
rights are respected, the state has targeted their very livelihood
which might have lent their lives independence and autonomy
and thereby their freedom.’30 Women’s organizations such as All
India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), Manushi, the
Womanist Party of India led by Varsha Kale, all highlighted
the ‘selective cultural policing’ wherein only bar girls are targeted
through the ban, whereas film actresses depicting the same
songs and dances in cabaret style are celebrated with thundering
applause.31 They argued that for women who were battered,
deserted by husband and family, bar dancing provided a means of
economic independence.32
The Dalit Bahujan Women’s Group based in Mumbai, on the
other hand, supported the ban. In ‘Dance Bar Ban Debate: A
MaFuAa Stand Point’ published by Dalit Bahujan Mahila Vichar
Manch Publication, Pramilani Kunda writes,
Dalit Bahujan Marxist women from Mumbai … have supported

the Maharashtra Government’s decision to ‘Ban Dance Bars’ as
first step towards socio-economic cultural reform. However, they
strongly oppose the ‘moralist perspective’ of pro-ban and point out
the fact that the ‘dance bars’ is one of the new forms of ‘Sexual
Entertainment Industry’ that has emerged as inevitable part of
‘Market Economy’ in present globalization process.33
The two issues that emerge here are dalit feminists’ opposition
to the ‘moral’ reason for banning bar dancing, and at the same
time, the reason for their support for this ban. While the oppo-
sition is directed towards the government’s view of dance bars as
promoting immorality, the support for the ban poses a challenge
to mainstream Feminism’s proclamation of economic agency.
Mainstream Feminism erases caste and sees dalit women only as
‘women’. Consequently, the notion of economic independence as
liberating gets imposed on all women irrespective of their caste.

Even when caste is mentioned, its complexity vis-à-vis gender and
class is not analysed. For example, Maya Pandit views bar dancing
as a method to keep alive the tradition of folk dance (in this case,
lavani, a dance form of Maharashtra) and thereby resist brah-
manical acculturation.34 However, this claim that bar dancing is
a deliberate choice exercised by dalit women to keep their folk
tradition alive ignores the fact of poverty and other aspects that
force these women into this profession.
A dalit feminist analysis of the position of the bar girls prob-
lematizes the issue of agency through choice. The Dalit Bahujan
Marxist women contextualize the issue historically by linking bar
girls to the devadasi system: an ancient religious practice where
dalit girls were married to the deities but lived as prostitutes
for brahmin priests. This system brings into existence the ‘infor-
mal sexual circuits of caste’ whereby dalit women are sexually
exploited by upper-caste men as a matter of right.35 The condi-
tion of the bar girls, mostly belonging to dalit communities, can
be seen as a reproduction of the devadasi system in a new eco-
nomic setting. Kunda cites this being the reason why ‘The DBM
[Dalit Bahujan Marxist women] welcomed the Ban on dance
bars … to prevent the capitalist process that has increasingly
started pulling bahujan women into the ‘sex entertainment indus-
try’. It is necessary to prevent women from marginalized class and
caste from becoming ‘Public Property’.36 Kunda explains that the
commercialization of sex work in dance bars creates scope for
public exploitation of women’s labour for sexual entertainment.
This ‘vicious circle’ of sexual exploitation is further endorsed
by the caste system wherein lower-caste women ‘are invariably
pushed into this kind of exploitative labour market structure
because they have no other option but to sell their body and sexual
labour’.37 According to Meena Gopal, caste- and gender-based
hierarchy is created among women in order to regulate their sex-
uality.38 The caste discourse that relies primarily on the notions of
impurity and untouchability, presumes the sexual availability of

dalit women. Therefore, when dalit women go out for work, they
are often given only those kinds of work that are deemed suitable
for them due to their identity as ‘dalit women’. In this way, dalit
women are re-inscribed in a casteist-sexist public space. For the
bar dancers, it is therefore not a matter of choice of labour. Rather,
it is the kind of labour that is made available to them due to their
lower-caste origin. Sharmila Rege notes that the dance bar ban
issue highlights mainstream Feminism’s ‘failure to recognize the
structural violence in terms of caste-ordained linkages between
sexuality and labour’.39 As a result, the particularity of caste
that creates a unique situation for dalit women is not taken into
consideration by mainstream Feminism.
Jenny Rowena points that ‘Dalit feminist and dalitbahujan
political positions on the devadasi practice and other matters like
sex work, bar dance, etc., emphatically identify them as oppres-
sive traditions that exploit and subjugate lower-caste women and
communities’.40 This recognition differs from mainstream Indian
feminist perspectives that view devadasi tradition in terms of dalit
women’s sexual agency as opposed to the upper-caste women
who are claimed to be more strictly controlled than dalit women.41
In mainstream Feminism, choice (in the spheres of sexuality and
labour) is represented as oppositional agency because choice
is seen to go against the patriarchal control over women which
restricts them to marriage and the domestic sphere. Dalit feminist
analyses of The Dirty Picture and the Mumbai dance bar ban issue,
on the other hand, challenge the mainstream feminist notions of
sexual liberation and economic agency in their representations
of dalit women. A dalit feminist reading of the representation of
Silk and the bar dancers provides a nuanced understanding
wherein the issue emerges not merely of economic agency per
se (as mainstream feminists claim) but one that recognizes the
historical practices of caste- and gender-based discrimination
practised through the exploitation of dalit women’s sexuality and
work. Placing dalit woman within a historical perspective pro-

vides a different view than the universalist terms of choice/rights
promoted by mainstream feminist perspectives. Choice, seen to be
agential by mainstream Feminism, is heavily circumscribed in case
of dalit women who are forced into casteist and sexist forms of
labour (such as bar dancing) and expression of sexuality (such as
a hypersexual vamp figure). Their so-called choices, therefore, are
seen to be enforced by brahmanical patriarchy, and hence are not
oppositional at all.
Caste through the Lens of Gender
A dalit feminist analysis of the representations of The Dirty Picture

and the dance bar ban provides an intersectional understanding
of dalit woman as a category defined through caste and gender
intersection looked at through the lens of caste. I now look at
caste through the lens of gender. To explicate this point I draw
upon the representations of dalit women in the different accounts
of the Khairlanji massacre as well as in literary writings by dalit
writers that foreground dalit women.
Khairlanji Massacre (2006)

The notorious massacre of Khairlanji occurred on 29 September
2006 when four members of the dalit Bhotmange family, who
were dalits, were killed by Kunbi men, belonging to an OBC
category, in the village Khairlanji. The women in the family,
Surekha and Priyanka, were paraded naked in public and raped
repeatedly before being killed, and the two sons were lynched.
On 28 September 2008 the District Sessions Court of Bhandara
awarded death penalty to six convicts for murder. On 14 July
2010, the Nagpur bench of the High Court commuted the
death penalty to rigorous imprisonment of twenty-five years for
all the convicts.
The Khairlanji massacre has been represented in three different

ways: by the mainstream media as revenge killing in caste terms, by
dalit theorists as a caste/class dispute,42 and by Sabrina Buckwalter
as sexual violence. The narrative of revenge killing has been used
by the media in referring to the court judgment which viewed
the massacre as retaliation in a land dispute.43 The court traced the
origin of the incident back to a land dispute between Siddharth
Gajbhaiye, a relative of the Bhotmanges, and Sakru Bunjeswar,
a caste Hindu, following which Surekha appeared as a witness in
favour of Gajbhaiye. Hence, the media’s depiction of the Khairlanji
massacre as ‘a clear case of wreaking vengeance’ is related to caste
feud over land.44
While the media has highlighted the revenge angle with caste
as a muted motivating factor, Anand Teltumbde not only fore-
grounds caste, but also connects it with class dynamics. He traces
the origin of the dispute to seventeen years before the massacre
when the economically well-off Bhotmanges defied caste rules by
buying five acres of land.45 Teltumbde argues that the ‘upward
economic mobility and … the educational achievements of
the Bhotmange children’ caused ‘injury to the caste pride’ of the
caste Hindus.46 Hence, the murder of the Bhotmanges, he states
was a collective effort to take revenge. Teltumbde’s representa-
tion of the Khairlanji massacre thus links revenge with caste as
it intersects with class. Thus, the media as well as the analysis
by Teltumbde represent the Khairlanji massacre in terms of caste
dynamics, though the latter traces it further and highlights the
economic angle tied to caste.
To understand how the economy is related to caste hierarchy,
we need to locate it historically. The material consequences of
the caste system are elaborated by Gail Omvedt who writes,
‘Caste is a “material reality” with a “material base”; it is not only
a form but a concrete material content, and it has historically shaped
the very basis of Indian society and continues to have crucial
economic implications even today.’47 Understanding caste and
class as two interlinked ‘hierarchies operative in Indian society’,

Uma Chakravarti observes that caste and class relations function
‘one according to ritual purity with the brahmana on top and the
“untouchables” at the bottom, the other according to the political
and economic status with the landlords at the top and the landless
labourers at the bottom. The first corresponds to the formal
representation of society, the second to reality—together they
make for the unique form of inequality that caste represents.’48 The
caste system therefore influences class dynamics in constructing
hierarchy in terms of control over resources and consequently
the kinds of labour assigned to people of different castes. Thus,
as Ambedkar writes, caste is not just a division of labour but also
‘a division of labourers’.49 The caste norms of obligatory servitude
and birth-based hierarchy, through which different kinds of work
are assigned to different castes, ensure continued difference in
economic position among different castes. In Uma Chakravarti’s
opinion, class relations are closely linked to the caste system
in that ‘the upper castes enjoy social power, regardless of their
individual circumstances with respect to control over material
resources’ while the dalits are devoid of any right to ownership.50
The questions, therefore, of who owns the land and who does not,
are deeply linked to the caste system.
The Una agitation of 2016 has seen a resurgence of the
caste and class debate in terms of land ownership. Following
the incident of flogging of four dalits in Una for carrying cow
carcasses, the Una agitation began with the demand to stop
relegating dalits to stigmatizing work such as carrying animal
carcass. Foregrounding the connection between labour (in terms
of livelihood) and caste, the Una agitation argued that the caste
system functions by assigning dalits to certain kinds of labour that
are deemed polluted. Hence, access to such economic sustenance
does not ensure equality. Therefore, the core demand of the
Una agitation was that dalits should be given five acres of land
because it is the only way they can be free from the vicious cycle
of caste-based hereditary professions. Jignesh Mewani, the leader of

this movement, said that the Una agitation is ‘pitching for an
alternative model of development, based on land reforms, where
productivity and wealth gains will be made by redistributing land
to those who will work on it themselves, land to the tiller’.51 Since
such control over resources is seen to be fundamental to dalits
gaining respect and equality, the Una agitation has been called
Dalit Pride March. Here we can see how caste and labour (in
terms of means of livelihood) are interlinked and why the latter
becomes a major argument in anti-caste discourse.
Such caste and class analysis is premised on an inter-categorical
relation of hierarchy between the upper and lower castes.
Defined as a method to understand and analyse intersections,
inter-categorical analysis, as seen in McCall’s explanation in the
introduction of this book, highlights the relationship of inequal-
ity ‘among’ groups.52 The inter-categorical approach, therefore,
becomes useful in analysing a society based on caste hierarchy
that perpetuates unequal class relationships between groups.
Understanding how caste relations reflect class dynamics in
Khairlanji and the Una agitation respectively, Teltumbde and
Mewani provide such an inter-categorical interpretation.
While Teltumbde’s intersectional caste and class analysis of
Khairlanji represents the rapes/murders exclusively as caste vio-
lence against the Bhotmanges, Sabrina Buckwalter makes gender
her primary focus by shifting attention to the rapes of the dalit
women and foregrounding the erasure of the evidence of Surekha
and Priyanka’s rapes in the postmortem reports. But this highlight-
ing of the gender angle through the focalization of sexual assault
erases caste from the narrative. Gender oppression such as rape
(see Chapter 2 with reference to Kalyani Thakur Charal’s auto-
biography Ami Keno Charal Likhi) is used by the dominant power
to exercise control over community. Buckwalter’s concentration
on the gendered narrative of Khairlanji, therefore, provides an
important insight into the massacre. This representation, however,
views gender as the sole category of oppression and ignores the

specific casteist practices such as public gang rape. Public gang
rape, as Aloysius, Mangubhai and Lee observe, is a specific phe-
nomenon often executed against dalit women as a means to sup-
press any display of defiance of untouchability. They further add
that, ‘While in some instances the perpetrators of violence belong
to one homogeneous dominant caste, there are instances where
they cut across all dominant caste lines, that is, backward caste
and forward caste.’53 Surekha and Priyanka’s gang rapes need to
be seen in conjunction with its caste implications. The dominant
representations of the Khairlanji massacre either erase caste by
focusing exclusively on the gender aspect of the sexual violence,
or see the brutality inflicted on the two women only in terms
of caste violence wherein gender becomes secondary.54 Hence,
as Sharmila Rege puts it, the violence against dalit women in
the Khairlanji massacre gets represented as either ‘caste atrocity’
or ‘sexual atrocity’.55
A dalit feminist analysis of the Khairlanji massacre would
intervene in the dominant caste/class/revenge narrative through
the perspective of gender. It would highlight how brahmanical
control over dalit people is enacted through the public rape of
dalit women. At this point, it is important to mention that the
local media and Teltumbde have represented the rapes and
murders as punishment of the Bhotmange family for Surekha’s
assumed illicit affair with her cousin, Gajbhaiye, and for owning
land. Both the accusation of the affair and the later sexual assault
as punishment for such alleged sexual aberration are indicative of
the sexualization of dalit women; more specifically, the attribution
of impurity at the sexual level to the dalit woman. In a gendered
understanding of the caste system, Anupama Rao argues that
caste ideologies ‘are embedded in material forms of dispossession
… and they are mediated by the regulation of sexuality and
gender identity through the rules of kinship and caste purity’.56
Following Rao’s argument, we can see how the material issue of land
ownership translates into sexual violence directed at dalit women.

The specificity of gender emerges in the way the punishment is
enacted; it is the dalit women who are publicly paraded naked and
raped before being murdered. This is an example of brahmanical
patriarchy that asserts its sexual control over dalit women’s bodies.
A dalit feminist reading therefore challenges the way Dalit Politics
represents caste as subsuming gender, instead highlighting the
particularity of dalit women’s caste/gender identity.
With regards to the caste and gender system and own-
ership of land, another question arises as to who within the
Bhotmange family actually owned the land. This question draws
attention to dalit women’s position within the dalit commu-
nity with regards to the ownership of land, making the analysis
intra-categorical. In their representations of the Khairlanji mas-
sacre, both Teltumbde and the Yashada Fact Finding Report
2006 mention in passing that ‘they owned 5 acres of land’.57 This
generic reference to ‘they’ with regards to land ownership rep-
resents the Bhotmange family exclusively in terms of their caste
identity, and consequently erases gender differences within the
dalit community. The importance of a gendered problematic of
land ownership within the dalit community has been emphasized
in the Udupi march following the Una agitation in 2016. While
the Una march, as mentioned earlier, demanded land rights for
dalits, in the Udupi march, dalit female activists claimed that
land should be given specifically in the names of dalit women
to ensure their economic independence not just from the upper
castes but also from dalit men.58 The fact that neither the anti-
caste groups nor Teltumbde consider this gender specificity of
land ownership in their analysis of the Khairlanji massacre shows
how gender gets erased from dominant portrayals of the issue.
An intra-categorical analysis therefore intervenes in such caste-
and class-specific representations by connecting the ‘symbolic
economies of gender and sexuality and the material reality of
dispossession of dalit women’.59
An intersectional analysis of the Khairlanji massacre thus brings

out the issues of sexuality and access to economic resources vis-à-
vis dalit women. While in The Dirty Picture and the dance bar ban
issue, the questions of sexuality and labour have been addressed
with regards to the problematization of choice and agency with
respect to dalit women, in Khairlanji the issue becomes that of
violence inflicted on the dalit woman’s body to exercise caste
control over land. Violence here gets defined in terms of physical
violence as well as socio-economic violence implemented through
the ownership of labour and land. Dalit Feminism’s analysis shows
that when caste and gender are seen as intersectional, the issues of
sexuality and labour not only problematize the question of agency,
but also bring to the forefront the problem of sexist-casteist
violence in this context.
While the representation of the Khairlanji massacre by Dalit
Politics erases the specificity of dalit women, literary works by dalit
writers have often focused exclusively on dalit women but have
represented them predominantly as victims.60 Such dalit writings
represent dalit women’s victimization in two ways: victimhood in
terms of victim/whore dichotomy, and victimization in terms of
compromised agency. The first kind of representation is exempli-
fied by texts such as Baburao Bagul’s short story, ‘Mother’, and
Limbale’s The Outcaste (see Chapter 2), while the second kind of
representation is evident in texts such as Gautam Ali’s ‘Bazaar’.
Baburao Bagul’s short story ‘Mother’ shows the consequences
caste has on the filial relationship between a son and his mother.
Born of dalit parents, Pandu, the son, is a target of regular verbal
and physical assault by his classmates and neighbours who
taunt him by saying that his widowed mother, because of her
relationship with the upper-caste overseer, is a whore. Though
initially he vehemently defends his mother, gradually he starts to
accept the mother/whore binary. Through the recollection of a
series of events such as his mother’s absence during the nights and
her extravagant lifestyle, Pandu comes to the conclusion that his
mother is indeed a whore. Pandu’s ‘new found knowledge’ of his

mother’s infidelity makes him see ‘her tightly worn expensive sari,
the careless confidence, the defiance in her walk’ as proof of her
‘guilt’.61 Blaming her for ruining his life, Pandu himself calls her a
‘whore’ at the climax of the story.62
The author of the story, however, shows sympathy towards
the mother. The story highlights how as a wife she suffers the
suspicion of her husband, as a widow she has to deal with being
called ‘slut’ by the society, and even as a mother she faces the same
treatment from her son.63 The story thus highlights the mother’s
sad state of being throughout her life. In this representation, the
character of the mother remains caught within a victim/whore
dichotomy. By focusing on the son and the life he leads due to
the social perception of his mother, the story places Pandu as the
subject of the narrative. Thus, it is through Pandu’s eyes that we
see the mother. The eponymous character, that is, the nameless
dalit mother, is shown completely devoid of any agency. The only
choice that the mother seems to make in the story is that of taking
the overseer as the lover. This act, too, is heavily circumscribed
as the story establishes this choice as a desperate means of putting
an end to the constant sexual advances by different men. Choosing
the overseer gives her protection from men like Dagdu who always
threaten to rape her. Hence, the story fixes the dalit mother in a
condition of perpetual victimhood.64
In other texts where dalit women are seen to be resisting such
victimhood, they are shown in a negative light. In The Outcaste,
Limbale’s mother, Masamai, gets raped by the upper-caste land-
lord. After the rape, she is seen as ‘used’, and therefore, is deserted
by her husband. Upon realizing that she has been abandoned by
her husband, she deliberately chooses to go and live with the
upper-caste landlord (who had raped her) as a way of exacting
‘revenge’ on her husband.65 Her decision to do this becomes a way
to challenge her double victimization, that is, by the landlord who
sees her as ‘sexually available’ and by the husband who abandons
her after her rape. Limbale, however, feels uncomfortable that he

is born of a dalit mother, Masamai, and an upper-caste father.
He asks, ‘Why did my mother say yes to the rape which brought
me into the world? Why did she put up with the fruit of this illegit-
imate intercourse for nine months and nine days and allow me to
grow in the foetus?’66 Even though the textual evidence shows that
Masamai got pregnant with Limbale after she chose to go and live
with the upper-caste landlord, it is interesting that Limbale inter-
prets this relationship in terms of ‘rape’. For Limbale, therefore, his
mother’s sexual choice (which may also be interpreted as a survival
technique like the mother in Bagul’s ‘Mother’) is a problem. This
representation can be seen in contrast to the mainstream feminist
view of sexual choice as agential. When it comes to such dalit
representations of dalit women,67 patriarchal values of morality are
internalized. Even though Limbale recognizes his mother’s rape
by the upper-caste man in terms of brahmanical patriarchy, the
fact that he himself views his mother’s sexual choice as a problem,
manifests the patriarchal standards of morality.
The second type of dalit representation of dalit women, as
mentioned earlier, is that of victimhood in terms of compromised
agency as exemplified by Gautam Ali’s short story, ‘Bazaar’. This
story centres on a dalit woman married to an upper-caste man.
Due to her poor health, the wife decides to employ a young maid.
Upon noticing how her husband ‘had become chattier, and more
homebound’ the wife confronts him and he acknowledges that the
maid ‘has awakened my sleeping lust’.68 Angered, the wife fires
the maid. But the husband cannot control his sexual urge and starts
visiting brothels. To avoid the husband’s visits to prostitutes, the
wife employs a poor dalit girl as a housemaid to fulfil the husband’s
sexual demands. The story narrates how the wife ‘affectionately
tidied the maid’s dishevelled look with scented soap and shampoo
… dressed her in a new form and thus made her presentable’.69
After the night, the ‘dishevelled’ maid leaves, the wife once again
starts her search for a young maid.
‘Bazaar’ has been seen by dalit critics as a story of ‘sexploita-

tion’ where ‘underprivileged women … become soft targets for
the sexual gratification of the social elite’.70 The story, however,
is much more than that. ‘Bazaar’ shows two kinds of dalit women:
one who is married to an upper-caste man and employed in an
urban white-collar job, and another who is poor and comes from
a rural area to serve as a maid. Despite her economic affluence
the dalit wife subscribes to patriarchy when she employs the dalit
girl to fulfil her upper-caste husband’s sexual demands. The wife
accepts brahmanical patriarchy in her attempt to become the ‘ideal
wife’ and presumably to protect her marriage as well. Moreover, by
employing a dalit girl as the maid, she reproduces casteist and sexist
assumption of upper-caste men’s sexual access to dalit women.
The story ultimately evokes sympathy in the readers by highlight-
ing the victimhood of the maid whose voice is never heard, as well
as the wife who remains a victim of patriarchy. In this way, the wife
exemplifies constrained agency.
Dalit feminist analyses of all these texts reveal the limitations
in mainstream Indian feminist and Dalit Politics’ representation
of dalit women which subsume dalit women under the generic
rubric of caste (as seen in Dalit Politics’ representation of the
Khairlanji massacre) and focus exclusively on the victimization
of dalit women (as seen in dalit writings), and define agency
through the exercise of choice with no reference to caste-specific
constraints (as seen in mainstream feminist representations of
The Dirty Picture and the Mumbai dance bar ban issue). It is in light
of these gaps in mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics’
representations of dalit women that the next section explores the
contours of Dalit Feminism’s representation.
Dalit Feminism’s Representation
A dalit feminist representation of dalit women recognizes the

specificity of dalit women as a category distinct from both
upper-caste Indian women and dalit men. Through its focus on

this specificity, such representation provides a redefinition of the
mainstream feminist concept of agency in terms of negotiation
rather than free choice. I analyse the documentary Kakkoos to
explore these points.
Kakkoos (2017), directed by Divya Bharathi, represents the
specificity of dalit women’s intersectional identity. Literally
meaning toilet, Kakkoos captures the continuation of manual scav-
enging despite its legal abolition in 2013. Focusing on the dalit
Arundhathiyar community in Tamil Nadu, Kakkoos explains how
manual scavenging in the modern urban setting perpetuates caste-
based stigma and untouchability by relegating dalit people to the
job of manual scavengers. On its release, the documentary ‘shook’
the viewers with its blatant display of dirty toilets and septic
tanks.71 According to Bezwada Wilson, the national convener of
the Safai Karmachari Andolan and winner of Ramon Magsaysay
Award, ‘This documentary is a 360-degree picturisation of the
lives of sanitation workers in our country. There is no angle that
has not been covered.’72 The media responded to the documentary
positively praising it for exposing the government’s ‘dirty untruth’
that manual scavenging does not exist.73
Through a series of disturbing scenes showing septic tanks,
garbage bins, dry latrines full of excreta, Kakkoos uses a shock
element to emphasize the discrimination of dalits in urban sectors.
Even though, as the documentary points out, machines have been
invented to mechanically clean drains and septic tanks, the state
refuses to approve their purchase due to high cost estimations.
The documentary hence captures a society where money is valued
more than a dalit’s life.
However, in its portrayal of the functioning of caste in contem-
porary society, Kakkoos does not represent the dalit community
as a single category. Instead, the documentary represents dalit
women specifically to highlight gender relations within the dalit
community through the work of manual scavenging. Interestingly,
though the popular media reviews of the documentary recognize

this presence of dalit women, it is only in terms of their role as
manual scavengers among other dalits.74 The director, Divya
Bharathi, however, makes her intention to represent dalit women
clear as she says, ‘We [not only]… need to explain more about
caste discrimination, where it comes from and how it manifests
itself… . We [also] need to understand how women are being
exploited every day while being made to do this work.’75 The
documentary, through its recognition that dalit women’s manual
scavenging experience is different from that of dalit men, exempli-
fies an intersectional analysis of caste-class-gender. This analysis
of gendered difference within the dalit community makes Kakkoos
intra-categorical in its intersectional representation.
To understand how labour is gendered in sanitation work, it
is important to begin with the definition of manual scavenging.
The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their
Rehabilitation Act, 2013, defines ‘manual scavenger’ as:
A person engaged or employed … by an individual or a local

authority or an agency or a contractor, for manually cleaning,
carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling in any manner, human
excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or pit into which
the human excreta from the insanitary latrines is disposed of, or on
a railway track or in such other spaces or premises.76
An ‘insanitary latrine’ is defined as ‘a latrine which requires

human excreta to be cleaned or otherwise handled manually,
either in situ, or in an open drain or pit into which the excreta
is discharged or flushed out, before the excreta fully decomposes
in such manner as may be prescribed’.77 This definition is riddled
with legal terminological loopholes wherein ‘a person engaged
or employed to clean excreta with the help of such devices and
using such protective gear … shall not be deemed to be a “manual
scavenger”.’78 The portrayal of manual scavenging in Kakkoos,
however, goes beyond this legal definition to include a broad
spectrum of work ranging from cleaning garbage, to drains, railway

lines, septic tanks, and dry latrines.
This expanded definition links manual scavenging to stigma
and violence. According to Bezwada Wilson, the leader of Safai
Karamchari Andolan, ‘The mindset of the society is such that,
we’re of the opinion that no matter how degrading the job is,
as long as someone’s getting paid, it shouldn’t be a matter of
concern.’79 Wilson emphasizes that this kind of mindset of claiming
that access to paid labour is progress from untouchability, not
only attempts to erase the reality of caste discrimination, but also
invisibilizes the stigma attached to certain kinds of labour such as
manual scavenging. With reference to stigma and labour, Mary
E. John maintains that ‘a labour theory of value stands in conflict
with a caste structured society wherein public labour represents
stigma and humiliation’.80 The influence of the caste system on
the division of labour (in the sense of which person belonging to
which caste does what kind of labour) shows that labour cannot
be understood merely in terms of its value. Owing to the notion
of untouchability that pervades the stratification of labour among
different castes, different kinds of work done by different castes get
associated with purity or pollution. To invoke Anupama Rao, it is
necessary to critique ‘labour as exploitation and caste as degradation’.81
In her discussion on the problems of relating caste with class,
Rao, like Ambedkar, sees stigma as the reason due to which dalit
labour cannot be valorized as value-producing labour. To explicate
her point she refers to Ambedkar’s interpretation of caste as a
‘body history’ where he addresses the dehumanizing practices of
untouchability keeping in forefront ‘the “difference” of caste, and
the specificity of its social experience’.82 In Kakkoos, the manual
scavengers argue that due to their caste identity, they are assigned
only those kinds of work that are considered polluted. As a result,
stigma cannot be separated from the body. Moreover, working in
unsafe conditions results in failure of their health and, in a lot
of cases, death. Manual scavenging therefore has to be understood
in a complex manner vis-à-vis its relation to the body. Mary E.

John further adds that this body is always sexed. She writes, ‘If
there is a distinctive quality to the degradations of (male) dalit
labour, this quality attains a new register when the labouring body
is that of a dalit woman.’83 According to John, it is the gendered
experience of labour that creates the difference between dalit men
and dalit women.
Kakkoos points out that from within the numerous kinds of
sanitation work dalit women are most often given the work of col-
lecting roadside garbage (which often includes human excreta)
and cleaning dry latrines (also defined by the 2013 Act as ‘insan-
itary latrine’) used by both men and women. While manual scav-
enging remains dangerous for all manual scavengers (as we can
see through the many septic tank deaths mentioned in the docu-
mentary), the specific types of scavenging work given to dalit
women exposes them to different kinds of physical and sexual
dangers. Dalit women in Kakkoos state how they are sexually har-
assed by upper-caste supervisors who ask them to become their
mistresses. Kakkoos also shows that working at night and early
morning in deserted areas makes dalit women easy prey to sexual
assaults. Moreover, they face severe physical consequences as
some of them have to undergo hysterectomies due to lifting of
heavy bags full of garbage. Manual scavenging work thus exposes
dalit women to severe sexual and reproductive violence. This
gender-specific experience is what differentiates the condition
of dalit women from dalit men employed in manual scavenging.
As mentioned earlier, the idea of difference becomes crucial in
Dalit Feminism to highlight the uniqueness of dalit women’s expe-
rience in intersectional terms. Kakkoos exemplifies this concept
through its portrayal of the difference in dalit women’s gendered
experience of caste-based labour.
This difference in the experience of labour between dalit men
and dalit women is visible not only in the public space, but also in
the domestic sphere. In Kakkoos, dalit women narrate that after
they return from work, their children do not want to touch them
because of the stink and dirt. The nature of work that dalit women
are involved in thus affects their interpersonal relationships
within the family with its accompanying psychological conse-
quences. The experience of woman as a mother has unique psy-
chological implications that men do not experience. The absence
of any stigmatizing experience within the family for male manual
scavengers shows that this problem is experienced only by dalit
women and also highlights the patriarchal setting of the family.
Kakkoos thus shows that violence perpetuated through caste-
based labour, such as manual scavenging, is gendered. And here
violence is understood in terms of its physical as well as emotional
consequences. While the physical violence affects dalit women
through experiences of sexual harassment and the destruction
of reproductive abilities, the emotional violence permeates the
domestic sphere due to gendered roles within the family. Manual
scavenging therefore needs to be viewed as creating different
situations for dalit men and women. In its representation of dalit
women, Kakkoos achieves this understanding through its intra-
categorical intersectional representation that focuses on gender
specificity within casteist labour.
Conclusion
Dalit feminist representation recognizes the intersectionality of

caste and gender in creating specific situations for dalit women,
and problematizes the notion of agency and victimhood. The dalit
feminist lens shows that ‘agency’, as understood in mainstream
Indian Feminism, is not similarly applicable to dalit women.
Prominent dalit representations of dalit women, on the other
hand, continue to inform the identities of dalit women in terms of
victimhood. What we see of ‘dalit women’ are the results of rep-
resentations, which in turn create specific ideas and stereotypes
about them. To recall Hall, representation reveals the complex
relation between power and knowledge. Dalit women’s representa-

tions highlight how, most often, dalit women are co-opted within
the categories ‘women’ and ‘dalit’ to promote anti-patriarchal and
anti-caste fronts respectively. Representations of dalit women,
in this way, are often stereotyped. But does this mean that dalit
women are only represented, or representable, as victims? Let us
turn to the exploration of the concept of agency in Dalit Feminism
in its myriad ways of understanding (Chapter 4).
Notes
1 Sunder Rajan, Real and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture and Postcolonialism
(1993): 9–10.
2 Disch and Hawkesworth, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory.
(2016): 781.
3 Hall, ‘The Work of Representation’ (1997) lists three approaches to
representation: reflective or mimetic, intentional and constructionist. He
defines the reflective approach to representation being similar as mimesis
or mirroring wherein language claims to refer to an object as it is. This
imitative quality of language claims authenticity of representation and rests,
as Hall claims, completely on the representer. By naming a rose ‘a rose’, it
is the representer who claims the authority over representation because the
represented, viz. the rose, cannot speak for itself/verify whether it is a rose or
not. He defines the intentional approach as that where ‘it is the speaker, the
author, who imposes his or her unique meaning on the world through
the language’ (25). This kind of approach holds that representation is
completely controlled and imposed by the representer. Consequently, it
leaves the reader/spectator without any freedom to interpret the object of
representation. Hall negates both approaches on the grounds that both the
approaches presume supreme authority—reflective approach in claiming
to be authentically representing an object, and intentional approach
in claiming an imposed representation to be the truest. Hall argues that
language operates in a dialectical model—through the speaker and the
reader/listener. Imposing hierarchy between speaker and listener therefore
is seen as futile by Hall.
4 Ibid.: 25.
5 Ibid.: 6.
6 Sunder Rajan, Real and Imagined Women: 5.
7 Banan, ‘Get the (Dirty) Picture’ (2012); Visvanathan, ‘The Dirty Picture:
Free, Sexual and Female’ (2011).
8 Raina, ‘Lust Is Part of Our Lives: The Dirty Picture (2011).

9 Visvanathan, ‘The Dirty Picture’.
10 Kamath, ‘The Dirty Picture—Only Surface Level Dirty’ (2011); Malani,
‘The Dirty Picture: Movie Review’ (2011); FnF Correspondent, ‘A Feminist’s
Delight,’ (2011).
11 Raina, ‘Lust Is Part of Our Lives’.
12 Visvanathan, ‘The Dirty Picture’.
13 FnF Correspondent, ‘A Feminist’s Delight’.
14 Banan, ‘Get the (Dirty) Picture’ (2012).
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 De, ‘Dirty? Or Filthy?Or “Thanda”? You decide’ (2011).
18 See Rowena’s article ‘The ‘Dirt’ in The Dirty Picture’ (2012) published in two
parts: Part 1 and 2.
19 Ibid.: part 1 (2).
20 Ibid.: part 1 (2).
22 Ibid.: .1291.
23 Ibid.: 1282.
24 Ibid.: 1283.
25 Rowena, ‘The ‘Dirt’ in The Dirty Picture’, part 2: 2.
26 India TV, ‘History of Dance Bars in Mumbai’ (2015).
27 Agnes, ‘Hypocritical Morality: Mumbai’s Ban on Bar Dancers’ (2005).
28 Pandit, ‘Gendered Subaltern Sexuality and the State’ (2013): 34.
29 Agnes, ‘Hypocritical Morality’.
30 Kapoor, Statement of Women’s Groups in Mumbai and from all over India
(2005).
31 AIDWA, ‘A Note on Dance Bar Ban’ (2005).
32 Agnes, ‘Hypocritical Morality.
33 Kunda, ‘Dance Bars Ban Debate’: 1.
34 Pandit, ‘Gendered Subaltern Sexuality and the State’: 36.
35 Rao, The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India (2010): 235.
36 Kunda, ‘Dance Bars Ban Debate’: 5–6.
37 Ibid.: 2.
38 Gopal, ‘Caste, Sexuality and Labour: The Troubled Connection’ (2012):
225.
39 Rege, Against the Madness of Manu (2013): 16.
40 Rowena, ‘The ‘Dirt’ in The Dirty Picture’: Part 2 (3).
41 Nair, ‘The Devadasi, Dharma, and the State’ (2008): 544–51.
42 Teltumbde, ‘Khairlanji and Its Aftermath’ (2007): 1024–25; see also
Teltumbde, The Persistence of Caste: The Khairlanji Murders and India’s Hidden
Apartheid (2010): 92–96.
43 Deccan Herald, ‘Khairlanji Case’ (2010).

44 The Hindu, ‘Khairlanji: The Crime’ (2010).
45 Teltumbde, The Persistence of Caste: 92–96.
46 Teltumbde, ‘Khairlanji and Its Aftermath: Exploding Some Myths’ (2007):
234.
47 Omvedt, ‘Caste, Class and Land in India’ (1982): 14.
48 Chakravarti, Gendering Caste: 12.
49 Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste (2015): 233.
50 Chakravarti, Gendering Caste: 13.
51 The Hindu, ‘Material Issues’ (2016).
53 G. Aloysius, Mangubhai and Lee, ‘Dalit Women Speak Out: Violence
against Dalit Women in India’ (2006): 9. They narrate an event where
dominant caste perpetrators gang raped 15-year-old Kiran Rani from
Kanpur district, Uttar Pradesh in 2001. When the lower caste dalit girl’s
family approached the police, the Station Officer said, ‘However much I try
to help you people, the Thakurs of Tilakpur have made all this [gang rape]
their business and habit. They will not be stopped.’ Ibid.: 17.
54 The opposite spectrum of argument gets highlighted in the Bhanwari
Devi gang rape in 1992 which led to the Vishakha judgment (1997) on
women’s sexual harassment at the workplace (see Introduction, n 3). The
mainstream feminist focus on gender erased the caste identity of Bhanwari
Devi. A dalit feminist analysis would reveal that in a casteist society ruled
by norms of Brahmanism, Bhanwari’s prevention of child marriage was
seen as a daring act. Her public rape, therefore, served as a means to assert
the caste supremacy of the upper-caste rapists and also the emasculation
of her husband, who despite being present at the scene, could not protect
his wife. The Bhanwari Devi case, therefore, becomes the classic example
of mainstream feminist appropriation as ‘sexual atrocity’ at the cost of caste.
See Rowena, ‘The Sexual Harassment Discourse’ (2017), and Geetha,
‘Sexual Harassment and Elusive Justice’ (2017b).
55 Rege, Against the Madness of Manu: 20.
56 Rao, Gender and Caste: 6.
57 Teltumbde, ‘Khairlanji and Its Aftermath’: 1024; Yashada, ‘Organised
Killings of Dalits in Khairlanji Village’ (2006): 2.
58 Ananya, ‘Chalo Udupi’ (2016).
59 Rao, Gender and Caste: 5.
60 For example, short stories such as Abimani’s ‘Ailment’, A. Vincent Raj’s
‘Clutching the End of My Saree’, Madduri Nageshbabu’s ‘Pariah Mother’,
Waman Nimbalkar’s ‘Mother’, C. Ayyappan’s ‘Madness’, Manoranjan
Barman’s ‘Shabori’, and so on). Whether it is a portrayal of dalit women
as manual scavengers (‘Ailment’), or foregrounding internal patriarchy
(‘Madness’), or representing a dalit woman as a mother (‘Mother’, ‘Pariah
Mother’, ‘Shabori’, ‘Clutching the End of My Saree’), victimhood remains

the parameter for dalit women’s representation in most dalit men’s literary
works.
61 Bagul, ‘Mother’ (1992b): 213.
62 Ibid.: 216.
63 Ibid.: 212.
64 In her brilliant reading of Bagul’s short story, Susie Tharu points at the
‘impossibility’ of the mother in becoming a subject. She notes that when
it comes to the portrayals of widows as central characters, there is a stark
contrast between those belonging to upper and lower castes. Thus, Tharu
reads, an upper-caste twenty-first century widow, modern and economi-
cally well-off, is seen as struggling with the puritanical values of her pre-
decessors, while, for the lower-caste widow mother, the issues are more
materialistic, raw and violent. Tharu argues that in feminist discourse, iden-
tification of caste/class based division is important as ‘agency’ is not a linear
process—it functions differently for different groups of women. See Tharu,
‘The Impossible Subject’ (1996): 1314–15. Tharu’s argument, therefore,
falls in line with my claim that ‘agency’ needs to be re-configured in the
lines of caste (a concept that I elaborate in Chapter 4).
65 Limbale, The Outcaste (2003): 36.
66 Ibid.: 37.
67 The term ‘dalit representation’ here refers specifically to those representa-
tions that foreground Dalit Politics and not dalit feminist politics.
68 Ali, ‘Bazaar’ (2012): 60–61.
69 Ibid.: 63.
70 Singh and Acharya, Survival and Other Stories (2012): xxxvi.
71 Rajendran, ‘Staple Your Eyes If You Must’ (2017).
72 Govindarajan, ‘Kakkoos: Documentary Reveals the Brutal Reality of Manual
Scavenging’ (2017).
73 Kolappan, ‘The Camera Exposes a Dirty Untruth’ (2017).
74 Kolappan, ‘The Camera Exposes a Dirty Untruth’ (2017); Rajendran,
‘Staple Your Eyes If You Must’.
75 Govindarajan, ‘Kakkoos: Documentary Reveals the Brutal Reality’.
76 Malhotra, ‘The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and
Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013’ (2013): 2–3.
77 Ibid.: 2.
78 Ibid.: 3.
79 Srivastava, ‘Untouchability and Article 19 Cannot Co-Exist’ (2017).
80 John, ‘The Problem of Women’s Labour: Some Autobiographical
Perspectives’ (2013): 183.
81 Rao, ‘Stigma and Labour’ (2012): 23.
82 Ibid.: 24.
83 John, ‘The Problem of Women’s Labour: 183.
4
Exercising Agency
But how did you begin to write? And when did you get time to write—you had to sit
at the counter and take care of things?
Oh, that’s a long story indeed! Look, I reached the shop at nine in the
morning, after which my husband would leave the shop and go to buy
things that we required. He used to return only around four o’clock. That
gave me plenty of time. I began to write, putting into words the suffering
of my community… . Writing was a difficult task. I had to take great care
that nobody saw me writing…
Why did you have to hide your writing?

Firstly, because of my husband. He was a good man but like all the men
of his time and generation, he considered a woman to be an inferior
being… .
You started writing when you were thirty or so, but by the time you published, twenty
years had gone by. Did you keep your writing hidden for twenty years?
(Smiles) Well, I had to. So I hid everything I wrote in the most ignored
and dusty corners… . I used to be scared of both my son and my husband,
scared of their reaction… . Then it so happened that Maxine Berntson
[US research scholar on dalits] came to stay in Phaltan… . She liked
139
what I had written. Then she talked to Vidya Bal who was working as
the editor of the women’s magazine Stree. And so finally, it was serially
printed in Stree.1
This is an extract from an interview with Baby Kamble by Maya

Pandit which is added as an appendix to The Prisons We Broke.
Here Kamble challenges dual patriarchies and asserts identity in
terms of solidarity (see Chapter 2). Kamble also recognizes that
collective resistance is not the only way to achieve agency. As
visible in the conversation quoted above, Kamble’s own emergence
as a writer was accompanied by her personal struggle against her
husband’s ignorance. She had to ‘hide’ the pages from her family.
In fact, she had to wait for twenty years before her writings saw
the light of the day. What this conversation reveals is Kamble’s
manoeuvring through the complexities of life to finally emerge
victorious. Through her personal struggle we see that for a dalit
woman, survival is an utmost concern. Interestingly, despite being
recognized for her work within the dalit community and in her
in-laws’ house,2 she faces an obstacle in the form of her husband
who considers her ‘inferior’. In such conditions, Kamble has to
navigate her ways to survive and to keep her writings alive. Her
efforts see ultimate fruition in the publication of her writings.
What her experience reveals is an example of agency through
negotiation. This recognition is an important component of Dalit
Feminism’s intersectional standpoint.
As mentioned in Chapter 1, Dalit Feminism’s theoretical
framework can be theorized as an ‘intersectional standpoint’. It
begins with viewing caste and gender as mutually intersecting.
This intersectional perspective also makes it possible to bring in
its intersectional purview other systems, such as class, community,
and so on. The simultaneity and mutually constitutive intersection
of these structures is used to see how knowledge about monolithic
categories and concepts as developed by mainstream Indian
Feminism and Dalit Politics gets transformed. As an ‘intersectional
standpoint’, Dalit Feminism transforms knowledge about caste and
Exercising Agency 141
gender through two important conceptual interventions: negotiation

as a form of agency, and solidarity as a mode of resistance.
Negotiation
Dalit Feminism defines agency not only through active opposi-

tion but also through negotiation. In this way, Dalit Feminism
conceptually moves out of and challenges the binary of resistance
and victimhood; a binary that often constitutes the core of eman-
cipatory politics as articulated by mainstream Indian Feminism.
Negotiation helps reframe the concept of agency as survival. Dalit
feminist standpoint recognizes that when intersecting systems of
oppression constrict opposition, it is through negotiation that dalit
women assert their agency as a means of survival. This recognition
necessitates a transformation of the stereotypical representations
of dalit women as victims as well as the characteristics that define
such victimhood.
Dalit feminist representation problematizes representations of
dalit women as victims (seen predominantly in dalit writings) and
in terms of choice-based agency (proclaimed by mainstream Indian
Feminism) by focusing on negotiation for survival as an important
form of agency. According to Lois McNay, understanding agency
as resistance to victimhood has the danger of fixing agency only
as oppositional resistance. McNay claims that such opposition of
victimhood and agency ‘offers only a partial account of agency
because it remains within an essentially negative understanding
of subject formation’ and acknowledges agency ‘mainly through
the residual categories of resistance to, or the dislocation of, domi-
nant norms’.3 Martha Nussbaum also questions the conceptual-
ization of agency and victimhood in terms of binary opposition.
According to Nussbaum,
Agency and victimhood are not incompatible … . In American

society today … [we] encounter this contrast when social welfare
programs are debated: it is said that to give people various forms of

social support is to treat them as victims of life’s ills, rather than to
respect them as agents, capable of working to better their own lot.4
Nussbaum’s argument challenges the mutually exclusive opposi-

tion between an object (who is always victimized) and the subject
(one who has the capacity to struggle and survive).
In the context of studies conducted on dalit women in Tamil
Nadu, V. Geetha observes that exclusive focus on victimhood
renders rejection and complete defiance as the only ways to
achieve agency. She writes:
There are several campaigns that are constantly under way to

encourage [dalit women to take part] … in local political life, and
many stories of struggle and success have been recorded. Yet this
roster of discrimination and protest, resistance and success seldom
enables a discussion of how female dalit political subjectivity
is constituted and played out. There are rich details to be had
from particular studies of how [dalit] women experience sexual
tension, abuse, how they endure humiliation, and how they work
through each of these, the networks of support they build, the
criss-crossing alliances that they forge, with other caste women,
or with local political male leaders. But this information has not
been mined for an argument about politics, caste and gender that
would help feminists re-think these categories. Instead, what is
continuously voiced is a register of angry lament and defiance, a
voicing of experience, the rawness of which is called upon to attest
to its truth.5
As V. Geetha points out, a dalit feminist understanding of agency

would not merely reproduce instances of victimization and angry
retaliations, but would examine how female ‘dalit political subjec-
tivity is constituted and played out’. By bringing out different ways
of coping with victimhood, negotiation demolishes the dichotomy
between victimhood and agency.
Negotiation as a criterion to depict dalit feminist agential rep-

resentation is explicated through the character of Sanichari in
Mahasweta Devi’s short story, ‘Rudali’. Mostly read as a feminist
text exploring economic empowerment of women,6 Mahasweta
Devi’s ‘Rudali’ shows an understanding of how caste-gender-
class operate simultaneously. ‘Rudali’ narrates the struggles of
Sanichari, a dalit woman whose perpetual poverty, coupled with
deaths of her family members, has literally caused her tears to dry
up. The story tells how at the time of the death of her mother-in-
law she is so busy making funeral arrangements that ‘there was
no time to cry’.7 Then when her husband died, the ‘government
officers didn’t give her any time to shed tears’ because they burnt
the corpses too quickly fearing outbreak of epidemic; and at the
time of her son’s death she was so ‘stunned’ at the turn of events
that she could not cry.8 Added to this is her mounting debt to the
landlord. The story, however, goes beyond being a mere dirge to
Sanichari’s sad life to depict her emergence as a victor wherein
she converts grief into a profession by becoming a rudali (profes-
sional mourner). This is where the negotiatory aspect of agency
comes into focus.
Sanichari assumes mastery over the profession of rudalis as she
imparts her knowledge to the young rudalis-to-be. Her agency
lies in transforming her personal grief into profitable work. This
becomes clear in the way the rudalis classify their work:
Just for wailing, one kind of rate. Wailing and rolling on the ground,
five rupees one sikka. Wailing, rolling on the ground and beating
one’s head, five rupees two sikkas. Wailing and beating one’s
breast, accompanying the corpse to the cremation ground, rolling
around on the ground there—for that the charge is six rupees.9
Here Sanichari and her group do not actively resist the system.
Rather they manipulate their position within the system to make
it favourable for themselves. It is in this transformative act of
turning victimhood into a source of profit that their agency can

be traced.
‘Rudali’ therefore complicates the concept of agency through
oppositional choice by invoking agency through negotiation.
Unlike mainstream feminist interpretation of women’s exercise
of choice in oppositional terms as resistance to patriarchy with
respect to labour and sex (as seen through The Dirty Picture and
the Mumbai dance bar ban issue, see Chapter 3), in ‘Rudali,’
Mahasweta Devi clearly shows that Sanichari has no choice but
to opt for this profession. Deprived of all economic and emotional
support, she becomes a mourner. But it is here that negotiation
becomes important. Sanichari exercises agency not through active
resistance but by negotiating her way to survival. Sanichari does
not remain a victim of patriarchy. She, in fact, encourages young
dalit girls to leave prostitution and become rudalis. The job of a
professional mourner becomes an avenue to challenge the brah-
manical patriarchal practice of the devadasi system. Sanichari’s
act of professionalizing mourning and thereby gaining agency
through negotiation is similar to Dalwai’s interpretation of the
Mumbai dance bar ban issue. In response to Pandit’s preserva-
tionist claim (see Chapter 3) Dalwai argues that in banning bar
dancing, the ‘real objection was not to men accessing sexuality of
these women, but to men having to pay for it’.10 She substantiates
this claim by noting that even though the government used the
idea of morality to ban bar dancing, it did not ban prostitution.
Therefore, this ban reflected brahmanical patriarchal attitude
of free access to dalit women’s sexuality. Dalwai argues that by
redeploying their ‘hereditary skills’ of public dancing to suit the
new market of the dance bars, the dalit bar girls, in fact, gain
scope to earn money which ‘in turn, offers possibilities of freedom
from poverty and sex work, a chance at a middle-class lifestyle
and opportunities of education for the next generation’.11 Dalwai,
therefore, talks about using a caste-based skill for economic inde-
pendence. In the process, she recovers ‘lower-caste women’s
agency from the discourse around the dance bars that attach
women-as-victims narrative to a context which allows for much
more complexity and upward and outward mobility for lower-caste
women’.12 A dalit feminist representation therefore does not limit
dalit woman only to oppositional choice or complicit victimhood,
but provides scope for agency through negotiation.
Solidarity
Another concept that emerges out of the framework of Dalit

Feminism’s intersectional standpoint is the notion of solidarity.
Here I would like to distinguish between the idea of the collective
and the concept of solidarity. The notion of collective is linked
with, but not necessarily identical to, solidarity. The importance
of the collective has been emphasized repeatedly by dalit women’s
autobiographies as well as dalit women activists. This collective,
however, remains at the level of asserting identity-based commu-
nity association. Recovering these kinds of collectives becomes
the initial step to bring out dalit women’s voices. But it is when
this idea of the collective goes from being rooted in shared expe-
rience to a political understanding of the power dynamics that
structure these experiences that the dalit feminist concept of sol-
idarity emerges.
This notion of solidarity may be understood in terms of Black
Feminism and Transnational Feminism as articulated by bell
hooks and Chandra Talpade Mohanty respectively. Redefining
‘sisterhood’ in terms of solidarity, bell hooks argues that the
concept of sisterhood as evoked by mainstream feminists ‘was
based on the idea of common oppression’ which viewed male domi-
nation as the only category of oppression.13 hooks points out that
imposing commonality in oppression reduces the scope of feminist
endeavour in aiming for a larger social justice as this universality
disguises ‘the true nature of women’s varied and complex social
reality’ where women are ‘divided by sexist attitudes, racism, class
privilege, and a host of other prejudices’.14 Moreover, this com-

monality defines women as victims of patriarchy which prevents
an analysis of sexist ideology that prevails among women. hooks
adds, ‘Identifying as “victims” [white feminists] could abdicate
responsibility for their role in the maintenance and perpetuation
of sexism, racism, and classism, which they did by insisting that
only men were the enemy. They did not acknowledge and confront
the enemy within.’15 hooks notes that ‘political solidarity among
women’ needs to redefine the terms of solidarity.16 Thus, instead
of bonding ‘on the basis of shared victimization or in response to
a false sense of common enemy, we can bond on the basis of our
political commitment to a feminist movement that aims to end
sexist oppression’.17 hooks, therefore, conceptualizes sisterhood as
a ‘revolutionary accomplishment’ that women ‘work and struggle
to obtain’.18 Chandra Talpade Mohanty follows the same line of
argument as she writes,
I define solidarity in terms of mutuality, accountability, and

the recognition of common interests as the basis for relation-
ships among diverse communities. Rather than assuming an
enforced commonality of oppression, the practice of solidarity
foregrounds communities of people who have chosen to work and
fight together. Diversity and difference are central values here—
to be acknowledged and respected, not erased in the building of
alliances.19
Mohanty notes that rather than seeing Third World and Western
Feminisms as oppositional in a way that precludes the possibil-
ity of solidarity between them, she believes that the particularity
of the local illuminates the universal.20 Her position calls for an
intervention in ‘White Feminism’ with the aim to build a ‘non-
colonizing feminist solidarity across borders’.21 Solidarity politics
therefore emerges as a conscious position that recognizes differ-
ence, builds alliance across these differences without erasing/
ignoring their power politics, and then collectively struggles

towards a common goal.
One example of such solidarity may be seen in the way the Dalit
Panthers defined the term ‘dalit’ as ‘Members of Scheduled Castes
and Tribes, neo-Buddhists, the working people, the landless and
poor peasants, women and all those who are being exploited
politically, economically and in the name of religion’.22 However,
despite this listing of many categories, the Dalit Panthers privileged
caste as the category of analysis. Dalit feminist standpoint, on the
other hand, recognizes the intersection of these categories and
builds solidarity without erasing the differences.
Solidarity has appeared in Dalit Feminism both as a theory
and a praxis. In We Also Made History, writing the history of
Ambedkarite movements along with the narratives of dalit women
who participated in those movements provides an alternative
epistemology from the perspective of dalit women. The process
of gathering information from dalit women activists helps build
a network of ‘affection, friendship, patience and a sense of soli-
darity’.23 With a similar agenda in mind, We Were Making History
by Stree Shakti Sanghatana, provides a dalit feminist critique of
the Telangana Peasants’ revolt. Thus we read Sugunamma writing
how the Communist Party, despite allowing women’s entry, never
took up women’s issues.24 The double standards of the Party is
further revealed by Narasamma who mentions how women were
not allowed to participate in the guerrilla raids because of the
assumption that they are physically inferior, and how women were
continuously suspected of destroying the morale of the Party by
indulging in sexual affairs.25 Kamalamma points that the Party
was also inattentive towards preventing unwanted childbirth,
as a result of which they had to often abandon the newborn chil-
dren under the orders of Party leaders.26 We Were Making History
provides this much needed integration of caste and gender per-
spective where it re-centres the focus on sexuality and reproduc-
tion, family and political life, public and private spheres. Collective
utterance and solidarity, therefore, become useful in portraying

Dalit Feminism as an interventionist epistemology that also pro-
duces alternative knowledge.27
The concept of solidarity gets reflected in Dalit Feminism in the
way it builds affinity without erasing differences. This means, often
going beyond the collective consisting of dalit women and incorpo-
rating others. This aspect of dalit feminist standpoint is evident in
works such as Bama’s Sangati (2005) and Gogu Shyamala’s Father
May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But… (2012).
Bama’s Sangati has been highly appreciated for its feminist take
on the ‘double oppression’ of dalit women through its identifica-
tion of the patriarchy in dalit communities28 and recovery of dalit
women as agents rather than mute victims.29 This agency is seen
through the formulation of dalit women’s collective. In Sangati this
aspect is seen in an episode after the rape of Mariamma. In order
to hide his attempted rape of Mariamma, the upper-caste land-
lord blames her for having an affair with a dalit boy, Manikkam,
thereby presenting her as a ‘whore’. As a result, the panchayat,
which includes dalit men, publicly humiliates Mariamma. While
the men in the panchayat (including Mariamma’s father) blame
her for having an affair, it is the group of dalit women who speak
up in support of Mariamma.30 They not only point at the injus-
tice meted out to Mariamma, but also highlight the fact that
both the upper-caste landlord and the dalit boy, Manikkam, go
unscathed.31 These women consciously challenge brahmanical
and dalit patriarchies which respectively ascribe impurity to a
dalit women and hold only the dalit woman guilty of having an
affair. These women, therefore, stand in sisterhood to resist both
the patriarchies. The power of this collective is mentioned by
Bama in the introduction to Sangati where she writes that these
dalit women, despite being oppressed ‘by patriarchy, government,
caste, and religion’ have ‘the courage to break the shackles of
authority, to propel themselves upwards, to roar (their defiance)
… [and] to make fun of the class in power that oppressed them’.32
Interpreted through a dalit feminist lens, this idea of the collective

exemplifies the concept of political solidarity based on an intersec-
tional standpoint.
This, however, is not the only way in which Dalit Feminism
conceptualizes the collective. While in Sangati dalit women join
in solidarity based on their political understanding of how dalit
women are objectified by casteist patriarchy, in Father May Be an
Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But… solidarity is seen to
be operative across genders. Gogu Shyamala’s collection of short
stories has gained critical recognition for its portrayal of dalit life
and culture in a small village in Andhra Pradesh. It presents a
varied dalit life-world by focusing almost equally on the issues
faced by both dalit men and women. Thus we see dalit men being
oppressed by upper-caste landlords (‘Raw Wound’), dalit women
successfully resisting sexual advances of an upper-caste landlord
(‘Tataki Wins Again’), a dalit woman’s oppression by her husband
(‘Father May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But…’),
dalit women resisting the taunts made by dalit men (‘Jambava’s
Lineage’), dalit men supporting a dalit woman during her demand
to own land (‘But Why Shouldn’t the Baindla Woman Ask for
Her Land?’), the caste discrimination a dalit boy faces in school
(‘Obstacle Race’), a dalit father’s efforts to save his daughter from
becoming a jogini (‘Raw Wound’), and so on.33
Although the book is primarily praised for a feminist take on
domestic violence in the dalit community, especially in the first
titular story,34 Shyamala argues that her intention was never to
show the dalit man in poor light.35 For her, a dalit feminist position
is not premised upon an opposition between dalit men as oppressors
and dalit women as the oppressed. Rather her dalit feminist stand-
point becomes evident through her representation of how caste
is so enmeshed within the public and the private that it cannot
be viewed as external to gender. This is evident in her stories
wherein members of a dalit community, both men and women not
only work together but also collectively oppose the caste system
with an awareness of its gendered aspect. As a result her stories do

not present Dalit Feminism as a politics exclusive to dalit women;
instead her dalit feminist standpoint creates solidarity between
men and women in the fight against casteist sexism.
Politics built through a collective working towards the same
agenda is also portrayed in Turup (2017), a film by Ektara Collective.
The Collective mentions that their films are consciously political
as they choose to stay away from scripted dramatization. Rather
than the play of emotions, they want to convey their propaganda.
That is why their actors and advisors belong to the groups on
which these stories are based.36
The film Turup shows how people move, like pawns in a board
of chess, controlled by the multiple structures caste, gender
and religion. The story largely follows the relationship between
a dalit girl and a Muslim man, the right-wing political party’s
opposition to it, and the ultimate victory of the couple in a legal
battle. Turup therefore brings forth the issue of inter-caste, inter-
religious marriage and its conflict with Brahmanism. The film
shows how the Hindutva party, which otherwise avoids the touch
of dalits, tries to bring dalits within the ‘Hindu’ fold so as to impose
brahmanical ideals of marriage on dalits and prevent the dalit
girl from marrying a Muslim boy. Thus we see the Hindutva party
sticking posters in dalit villages about how ‘Hindu’ girls should
all be like the upper-caste goddesses, Saraswati and Lakshmi, and
also manipulating a dalit boy, Deepak, into taking up the role as
the patriarch and marry off his sister, Lata, who incidentally is also
in love with another Muslim boy, Majid. Brahmanism therefore is
shown as operating through control on dalit women’s sexuality.
The film therefore recognizes the interlink between caste, gender
and religion and sees brahmanical patriarchy as the specific
problem.
What becomes the most memorable aspect of the film is how
a group of women stand in solidarity in support of the couple.
The catalyst of this collective is Monica, an elderly dalit woman
who works as a maid in an upper-caste household. Monica’s

choice to live as an unmarried dalit woman living with another
dalit woman, her observations on family and companionship demol-
ishes the aura of sacrosanctity, inevitability and heteronormativ-
ity surrounding marriage and family. Monica argues that family is
not relational but rather one that is created through camaraderie.
And it is this realization that leads Monica to give shelter to the
couple ostracized by Hindutva party. In the process she also invites,
Neelima, the upper-caste landlady who used to be a journalist, to
be a part of this struggle. Neelima here is seen as standing with
dalit women rather than imposing her views on them. In fact, it is
Monica who asks Neelima to take the interview of the dalit girl and
Purnima, Monica’s partner, decides when it should be published.
Neelima, therefore, is not presented as narrating an assumed narra-
tive or taking up a patronising attitude. In the way the film shows
the possibility of building solidarity based on a common goal.
The film, however, also highlights the complications that arise
while forging solidarity across castes and classes. The film shows
that even after solidarity is created it is not always easy to achieve
the desired solution. This becomes clear in the newspaper report
written by Neelima. The title of the report reads: ‘Bhopal Love
Jihad “Victim” asserts herself, says, “I have come on my own
will”.’ On the one hand, the allusion to Love Jihad places the issue
within the Hindutva religious-sexist context and reveals that it
is a specific brahmanical attempt to prevent an inter-religious
marriage. On the other hand, by putting ‘victim’ within quotes,
the report challenges the mainstream representation of the girl
as a helpless target kidnapped by a Muslim boy (as claimed by other
newspaper reports). Its use of the term ‘asserts’ shows the girl’s
agency. Interestingly, however, in both cases the issue is portrayed
as a community-gender issue. The factor of the girl being ‘dalit’
does not feature in the report. This failure can be seen as indic-
ative of the complexity of caste/gender/religion and the difficulty
to overcome the oppression caused by this multiplicity. Instead of
viewing the film as somewhat of a failure in this specific aspect,

I value it for the problematic it highlights. The film forces us to
look at the utopic conception of ‘solidarity’ with suspicion. By
portraying a real-life scenario, Turup shows that it is a long way
to build a collective wherein intra-categorical hierarchies are
identified and countered. The importance of the film, then, is
not in achieving a firm resolution. Rather, it is in the recognition
of differences and intersections that go into building a collective
opposition that the premise of the film needs to be understood.
Conclusion
Understood in conceptual terms, dalit feminist agency therefore

may be explored in texts that are not consciously engaged with
a dalit feminist politics. For example, in The Outcaste, Limbale’s
mother, Masamai, exercises agency by choosing to live with the
upper-caste landlord. Even though the autobiography is neither
centred on the mother, nor does it emphasize/accept the mother’s
choice, through a dalit feminist lens we can read the mother as
an agential figure. However, it is important to remember that the
mother’s ‘choice’ is negotiatory. After being raped by an upper-
caste landlord she is deserted by her husband and left alone.
The mother chooses to live with the upper-caste landlord out of
survival instincts. Her negotiation can be contrasted to Limbale’s
grandmother, Santamai, who lives with Dada, a Muslim man.
Unlike Masamai, the issue of survival does not drive Santamai.
Her relationship with Dada defies the strict rules of endogamy
and defines dalit woman’s agency in terms of choice as well as
freedom from male control of female sexuality. Mallika in The
Scar is also a significant figure in this context. As mentioned in
Chapter 2, Gunasekaran sees Mallika’s success as an artist as
an example of ‘dalit’ liberation in cultural and economic terms.
Gunasekaran, therefore, includes Mallika within the broader
category ‘dalit’ wherein dalit women are subsumed and gender
specificity is unrecognized. A dalit feminist analysis of her

representation in the text offers a different interpretation. Mallika
rejects the dominant brahmanical notion that dalit women’s
dancing is only indicative of dalit women’s sexualized availability
for public consumption. Her success, both in artistic and economic
terms (as argued by Dalwai in relation to the dance bar girls),
marks an intervention where dalit women’s dance performance
in the public arena is established as a valid form of art. Her
resistance to brahmanical and patriarchal notions is further
solidified when she identifies herself as a lesbian who is ‘married’ to
another girl.37 Mallika’s homosexuality challenges the normative
casteist heterosexual assumptions that a dalit woman’s sexuality
is accessible only to men (dalit men in the domestic sphere and
higher-caste men in the public sphere) and that marriage is
necessarily heterosexual. Mallika’s agency lies in simultaneously
challenging the patriarchal rules of procreative heteronormativity
and the casteist notions of sexual availability.
Agency through negotiation is also visible in the representation
of Kathamuthu’s two wives, Kanagavalli and Nagamani, in The
Grip of Change by P. Sivakami. These two wives are interesting
figures in the text because they are neither fully victimized, nor do
they completely resist the system. They remain within the realm
of marital domesticity, but they can be seen to negotiate their
way in the household to create a space for themselves. Although
neither of them are happy with the situation, they do not suffer in
silence as victims. This becomes visible in the way they interrupt
Kathamuthu and make sharp remarks:
‘Why do you have to spoil someone’s marriage? Is that good?

You’ve hurt his family,’ Kanagavalli stressed the last part for the
benefit of Nagamani who had come to the verandah with the hot
water. Nagamani directed a scornful look at Kathamuthu.
Quick to take the hint, Kathamuthu rounded on Kanagavalli,
‘Are you here to pass judgement early in the morning? Go inside
and get some coffee. Now!’
‘Everyone laughs at the set-up in your home, and here you

are trying to teach others. You think you are such a bigshot!’
Kanagavalli went inside, muttering so that he could hear.38
This shows how Kanagavalli, the elder wife, directs her criticism
towards the husband. The wives also join hands in criticizing
Kathamuthu. This becomes evident when Thangam comes to
Kathamuthu asking for help, Kathamuthu makes a sarcastic remark
about how, ‘Thangam’ (literally meaning ‘gold’) is an unsuitable
name for a dalit woman who is equivalent to a broomstick.39 To
this, Nagamani says, ‘That’s only to be expected of you … . The
frog asks for trouble with its own voice, doesn’t it? That proverb
is one hundred per cent true in your case. Had you not always
indulged in cheap jokes at others’ expense, you would have
become a member of parliament by now. You never behave with
the dignity appropriate for a man of stature.’40 When Kathamuthu
retaliates with anger, Kanagavalli tells Nagamani, ‘Come on, let’s
go in. We have nothing to do here.’41 The two wives therefore
negotiate with patriarchy by creating a sense of camaraderie.
Dalit feminist representation has been exemplified not just by
dalit women’s texts, but also writings by non-dalit women and
dalit men writers (which are seen in this chapter) which include
representations of dalit women that may be read as dalit feminist.
Here I make a distinction between the value of speaking out and
the politics of representation. Drawing on Stuart Hall, I maintain
that the question is not just one of who represent whom, but that
of the process and implication of that representation. Sharmila
Rege explores this idea in terms of solidarity by emphasizing that
the dalit feminist standpoint avoids ‘the narrow alley of direct
experience based “authenticity” and narrow “identity politics’’,’
and incorporates ‘other groups who must educate themselves
about the histories, the preferred social relations and utopias and
the struggles of the marginalized’.42 In this formulation, Dalit
Feminism as a standpoint is not restricted only to dalit women.
It, in fact, becomes a political platform that creates scope for

building solidarity in opposition to systems of intersectional
oppression. Seen in terms of a methodology of analysis, such an
understanding of dalit feminist standpoint expands the purview
of its theoretical framework. Hence, rather than assuming that
only dalit women can become dalit feminists, I argue that even
a representation by a dalit man or a non-dalit can become dalit
feminist. This differentiation between the voice of dalit women
and dalit feminist politics is rooted in the politics of positionality
wherein I emphasize the process of becoming a dalit woman.
Notes
1 Kamble, The Prisons We Broke (2008): 147–48.
2 Ibid.: 140–43.
3 McNay, ‘Agency, Anticipation and Indeterminacy in Feminist Theory’
(2003): 140.
4 Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (2003): 534.
5 Geetha, ‘Dalit Feminism: Where Life-Worlds and Histories Meet’ (2012):
246.
6 Katyal, ‘The Metamorphosis of Rudali’ (2008): 41; Ganguly and Jha, ‘A
Dalit Woman’s Experiences in Post Colonial India: A Close Reading of
Mahasweta Devi’s Rudali’ (2013–14): 151–52.
7 M. Devi, ‘Rudali’ (2007): 72.
8 Ibid.: 73–79.
9 Ibid.: 96–97.
10 Dalwai, ‘Caste and the Bar Dancer’ (2013): 132. Emphasis is mine.
11 Ibid.: 131.
12 Ibid.:132.
13 hooks, ‘Sisterhood: Political Solidarity Among Women’ (2015): 43.
14 Ibid.: 44.
15 Ibid.:46.
16 Ibid.:7.
17 Ibid.: 48.
18 Ibid.: 43.
19 Mohanty, ‘Under Western Eyes Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through
Anticapitalist Struggles’ (2003b): 7. Emphasis is mine.
20 Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity
(2003a): 503.
21 Mohanty, ‘Under Western Eyes Revisited’: 224.
22 Satyanarayana and Tharu, The Exercise of Freedom: An Introduction to Dalit

Writing (2013): 62.
23 Pawar and Moon, We Also Made History’: Women in the Ambedkarite Movement
(2014): 39.
24 Stree Shakti Sanghatana, We Were Making History’: Life Stories of Women in
the Telangana Peoples’ Struggle (1989): 93–94.
25 Ibid.: 24.
26 Ibid.: 265.
27 One such example of alternative knowledge is the recovery of Ambedkar
in Dalit Feminism. Rege (2013) foregrounds Ambedkar’s interpretation
of endogamy as the root of caste division and the dicta of Manusmriti in
sanctifying it. Endogamy, i.e., the process of fixing marriages within castes,
justifies the exclusivity of caste groups and ascertains the logic of birth-
based origin. Rege elaborates that Ambedkar opts for a ‘feminist take
on caste’ by highlighting the issue of ‘parity between marriageable units,
men and women, or how to maintain it’ (Against the Madness of Manu:
61). And it is in recognizing such regulatory and discriminatory praxis
that, Rege observes, Ambedkar’s understanding of caste as a gendered
category becomes important. Another example is the reinterpretation of
the Mahad Satyagraha. Unlike dalit historiography where this satyagraha
is invoked as one of the very first triumphs of dalits as a collective in
reclaiming public Pawar and Moon, in We Also Made History, emphasize
how it was Ambedkar’s speech at the satyagraha that posed a challenge
to caste and gender oppression on dalit women (120–23). This point is
elaborated in Chapter 5. For more on dalit historiography’s representation
of Mahad Satyagraha see, spaces Dangle, Poisoned Bread: Translations from
Modern Marathi Dalit Literature (1992): ix–x; Guru, ‘Limits of the Organic
Intellectual: A Gramscian Reading of Ambedkar’ (2013): 99.
28 Latha, ‘Double Oppression in Bama’s Karukku and Sangati’ (2017); Singh,
‘Dalit Women Identity in Bama’s Sangati’ (2013).
29 Kumar and Sabeetha, ‘Bama’s Sangati as a Unique Dalit Feminist Narration
from Subjugation to Celebration’ (2017): 95–96; Haider, ‘Other Tongues:
A Study of Bama’s Karukku and Sangati’ (2015).
30 Bama, Sangati: Events (2005): 23–26.
31 Ibid.: 23–25.
32 Ibid.: vii.
33 These are short stories from Shyamala’s Father May Be an Elephant and
Mother Only a Small Basket, But…
34 Narsing, ‘Dalit Feminism: A New Strategy in the Selected Short Stories
of Gogu Shyamala’s’ (2012): 208; Boddu and Bolleddu, ‘Portrayal of Dalit
Women Sufferings in the works of Gogu Shyamala and Joopaka Subhadra’s
“Nalla Regati Sallu”’ (2016): 48–49.
35 Shyamala, Father May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But...
36 Collective, ‘Collectivising Cinema: The Story of Ektara’ (2017): 4–7.

37 Gunasekaran, The Scar (2009): 88.
38 Sivakami, The Grip of Change (2006): 7.
39 Ibid.: 9.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 Rege, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of Difference and
Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position’ (1998a): 45.
5
Revisiting History
History is the subject of a structure whose site is not homogeneous empty

time, but time filled by the presence of the now. Thus, to Robespierre
ancient Rome was a past charged with the time of the now which he
blasted out of the continuum of history. The French Revolution viewed
itself as Rome incarnate. It evoked ancient Rome the way fashion evoked
costumes of the past. Fashion has a flair for the topical, no matter where
it stirs in the thickets of long ago; it is a tiger’s leap into the past. This
jump, however, takes place in an arena where the ruling class gives the
commands. The same leap in the open air of history is the dialectical one,
which is how Marx understood the revolution.~Walter Benjamin
In the previous chapters we have seen how Dalit Feminism inter-

venes into dominant knowledge and transforms it through an
intersectional standpoint position, challenging mainstream Indian
feminist portrayal of dalit women in binaries of victims/agents.
It emphasizes on negotiation and solidarity as crucial strategies for
dalit women’s survival and their agential assertion (see Chapters 3
and 4). Dalit Feminism, therefore, has emerged as an interven-
tionist epistemology that also produces alternative knowledge.
I now explore Dalit Feminism as an epistemology, beginning with
159
the critical acknowledgement of the power hierarchy latent in

given knowledge while being aware that the subjects/texts chosen
for analysis are also influenced by power. How is knowledge of/
about caste and gender re-conceptualized by dalit feminist stand-
point? I consider historiography as the realm of study and explore
it in two areas: recovery and reinterpretation.
The benefit of viewing history as a text is that it opens ‘history’
to multiple interpretations. For Benjamin (as quoted above)
history that we receive as ‘true’ is the history of the victors.1 Here
Benjamin is clearly referring to the connection between knowl-
edge and power where the information that gets disseminated
as ‘knowledge’ is always formulated by the powerful.2 That is why
he emphasizes on shifting our focus to the ‘struggling, oppressed
class [which] is the depository of historical knowledge’.3 Benjamin
challenges the idea of homogeneity in and of history. History,
here, is viewed as a varied, dynamic concept that is susceptible to
change based on time and groups that experience those events. In
the Indian context, the Subaltern historiography has emerged as
a potent method to challenge dominant history and write alter-
native history. Posing an epistemological challenge to the elitist
narrative of India’s history of independence against British colo-
nialism, the Subaltern theorists focus on the non-elites, such as
the peasants and tribal people, as agents in the emergent political
and social change. Ranajit Guha, one of the founding members of
the Subaltern Studies group, sought to de-elitise the nationalist
history by focusing on the Santhal rebellion of 1855. The subal-
tern viewpoint formulated by Guha questions the interpretation of
Santhal rebellion by colonizers and the rejection/appropriation
of it by mainstream nationalist discourse.4 Guha reflects that, while
peasant insurgency got translated into an ‘administrative concern’
by colonizers, the elitist nationalism rejected such insurgency as
suitable for history because such activity was seen as ‘purely spon-
taneous’ and without proper leadership.5 Guha argues,
Revisiting History 161
There is nothing that historiography can do to eliminate such

distortion altogether, for the latter is built into its optics. What it
can do, however, is to acknowledge such distortion as parametric—
as a datum which determines the form of the exercise itself, and
to stop pretending that it can fully grasp a past consciousness and
reconstitute it. Then and only then might the distance between the
latter and the historian’s perception of it be reduced significantly
enough to amount to a close approximation which is the best one
could hope for.6
The Subaltern perspective, therefore, not only challenges the

subject and content of dominant history but also the process of
writing history. Through history, the Subaltern perspective pre-
sents an epistemological critique to dominant knowledge about
nationalism. By treating history as a text, the truth, authority and
absoluteness that are usually ascribed to history are challenged.
History, then, is presented not as a list of ‘facts,’ irrefutable and
beyond any scope of deniability, but as events that are docu-
mented by different groups differently. Such approach, termed
by Rita Felski as ‘critical historicism’ identifies that ‘history is not
a box—that conventional models of historicizing and context-
ualizing prove deficient in accounting for the transtemporal
movement and affective resonance of particular texts’.7 What
Benjamin’s idea facilitates is the necessity to view history through
the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ wherein history is read against the
grain and between the lines.8 This perspective challenges the abso-
lutism of history which, in turn, becomes a useful text to revisit
and re-question dominant ideologies and praxis.
It is for this reason that I choose historiography to explicate
the relation between knowledge and power. Historiography, that
is, the study of how history gets written and what gets written
as history, provides a potent ground for epistemological enquiry
into the process of knowledge-construction, the selection of
events, and the role of the producer of knowledge. Who produces/
writes history and from which location? How does the selection
of historical events influence the construction/writing of history?

What kind of epistemological challenge does Dalit Feminism pose
through an alternative historiography? I conceptualize history as a
‘text’ in the Barthesian context wherein it is defined in perpetual
dynamicity.9 History, then, is opened up for ‘play’10 which enables
us to see an object from multiple perspectives and helps us generate
new knowledge.
I look at dalit feminist historiography to specifically understand
how events and issues are revisited and reinterpreted. This raises
question about how and what kind of knowledge is generated
by dalit, mainstream feminist and dalit feminist historiographies
and what are their implications? However, since the standpoint
project does not merely stop at identifying the instances of forced
silencing but investigates the process of it, I also look at reinter-
pretations of dalit and mainstream feminist theorization from the
dalit feminist standpoint. Since recovery and reinterpretation are
two methods that get utilized by all oppositional historiographies,
my aim here is to explore the ways in which the implementa-
tion of these two methods distinguishes dalit feminist historio-
graphy from dalit historiography and mainstream Indian feminist
historiography.
As mentioned earlier, the processes of reinterpretation and
recovery are inseparable parts of epistemological intervention
and transformation. Thus, along with recovering dalit women,
this chapter focuses on Dalit Feminism’s reinterpretation of the
ideologies propounded by prominent leaders who led anti-caste
movements, such as Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar. I also look at
major events that have been recovered by Dalit Feminism. Since
epistemological enquiry into historiography looks at who as well as
what gets emphasized in the writing of history, events become
an important factor. In this context, the reinterpretation of the
Mahad Satyagraha by Urmila Pawar and Meenakshi Moon in
We Also Made History, and the reinterpretation of the Telangana
Peoples’ Struggle in We Were Making History by Stree Shakti
Sanghatana have become central to dalit feminist historiogra-

phy (see Chapter 4). The recovery of dalit women collectives in
these texts provides a feminist critique of dalit historiography that
undermines the latter’s exclusive focus on caste which results in
the erasure of women, and highlights different issues that emerge
specifically from dalit women’s experiences. At the same time, the
difference between the mainstream Indian feminist and dalit femi-
nist historiographies lies in the way gender is viewed in relation to
caste and in the recognition of dual patriarchies.
Dalit Feminist Historiography
The point where dalit feminist historiography distinguishes itself

from both mainstream Indian feminist historiography and dalit
historiography is in making the intersection of caste and gender
the central mode of analysis, thereby intertwining the processes
of recovery and reinterpretation with respect to the other two
marginal historiographies.
Savitribai Phule
A prominent figure who is recovered in the dalit feminist rein-
terpretation of dalit and mainstream Indian feminist historio-
graphies is Savitribai Phule. While mainstream Indian feminist
historiography emphasizes her identity as a ‘woman’,11 dalit his-
toriography12 hails her as the icon of wifehood and motherhood
who overcomes all obstacles in supporting her husband and gives
her life in helping the lower castes and the poor with motherly
affection. T. L. Joshi recounts the incident where, convinced by a
brahmin priest, Jotirao was thrown out of the house by his father,
and it was ‘Savitribai [who] stood by her husband in this period of
trial’.13 Joshi also mentions how Savitribai adopted a boy born
of a brahmin widow and reared him ‘like her own son’.14 Savitribai
therefore is portrayed in dalit historiography as the ideal wife
willing to share ‘sufferings with her husband’ and also as the iconic
mother whose love is universal.15
Critiquing dalit historiography’s representation of Savitribai as
a supporter and nurturer, dalit feminist historiography emphasizes
her autonomy. This recovery of Savitribai has highlighted her as
a poet, a writer, a thinker and a teacher. In A Forgotten Liberator:
The Life and Struggles of Savitribai Phule, Braj Ranjan Mani blames
the ‘casteist and sexist negligence’16 that monopolizes knowledge
production in maintaining a ‘deeply biased and brahmanical’17
outlook. In his work, Mani reclaims Savitribai in her capacities
as a social reformer and creative writer who is seen to act as an
agent independent of her identity as Jotirao Phule’s wife. Dalit
feminist historiography has also focused on events that highlight
the caste and gender aspect of Savitribai’s life. One such incident
is of brahmin women throwing dung at her and abusing her, ‘What
is she doing, why is this happening? This is an insult to our sex
and religion!’18 Dalit feminist recovery of this event highlights
the intersectional aspect of Savitribai’s identity that made her
a target of public assaults. Her abuse by upper-caste women
highlights brahmanical control of women’s sexuality, wherein the
assumption that dalit women are licentious because of their public
visibility, as opposed to brahmin women whose confinement
within the house preserves their purity, is brought into focus.19
Thus we can see that the verbal and physical assaults Savitribai
had to face for coming out of the house and daring to teach, are
specifically rooted in brahmanical patriarchal notions that created
a schism between upper-and lower-caste women. In invoking
this particular incident, Omvedt recognizes Savitribai’s abuse by
upper-caste women as structured by brahmanical patriarchy.
The recognition of this caste-based specificity in Savitribai’s
abuse also challenges her mainstream Indian feminist representa-
tion as a ‘woman’. Tharu and Lalita write,
Both Savithribai and Jotiba Phule were maligned, socially ostra-

cised, and attacked by the orthodoxy whose authority and power
they had questioned. Yet Savithribai had special burdens to carry.

Women are traditionally charged with the responsibility of preserv-
ing societal ‘purity’ and maintaining its norms. When they rebel,
they are policed and punished in a thousand ways that rarely touch
the men. Like the wives and co-workers of so many of the enthu-
siastic male reformers of that period, Savithribai bore the brunt of
the attack against the Phules and the Satyashodhak Mandal even
as she strained to shield her husband.20
This articulation provides a gendered understanding of Savitribai’s

situation wherein only her identity as a woman, in contrast to
men, is brought into focus, while caste is erased. Consequently,
patriarchy also gets defined in terms of the single axis of gender as
sexism. On the other hand, a dalit feminist reading of Savitribai,
as shown by Omvedt earlier, reinterprets sexism as specifically
casteist sexism. Therefore, the notion of ‘purity’ (mentioned in
the quote by Tharu and Lalita) in a dalit feminist understanding,
gets redefined as brahmanical patriarchal practice.21
Jotirao Phule
With the recovery of Savitribai as a key figure in lower-caste fem-
inist history, it is also important to invoke her husband, Jotirao
Phule, one of the earliest leaders to fight against Brahmanism to
see how he may be interpreted, or re-interpreted, through a dalit
feminist lens. Phule’s ideology has gained prominence in Dalit
Politics and history due to his proposition of the Aryan race theory
that reinterprets Brahmanism as a system of ‘power and domi-
nance’.22 Against the birth-based logic propagated in the Vedic
culture to validate the caste system, Phule argues that brahmins
were part of the Aryan race that invaded the land of India and
enslaved the original inhabitants.23 Depicting Brahmanism as
having a historical origin, has brought about a radical reinterpre-
tation of the caste system with the idea that since it did have an
origin, there was a possibility to end it as well. Phule writes in

Gulamgiri (Slavery),
Recent researches have demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt

that the Brahmans were not the aborigines of India… . The extreme
fertility of the soil of India, its rich productions, the proverbial
wealth of its people, and the other innumerable gifts which this
favoured land enjoys, and which have more recently tempted the
cupidity of the Western nations, no doubt, attracted the Aryans,
who came to India, not as simple emigrants with peaceful inten-
tions of colonization, but as conquerors… . They originally settled
on the banks of the Ganges whence they gradually spread over
the whole of India. In order, however, to keep a better hold on the
people they devised that weird system of mythology, the ordination
of caste, and the code of cruel and inhuman laws, to which we can
find no parallel amongst other nations.24
Phule’s observation had immense impact on Dalit Politics which

based its position not only against Vedic Brahmanism but also
against casteism in the nationalist movement. In the words of
Baburao Bagul:
The national movement was turned into a form of historical,

mythological movement and ancestor worship… . Those who
propounded inequality and did not wish society to be democratic,
started eulogizing and sublimating history, mythology and ages
gone by because, in those mythological and historical ages, they
were the supreme victors and leaders. The intelligentsia now
harked back to and worshipped the past because of this. People
such as Phule, Agarkar, Gokhale and Ranade who talked about
misery and servitude of the Shudras and the Atishudras, who
criticized the varna system and demanded social, economic and
political reconstruction, were declared enemies and were attacked
from all sides. The intelligentsia won; they succeeded in turning
the Indian liberation struggle into a lop-sided fight, and in reducing
other movements to a secondary status.25
Kancha Ilaiah in his article ‘Dalitism and Brahmanism’ sees Phule

as challenging ‘Brahmanical nationalism’.26 By recovering Phule’s
observations on the caste system, Dalit Politics not only highlights
anti-caste politics’ contestation of the Brahmanism in the nation-
alist movement but also its challenge to the nationalist ideology of
unity against British colonizers. According to Omvedt, the outcome
of the counter-argument posed by Dalit Politics fractured the defini-
tion of national oppression (which brahmanical nationalism defined
as oppression by British colonizers, thereby ignoring the caste-
based oppression operative within) and nation (wherein it was
no longer viewed as a homogeneous entity but highlighted the
caste-based divisions in communities within India).27
The hegemony of Brahmanism, according to Phule, was main-
tained by restricting knowledge within the upper castes. Hence,
to step out of the brahmanical ideologies Phule propounded the
necessity of education as a crucial requirement for the emanci-
pation of the people oppressed by caste system (and he includes
shudras, atishudras and women into this category). His endeav-
our began with educating his wife, Savitribai Phule, who actively
contributed to his vision of social reformation. In 1848 Phule
established the first school for girls, and proceeded to found several
other schools, including night schools for working class people,
and vocational education for widows.28
Phule also links lack of knowledge with the poor social and
economic condition of the peasants. He points out that the exploit-
ative brahmanical system and the indifferent British authorities
are responsible for the downfall of the peasants. In Phule’s concep-
tualization of caste oppression, knowledge and labour are under-
stood as two intersecting factors. Control over knowledge, land
and natural resources create a complex nexus of hegemonic power
relations between the higher and lower castes. Recognizing the
material and sexual consequences that function in overlapping
ways in which Brahmanism exploits women of different castes,
Phule contrasts dalit women’s labour both inside and outside the
house to the brahmin women’s situation. In Cultivator’s Whipcord

(Shetkaryacha Asud) he shows that brahmin women are subject to
the power of brahmin men, while the dalit women are doubly
crushed as they are dominated by both upper-caste and dalit men.
He also connected the oppression of widows to their economic
dependency on the deceased husband’s family.29
Thus, Phule views gender and caste being intricately linked
to class where economic disparity and dependence are seen as
major factors underlying the subjugation of dalits and women.
As a solution, Phule proposes a religious alternative in his book
Sarvajanik Satya Dharma where he argued for a ‘noble-minded
equilatarian theism … [and] a strong male-female equality’.30
This aspect, which remains predominantly subdued in dalit rein-
terpretation, becomes visible through a dalit feminist re-reading
of Jotirao Phule.
Muktabai
Difference in the terms of recovery between feminist historio-
graphy and both mainstream Indian feminist as well as dalit
historiography is also evident in the case of Muktabai. Cynthia
Stephen explores Muktabai as an ideal student of Savitribai
whose essay, ‘About the Griefs of the Mangs and Mahars’ 1855
(‘Mang Maharanchya Dukhavisath’), ‘poignantly describes the
wretchedness of the so-called untouchables and lambastes
the brahmanical religion and culture for degrading and dehuman-
izing her people’.31 Stephen represents Muktabai as an example
of how education becomes a means to gain awareness about
caste and speak out against it. Stephen therefore puts Muktabai
within the caste framework. Muktabai and her article have also
found a place in Susie Tharu and K. Lalita’s anthology Women
Writing in India, vol.1. This anthology, with the particular aim to
bring out women’s voices from a ‘feminist’ perspective,’ places
Muktabai in this context.32 They point at her ‘intelligence and
self-confidence’ which, they write, is unthinkable ‘for an untouch-

able, and a woman at that’.33
Pawar and Moon refer to Muktabai for her expansive under-
standing of ‘brahmin domination’ as caste-gender oppres-
sion.34 Muktabai’s article is invoked by Pawar and Moon to
show her remarkable awareness about graded hierarchy within
castes and the difference between women in different castes.
Apart from her observations on caste hierarchies among Mangs
and Mahars (two dalit communities) Muktabai also incorpo-
rates dalit women’s condition to highlight why gender is an
essential factor in caste oppression. Braj Ranjan Mani invokes
Muktabai’s article as a recognition of the specificity of casteist
patriarchal oppression of dalit women by foregrounding the latter’s
experience:
When our women give birth to babies, they do not have even a
roof over their houses. How they suffer in the rain and the cold!
Please try to think about it from your own experience. If they get
some disease while giving birth, where will they get money for the
doctor or medicines? Was there ever any doctor among you who
was human enough to treat people free of cost?35
This dalit feminist reading of Muktabai’s article, thus, focuses

on the issue of hygiene during birthing and the consequences
of caste-based segregation which affect specifically dalit women
and children. Due to their untouchable status, dalit people lived
on the fringes or outside the villages in harrowing conditions.36
However, as Muktabai’s article shows, the unhygienic conditions
caused physical harm in gender-specific ways to dalit women.
This portrayal of Muktabai by dalit feminist historiography also
highlights the caste-based difference among women. The specific
reference to ‘our women’ in Muktabai’s article serves as an example
of the acknowledgement of such difference which challenges the
unified category of ‘Indian woman’ who is the overarching subject
of mainstream Indian feminist historiography.
B. R. Ambedkar and the Mahad Satyagraha
B. R. Ambedkar occupies an inevitable and compulsory place in

anti-caste theorizing. Dalit historiography recovers Ambedkar’s
legacy in a biographical manner tracing the evolution of his
political thought37 and by tracing his influence on later political
and literary movements.38 Defining him as a ‘political realist’,39
Omvedt argues that Ambedkar’s greatest contribution in Dalit
Politics has been his call for annihilation of caste and the under-
standing that the caste system is ‘not [just] a division of labour
… [but] as a division of labourers’.40 Ambedkar is also revived
as a contrast to Gandhi. According to Mani, Gandhian nation-
alism incorporated dalits as followers/persons of ‘Hari’ (Harijan),
thereby whitewashing the issue of caste both in religious as well
as political realms.41 Ambedkar, on the other hand, insisted that
‘the untouchables were a separate and legitimate social cate-
gory, a subordinated one, and not part of brahmanic Hinduism’.42
Ambedkar emphasized the ideological and religious factors in high-
lighting how caste creates social division among people. Omvedt
reflects that ‘Ambedkar’s longer-term strategy was to break up
that majority, to dissolve Hinduism itself’.43 And it is for the anni-
hilation of caste that both in his stress on Buddhism as an alterna-
tive religion and in his insistence on creating a separate electorate,
rejection of Hinduism remained the major goal for Ambedkar.
Kancha Ilaiah, in his article ‘Dalitism and Brahmanism’, observes
that the ideological difference between Ambedkar and Gandhi is
due to their experiential factors of belonging to particular caste
communities. He writes:
Ambedkar was not only born in an untouchable Mahar family,

but all through his life stood for the suppressed, oppressed and
exploited masses. Gandhi, on the other hand, was born in a Baniya
family and stood for the oppressor and exploiting upper castes;
in other words, he stood for the durjan… In reality, therefore,
one worked for Dalit-Bahujan nationalism from a position of
disadvantage and another for Brahmanical nationalism from a

position of advantage.44
In Ilaiah’s conception, therefore, Ambedkar’s experience of un-

touchability is crucial in forming his standpoint which also dif-
ferentiated him from Gandhi. Ambedkar’s call for annihilation of
caste has posed anti-caste politics not as a reformist movement
(like that of Gandhi) but one that seeks to view the caste system
inherent in socio-economic inequality.
In seeking to elucidate this aspect, the Mahad Satyagraha led
by Ambedkar has gained special significance in dalit historio-
graphy. The ambedkar.org, a Dalit-Bahujan online repository on
Ambedkar, mentions Mahad as an important milestone in dalit
memory.45 The Mahad Satyagraha is considered one of the first
autonomous dalit movements organized by a dalit leader. It was a
non-violent march led by Ambedkar on 20 March 1927 demand-
ing the implementation of the untouchables’ right to drink water
from the public Chavadar Tank.46 Ambedkar and his followers
faced violent opposition from the upper-caste people where twenty
dalits were injured. The tank was then purified by the upper-
castes with prayers, cowdung, cow urine, milk, curd and ghee.47
Ambedkar held a second conference in Mahad in December 1927
where the Manusmriti was burnt on 25 December 1927. According
to Guru, the Mahad Satyagraha and its opposition by the upper
castes reveal the serious ‘damage’ within Indian society caused
by the caste system.48 The Mahad Satyagraha is therefore hailed
as ‘the first untouchable liberation movement’ which initiated
an awareness among dalits about their rights and created unity
among them, and also introduced Ambedkar as a powerful dalit
leader.49 According to Arjun Dangle,
Through his struggle against untouchability and socio-economic

inequality [Ambedkar] liberated the Dalits in India from mental
slavery and abject wretchedness, thus giving them a new self-respect.50
The importance of the Mahad Satyagraha is immense in the history

of India as a movement that paved way for dalit voices to emerge
as a collective. This movement has also been invoked by Dalit
Feminism for its impact on dalit women. For a gendered under-
standing of the Ambedkarite movement, Pawar and Moon in
We Also Made History invoke Ambedkar’s writings and speeches on
sexual oppression of dalit women which led them to review the
anti-caste struggle in a new light. One such example is the reinter-
pretation of the Mahad Satyagraha. While in dalit historiography
the Mahad Satyagraha is invoked as one of the very first triumphs
of dalits as a collective in reclaiming public spaces,51 Pawar and
Moon emphasize how it was Ambedkar’s speech at the satyagraha
that posed a challenge to caste and gender oppression for dalit
women.52 During the speech at the Mahad Satyagraha, Ambedkar
urged dalit women to give up markers of caste such as the way
they wear saris above their knee or keep their breasts bare, and
instead wear saris like brahmin women because they are as respect-
able as brahmin women. This had a tremendous effect on dalit
women attending the conference. As Pawar and Moon note,
After listening to Babasaheb’s speech, the women who had come

for the conference turned up the next day wearing their nine-yard
saris around their ankles like Brahmin women. Mrs. Chitre and
Mrs. Tipnis helped them to do this.53
This shows awareness about the stigma of caste being linked to

gender. Thus in dalit feminist understanding, annihilation of caste
calls for eradicating graded inequalities. At this point it is impor-
tant to recognize that wearing clothes like upper-caste women did
not signify an acceptance of brahmanical ideals. In fact, clothing
has been used by several dalit leaders as a mechanism to challenge
the markers of caste. Ayyankali (1863–1941) used to wear clothes
like Nairs (upper castes) and ride a bullock cart through roads tra-
ditionally meant for upper-caste people. These instances continue
to be celebrated among dalits as examples of defiance to the caste

system and reclamation of public space.54 Similarly, Ambedkar’s
critique of dalit women’s clothing needs to be interpreted as rooted
in understanding the practices of dalit women being bare breasted
and wearing clothes in a particular way to signify their caste as
humiliation. Such kinds of dress code signified the sexual avail-
ability of dalit women which was linked with their presence in the
public sphere as workers. Thus, as Rege points out, we need to
see Ambedkar’s statement not as imposing the brahmanical ideal
of women as honour of the family and community but as reclaim-
ing self-respect by dalit women.55 Such conceptualization provides
a critique of mainstream Indian feminist historiography as well
where the nineteenth-century upper-caste women’s clothing,
determining ‘virtue and modesty’,56 is seen as a restrictive factor.
Dalit feminist historiography, on the other hand, points to the
issue of who had, or rather, was allowed to have, access to the kinds
of clothing that symbolised ‘virtue and modesty’. It shows how
clothing was also dictated by brahmanical patriarchal ideologies.
For dalit women, therefore, wearing saris like upper-caste women,
signified a challenge to brahmanical patriarchy.57
Ambedkar and Endogamy
Sharmila Rege in Against the Madness of Manu (2013) reinterprets

Ambedkar by highlighting his views on Brahmanism as a discrimi-
natory practice operative not only through caste but also through
gender. Rege’s centralizing of the argument on endogamy re-
presents Ambedkar from a dalit feminist perspective. Rege builds
her explanation of brahmanical patriarchy on Ambedkar’s formu-
lation of ‘caste as a system of graded inequalities’.58 Condemning
the disjunction of caste and gender in Dalit Politics and main-
stream Indian Feminism, Rege points out that Dalit Politics
ignores the gender question by claiming that dalit women are not
restricted like their upper-caste counterparts. On the other hand,
mainstream Indian Feminism, due to its imposition of savarna

sisterhood, turns a blind eye to issues concerning dalit women
specifically. Both these positions are problematic because they
either see patriarchy as invisible or in singular form in the case of
dalit women. For this reason, Rege thinks that ‘the task is to map
the ways in which woman as a category are being differently recon-
stituted within patriarchal relations of graded caste inequalities’.59
She recovers Ambedkar because his theoretical legacy has ‘viewed
caste and gender as entangled, but never just easily equated, and
move[d] beyond the binaries of sameness/difference’.60 Rege writes
that mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics have created
false binaries of ‘Brahman/non-Brahman, feminism/community,
and caste/women’.61 Hence, she argues that merely pluralizing
the term ‘patriarchy’ is not enough. She recognizes that in such
context the necessity is to take a ‘feminist turn’ to Ambedker in
order to reveal ‘how brahmanical patriarchy fashions sameness,
intersection, discreteness, and interdependent differences along
a gradation of ascending reverence and descending contempt …
[and thereby] produces a generative structure through which an
alliance between feminist and anti-caste/dalit groups with visions
of liberatory politics can be engaged’.62
Rege foregrounds Ambedkar’s interpretation of endogamy as
the root of caste division and the dicta of Manusmriti in sanctifying
it. Endogamy, that is, the process of fixing marriages within castes,
justifies the exclusivity of caste groups and ascertains the logic
of birth-based origin. Rege elaborates that Ambedkar opts for a
‘feminist take on caste’ by highlighting the issue of ‘parity between
marriageable units, men and women, or how to maintain it’.63 And
it is in recognizing such regulatory and discriminatory praxis that
Rege observes Ambedkar’s understanding of caste as a gendered
category becomes important.
Ambedkar views Manu’s extensive dicta on endogamy and
punishments for its violation as justification for caste gradation
which gets sustained through women’s oppression. Rege writes,
‘For him [Ambedkar], the strength of Manu’s approach lies in gen-

erating moral anxiety over women’s sexuality and bastardisation
of groups that resisted caste hierarchy.’64 Ambedkar points out that
according to the chaturvarna system as coded by Manu, in most
kinds of exogamous unions the sankara child is given the father’s
varna. An alteration to this patrilineal, patriarchal tradition occurs
when the mother’s varna is more than one lower than the father’s,
then the child is given the mother’s varna. Ambedkar views a
deeply graded caste-gender hierarchy inherent in such matra-
savarnya (matrilineal) system.65 Interestingly, this matrilineality,
instead of empowering women, actually reveals ‘the differential
rules of mating and lineage for men and women of different castes
… [and shows how] these rules [determined] that stringent control
over sexuality becomes the reserve of the men of privileged castes
while simultaneously carving spaces for their enforced cohabita-
tion with women of the subordinated castes’.66 This shows how
the caste system functions through control over female sexuality
which affects women of different castes differently. Such recov-
ery and reinterpretation of Ambedkar therefore re-conceptualizes
caste as simultaneously a gendered oppression.
Rege’s incorporation of the debate over the Hindu Code Bill
in Against the Madness of Manu goes on to highlight the perpet-
uation of brahmanical patriarchal ideals in the Congress Party,
the first ruling party of independent India. The Hindu Code Bill
was proposed by Ambedkar in 1948 ‘to codify the diverse systems
and property practices pertaining to men and women, alter the
order of succession, and design new laws of maintenance, mar-
riage, divorce, adoption, guardianship and the minorities’.67 Rege
sees the Hindu Code Bill as Ambedkar’s vision of an independent
India free of caste and gender oppression. The extensive opposi-
tion to this Bill by Congress leaders highlighted the patriarchal
discomfort about women’s rights.68
Rege’s inclusion of the Bill as well as the opposition to it by
upper-caste Congress leaders in Against the Madness of Manu marks
an important link between the personal and the political. In his

introduction to Ambedkar: Autobiographical Notes, Ravikumar
elaborates on the significance of the public in dalit thought:
The public has come to connote things and spaces which are inac-
cessible for the dalits. Common wells, public roads and cremation
grounds are spaces denied to dalits … . The purpose of Hindu
politics has been to restrict and relegate dalits to the ‘reserved’
sectors. The dalits have to defy such social strictures to enter the
public sphere.69
As a result, Dalit Politics has focused on reclaiming the public

space as part of their anti-caste struggle. However, as Rege’s dalit
feminist reading of Ambedkar shows, practices such as endo-
gamy, re-routes caste as a domestic issue and thereby challenges
the public/private distinction. Rege’s reclamation intervenes in
dominant dalit historicizing of caste as a public issue by incorpo-
rating the domestic within its political purview. Understanding
marriage as a way of maintaining caste hierarchy makes caste
an issue that structures the private sphere as much as it does the
public. Rege’s reinterpretation of Ambedkar therefore provides
an important corrective to dalit historiography as she empha-
sizes the need to recognize that the private is not separate from
the public. This analysis also provides a crucial intervention in the
way the public/private binary is articulated in mainstream Indian
Feminism. Autobiographies by women (see Chapter 3) invoke the
public/private dichotomy in relation to a gendered notion of
the world wherein men occupy the public realm and women
remain in the private. But if we extend Rege’s reinterpretation of
Ambedkar (and as we also see in dalit women’s autobiographies
in Chapter 3), it is not merely ‘gender’ which constructs the binary
of public/private; it is also the structure of caste that functions
simultaneously with gender to dictate the interaction between
men and women of different castes within the private sphere.
Ambedkar’s notion of endogamy as the casteist mechanism of

sexual control redefines the contours of patriarchy from being
concerned only with gender to also being casteist.
Cultural Reclamation
Another aspect of Ambedkar’s recovery and reinterpretation

by dalit feminist historiography is evident in Gopal Guru’s
article, ‘The Interface between Ambedkar and the Dalit Cultural
Movement in Maharashtra’, which brings to prominence the songs
of post-Amebdkarite Buddhist dalit women singers who reclaim
Ambedkar in the cultural sphere. Guru identifies these songs
(known as ovi and palna) as a way to challenge the academic and
political invisibility of dalit women in mainstream politics and the
dalit-dominant cultural discourse.70 Guru recovers these dalit
Buddhist women’s songs within the ambit of a feminist cultural
consciousness. He notes that although in the pre-Ambedkarite
period dalit women were mostly relegated to the background, in
the post-Ambedkarite period they broke their ‘cultural silence and
stormed into the public transcript’.71 The recovery of these songs
therefore provides an intervention in dalit historiography which
ignores these songs by dalit women. Moreover, in contrast to dalit
historiography’s recovery of Ambedkar through his speeches, the
recovery of the folk forms of expressions like palna (a kind of folk
song sung at naming ceremonies by dalit women) and ovi (a type
folk song prevalent among these women in their oral tradition)
used by these dalit women singers provide a feminist methodologi-
cal critique to dalit historiography.
According to Guru, these songs also serve as transformative in
terms of their reinterpretation of Ambedkar in the private sphere.
In the examples provided by Guru, we see that the songs about
Ambedkar and his wife, Ramabai, were sung by dalit women
‘while working with the grindstone, at birth ceremonies, naming
ceremonies and on harvesting occasions’.72 This shows a tradition
of merging the domestic with the public not only in terms of how
Ambedkar is reclaimed but also in choosing the locations where
the songs are being sung:
Jati Bhed Ghalviny Sathi,

Bhimani Keli Brahmin Rani!
Gangadhrech Nirmal Pani
Mahnive Sarvani Bhimachi Gani.73
(To expel caste discrimination, Ambedkar [who is also called Bhima]

married Savitabai who was a brahmin. He showed that this marriage
is pure like Ganga water. Everyone sing in praise of Bhima.)74
The reference here is to Ambedkar’s marriage with Savitabai, a

brahmin woman whom he married thirteen years after the death
of his first wife, Ramabai. This song, therefore, reclaims Ambedkar
at the domestic/personal level. In this ovi, dalit women view inter-
caste marriage as a crucial step in eradicating caste. Guru notes
that some of the crucial questions in discussing the recovery
of such songs are, ‘What has been the social base, particularly in
terms of gender and caste, of this dalit cultural assertion? And from
where did it derive its critical input?’75 He draws attention to the
Kalpathak76 cultural form which, along with raising issues about
human dignity, exploitation of dalits by landlords, and teachings
of Buddhism, also raised the issue of dalit women’s harassment by
their in-laws and projected the latent militancy of the daughter-
in-law who resisted such oppression. This analysis shows gender
as an interlinked component of the caste system and, as Rege
says, also challenges ‘the brahmanical reformist rendering of the
always-victimized-woman’.77
Periyar and the Self-Respect Movement
In South India Periyar E.V. Ramasami has been revived for criti-
quing brahmanical nationalism through his Self-Respect movement,
as well as posing a crucial dialogue about the North-South division

in Dalit Politics which has given rise to Dravidianism.78
Aloysius posits the rise of the dalit movement in South India
as a fracturing of the notion of a unified nation and culture. He
writes, ‘The national identity in India is … primarily expressive
of the culture and power of, as well as in terms of, the Sanskritic-
brahminical, accommodating the rest to be sure, to the minimum
according to contingencies and compulsions of the situation.’79
Geetha and Rajadurai mention the crucial role of the Non-Brahmin
Manifesto of 1916 brought out by the Justice Party (also known
as the South Indian Liberal Federation) which cemented their
ideological and political difference from the nationalist move-
ment. The manifesto observed that in caste-ridden India, it was the
British who could ‘hold the scales even between creed and class
and … develop that sense of solidarity and unity without which
India will continue to be a group of mutually exclusive and warring
groups without common purpose and a common patriotism’.80 This
proclamation, Geetha and Rajadurai observe, challenged the uni-
fication agenda of mainstream nationalist politics which aimed to
incorporate dalits as Hindus in order to ‘humanize’ them and also
attempted to stop the conversion of dalits to Christianity.81
Periyar is seen to be presenting an opposition to such Hindui-
zation through his conceptualization of caste as a systemic and
ideological oppressive structure. For Periyar, caste
comprised a complex set of social relations, as well as those

principles which informed, sustained and justified these relations.
As a system, caste served the interests of Brahmins who were its
favoured agents and existed chiefly to gratify and perpetrate their
sense of their own superiority. As an ideology, caste worked to
ensure that notions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ birth were accepted as given
by the peoples who were marked thus.82
Geetha and Rajadurai point out that this understanding of caste

becomes central in Periyar’s Self-Respect movement where he
not only demands political representation for the dalits but also
calls into question ‘the phenomenon of sacred itself.83 As opposed
to Brahmanism, the Self-Respecters proposed the idea of sam-
adharma, literally meaning equal rights, but used in the context
of ‘new and radical ways of imagining … social relationships
[which] ought to be instituted on the basis of mutuality, self-
respect and equality between and amongst all human beings’.84
Emphasizing on his struggle for equality of all, Subramanian writes,
‘Periyar’s intention [was] not to reform society but to destroy it and
remake it’.85 In this aspect Periyar is posed as a contrasting figure
to Gandhi who ‘attempted to reform the social super structure
without putting dynamite to the social base’.86 Periyar’s opposition
to the caste-religion dyad is seen by Subramanian as addressing
that very base which Gandhi refused to question.
Kulandaiswamy points out that Periyar’s Self-Respect movement
is also rooted in building a Dravida Nadu (a land of Dravidas).87
Fearing the supremacy of North in post-independent India—espe-
cially with the introduction of Hindi as a compulsory subject in
Madras by C. Rajagopalachari in 193888—Periyar demanded the
formation of Dravida Nadu comprising of four major linguistic
regions in South India. Through his anti-Hindu and anti-Hindi
movement, Periyar posed a challenge to Brahmanism and the caste
system as well as the regional and political supremacy claimed by
the Hindi-speaking North. For Periyar, Aryan was equivalent to
North-Sanskrit. As sociologist T. K. Oommen writes:
According to Periyar, Brahmans had tried to foist their language

and social system on Dravidians to erase their race consciousness
and, therefore, he constantly reminded the Dravidians to uphold
their ‘race consciousness’. However, Periyar did not advocate the
superiority of one race over the other but insisted on equality of all
races. Thus the fundamental difference between Aryan Hinduism
and Dravidian Hinduism is crucial: the former [is] hegemonic, but
the latter is emancipatory.89
For Periyar, therefore, a Dravida Nadu was a space where all

hierarchies were broken. And it is in this sphere of equality that
Geetha and Rajadurai place Periyar.90 They revive Periyar to
emphasize the immediacy and relevance of his thoughts in con-
temporary social justice movements. According to Geetha and
Rajadurai, Periyar’s call for equality may initiate dialogues, espe-
cially in the contemporary context, with issues of gender justice
and class politics. In this way Periyar is invoked not merely
as an interventionist (intervening into Brahmanism) but also a
transformer, creating possibility for new political coalitions.
Peiryar’s relevance has also been emphasized from a feminist
angle.91 Geetha and Rajadurai claim:
Social radicalism, especially of the Self-Respect movement was

argued not only in the context of the public sphere, but also
required and mandated new practices of the self and commu-
nity. These practices had as much to do with transforming gender
relations, issues of conjugality, sexual norms and reproduction as
they had to do with rewriting the rules of distance, touch, pollu-
tion and untouchability. This history, which shows the importance
of making feminist and anti-caste politics speak to each other, is
one that should stand us in good stead, in a context when debates
around sexuality are more expansive than ever before, and yet are
not quite able to engage the matter of caste and caste endogamy
with that degree of sophistication or interest, which the subject
requires.92
Geetha argues that contemporary Tamil dalit politics, in its cen-

tralizing of caste, has deviated its attention from the women’s
question that was central to Periyar’s Self-Respect movement.
She writes, ‘For me, the point of arrival of an interesting and rel-
evant legacy is the present, a present dominated by interesting
debates in women’s groups—in Tamil Nadu—on the complex
and fraught relationship between gender and caste on one hand,
and a dalit political militancy on the other.’93 S. Anandhi refers
to Periyar’s ‘radical reconstructive work … [to] destroy the tradi-

tional structures’ to argue that it was this desire for a total change
that influenced Periyar’s thoughts on the women’s question.
Anandhi notes,
Within the ambience of the Self-Respect Movement he was not

content with taking up such conventional themes of women’s
emancipation like widow-remarriage and women’s education
which, even if successful, did not undermine the existing structure
of patriarchy; but he raised questions relating to basic pillars of
patriarchy, like the monogamous family and the norms of chas-
tity prescribed for and enforced upon women … [and] argued,
women’s education should have the aim of providing employment
for women and thus making them economically independent.94
While Geetha’s interpretation intervenes into dalit historiography

in terms of how Periyar has been recovered by Dalit Politics,
Anandhi’s understanding of Periyar presents him as being critical
of the nationalist reformulation of the women’s question which
emphasized issues of widow remarriage and education of women.
In this way, Periyar’s recovery by dalit feminist historiography
not only challenges the centrality of caste in Dalit Politics, but also
challenges the nationalist and early twentieth-century nationalist-
feminist notions of female emancipation.95
Anandhi’s reinterpretation of Periyar foregrounds his views on
caste and gender oppression, the issues of marriage, chastity, and
motherhood. In a meeting held at Victoria Hall, Madras, in 1948,
Periyar commented,
The concept of husband-wife relationship has been one of master-

slave relationship. The essential philosophy of marriage has been
to insist on women’s slavery… why should human beings alone
keep such contract of one-man-one-woman relationship… until
women are liberated from such marriages and from men, our
country cannot attain independence.96
Hence, the self-respect form of marriage gave importance to choice

by eschewing brahmanical rituals and denouncing the authority of
the elders in formalising the marriage.
Anandhi also points out that the notion of chastity, consid-
ered to be the crucial component of monogamous family, is
another subject of Periyar’s criticism of brahmanical marriage.
Anandhi quotes from Periyar’s pamphlet titled ‘Why Did Women
Become Enslaved?’ where Periyar notes that ‘The imposition
of “pativratha” qualities on women has destroyed their independ-
ence and free-thinking and made them unquestioning slaves—
to men—who are supposed to demonstrate undue faith over
chastity.’97 And it is this brahmanical ideal of chastity, Geetha
points out, endorsed the ideals of motherhood that Periyar
challenged:
We maintain that while it is the case women possess the attribute

of bearing a child in their wombs for 10 months and eventually
giving birth to it, this, in itself, does not make them different from
men with respect to qualities such as anger, ruling power and
strength. Likewise, we think that though men do not possess the
[biological] means to get pregnant, it cannot be said they possess
qualities different from women, in respect of calm, love and
the power of nurture. If we are to value true equality—if there
exists true love between man and woman—it is certain that all
responsibilities except that of bearing a child should be considered
common to both.98
This dalit feminist reclamation of Periyar foregrounds his chal-

lenge to the nationalist movement’s project of creating a new
woman and also the casteist-sexist naturalization of motherhood.
Periyar’s devaluing of motherhood was, on the one hand, a response

to the nationalist argument that women had to be liberated only to
be returned as more intelligent and efficient members of their
sex to the kitchen and the hearth. On the other hand, it was a
carefully articulated argument against the naturalization of the

idea of motherhood in a caste Hindu society.99
Periyar’s allusion to chastity and motherhood in relation to caste

ideologies also intervenes in mainstream Indian Feminism which
views body and sexuality only in relation to gender.100 A dalit
feminist reclamation of Periyar, therefore, provides a much more
nuanced understanding of gender through the lens of caste.
Geetha and Rajadurai further add that Periyar’s perspectives
on gender ‘served to re-define not merely the nationalists’ terms
of discourse but also political activity and agitation’ within the
Self-Respect movement as well.101 This interpretation of Periyar
differs vastly from his recovery by Dalit Politics wherein his role in
organizing the Vaikom Satyagraha, a temple entry movement
in Kerala in 1924, is emphasized.102 By highlighting the temple
entry movement—a movement that is seen as archetypal of
struggle against untouchability—dalit historiography restricts
Periyar to the domain of anti-casteism. Dalit feminist historiog-
raphy, on the other hand, incorporates a more expansive view of
Periyar by recovering his opinion on gender issues and thereby
providing a gendered understanding of caste.
The Vedic Dasi
In terms of reinterpretation vis-à-vis mainstream Indian feminist

historiography, dalit feminist historiography invokes the figure
of the ‘Vedic dasi.’ In her article, ‘Whatever Happened to the
Vedic Dasi?’ Uma Chakravarti provides a dalit feminist critique
of the nineteenth-century construction of the ‘Indian woman’.
Chakravarti notes that the ‘myth of the golden age of Indian
womanhood as located in the Vedic period … foregrounded the
Aryan woman (the progenitor of the upper-caste woman) as
the only object of historical concern’.103 Consequently, ‘the Vedic
dasi (woman in servitude), captured, subjugated, and enslaved
by the conquering Aryans’ disappeared.104 Chakravarti’s essay

becomes notable because it situates the nineteenth-century histor-
iography of the women’s question in the specific brahmanical
patriarchal context. This essay shows that the ideal womanhood
was established on the notions of devotion to the husband and on
heroic resistance to alien forces where women ‘cheerfully chose
death rather than dishonour’.105 Chakravarti notes that in the
nineteenth-century context, especially through the literary imag-
ination of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, womanhood was
constructed in terms of her role as a sahadharmini to her husband.
Hence, the examples of women’s heroism in terms of their strug-
gles alongside their husbands for the freedom of the nation, legiti-
mized their presence in the public sphere. The anxiety over women
stepping out of the private sphere and entering into the public
was therefore resolved without disturbing the gender hierarchy.
Chakravarti argues that this anxiety, as well as its resolution, was
specifically a brahmanical concern because keeping women within
the house was practised only in upper-caste families. Hence, the
dominant nationalist historiography’s focus on ‘the spiritual
Maitreyi, the learned Gargi, the suffering Sita, the faithful Savitri
and the heroic Lakshmibai’ highlights the recovery of only upper-
caste women from history.106 Chakravarti draws attention also
to Dayananda who expressed enormous anxiety over women’s
sexuality and tried to resolve the problem by fixing motherhood
as the only ideal role for women. This idea is followed by a clean-
liness regime prescribed by Dayananda where he emphasized the
necessity of a wet nurse to help the mother in nursing and prevent
her over-exertion.107 While a feminist reading of Dayananda
would see how he restrictively defines women with respect to their
faculty of reproduction, Chakravarti asks, ‘What about the wet
nurse?’108 This reinterpretation from a dalit feminist lens shows
how dalit women are erased in dominant historiography and
even in mainstream Indian feminist historiography which focuses
on gender through a single idea of patriarchy. In recognizing the
caste-gender intersection and patriarchy in terms of brahmanical

patriarchy, dalit feminist historiography intervenes in both dom-
inant nationalist historiography and mainstream Indian feminist
historiography.
Telangana Peasants’ Revolt (1946–51)
The caste question has always had a problematic relation with

Marxist class ideology in India. The drawback of the Marxist
approach, Omvedt points out, is that it subsumes caste within
class discourse.109 Marxist history presents the history of India
broadly in terms of class struggle. As a result, caste gets translated
in the Marxist approach as an occupational division of labour,
thereby restricting its scope to ‘economic determinism’.110 In the
Indian context, Omvedt notes, the Marxist perspective addresses
‘material exploitation’ and it is assumed that with the erasure
of class discrimination, the caste system would also automatically
be erased.111 The drawback of such interpretation is that, rather
than providing a fruitful methodology to address caste-class as
an interrelated system of oppression, it merely adds caste to class
without questioning the traditional conceptualizations of stages of
history or modes of production.
The need for caste-class intersection is emphasized in dalit
historiography through a reinterpretation of the Telangana
Peasants’ Revolt (1946–51) in Andhra Pradesh. The move-
ment, also known as the Telangana Bonded Labour movement
and Telangana Peasants’ Armed Struggle, was a peasant rebel-
lion organized against the landlords that gradually culminated
in a rebellion against the Nizam’s rule. In the princely state of
Hyderabad, 40 percent land was owned by the Nizam and rest
was under the government’s land revenue system. The economic
crises of 1920–22 and 1930–33 heavily affected the peasants.
Due to bad harvests and unfair prices for crops, they were unable
to pay taxes and had to sell their lands to the feudal landlords.
This resulted in increased oppression of farmers by the landlords.
Along with this issue the rebellion also questioned the vetti (forced
labour) system which ruled that one man from each untoucha-
ble family had to do household labour for the landlords. Hence,
demands were made by the peasants to ‘put an end to vetti, illegal
exactions, and compulsory grain levies and … to reoccupy the
lands seized earlier by the landlords and deshmukhs. The move-
ment became one for abolishing feudal landlordism and even the
Nizam’s rule.’112 The Communist Party’s contribution was seen as
crucial in setting the rebellion in motion, as a result of which they
won the 1952 election in Andhra Pradesh.
Even though Sundarayya, a founding member of the Communist
Party of India (Marxist) and a leader of the peasant revolt, claims
that ‘in the struggle against the Government all people were forced
to work and fight collectively without any distinction of caste and
creed and so after this, fighting the evil of untouchability became
easier’,113 dalit activists have criticized the Communist Party for
their erasure of the caste question in the Telangana People’s
Struggle. Bojja Tharakam writes that even though the Telangana
peasants movement mentioned the vetti system, untouchability
did not gain central attention from the Communists:
The party ignored issues related to caste altogether, saying that

they would be dealt with after classlessness has been achieved.
Its trusting and credulous supporters [i.e., the lower castes] went
along with the party, convinced that untouchability and caste
itself would vanish once the land problem was solved. They came
to believe that it was alright to live without dignity and live in
the hope that some land would come their way as the struggle
intensified.114
Commenting on the need to address caste and class simultaneously,

Tharakam writes
The abolition of caste is not about ideology alone, but also about
material transformation. Caste struggle is a mental-material
revolution, while the focus of a class struggle tends to be limited to
materialistic considerations.115
Dalit historiography therefore points at significant lacunae in

Communist politics in their exclusive focus on class. Although
they talked about giving back land to the tillers, Communist
party failed to address the roots that caused this hierarchy and
domination.116
The issue of caste-class vis-à-vis gender is brought forth
by Stree Shakti Sanghatana in a dalit feminist reading of the
Telangana Peasants’ Revolt. They challenge the representations
of the Telengana struggle in Leftist historiography as well as in
Dalit historiography by posing the following questions: ‘What is
the relevance of the Telengana struggle to the women’s question?
… Who were the women who came into the movement and why
did they come? How far were they able to loosen the grip of the
feudal ideology and of patriarchal norms? Was the Communist
Party able to create a new image of women by articulating their
problems and finding solutions in their own terms?’117 Thus, in
a dalit feminist reinterpretation of the struggle, we come across
issues such as gender relations within the Communist Party in
terms of distribution of work, childbirth, and the life of these
women after the struggle. Sugunamma writes that although the
Party allowed women’s entry,
They never took up women’s issues as political or ideological issues

to be discussed and analysed… . Some leaders used to dismiss these
issues lightly! Perhaps there was a flaw in their thinking. Even the
dowry issue was dismissed as insignificant.118
The authors note that such experiential accounts reveal a

discrepancy between the gender equality envisioned and claimed
by the Party, and their actual practices. The Sanghatana points
out that even though dalit leaders such as P. Sundarayya mention

instances of harassment of women within the Party, the discussion
is diluted into ‘a moral problem’ where Sundarayya feels sorry for
being unable to save them.119 This shows how a gender issue is
presented as apolitical because it is seen as an individual moral
problem and not a systemic issue. The double standards of the
Party is further revealed by Narasamma who mentions how women
were not allowed to participate in the guerilla raids because of the
assumption, as discussed earlier, that they are physically inferior,
and how women were continuously suspected of destroying the
morale of the Party by indulging in sexual affairs.120 Kamalamma
points out, as mentioned earlier, that the Party was also inattentive
towards preventing unwanted childbirth, as a result of which they
had to often abandon the new-born children under the orders of
Party leaders.121
In thus focusing on women’s experience within the Telangana
movement, We Were Making History adheres to the methodological
format of oral narrative employed by mainstream Indian feminist
historiography. We Were Making History, as a dalit feminist histo-
riography, also foregrounds the specificity of casteist patriarchy as
it affects dalit women. For example, the Sanghatana notes that,
‘While women during the movement were freely allowed to enter
the public sphere of production and political action, the moral
code by which they were measured was still the code of the private
domain—the domain of the family, household, domestic labour
and reproduction.’122 These codes reflect specific brahmanical
patriarchal attitude visible in the following examples. Regalla
Acchamamba, the activist-cum-doctor in the Party, was wrongly
accused of having an affair. She narrates how she was blamed for
being a member of ‘a badmash caste’ who never admits their mis-
takes, and was ‘stripped and checked’ to prove her affair.123 These
actions reinforce the Party’s casteist-sexist practice of public
humiliation of dalit women due to the assumption of pollution
and sexual promiscuity. The brahmanical patriarchal mentality of
the Party is also visible through its strict restrictions on inter-caste

marriages.124 Here we see a clear recognition of different forms
of patriarchy in the ways in which the Party dealt with women’s
issues within a casteist sexist framework. We Were Making History
provides the much needed integration of caste and gender per-
spective by re-centring the focus on sexuality and reproduction,
family and political life, public and private spheres, keeping in the
mind the specificity of caste. The task of dalit feminist historio-
graphy therefore is not just to recover dalit women in history, but
to transform the knowledge about caste and gender by foreground-
ing intersectionality and dual patriarchies.
Conclusion
The enquiry into the relationship between power and knowledge

reveals how it affects the production of knowledge. The subse-
quent analysis of dalit feminist historiography vis-à-vis Dalit
Politics and mainstream Indian Feminism’s positions show that-
even within marginalized standpoints the focus on a single cat-
egory of analysis often erases the differences within. The dalit
feminist historiography makes an epistemic intervention into
such erasure and absorption by bringing in the concept of dual
patriarchies (in case of Savitribai Phule, Muktabai and We Were
Making History) and by re-centring caste from public to private
(as seen in We Also Made History and the songs by Ambedkarite
Buddhist dalit women). This knowledge emerges through the
methods of recovery and reinterpretation. However, recovery
is only the first step towards an alternative epistemology. As the
analysis shows, these recoveries are made not merely to make
visible the hitherto invisible dalit women but to see how recovery
of dalit women and their experiences transforms the dominant,
as well as dalit and mainstream Indian feminist historiographies.
Thus, the framework of intersectionality shows intra-categorical
differences among women and among dalits, and the concept of
dual patriarchies highlights the complexity of a casteist patriarchy

not only in relation to women of different castes but also vis-à-vis
men of different castes. Dalit feminist historiography becomes a
way to expand and build on dalit and mainstream Indian feminist
historiographies through a more nuanced understanding of caste
and gender and, therefore, exemplifies how dalit feminist stand-
point is different from but not oppositional to dalit standpoint and
mainstream Indian feminist standpoint.
This understanding of dalit feminist standpoint extends Rege’s
argument where she emphasizes the necessity to go beyond the
essentialism of identity and reinvent ourselves as dalit feminists
by acknowledging caste in gender and gender in caste.125 Such
acknowledgement, however, may prove to be inadequate to prop-
erly generate a dalit feminist standpoint. Mere recognition of
caste does not by itself bring about a transformation of knowl-
edge because, if the primary category of analysis remains gender,
women of different castes are assumed to be oppressed by patri-
archy in general. Instead, as seen in We Were Making History and
‘Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasi?’, a dalit feminist stand-
point highlighting the existence of dual patriarchies, brahmanical
patriarchy’s differential treatment of women of different castes
and the unequal relation between them, intervenes into the way
caste and gender are conceptualized as discrete categories. Dalit
feminist standpoint shows that mere invoking of caste by Indian
Feminism or including a sprinkling of dalit women in Dalit Politics
does not make their politics ‘dalit feminist’ per se. In a response
to her interview with Ruth Manorama, Meena Kandasamy writes,
‘She [Manorama] (and even I) would certainly want women
from privileged backgrounds to tackle the question of caste. And
besides, she also feels, being a dalit feminist must not mean that
she should be tied down to those issues of caste alone, but she
should have her say on the other things as well.’126 A dalit femi-
nist standpoint, therefore, is not about adding caste to gender
and vice-versa or ghettoizing Dalit Feminism as dealing with only
the concerns of dalit women. Rather it is by recognizing the inter-

section of caste and gender, dual patriarchies, and to allude to
Harding once again, by understanding ‘the conceptual practices
of power… through which their oppression [is] designed, main-
tained, and made to seem natural and desirable to everyone’ that a
dalit feminist standpoint emerges.127 It is in these aspects that dalit
feminist standpoint emerges as a transformative epistemology.
Notes
1 Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ (1968; 2007): 261.
2 This perspective aligns with feminist standpoint theory which links power
with knowledge in arguing how women’s knowledge faces a strategic
disregard for being ‘non-objective’ and hence unreliable whereas it can
become the starting point to pose an opposition to male-supremacy
in knowledge. Standpoint theory’s most important concept is that an
individual’s own perspectives are shaped by his or her experiences in social
locations and social groups. Hence, standpoint argues that those in the
marginalized position tend to express a more objective view of reality than
members of privileged groups. People outside the dominant power structure
are forced to adapt to/oppose the dominant culture. They, therefore, know
both sides of the scale: the oppressor’s and that of the oppressed. Since
privileged individuals have no need to observe the realities of inferior
groups, their standpoints are usually narrow and biased by comparison.
That is why knowledge from below can provide an alternative knowledge.
See D. E. Smith, ‘Comment on Hekman’s Truth and Method: Feminist
Standpoint Theory Revisited’ (2004); Sandra Harding ‘Introduction:
Standpoint Theory as a Site of Political, Philosophic, and Scientific Debate’
(2004).
3 Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’: 260.
4 Guha, Elementary Aspects (1983): 20–24.
5 Ibid.: 20–21.
6 Guha, ‘The Prose of Counter-Insurgency’ (1988): 77.
7 Felski, ‘Content Stinks!’ (2011): 574.
8 This phrase is coined by Paul Ricoeur who conceptualizes Marxian,
Freudian and Nietzschean thoughts through the common ideologue of a
theory of doubt which ‘is not an explication of the object but a tearing
off of masks, an interpretation that reduces disguises’. Ricoeur, Freud and
Philosophy (1970; 2008): 30. Rita Felski elaborates that the hermeneutics of
suspicion is a ‘distinctively modern style of interpretation that circumvents
obvious or self-evident meanings in order to draw out less visible and less
flattering truths’. Felski, ‘Critics and Hermeneutics of Suspicion’ (2012).
9 By differentiating ‘work’ (which Barthes deems as fixed) from ‘text’ (which,
according to Barthes, is open to multiple interpretations) Barthes chal-
lenges the process of canonisation which silences the infinite possibilities
of signification in a text. Barthes says, ‘I can enjoy reading and rereading
Proust, Flaubert, Balzac, and even—why not?—Alexandre Dumas; but
this pleasure, however intense, and even when it is released from any pre-
judice, remains partly (unless there has been an exceptional critical effort)
a pleasure of consumption: for, if I can read these authors, I also know that
I cannot rewrite them.’ (1986, ‘From Work to Text’, 63), Thus the canoni-
cal reading which prescribes a set of rules or criteria as to how to read a text
restricts both the text and the reader.
10 I draw on Derrida’s essay ‘Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of
Human Sciences’ for this specific concept of play. According to Derrida,
so far we have been substituting one fixed centre with another, thereby
negating the possibility of ‘play’. He says that the present time is marked
by an ‘event’ which rejects the centre’s position as a permanent locus. Now
the centre performs as ‘a function, a sort of non locus in which an infinite
number of sign-situations come into play’, as opposed to functioning as
an authoritative mechanism (‘Structure, Sign and Play’, 1967: 353). For
Derrida, any centre is only a provisional mechanism which inevitably and
incessantly needs to be replaced by other centres through what he calls
‘play’. ‘Play’ which is a resistance to any fixed referent keeps presence or
signification in a state of constant flux. Derrida says, ‘Play is the disruption
of presence… Play is always absence and presence, but if it is to be thought
radically, play must be conceived of before the alternative of absence and
presence’ (ibid: 369). By allowing the functioning of multiple centres,
‘play’ works against the totalizing forces of fixed centres such as canonical
reading.
11 Tharu and Lalita, Women Writing in India (1991): 212.
12 Keer, Mahatma Jotirao Phooley (1964); Joshi, Jotirao Phule (1992). I would
like to mention that I do not restrict the term ‘dalit historiography’
only to history produced by historians who are dalits. For me, this term
incorporates those histories that have become canonised as history of dalits/
dalit movements. Similar to my conceptualization of a dalit feminist as an
achieved standpoint rather than a birth-based identity, dalit historiography
envisions awareness of and about dalit history. It is for this reason that in
this chapter I incorporate many non-dalit male and female historians to
substantiate dalit feminist historiography as well.
13 Joshi, Jotirao Phule (1992): 11.
14 Ibid.: 19.
15 Keer, Mahatma Jotirao Phooley: 27.
16 Mani, ‘Introduction’ (2008a): 6–7.

17 Ibid.: 1.
18 Omvedt, ‘A Teacher and a Leader’ (2008): 28.
19 Chakaravarti, Gendering Caste (2003): 66–79; S. Banerjee, ‘Marginalization
of Women’s Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Bengal’ (1989): 131.
20 Tharu and Lalita, Women Writing in India: 211–12.
21 Chakaravarti, Gendering Caste: 66–79.
22 Deshpande, Selected Writings of Jotirao Phule (2002); 9–10.
23 To understand Phule’s argument it is necessary to first explore the meaning
and history of Aryan race theory. The concept of Aryan race theory was
popularized by in India by Max Mueller (1823–1900) who categorized the
Aryans as ‘fair-complexioned Indo-European speakers who conquered
the dark-skinned dasas of India’ and Brahmans being the only knowledge-
able group in Vedic Sanskrit, were categorized as Aryans (Thapar, ‘The
Theory of Aryan Race and India’, 1996: 5). The institution of caste further
enhanced the superiority of Aryan Brahmans by putting lower castes,
untouchables and tribes as descendants of Dasas. This easy slippage from
language to race to caste, provided, what Omvedt (1971) calls ‘a new
pseudo-scientific justification for the caste hierarchy’ (Omvedt, ‘Jotirao
Phule and the Ideology of Social Revolution in India’: 1969). According
to Romila Thapar (1996), ‘The theory of Aryan race became endemic to
the reconstruction of Indian history and the reasons for this are varied. The
pre-eminence was given to the role of the Brahmanas in the Orientalist
construction of Indology was endorsed by the centrality of the Vedas. The
Aryan theory also provided the colonized with status and self-esteem,
arguing that they were linguistically and racially of the same stock as the
colonizers’ (‘The theory’: 7). The Aryan race theory thus provided a sci-
entific linkage between white Europeans and upper-caste Indians in terms
of heredity. It also worked as a validation of the caste system, presenting
the Brahmans as ‘naturally superior.’ It is at this point that Phule’s inter-
vention marks a revolutionary change in our understanding of the caste
system and ‘Indian.’ See Thapar, ‘The Theory of Aryan Race and India’
(1996); Omvedt, ‘Jotirao Phule and the Ideology of Social Revolution in
India’ (1971).
24 See Phule, ‘Slavery’ (2002a): 27–29.
25 Bagul, ‘Dalit Literature Is but Human Literature’ (1992a): 286–87.
26 Ilaiah, ’Dalitism and Brahmanism: The Epistemological Conflict in
History’ (2001) elaborates that Phule ‘was of the view that the notions of
“Brahman” and “Arya” were essentially anti-Shudra. According to Phule,
the brahmanical forces established such organizations [like the Brahmo
Samaj and Arya Samaj] to modernize and anglicize themselves … [and]
would establish their hegemony even after the British leave India’: 124.
27 Omvedt, Understanding Caste (2011): vii–xii.
28 O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict, and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule (2014):

117–18.
29 In Cultivator’s Whipcord, Phule critiques upper-caste people by questioning,
‘But do the women in their houses ever work like the women in the farmers’
houses? Walking behind the plough, sowing grain and things, weeding
the farm along with the husband, lifting up heavy loads of ash, cowdung,
waste matter, or, when in summer there is not much work, labouring as
stone-breakers on roads? Instead of helping their bhat-bhikshuk husbands,
the moment they wake up, they make themselves up, finish the daily
chores, and sit listening to scriptures or mythological stories; at the time
of marriages, they do not even touch the grinder, and wearing expensive
clothes, generally parade around, making shudra women carry things, and
shudra men carry umbrellas over their heads.’ See Phule, ‘Cultivator’s
Whipcord’ (2002b): 166.
30 Omvedt, Understanding Caste: 27.
31 Stephen, ‘The Stuff Legends Are Made Of’ (2008): 19.
32 Tharu and Lalita point to the sexual politics of authorship, readership
and publication as they write, ‘We began work on these volumes with the
premise that critical assumptions, historical circumstances, and ideologies
generally have crippled our ability to read and appreciate their work… .
[The] two volumes … will illuminate the conditions in which women
wrote; bring more significant women’s writing to light; help us reevaluate
writers who were reasonably well known but had been misunderstood or
dismissed; give us a sense of the themes and literary modes women drew
on and made use of; and help us capture what is at stake in the practices
of self or agency and of narrative that emerge at the contested margins of
patriarchy, empire and nation’ (vol. 1:xvii).
33 Tharu and Lalita eds., Women Writing in India (1991): 215.
34 Pawar and Moon, We Also Made History (2014): 70.
35 Mani, ‘The Revolt of a Dalit Girl: An Essay by a Student of the Phules’
School’ (2008b): 73–74.
36 The terrible condition of such places is found in Omprakash Valmiki’s
autobiography Joothan (2003): ‘There was muck strewn everywhere. The
stench was so overpowering that one would choke within a minute. The pigs
wandering in the narrow lanes, naked children, dogs, daily fights, this was the
environment of my childhood’ (1).
37 Omvedt, Understanding Caste: 48–56.
38 Dangle ed., Poisoned Bread (1992); Bagul, ‘Dalit Literature’ (1992a): 274–94.
39 Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution (1994): 238; see also Thorat,
‘Ambedkar’s Interpretation of the Caste System’ (1999): 287–90.
40 Omvedt, Understanding Caste : 53.
41 Mani, Debrahmanising History (2005): 343.
42 Ibid.: 343.
43 Omvedt, Understanding Caste (2011): 54.

44 Ilaiah, ‘Dalitism and Brahmanism’ (2001): 126.
45 This website contains important observations of the Mahad Satyagraha. See
Teltumbde, ‘Theorising the Dalit Movement’ (2000); Diwanji, ‘Ambedkar
the movie’ (2001).
46 In 1923, the Bombay Legislative Council had passed a resolution that people
of depressed classes have the right to access places that were built and
maintained by the government. But this law could not get implemented in
Mahad due to heavy opposition by the upper castes. See Keer, Dr Ambedkar:
Life and Mission (1990): 52–53.
47 Keer, Dr Ambedkar: Life and Mission (1990): 79.
48 Guru, ‘Limits of the Organic Intellectual’ (2013): 99.
49 Omvedt, Understanding Caste : 49.
50 Dangle ed., Poisoned Bread : xxiii.
51 Ibid.: ix; Guru, ‘Limits of the Organic Intellectual’ : 99.
52 Pawar and Moon, We Also Made History: 120–23.
53 Ibid.: 124.
54 Nisar and Kandasamy, Ayyankali—Dalit Leader of Organic Protest (2007):
66–68.
55 Rege, Against the Madness of Manu (2013): 148.
56 Bannerji, ‘Textile Prison: Discourse on Shame (lajja) in the Attire of the
Gentlewoman (bhadramahila) in Colonial Bengal’ (1994): 170.
57 In this context the story of Nangeli is significant. Nangeli is believed to
have been a lower-caste Ezhava woman who lived in early nineteenth
century Travancore and is said to have cut off her breasts to protest
against mulakkaram or breast tax. Breast tax was a casteist fine imposed
on lower-caste women who defied the law of keeping their breasts bare
(only the high-caste Nairs and Namboodiri women were allowed to cover
their breasts). The amount of tax was based on the size of the breast. It is
believed that Nangeli, when repeatedly asked to pay the tax for covering
her breasts, refused and as a means of protest chopped her breasts off and
presented them to the tax collectors on a banana leaf. The story follows
that she bled to death the same day and her husband committed suicide
by jumping into her funeral pyre. What ensued was a series of movements
(notable among them was the Channar Lahala or Channar revolt from
1813 to 1859 by lower-caste Nadar women for the right to wear upper-
body clothes) and the breast tax was annulled in Travancore. Nangeli’s
story has been hugely celebrated by both anti-caste and feminist groups
for exemplifying courage against caste and gender oppression respectively.
In the context of the campaign by women in Kerala to allow their entry into
the Sabarimala temple, Nangeli was invoked as a symbol of gender equality
wherein all women should be given equal rights as men. (See Sheryl
Sebastian, ‘Kerala’s Casteist Breast Tax and the Story of Nangeli’ 2016).
During the anti-caste movements after Rohith Vemula’s death, artist Orijit
Sen created an art story called ‘A Travancore Tale’ and posted it on his
facebook page on 15 January 2016 with the endnote, ‘A Travancore Tale
is dedicated to Rohith Vemula (1989–2016) who, like Nangeli, chose
death over a life of indignity’. A dalit feminist reading of this story would
challenge both the feminist co-optation of Nangeli within the scope of ‘all
women’ claiming ‘gender equality’, and the dalit interpretation of Nangeli
as a symbol of resistance against casteism. Instead, such a reading would
posit Nangeli’s choice of clothing her breasts as a resistance specifically to
brahmanical patriarchy. As the recovery of Ambedkar by Pawar and Moon
in the context of dalit women’s clothing reveals, specific rules regarding
attire are rooted in caste and gender assumptions. The law that forced dalit
women to keep their breasts bare emerges from the brahmanical notion of
public access to dalit women’s sexuality. Hence, Nangeli can neither be
subsumed within ‘all women’, nor can her story be restricted solely to ‘caste
oppression’.
58 See Ambedkar, BAWS: vol. 1 (1987–97): 47. In her notes on graded
violence as a counter argument against mainstream feminist assumption
that all women face same patriarchal violence irrespective of their caste,
Rege defines graded hierarchy of caste as a system that ‘also grades the
forms and extent of violence practices to which women of different castes
are subjected’ (Against the Madness of Manu: 143, n12). In this way, Rege
reinterprets caste as a gendered division.
60 Ibid.: 20.
61 Ibid.: 18.
62 Ibid.: 20.
63 Ibid.: 61.
64 Ibid.: 144.
65 A case in point is Sharankumar Limbale’s autobiography The Outcaste
where he mentions that his father being an upper-caste man and mother
dalit, he was given his mother’s surname. For him, therefore, taking up his
father’s surname was a challenge to such casteist norms. In recent time,
Rohith Vemula’s death has undergone such problems with naming. While
his death became the central factor that triggered nation-wide criticism
to caste system (especially in the academia), the right wing, as a reaction,
pointed to his father’s upper caste status and termed him as OBC and not
a dalit (his mother’s caste). These two events show how lineage is a crucial
aspect of the caste system. See Limbale, The Outcaste (2003), and Apparasu,
‘Rohith Vemula not a Dalit’ (2017).
67 Ibid.: 193.
68 The Bill caused an enormous uproar amongst the upper-caste political

leaders who saw it as ‘conspiracy against religion.’ For a detailed reading see
Sinha, Debating Patriarchy (2012).
69 Ravikumar, Ambedkar (2005): 2.
70 Guru, ‘The Interface between Ambedkar and the Dalit Cultural Movement
in Maharashtra’ (2001): 161.
71 Ibid.: 182.
72 Ibid.: 182.
73 Ibid.: 184.
74 My translation.
75 Guru, ‘The Interface between Ambedkar and the Dalit Cultural Movement
in Maharashtra’ (2001): 162.
76 Guru defines it as ‘a sort of folk musical theatre which involves the director
who is also a lyricist and the chorus who are required to play small roles
in the play’ (‘The Interface between Ambedkar and the Dalit Cultural
Movement in Maharashtra’: 169).
77 Rege, ‘Of Mudhouse Cultural Activists and Cultural Hierarchies’ (1998b):
339.
78 Aloysius, Dalit-Subaltern Self-Identifications (2010): 7–8; Geetha and Rajadurai,
Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium (2011): 467–72.
79 Aloysius, Dalit-Subaltern Self-Identifications (2010): 7.
80 Quoted. in Geetha and Rajadurai, Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium
(2011): 2.
81 This concept of humanization was proposed by Annie Besant. Geetha and
Rajadurai (2011) quote a report from New India, a newspaper published by
Annie Besant, where Brahman reformers maintained, ‘A little sympathy
with their condition, some simple medicine, a little knowledge of the love
and affection of the white man’s God, a studied comparative statement of
his state and the state of the higher classes in the same town or village, the
peculiar freedom of access to a civilized important white Dorai and the semi-
contemptuous behaviour of the aristocrats of their own religion—these are
the things by which missionaries succeed’ (Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium:
19). They point that the Brahman reformers blamed the attitudes of orthodox
Hindus for the harrowing rate of conversion of dalits into Christianity.
82 Geetha and Rajadurai, Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium: 335.
83 Ibid.: 492.
84 Ibid.: 336.
85 Subramanian, Periyar and the Self-Respect Philosophy (2009): 43.
86 Ibid.: 43.
87 Kulandaiswamy, ‘Periyar: The Relentless Crusader’ (1981): 51–52.
88 C. Rajagopalachari (1878–1972) was elected Premier of Madras Presidency
in 1937. He garnered major criticisms for introducing Hindi as a compulsory
language to be studied at the elementary level.
89 Oommen, Crisis and Contention in Indian Society (2005): 99.

90 Geetha and Rajadurai (2011) write about the relevance of the endeavour
of writing this history: ‘Political Non-Brahminism, both of the Justice Party
and the Self-Respect movement … showed, for instance, that economic
status and class privilege do not automatically translate into social capital
and hegemony… . These arguments appear pertinent even a century
later, when the question of reservation and rights appear unsettled and as
prone to dismissive criticism. They appear apposite for another reason as
well—the political assertion of dalits and the other so-called lower castes is
understood mostly in terms of parties and leaders from these communities
attaining political power. This rather truncated political imagination has no
use for utopian or millenarian thought, which was a staple of all anti-caste
discourses in the modern period, or for the rich histories that produced
them.’ (Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium: 504)
91 See Geetha, ‘Periyar, Women and an Ethic of Citizenship’ (1998): 9–15;
Anandhi, ‘Women’s Question in the Dravidian Movement’ (1991): 24–41;
and Geetha and Rajadurai, Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium: 362–401.
92 Geetha and Rajadurai, Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium: 504–05.
93 Geetha, ‘Periyar, Women and an Ethic of Citizenship’: 9.
94 Anandhi, ‘Women’s Question in the Dravidian Movement’: 25.
95 In this context we may recall Amar Jiban by Rassundari Devi which does
challenge the confinement to the private, but does not explore the caste
implications of the access to the public.
96 Quoted. in Anandhi, ‘Women’s Question in the Dravidian Movement’: 25.
97 Ibid.: 26.
98 Geetha, ‘Periyar, Women and an Ethic of Citizenship’: 15.
100 R. Kumar, The History of Doing (1993): 2–3.
102 Diehl, Periyar E.V. Ramaswami (1978): 11–16; Ravikumar, ‘Re-reading
Periyar’ (2006).
103 Chakravarti, ‘Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasi?’ (1989): 28.
104 Ibid.: 28.
105 Ibid.: 33–52.
106 Ibid.: 79.
107 Ibid.: 56.
108 Ibid.: 79.
109 Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution (1994): 14–15.
110 Bandyopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition (2004): 187.
111 Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: 24.
112 Sundarayya, Telengana People’s Struggle and Its Lessons (1972): 43.
113 Ibid.: 92.
114 Tharakam, ‘Caste-Class: Excerpts’ (2013): 466.
115 Ibid.: 465.

116 With reference to the issue of class in Dalit Politics, the Dalit Panthers
manifesto is an important document. The widely reproduced Dalit Panthers’
Manifesto is iconic in its definition of dalit as ‘members of scheduled
castes and tribes, neo-buddhists, the working people, the landless and
poor peasants, women and all those who are being exploited politically,
economically and in the name of religion’ (Satyanarayana and Tharu, The
Exercise of Freedom: 62). The Panthers’ association with ‘workers of the leftist
movements in rural areas’ introduced an interesting caste/class dialogue
which continues to prevail in contemporary Dalit Politics (Dangle, Poisoned
Bread: xl). The intersectional approach to caste/class by the Panthers is
elaborated by Omvedt. She writes that the intersectional approach does
not begin with class. ‘In the strict sense, classes come into existence only with
capitalism and then only in the capitalist “core” areas of factory production;
peasantries, tribal communities, etc., are “class-like” but their relations of
exploitation are interwoven with community/tribal/kinship features in pre-
capitalist systems … [even if] these are linked to capital accumulation in
a capitalist world-system; thus their fight against exploitation takes place
through communities, tribes, castes and kinship groups’ (Omvedt, Dalits and
the Democratic Revolution: 29). The biggest contribution of the Panthers has
been understanding ‘labour as exploitation and caste as degradation’ (Rao,
‘Stigma and Labour’ (2012): 23). And in this way the Dalit Panthers have
emphasized the need to see class not in its exclusivity but in intersection
with caste. Dalit historiography is thus developed by keeping caste at the
centre while simultaneously referring to class as an intertwined structure of
oppression and also exploring instances of dalit agency.
117 Stree Shakti Sanghatana, We Were Making History (1989): 3.
118 Ibid.: 93–94.
119 Ibid.: 25.
120 Ibid.: 24.
121 Ibid.: 265.
122 Ibid.: 266.
123 Ibid.: 162.
124 Ibid.: 267.
125 Rege, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’ (1998a): 45.
126 Kandasamy, ‘On Caste and Patriarchy: An Interview with Ruth Manorama’
(2007).
6
Becoming a Dalit Feminist
Towards a Conclusion
T he question of who is/can be a dalit feminist has prevailed from

the very beginning of the dalit feminist discourse. As elaborated
in the Introduction, the issue of experiential authenticity has
become a winning point for those claiming ‘dalit women’ as the
sole contenders of being dalit feminists. Contrastingly, experience
is viewed doubtfully with reference to transparency, and birth-
based collective is viewed to be restrictive and ghettoized. This
book, then, makes a journey—from being a dalit woman to becoming
a dalit feminist. As a mapping, this book begins with the identity
of a dalit woman and progresses to analyse the positionality of/as a
dalit feminist. In this way, this book simultaneously maps the major
theoretical contours of Dalit Feminism while also addressing its
core constituency. What this mapping indicates is a theorization
of Dalit Feminism that is continuous and ever evolving.
The title of the conclusion has a political purpose. The ontolog-
ical interpretation of being and becoming in almost binary terms is
reconstructed here as an epistemological frame. Dalit Feminism
is seen to be constituted by the ontological category, ‘dalit woman’,
201
while also simultaneously encompassing a position which high-

lights the politics of casteist sexism and its consequences at the
structural level. From looking at ‘dalit women’, we then transition
to the framework of dalit feminist intersectional standpoint. As
an epistemological tool, this framework becomes useful in produc-
ing alternative knowledge about caste and gender. This frame-
work is also enabling because it goes beyond the constrictions of
dalit women as inevitable components of its politics and looks at
casteist-sexism that exists implicitly (in texts/issues that do not
evidently feature dalit women per se).
Through this analysis of Dalit Feminism as an epistemological
framework, this mapping also revisits and reforms the idea of the
‘dalit woman’ as its primary constituency. Indeed, dalit women and
their experiences are the foundation on which Dalit Feminism is
built. However, as discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, the presence
of dalit women,1 or articulations by dalit women,2 do not neces-
sarily make a text/event dalit feminist per se. It is the method of
reinterpretation that becomes vital in creating an understanding
of the relationship between caste and gender which transforms
the knowledge based on these two as discrete systems through the
concept of casteist sexism. And this is what formulates a dalit fem-
inist intersectional standpoint.
This mapping, therefore, concludes by proposing that Dalit
Feminism is a position and not restricted only to identity. Hence,
by extension, we can use dalit feminist intersectional standpoint as
a lens to look at any text (and not only those that exclusively focus
on dalit women characters) to highlight the underlying casteist,
sexist narratives.
As a Lens
Sharmila Rege elaborates on the idea of speaking as a dalit femi-

nist by emphasizing that the dalit feminist standpoint avoids ‘the
narrow alley of direct experience based “authenticity” and narrow
Becoming a Dalit Feminist 203
“identity” politics, and incorporates “other groups who must

educate themselves about the histories, the preferred social rela-
tions and utopias and the struggles of the marginalised”.’3 In this
formulation, Dalit Feminism as a standpoint is not restricted to
dalit women only. It, in fact, becomes a political platform that
creates scope for building a solidarity in opposition to systems of
intersectional oppression. Seen in terms of a methodology of anal-
ysis, such an understanding of dalit feminist standpoint expands
the purview of its theoretical framework.
Since dalit feminist epistemology is based on the tasks of
recovery and reinterpretation, the focus of Dalit Feminism is
simultaneously on dalit women’s articulations (as evident in their
autobiographies), and also on unravelling the complexities of
caste and gender in texts and issues that are viewed predominantly
through the lens of caste or gender. In such instances, caste-gender
intersection remains implicit. As a standpoint, Dalit Feminism
provides an important lens to view any text, whether or not they
include representations of dalit women, thereby leading to new
ways of seeing that foreground the intersectionality of caste and
gender. To explicate this point I present a dalit feminist analysis of
the films Lipstick Under My Burkha (2017) and Sairat (2016), which,
while recognized as important feminist and dalit texts respectively,
are not directly concerned with the figure of the dalit woman.
Lipstick Under My Burkha (2017) narrates the stories of four
women living in the same neighbourhood whose dual lives
reveal their oppression by patriarchy and their resistance to this
oppression. Their ‘real’ and socially-recognized lives are shown to
be governed by patriarchy as the elderly woman, Usha Parmar,
takes on the garb of the asexual ‘buaji’, Shirin Aslam is subjected
to her husband’s sexual aggression, Rehana Abidi’s behaviour
is governed by her parents, and Leela is headed for an arranged
marriage. At the same time, these women also have their fantasy
lives where their dreams are represented through the narrative
of Rosy, the heroine of an erotic pulp fiction novel that Usha
loves to read in secret. This novel portrays their hidden hopes

of falling in love, expressing sexual desires, fulfilling their goals,
which are partly enacted through their secret second lives as a
woman involved in phone-sex, a salesperson, a teen rebel, and
an aspiring entrepreneur. At the end of the film, the four women,
after being rejected/reprimanded by their families and society, are
seen to experience a sense of sisterhood based on their shared
experiences of patriarchal oppression as well as a shared moment
of resistance.
The mainstream analysis of this film as a feminist text has
foregrounded its articulation of female sexual desire,4 the duality
in women’s lives,5 and its proclamation of agency.6 Even reviews
that find the film’s ‘feminism’ compromised by its ending laud its
‘inclusiveness’ in terms of age and religion, as well as for its ‘cau-
tionary notes’ that prevent any easy resolution of the complex
questions related to women’s desire that it raises.7 It is this idea
of inclusiveness and its representation of female desire that get
redefined when analysed from the dalit feminist intersectional
standpoint.
From this standpoint, two characters—Leela and her mother—
become especially significant. In the film, these two charac-
ters are defined more nebulously than the others. Since neither
of them wear a burkha in public, this sartorial difference from
Shirin and Rehana appears to mark them as Hindu. However,
unlike the other three main female characters in the film, Leela
is never given a surname. This absence assumes particular signif-
icance in light of the fact that surnames are usually indicative of
caste and community identity. This suppression of caste identity
with respect to Leela assumes greater significance in light of the
film’s silence about her mother’s married status; whether she is
a widow, or whether her husband left her.8 The film shows the
mother, who earns her livelihood by modelling nude for art stu-
dents, admonishing her daughter Leela by saying that the only
alternative to marriage is to become a prostitute or to opt for a
profession like herself, that is, a nude model. Seen from a dalit
feminist intersectional standpoint, this connection between body
and profession may be understood in terms of the brahmanical
sexualization of dalit women’s bodies as a result of which dalit
women, considered inherently impure and lustful, often remain
confined to certain kinds of jobs that perpetuate their sexualiza-
tion.9 The limited choice that her mother offers Leela—marriage
or prostitution/sexualized use of the body in the public sphere—
then assumes a caste-specific significance which does not allow
for any real agential exercise of choice. Interestingly, in the film,
it is Leela who is shown to exercise her sexual agency to the
optimum by not only initiating sex with her boyfriend a number
of times, but also filming the act in one instance, and later kissing
her fiancé in front of her boyfriend to make the latter jealous.
So while, on the one hand, the film’s foregrounding of gender-
religion and the dichotomy between sexual liberation and sexual
oppression appears to erase caste as an intersectional category
of analysis, it also simultaneously makes use of the brahmanical
sexualization of the dalit woman’s body in its representation of
both Leela and her mother. Thus, a dalit feminist reading of the
film foregrounds the intersection of caste and gender that remains
implicit in the film and is ignored in mainstream feminism’s
analysis of the film.
While Lipstick Under My Burkha ignores caste, Sairat (2016)
puts it centre stage. This Marathi film, which has received both
commercial and critical success, exposes the brutality of the caste
system as exemplified by its strictures against exogamy. In the film,
a dalit boy named Parshya, and an upper-caste girl (belonging to
the landlord Patil caste), Archie, fall in love, are caught, flee and
marry, and then are hacked to death by the girl’s relatives. Sairat
has been lauded for bringing forward the ‘disturbing’ reality of
caste,10 and also for portraying a strong female character, Archie,
who ‘challenges established gender roles’ by riding a Royal Enfield
Bullet and standing up for Parshya against her brother.11 The film
therefore is praised for taking up caste on the one hand and gender
on the other. Caste and gender, however, are seen as two distinct
categories confronted respectively by Parshya and Archie.12 While
Parshya is seen to represent dalit people’s oppression by the upper-
caste Patils, Archie struggles with patriarchy as represented by her
family, especially her father and brother.
From a dalit feminist intersectional standpoint, however, it
is the intersection of caste and gender that becomes the central
concern. Seen from this perspective, the film may be seen to
implicitly reinforce rather than challenge certain casteist patri-
archal ideologies. This film is seen as a classic dalit representa-
tion that invokes the Ambedkarite notion of inter-caste marriage
(exogamy) which is explored through the union of a dalit boy and
an upper-caste girl. The primary subject of the film, therefore,
becomes the dalit boy, with the first section of the film focusing on
his pursuit of the upper-caste girl who is the object of his desire.
This narrative trajectory implicitly associates dalit empowerment
with the concept of dalit masculinity. The film, in fact, establishes
Parshya’s masculinity not only through his excellence in sports,
but also through a juxtaposition of his strong physique against
his bow-legged friend who, unlike Parshya, is unable to get the
girl he desires. This implicit association between dalit masculin-
ity and dalit empowerment is further strengthened by the near
erasure of dalit women from the film. Though Parshya’s mother
and sister are shown in the film, they remain in the background.
While Parshya is sent to study, his sister remains at home, and
the film does not show any awareness about this gender discrim-
ination within the family.13 The only instance where Parshya’s
mother and sister are seen to be speaking in the film is during
their conversation with Archie where they appear deeply con-
scious of the latter’s upper-caste identity (as is visible through
their servile attitude while speaking to Archie). This brief com-
munication, therefore, does nothing to break the caste barrier
between women.
This near invisibilization of dalit women is a telling contrast to

the representation of Archie as a strong confident woman. Seen
from this perspective, Archie’s caste identity becomes central to
understanding the agency she displays in the film. For example,
when Archie visits the big well and teases the dalit boys bathing
there, her actions reflect a form of caste agency that, in a harsher
form, characterizes the verbal and physical assault of dalit men
by upper-caste men.14 Verbal assault of dalit men signifies caste
supremacy coded as assertive masculinity of upper-caste men. In
teasing the dalit boys, Archie appropriates this masculinist casteist
agency. A dalit feminist reading thus challenges the dominant
interpretation of Archie’s pride as exclusively feminist,15 instead
highlighting the caste privilege underlying the sense of superi-
ority that marks her agency in relation to the dalit boys includ-
ing Parshya. The way in which caste and gender intersect in the
representation of Archie is further evident in the second half of
the film when she and Parshya flee to a new city, away from their
caste-ridden village. In this new social setting, Archie does not
immediately have access to her caste power in the public sphere
which makes her vulnerable to sexual predators. But even in
the city, it is Archie who is seen to move relatively quickly to a
supervisory position, while Parshya is shown to remain a mechanic,
a low-paid, menial job. Their workplaces therefore replicate the
casteist pattern of presuming an upper-caste person (albeit a
woman) as more valuable than a dalit person. At the same time,
however, within the domestic sphere, it is Archie who is seen to be
handling childcare and cooking, while Parshya purchases the nec-
essary supplies and brings them home, thus reaffirming the patri-
archal division between the private and the public. Re-centring
the focus on caste-gender intersection, instead of caste and gender
in their exclusivity, therefore gives a different perspective on
Sairat. It provides a more nuanced understanding of how patriar-
chy underlies the representation of not just dalit women, but also
upper-caste women and dalit men.
Concluding Remarks
The detailed analyses of these texts show that a dalit feminist

intersectional standpoint intervenes and redefines the categories
‘woman’ and ‘dalit’ as conceptualized respectively by mainstream
Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics, by seeing caste-gender as
intersectional. Dalit Feminism initiates a paradigmatic shift by
challenging the basic conceptual frameworks of caste and gender,
thereby creating a new body of knowledge. Stacey and Thorne in
‘The Missing Feminist’ write,
The process of paradigm shifting, by which we mean changes in the

orienting assumptions and conceptual frameworks which are basic
to discipline, involves two separable dimensions: (i) the transfor-
mation of existing conceptual frameworks; and (ii) the acceptance
of those transformations by others in the field.16
This book began by highlighting Dalit Feminism’s proclamation

of difference from mainstream Indian Feminism and Dailt Politics
and the transformation of the idea of how caste-gender function
intersectionally.17 Progressing from this observation, the conclu-
sion shows how Dalit Feminism may be used as a lens to analyse
any text through the intersection of caste-gender. This mapping
of Dalit Feminism, therefore, challenges its conceptualization
as a ghettoized politics relevant only to dalit women, asserting
instead its value as a standpoint that fundamentally transforms the
fields of mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics. Sharmila
Rege, in Writing Caste/Writing Gender, points out the limitations
of ghettoizing Dalit Feminism. She writes that mainstream Indian
Feminism often does not engage with Dalit Feminism because it is
either ‘frozen in guilt’ (what can ‘we’ say now, let ‘them’ speak) or
resolves the issue of erasure by ‘adding’ dalit women to the existing
framework.18 Dalit Feminism therefore gets branded as a separate
politics, or becomes the victim of tokenism. It is these practices of
separatism and addition that are challenged by the dalit feminist
intersectional standpoint. As a remedy to such ghettoization,

Rege and Patil propose ‘a transformation from ‘their’ cause to ‘our’
cause’19 wherein solidarity is ‘achieved… rather than ascribed’.20
As an intersectional standpoint, Dalit Feminism looks at how
the systems of caste and gender function intersectionally. The
focus on the process and functionality of systemic oppression
expands our understanding of how these systems operate in other
instances as well. As a standpoint, Dalit Feminism, while based
on the knowledge of caste-gender intersection that emerges out
of the experiences of dalit women, does not restrict its conceptual
understanding only to dalit women.21 As a theoretical framework,
exemplified above through the analyses of Lipstick Under my Burkha
and Sairat, it provides a lens to reinterpret any text/event from a
caste-gender angle.
This conceptualization of dalit feminist intersectional stand-
point as a transformative interpretative framework marks a depar-
ture from Sharmila Rege’s iconic theorization of Dalit Feminism.
Rege challenges separatist identity-based politics and urges other
groups to ‘educate themselves’ about the struggles of dalit women.22
It is in this way that Rege aims to reinvent non-dalit feminists as
dalit feminists. While this claim paves way for building political
solidarity across caste divisions, concern has also been raised as to
whether it is possible for a non-dalit to really understand the con-
dition of dalit women.23 My conceptualization of Dalit Feminism
as an intersectional standpoint moves away from such debates
regarding identity politics. Conceptualized as a way of looking,
dalit feminist intersectional standpoint is shown to be concerned
less with who is speaking for/as a dalit feminist, and more as a mode
of analysis of a text/issue/event from a caste-gender angle that
challenges dominant readings and thereby transforms our under-
standing of the text and of the intersecting systems of oppression.
It is in these interventionist and transformative capacities that
Dalit Feminism may be seen to be operative. This book, therefore,
simultaneously deals with difference while making a difference.
Notes
1 An example of this claim is Baburao Bagul’s short story, ‘Mother’ (see
Chapter 4). The analysis shows that even though the story is focused
on a dalit mother, the titular character is victimised and silenced. The
perspective the story adopts is that of the son Pandu who blames his mother
for being a whore. This story therefore is a classic example of how a text,
despite its apparent focus on a dalit women, does not become dalit feminist.
2 This point can be exemplified through Sujatha Gidla’s Ants Among Elephants
(2017), which looks into caste vis-à-vis the Leftist movement in Andhra
Pradesh, but does not foreground the gender politics in either the Left or
Dalit Politics. As such, even though Gidla is writing as a dalit woman, her
autobiography does not necessarily embody a dalit feminist standpoint.
Similarly, Meena Kandasamy’s identity as a dalit woman does not identify
all of her writings as dalit feminist. Notably her autobiographical novel,
When I Hit You (2017), throws light on gender violence within the domestic
sphere but does not invoke caste.
3 Rege, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’ (1998a): 45.
4 Nathan, ‘Ratna Pathak Shah on Lipstick Under My Burkha’ (2017).
5 N. Joshi, ‘Lipstick Under My Burkha Movie Review: Double Lives of Women’
(2017).
6 Ibid.; Kaushal, ‘Lipstick Under My Burkha movie review: Don’t Expect a Film
about Sex’ (2017).
7 R. Banerji, Lipstick Under My Burkha is Bold but Not Feminist 2017;
Vetticad, ‘Lipstick Under My Burkha movie review: It’s clear why censors
were unnerved by this brave, fun film’ (2017).
8 Although Leela’s mother mentions that her alcoholic husband has left
them a huge debt, it is not clear whether he is alive or dead.
9 Similar inference can be drawn from the Mumbai dance bar ban issue
(Chapter 3).
10 Majumdar, ‘Into the Wild’ (2016); Rangan, ‘Sairat… An Epic Reimagining
of the Typical Love Story Touches (and Crushes) the Heart’ 2016.
11 Bhasme, ‘The Marathi Blockbuster Sairat and Ambedkar’s Idea of India’
(2016).
12 Ibid.; Mazumder, ‘Sairat is a Reminder of How Delusional We Indians
Really Are’ (2016).
13 Similar instance can be found in Omprakash Valmiki’s autobiography
Joothan where he remains oblivious to the fact that all his brothers go to
school while his sister remains at home. See Chapter 2, this volume.
14 Seen repeatedly in dalit men’s autobiographies such as Joothan, The Scar, as
well as in Gogu Shyamala’s short story, ‘Raw Wound.’
15 Bhasme, ‘The Marathi Blockbuster’; Mazumder, ‘Sairat is a Reminder’.
16 Stacey and Thorne, ‘The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology’ (1998):
221.
17 NFDW, NFDW, ‘Declaration of the National Federation of Dalit Women

(NFDW) in its VIII National Convention on 26th June 2009’ (2009).
18 Rege, Writing Caste/Writing Gender (2006): 4–7.
20 Patil, ‘Revitalising Dalit Feminism’ (2013): 42.
21 Rege, ‘Dalit Women Talk Differently’: 45; Patil, Revitalising Dalit Feminism’:
42; see also Harding, ‘Introduction: Standpoint Theory as a Site of Political,
Philosophic, and Scientific Debate’ (2004): 6–7; D. E. Smith, ‘Comment on
Hekman’s “Truth and Method”.’ (2004): 265.
23 Kulkarni, ‘Reconstructing Dalit Feminist Standpoint Theory’ (2014): 5;
P. M. Lata, ‘Silenced by Manu and “Mainstream” Feminism’ (2015).
Appendix
T his book proposes a framework, ‘intersectional standpoint’, to

define the dalit feminist lens. As elaborated in the first chapter
of the book, intersectional standpoint utilizes intersectionality as
a tool to create a standpoint. The contribution of intersectional
standpoint in Dalit Feminism to identify the simultaneity of caste
and gender has been explored extensively in the consecutive
chapters. Following are some analytical readings on intersection-
ality and standpoint theory to elucidate further the concepts of
intersectionality and standpoint theory with an annotated biblio-
graphy focusing on some of the earliest and most well-known
positions on these frameworks. It is hoped that this appendix
will be especially helpful for students and researchers of gender,
feminism and women’s studies.
Intersectionality
What Is Intersectionality?
Intersectionality is the study of intersections between forms or
systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. It is a meth-
odology of studying the relationships among multiple dimensions
and the modalities of social relationships and subject formations.
Intersectionality emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s from
legal academy with a view to develop a single framework for ana-
lysing power that encompasses and connects gender, class, and
213
race-based subordination. The notion of intersectionality arose

out of the criticism of feminists of colour which focused on ‘triply
oppressed’ (as blacks, as women, and as a working-class person):
black women. As legal theorist, Kimberlé Crenshaw argues, inter-
sectionality rejects the single-axis framework often embraced
by both feminist and anti-racist scholars, instead analysing ‘the
various ways in which race and gender interact to shape the multi-
ple dimensions of Black women’s … experiences’.1 Intersectionality
criticizes the abstraction of the object of knowledge and begins
discussion from the experience of the object of knowledge. In
this way it questions the homogenization of categories such as
‘woman’, instead recognizing that there are multiplicities and dif-
ferences among ‘women’ and the best way to understand that is
to start from the experience of the ‘women’. A major inference
is that both the non-privileged as well as the privileged groups can
become beginning points of intersectional analysis to investigate
the interlinked axes of oppression and domination.
Methodology
Intersectionality presents a valid and lucrative methodology for
feminist analysis by proposing multiplicity of approach and by
challenging the homogeneity so far assumed by either feminist
or anti-racist discourses. Firstly, it subverts race/gender binary
by putting the subjects and their experiences at the centre of the
overlapping margins of race and gender discourses, which further
complicates the theorization of identity. Secondly, unlike iden-
tity politics, intersectionality approaches intra-group differences
by exposing differences within the broad categories of ‘women’
and ‘blacks’. Intersectionality critiques conventional Feminism’s
emphasis on either creating sisterhood among ‘all’ women and
speaking for them, or differentiating and ignoring distinctions
based on race, ethnicity and class. And thirdly, intersectional-
ity provides a unique opportunity for the scholars to investigate
Appendix 215
multiple marginalized subjects by juxtaposing apparently mutually

exclusive frameworks. Through such methods, intersectionality
attempts to theorize identity and oppression.
Leslie McCall delineates three approaches that are prevalent
in intersectional analyses, namely, anti-categorical approach,
inter-categorical approach and intra-categorical approach. She
identifies the anti-categorical approach as complete rejection of
categories. Though the fixity of categories is increasingly being
viewed sceptically, it is also a fact that categories do continue to
exist. The challenge, therefore, is to explore the complexities of
existing categories. For this reason, the inter- and intra-categorical
approaches bear value in intersectional methodological approach.
By inter-categorical approach, McCall refers to the recognition of
‘relations of inequality among social groups and changing config-
urations of inequality along multiple and conflicting dimension’,
while the intra-categorical approach ‘interrogates the boundary-
making and boundary-defining process itself’ where it maintains
a critical stance toward categories that are predominantly seen
through a single axis of identity.2
Why Is It Not Additive?

Commenting on how, for black women, both exclusion and
addition are detrimental, Crenshaw writes,
Racism as experienced by people of color who are of a particular

gender—male—tends to determine the parameters of antiracist
strategies, just as sexism as experienced by women who are of a
particular race—white—tends to ground the women’s movement.
The problem is not simply that both discourses fail women of color
by not acknowledging the ‘additional’ issue of race or of patriar-
chy but that the discourses are often inadequate even to the dis-
crete tasks of articulating the full dimensions of racism and sexism.
Because women of color experience racism in ways not always the
same as those experienced by men of color and sexism in ways
not always parallel to experiences of white women, anti-racism and

feminism are limited, even on their own terms.3
The failure of anti-racist and feminist discourses to address the

intersections of race and gender is the fact that by choosing one,
another gets automatically erased. When a black woman is put
under the category of ‘people of colour’, anti-racism may fail to
interrogate patriarchy that acts in the subordination of women;
and when it is put in the category of ‘woman’, Feminism may often
replicate and reinforce the subordination of people of colour.4
In the additive model, each identity marker is analysed as an
individual characteristic. It ignores the effect of the interconnec-
tion of these markers. To give an example, if we take the figure
of ‘dalit woman’ as an additive model, we will see the concerns a
‘dalit woman’ faces for being a ‘dalit’ and a ‘woman’. Her concern
as a ‘dalit woman’ is not taken into account. Crenshaw notes that
‘race, gender, and other identity categories are most often treated
in mainstream liberal discourse as vestiges of bias or domination,
that is, as intrinsically negative frameworks in which social power
works to exclude or marginalize those who are different… . The
problem with identity politics is that it frequently conflates or
ignores intra-group differences.’5 For example, if caste is the focus
in identifying a dalit woman, the criticism gets directed towards
mainstream Indian Feminism for being upper-class and upper-caste
and not taking into consideration the differences among ‘women’.
This position does not highlight the distinctions among the ‘dalits’
(male and females). On the other hand, if a dalit woman’s identity
as a ‘woman’ is emphasized, it often ascribes to the sisterhood policy
of all women being equal and will only question the differences
among dalits. In the process, what is forgotten is the inter-distinction
among women (upper-class upper-caste and dalit) and intra-
distinctions among dalits (dalit men and dalit women). By assum-
ing that all ‘dalits’ are equally affected by the question of caste
and all ‘women’ are affected by patriarchal domination, this model
assumes a generalization of the term called ‘dalit woman’.
Appendix 217
If we take the issue of violence, we see that both dalit and

non-dalit women face domestic and sexual violence. An additive
model would simply add dalit women’s factor of being a dalit and
a woman as the reason for being sexually dominated. On the other
hand, intersectionality would approach the issue by invoking
brahmanical patriarchy which controls both the caste system and
sexuality of women through endogamy and the concept of purity
and pollution. For example, with reference to the Khairlanji mas-
sacre (see Chapter 3), the sexual assault on dalit women has been
used by brahmanical patriarchy to undermine the manhood of
the dalit men and justify the ‘impurity’ of dalit women. Further as
we see in case of Mariamma, brahmanical patriarchy assumes the
accessibility of sexuality of dalit women because of their participa-
tion in social labour (see Chapter 4). Their public sexual assault
also marks the inability of dalit men to protect their women. In
brahmanical patriarchy protectionism (executed by confining
women within the four walls of the house) is deemed as one of
the major ways to preserve caste purity and prove masculinist
and caste supremacy,6 the public rape of dalit women serves as a
means to emasculate dalit men. An intersectional analysis, there-
fore, unfolds how gender ideology legitimizes not only structures of
patriarchy but also the system of caste.
In the context of public rape of dalit women, we can invoke
Catharine McKinnon’s intersectional reading of the genocide
in Bosnia. In her reading, MacKinnon criticizes the legal rep-
resentation of the issue as solely a matter of racial or ethnic dis-
crimination and points out that ‘the destruction of the women
of an ethnic community through rape was recognized as destroy-
ing their community as such. Genocide was not marginalized;
instead, women were made central in its more capacious frame’
(see Chapter 5).7 This intersectional reading not only offers a dif-
ferent analysis of the issue, but also underlines how the dominant
interpretation compartmentalizes this issue as a racial atrocity.
Intersectionality is not about privileging gender over race and
ethnicity. As MacKinnon points out, ‘The fact that this genocide
was in part conducted through gender crimes did not mean that
the acts were not also ethnically and nationally and religiously
destructive. It meant they were.’8 This process is termed by Mari
Matsuda as asking the ‘other question’ wherein one learns to probe
into the factors that otherwise do not appear prominently.9
II
Standpoint Theory
What Is Standpoint Theory?

Standpoint theory is a method for analysing the complex relation
between power and knowledge. It aims to challenge the hegemony
and neutrality claimed by philosophies of science,10 epistemolo-
gies, and methodologies, and is presented as a way to empower the
oppressed groups, value their experiences, and develop an opposi-
tional consciousness. This theory concerns the authority generated
by people’s knowledge and the power such authority has to shape
people’s opinion in daily life. All formulations of standpoint theory
contend that a standpoint arises when an individual recognizes
and challenges cultural values and power relations that contribute
to subordinate or oppress particular groups.
Standpoint begins its analysis from the experiences of the
object group because knowledge starts form material lived reality.
Standpoint theory’s most important concept is that an individual’s
own perspectives are shaped by his or her experiences in social
locations and social groups. Standpoints always involve more than
one factor. Since people generally belong to multiple social groups,
it is possible for one person to possess several standpoints at once.
Moreover, formulating a standpoint is a conscious, active process.
To obtain a standpoint, a person must recognize and evaluate their
experiences and social position. Differences in standpoints arise
from social inequalities. Hence, standpoint argues that those in
the marginalized position tend to express a more objective view of
Appendix 219
reality than members of privileged groups. People ‘outside’ the dom-

inant power structure are forced to adapt to the dominant culture.
They, therefore, know both sides of the scale: the oppressor’s and
that of the oppressed. Standpoint argues that the point of view of
the oppressed is more advantageous because the oppressed sees
both the oppressor’s position and his own position. Through this
knowledge, every dominated group can turn an oppressive feature
of the group’s condition into a source of critical insight. Thus
standpoint theory shows that a disadvantage can be turned into an
epistemological, scientific, and political advantage. But this process
includes active participation in the cause of the oppressed to raise
a voice for the collective in order to gain emancipation through
struggle. This is the reason why standpoint is not an ascribed posi-
tion. It is an achievement. The empowerment of the oppressed
requires a distinctive kind of knowledge which can emerge only
through awareness.
Methodology
In Feminism, standpoint theory has an immense effect because it
provides a methodology for research that connects the political with
the scientific knowledge. It provides logical ground for Feminism
to argue that feminist issues are not merely about ‘women’, but
have the potential to inform theoretical, methodological, and
political thought in general because feminist concerns arise not
only from social and political issues but are ‘focused on every
aspect of natural and social orders, including the very standards
for what counts as knowledge, objectivity, rationality, and good
scientific method’.11
Sandra Harding points out that the standpoint methodology
should be carried out in three ways: firstly, by starting research from
women’s experiences, lives, and activities and from the emerging
collective feminist discourses; secondly, by avoiding assumptions
posed by already available frameworks provided by institutions; and
thirdly, by understanding the conceptual practices of power through

‘studying up’. As a methodology, it provides valuable resources to
social justice movements because it explains the nature and social
relations otherwise inaccessible. By using standpoint method, one
can produce oppositional and shared consciousness, to create
oppressed peoples as collective subjects of research rather than
object of other’s observation.
According to standpoint theory the viewpoint of the dominant
groups fails to interrogate their advantageous situation in a system-
atic and critical manner which leaves their social situation scien-
tifically and epistemologically a disadvantaged one for generating
knowledge. Being in the lowest rung of the society, the oppressed
group has the knowledge of how power functions through those
who dominate and those who are dominated. Through this knowl-
edge, every dominated group can turn an oppressive feature of
the group’s condition into a source of critical insight. Thus stand-
point theory shows that a disadvantage can be turned into an epis-
temological, scientific, and political advantage. But this process
includes active participation in the cause of the oppressed to raise
a voice for the collective in order to gain emancipation through
struggle. This is the reason why standpoint is not an ascribed posi-
tion. It is an achievement. The empowerment of the oppressed
requires a distinctive kind of knowledge which can emerge only
through political processes.
Furthermore, standpoint proposes a re-visioning of the posi-
tion of the researcher which helps to avoid the narrow alley of
direct experience based ‘authenticity’ and narrow identity poli-
tics. Standpoint is, therefore, an affiliative politics where not only
women belonging to a particular group speak for themselves, but
people from all categories ‘learn’ about the women’s position and
contribute in the construction of a systematic alternative to the
dominant worldview from the standpoint of women.
Standpoint’s focus on the object groups’ experience to unfold
the relation between power and knowledge, as well as to revise the
Appendix 221
position of the researcher/subject, stands in stark contrast to

the notion of ‘objectivity’ practised by dominant philosophies,
epistemologies and methodologies. These methods argue that in
order to provide a ‘bias-free’ judgment, the subject/ researcher
should remain outside his/her individual biases, interpretations,
feelings, and imaginations. Hence, central to this argument is the
desire to establish rationality (in the sense of non-emotion) and
singularity of truth.
Contrastingly, Harding proposes the method of ‘strong objec-
tivity’ in standpoint analysis which delinks the neutrality ideal
from objectivity. Harding suggests that starting research from the
lives of women actually strengthens standards of objectivity. As
Harding points out, ‘political engagement, rather than dispassion-
ate neutrality, was necessary to gain access to the means to do
such research’ in the actualities of women’s everyday lives and
in the conceptual practices of powerful social institutions.12 For
example, as Black Feminism and Third World Feminism have
often argued, an ‘objective’ analysis of black and Third World
women by white feminists often ascribes to essentialist notions of
their ‘subjects’. Hence, an engagement into the knowledge pro-
duced by the experiences of the black and Third World women
become fundamental in grasping the gaps within Feminism.
How Does It Define Experience?

Now the question arises, is this experience ‘authentic’? In other
words, should we take these experiences (of the objects) to be ‘true’?
Harding provides an answer to this by arguing that standpoint’s
focus is never on truth-claim. In other words, believing that
all knowledge is socially situated, standpoint acknowledges that all
experiences are partial. Hence, a way to gain ‘less false’ accounts
is to begin with the reality of the life experiences of the object,
to invoke a comparison within the experiences of the objects.
Standpoint theory’s reliance on experience of the object germinates
from the notion of ‘strong objectivity’ which argues that perspec-

tives of groups outside the dominant groups are more useful
because these remain ‘outside’ the dominant and hence have a
more objective account of the dominant as well as the dominated.
For example, the Third World women’s standpoint is scientifi-
cally less partial because their lives begin from outside the euro-
centric conceptual frameworks in which white Western feminist
studies have been largely organized. And more importantly, these
experiences are not taken at their face value. The ‘moment of
critical insight’ comes only through conscious collective political
struggle. Thus, a view, or a position, needs a conscious effort to get
transformed into a standpoint.
III
How Are Standpoint Theory and

Intersectionality Related?
Standpoint analysis entails an intersectional methodology in its

approach to understand experience of the object group as chal-
lenging the abstractions and homogenizations maintained by the
dominant power structures. Beginning with knowledge generated
from material lived reality both these methods argue for a collec-
tive political consciousness to challenge the axes of oppression.
Standpoint theory uses intersectional method to analyse how the
experiences of particular groups are affected by and generate from
multiple sources. For example, a black feminist standpoint analysis
would see the intersecting factors of race, gender, class, and so
on, as affecting the ‘black woman’. As Harding puts it, an inter-
sectional approach uses resources to bring about the differences
within ‘women’ to highlight the fissures in the otherwise predom-
inant homogeneity. In this sense, both standpoint theory and
intersectionality believe that the viewpoint of the oppressed is the
most advantageous one because it remains ‘outside’ the domain
of dominant power structures and hence may provide a better
Appendix 223
view of how power functions in people’s daily lives moulding their

knowledge and opinions. The point where intersectionality differs
from standpoint is that it does not take into consideration the
position of the researcher which becomes pivotal in standpoint
analysis. Thus, while in intersectionality the speaker continues
to speak ‘for’ the object group, in standpoint the speaker speaks
‘as the object group’ because a standpoint contains a rigorous
‘learning’ of the object group’s position and knowledge base.
Another commonality between intersectionality and stand-
point theory is their emphasis on group-based experiences. Patricia
Hill Collins argues that the notion of standpoint refers to groups
having shared histories based on their shared location in relations
of power.13 This ‘shared history’ is the location where hierarchi-
cal power relations converge and affect the groups. An individual,
being a part of it, automatically gets affected by it. For example,
the standpoint of the collective called ‘black women’ would
emerge from a long standing history of shared experiences. This
focus on ‘group experience’ creates scope for different groups to
come together and create a coalition on the basis of a similar goal.
To give an instance, connections have often been made between
black women and dalit women on the grounds that both groups
are oppressed by multiple structures of caste/race, class, gender,
religion, and so on. Hence, a standpoint analysis that draws on both
these groups would lead to a broader, more comprehensive under-
standing of the axes of oppression. This would also give scope for
affiliative politics (in the literal sense of relating to the formation
of social and emotional bonds with others or the desire to create
such bonds). Despite such group coalition, the question remains
as to how to address the differences within a group. Postmodern
Feminism accuses standpoint for this non-acknowledgement of
‘differences’ within object groups. However, as an answer to that,
Harding argues that standpoint perceives material lived reality as
an ongoing process. Hence, by adopting a standpoint we get a ‘less
partial’ point of view which does not lead to ‘truth’, but which
involves in an ongoing dialectic process of constantly redefining

knowledge and reconceptualizing social relations.
IV
Annotated Bibliography
Below is a brief study of texts, some of the earliest theorizations

of/on feminist standpoint and intersectionality, which consti-
tute the foundations of intersectionality and feminist standpoint
theory. Both the theoretical frameworks have been expanded,
contested and contextualized immensely (see Chapter 1). The
return here to some of the oldest texts is intended to explore
the origins of those discussions and debates and ponder on them
vis-à-vis contemporary postulations. It is hoped that this brief
study would provide a base for further researches to follow.
Texts
• K. Crenshaw, ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity
Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.’ Stanford Law
Review 43.6 (1991): 1241–99.
In her article Crenshaw defines intersectionality as a method-

ology used to analyse how multiple networks of power operate
in an intersecting fashion in order to continue domination on
a group of people. Intersectionality questions identity politics
which views categories as homogeneous and mutually exclusive,
that is, ‘woman’, ‘blacks’, and claims that one needs to recognize
the differences within and among categories. This challenges the
homogeneity claimed by categories. Drawing specific attention to
domestic violence and rape, Crenshaw explores the simultaneity
of race- and gender-based violence on women of colour.
Crenshaw charts three forms of intersectionality: structural
intersectionality, political intersectionality and representational
intersectionality. Structural intersectionality refers to the creation
Appendix 225
and operation of particular systems and structures in society that

preserve privilege for some groups or individuals while restricting
the rights and privileges of others. Structural intersectionality
includes political, economic, and institutional forms of discrimi-
nation. Crenshaw exemplifies structural intersectionality through
a survey of battered women’s shelters in the US. She points
out that the social service groups do not reach out to them and
they do not get legal recognition of their issues because white
women do not face these challenges in the same way or to the
same degree. Crenshaw identifies structural intersectionality as
the ways in which race, class and immigration status, not just
gender, intersect to affect the care and intervention battered
women of colour receive. Crenshaw also points out that when
violence against women and domestic abuse do receive political
attention, battered white women are pointed to as the excep-
tion to the rule because battering is seen a problem located in
the family of the ‘other’, namely, poor and/or minority families.
This assumption normalizes domestic violence within communi-
ties of colour and other minority communities. Crenshaw’s cri-
tique therefore is directed simultaneously to White Feminism and
anti-racism which structurally ignore the condition of the women
of colour and to dominant institutions that perpetually reproduce
the stereotypical assumptions about women of colour, thereby,
depriving them of any justice.
In her explanation of political intersectionality, Crenshaw
highlights the impact of political activism by showing how various
race, class and immigration-status identities intersect to affect
political organizing against violence against women, highlighted
by the fact that women of colour are situated within at least two
subordinated groups that frequently pursue conflicting political
agendas. This is best illustrated by the often disparate discourses
between feminist and anti-racist organizations. Anti-racist groups
focus on unifying the people solely based on race. The attempt
here is to remove the stereotypes about ‘black’ people. This focus,
however, comes at the cost of ignoring the question of gender

within black communities. The violence that these women face
is oftentimes silenced due to attempts to maintain the integrity
of black and minority communities also fighting racism and other
modes of oppression. Similarly, when it comes to mainstream
Feminism, the legal redressals demanded are mostly catered to
challenging patriarchy as it affects white women. The problem
with such approach is that it homogenizes all ‘women’ and ignores
the specificity of race. Mainstream Feminism challenges patri-
archy’s view of non-virgin women’s rape as something women
‘ask for’ (consensual) with an aim to create policies that prevent
voyeurism of women’s bodies. What comes to focus here is the
white woman and her body. When it comes to black women, rape
becomes a way to emasculate entire black communities. It is the
public-ness of rape/making rape visible to all in order to dominate
the community that is completely ignored by both feminist and
anti-racist groups.
Representational intersectionality focuses on the representa-
tions and misrepresentation of groups or individuals through
media, texts and language, and explores the complex ways the
dominant ideologies permeate them. Crenshaw exemplifies
the ways in which the representation of race and gender serves to
devalue women of colour within popular culture. According to her,
representational intersectionality purports that race and gender
converge so that the concerns of minority women fall into the
void between concerns about women’s issues and concerns about
racism. Debates over representation continually elide the inter-
section of race and gender in the popular culture’s construction
of images of women of colour. Accordingly, an analysis of what
may be termed representational intersectionality would include
both the ways in which these images are produced through a
confluence of prevalent narratives of race and gender, as well as
a recognition of how contemporary critiques of racist and sexist
representations marginalize women of colour.
Appendix 227
In summary, an intersectional analysis, as proposed by Crenshaw,

argues that: (i) racial and sexual subordination are mutually rein-
forcing; (ii) black women are commonly marginalized by a politics
of race alone or gender alone; and (iii) a political response to each
form of subordination must at the same time be a political response
to both.
• Catharine A. MacKinnon, ‘Intersectionality as a Method:

A Note.’ Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 38.4
(2013): 1019–30.
In this article MacKinnon provides intersectionality as a method

that analyses social order from the perspective of the oppressed
group by taking into account their experiences of lived reality.
Intersectionality investigates spaces where ‘vectors of inequalities
intersect’. It focuses on the particular, rather than universalizing
a knowledge (i.e., an experience being common to all). Thus,
intersectionality recognizes that experiences of oppression will be
different among black and white women due to the intersecting
factors of race and gender. However, this particularity does
not mean considering a knowledge arising from the experience
of a particular group as narrow, static and restrictive. Rather,
MacKinnon talks about how that particularity gives a more
holistic perspective of the universal. In this sense, intersectionality
challenges the universality which claims homogeneity. It claims
to begin research at the micro level from the lives of the subject
group. In the process, intersectionality not only intervenes into
dominant discourses, it also challenges classifications of categories
as mutually exclusive. Thus, ‘women’ and ‘gender’ are not seen as
mutually exclusive but as intersectional.
MacKinnon also notes that intersectionality investigates both
the results of the problem (what happens) and the process of it
(how it happens). Hence, intersectionality is a process-oriented
methodology that treats identities not as given but as socially
constructed. MacKinnon adds that the process-orientedness

becomes a non-relative and non-postmodern approach because it
aims to unfold how power relations operate in daily lives to subor-
dinate people. Intersectionality ‘attempts to unveil the processes
of subordination and the various ways those processes are experi-
enced by people who are subordinated and people who are privi-
leged by them’.14 Thus, even if there are differences within subject
groups, intersectionality assumes that observations can be made
across groups which would enable a better understanding of
power relations.
• Sandra Harding, ed., ‘Introduction.’ In The Feminist Standpoint

Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies. New York:
Routledge, 2004: 1–15.
In this iconic introduction, Harding maps feminist standpoint

theory by using it as an intervention in the disciplinary paradigm
of scientific epistemology. She views feminist standpoint theory
as an epistemological intervention that aims to analyse how
power relations structure knowledge. It challenges traditional
epistemological assumption that a general, universal, and abstract
account of knowledge and scientific enquiry is possible. Since all
epistemologies are constructed through power relations, stand-
point claims that all perceptions are necessarily biased. In fact, the
scientific discourses are established and maintained through ascer-
taining the hegemony and hierarchies of power. The established
epistemologies are not only biased but also partial. Standpoint
intervenes into the mainstream epistemological frames and rede-
fines these bodies of knowledge. Hence, Harding notes, beginning
research from the lives of oppressed groups (such as women) pro-
vides a better understanding of broader relations and networks of
power. In this way, standpoint formulates a ‘more holistic’ view
of the structures of oppression in order to achieve a collective
political oppositional stance aspiring for liberation.
Appendix 229
Harding challenges scientific discourses that claim Feminism’s

invalidity to produce scientific knowledge due to its political and
subjective inclination. She notes that the standpoint of women15
is more liberatory because it knows the conditions of both domi-
nator and dominated. This subjugated knowledge arises from the
‘local’ and the experience of ‘material lived reality.’ Standpoint
examines the process of how things are seen/perceived/represented.
Standpoint is about recognizing how, by applying certain practices,
different structures put the object group(s) in an inferior position.
This realization is arrived at by transforming experience into sources
of knowledge, and by transforming that knowledge into sources of
critical insights about how power relations function.
In Harding’s conceptualization the importance of experience in
standpoint theory lies in understanding that people’s experiences
are shaped by social and political forces. Treating experience as
an important tool to generate knowledge challenges scientific
discourse’s claim that experience, especially that of women, is
‘subjective’, ‘invalid’, and ‘unfit’ to become source of knowledge.
Borrowing from Marxist theory, feminist standpoint theory claims
that the work that women do, shapes their knowledge and behav-
iour. Activities of daily life reflect how institutionalized power
structures function. Standpoint argues that the understanding
of broader power structures can be achieved when one takes
experience of the oppressed as a tool to deconstruct oppression.
Standpoint’s analysis of experience reveals that daily activities are
structured by dominant systems. And the struggle against both
repressive and ideological state apparatuses is at the material level.
Experience, therefore, is not an isolated phenomenon. Experience
here is understood as that of a collective and is structured by sys-
temic modes of power. While reading standpoint’s treatment of
experience the questions we need to ask are: (i) Is experience artic-
ulated as being dictated by structures of oppression (where the
objects are always represented as victims)? (ii) Is experience repre-
sented as negotiating with the structures (dialectical method—as
survival strategy)? (iii) Is experience taking an oppositional stance

to these structures (resistance—search for an alternative)? In
other words, can we understand experience vis-à-vis relations of
power as linear/dialectical, deterministic/oppositional?
One of the most important features of feminist standpoint
theory, as pointed out by Harding, is that it is not merely a view-
point, one needs to continuously struggle to achieve a standpoint.
For example, assertive women are labelled as ‘bitches’. This under-
standing is shaped by seeing women who act assertively as bitches.
This is a notion provided by the dominant patriarchal structure.
A person who holds a feminist standpoint realizes that society
expects women to be nice and docile. A transgression or rejection
of these expectations and assertion of agency often earns them the
title ‘bitches’, whereas assertive men are valued for their leader-
ship qualities. A feminist standpoint therefore is an achievement
that reflects political consciousness about the power relations that
shape women’s position as subordinate to that of men.
• Dorothy E. Smith, ‘Women’s Perspective as a Radical Critique

of Sociology’. In The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual
and Political Controversies, Sandra Harding, ed., New York
Routledge, 2004: 21–33.
In this article Smith presents a feminist standpoint critique of the

discipline, Sociology. Arguing that sociological research promotes
‘relations of ruling’, that is, the way institutions uphold the white
male perspective and seek to marginalize women, Smith argues
for the standpoint of women which can unfold this relation of
ruling. For this purpose, Smith reflects that it is important to begin
research from the lives of women at the micro level as it helps
enhance our understanding of how institutions function at a macro
level. Smith argues that women’s perspective is more liberatory in
understanding the power structures because they see how both
the dominant system works (which they are forced to adopt)
Appendix 231
and how their experiences often contradict it. By ‘consciousness’

Smith means ‘perspective’; she says that there are two kinds of
spaces: one is the local and material, and another is abstract and
conceptual. While men inhabit the conceptual world, women are
supposed to remain in the material world. Women’s work (the
activity they do in order to survive) is aimed to provide comfort
to men so that they can inhabit the conceptual world without
participating in the material. The society, therefore, is structured
in a way that men can afford to be alienated from the material
realm. As a result, men perceive the world from a single dominant
perspective.
When it comes to women, there is a bifurcation of conscious-
ness or perspective. This bifurcation occurs from the two different
worlds that women experience. In order to fit in the conceptual
order inhabited by men, women have to suspend their knowl-
edge and adopt a body of knowledge that keeps them outside its
mode of discussion or in a subordinate relation. The way women
perceive the world, therefore, is through a split. Women learn to
adopt the dominant hegemonic culture in order to survive, but
they also develop a consciousness that remains inconsistent to
what the dominant culture propounds. Bifurcation of conscious-
ness occurs as women attempt to negotiate with the two mis-
matched worlds. Women, therefore, know the world in two ways:
one is in the material realm where they reside physically, and
another is at the conceptual level where they separate themselves
from the knowledge gained through lived experience and are
forced to adopt something external. According to Smith, women’s
perspective is ‘more complete’ because they are aware of both the
worlds. Hence research should begin from women’s lived experi-
ences, the material world where they are situated, rather than the
abstract external world. Smith, thus, acknowledges the situated-
ness of knowledge and proposes a standpoint that is more holistic.
Her article seeks to examine the relationship between women’s
activities and experiences and larger institutional imperatives.
For Smith, feminist standpoint theory enables a position for inves-

tigating relations of power and knowledge in the institutional
sectors and everyday life from women’s point of view.
• Patricia Hill Collins, ‘Learning from the Outsider Within:

The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought.’
In The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political
Controversies, Sandra Harding, ed.. New York Routledge, 2004:
103–26.
In this article Collins proposes a black feminist intersectional

standpoint to show that black women’s ‘outsider within’ position
is valuable to create an alternative methodology to the study
of sociology.16 The term ‘outsider within’ refers to the physi-
cal space that black women as domestic workers occupy within
the white households but remain ‘outsiders’, and as groups who
are kept outside of (or completely ignored by) the dominant
sociological paradigms. The ‘outsider within’ position, therefore,
seeks to challenge the hegemony of white male-centrism and
the homogenization/sisterhood of White Feminism, and seeks to
correct biases and stereotypes while aiming to intervene and rede-
fine the mainstream epistemological frames and provide political
empowerment to the object group and similar groups in concern.
Collins, thus, aims for a solidarity-based collective.
In Collins’ postulation, the three points that emerge out of
black feminist standpoint are: (i) meaning of self-definition and
self-valuation; (ii) the interlocking nature of oppression; and
(iii) the importance of African American women’s culture. Her first
point refers to the stereotypes about black women representing
externally created controlling images which dehumanize them.
This leads to self-devaluation, or psychological oppression. Collins
claims that by defining and valuing assertiveness and other
‘unfeminine’ qualities as necessary and functional attributes for
African American women, these stereotypes can be challenged
Appendix 233
and corrected. To define the interlocking nature of oppression

Collins opts for intersectionality as methodology to delineate
that black women are oppressed by intersecting structures of
race and gender. By locating black women at this intersection,
Collins identifies the category ‘black women’ in contradistinction
to ‘white women’ and ‘black men’.17 Black feminist standpoint
reveals that the simultaneity of race and gender as structures of
oppression is the crux of black female understanding of material
reality.
Collins also emphasizes the importance of African American
women’s culture. She argues that the concept of culture is derived
from the collective. Culture is not seen as static, fixed form.
Rather it is a fluid entity that is subject to change depending
on socio-political situations. Hence, one cannot essentialize ‘black
woman’ as an identity-based category fixed in time and space.
The notion of fluidity of culture (where culture is formed out
of the collective) gives greater scope to form affiliations based
on similar political goals and a greater scope for political empow-
erment. This culture is constituted of two things: black women’s
experience and their creativity. The collective is formed on
the basis of shared experiences which black women share as
workers and as mothers. The survival strategy they employ then
gets carried over to their children. Shared experience there-
fore becomes an important to formulate knowledge about black
women survival and self-assertion. Their creative articulations
also become significant as coping mechanism to cope with simul-
taneous oppressions.
The ‘outsider within’ position therefore intervenes into specific
knowledge generation and validation processes. Collins claims
that as an alternative standpoint, this position challenges the
hegemony of the white male patriarchal trend in sociology. This
standpoint, therefore, is politically enabling for communities
simultaneously oppressed by race and gender, and also serves as a
corrective for the existing systems.
Notes
3 Crenshaw, ‘Mapping the Margins’: 1252.
4 An example of the former is provided by Crenshaw (ibid.) with reference to
2 Live Crew, a popular Black rap group, whose lyrics, though challenging
racist stereotypes, reproduced sexism against black women (see Chapter 3).
The latter aspect, i.e., White Feminism reproducing racism against black
women, is made visible when white feminists actively resist any responsibility
to address racism by denouncing it as ‘their problem’ (see Chapter 1, n.46).
In Dalit Feminism, similar analysis has been made with reference to the
Khairlanji massacre (see Chapter 3).
6 Chakravarti, Gendering Caste (2003).
7 MacKinnon, ‘Intersectionality as Method’ (2013): 1026–27.
8 Ibid.: 1027.
9 Matsuda, ‘Beside My Sister, Facing the Enemy’ (1991): 1189.
10 For more on Feminism’s critique of science and its claimed objectivity,
see Sumi Krishna and Gita Chadha eds., Feminists and Science, vols. 1 and
2 (2015; 2017).
12 Ibid.: 6.
13 Collins, ‘Learning from the Outsider Within’ (2004).
15 ‘Women’ is defined as category oppressed by structures of androcentrism,
eurocentrism, and heterosexism. By defining women thus, Harding creates
scope for formulating collective depending on similar political aims. This
awareness challenges essentialist identity politics based on pre-defined
categories such as women, blacks, and makes coalition with diverse
categories of oppressed groups possible in order to achieve liberation. This
identification, therefore, is a conscious political choice.
16 Feminist standpoint theory challenges the white male-centric sociology and
scientific study, whereas the ‘outsider within’ position as mentioned and
elaborated by Patricia Hill Collins (described in this appendix) intervenes
into feminist epistemological understanding of ‘homogeneity’ and seeks to
redefine it taking into consideration the ‘differences within.’
17 This may serve as an example of how standpoint intersectionality is a tool.
It is also important to note that all standpoints may not be intersectional.
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Permanent Black.
Index
agency, 92, 113–19, 126, 134, Bama, 93, 148. See also writers
141–42, 152, 164, 205. See also Black Feminism, 25–28, 115. See also
Dalit Feminism intersectionality
All India Dalit Women’s Forum bell hooks, 145–46
(AIDWF), 21 Combahee River Collective, 27,
All India Democratic Women’s 86–87
Association (AIDWA), 117 Cherrie Moraga, 26, 43n46
Ambedkar, B.R., 170–78 Gloria Anzaldúa, 9–10
Ambedkarite women, 86, 147, Kimberlé Crenshaw, 24–25, 29, 36,
162, 167–69, 173, 177–78. See 114–15, 214–16, 224–27
also Kamble, Baby; Meenakshi Patricia Hill Collins, 232–23
Moon; Urmila Pawar; writers representation, 109
caste annihilation, 156 27n, 170–73 solidarity, 145, 233
endogamy, 173–77 2 Live Crew, 114–15
Gandhi, M.K., 170–71 Bosnia massacre, 94–95, 217
Hindu Code Bill, 175–76 Brahmanism, 14, 32, 69. See also caste
labour, 122, 170. See also caste Jotirao Phule. See Jotirao Phule
Mahad Satyagraha, 156n27, 162, knowledge, control of, 89, 99, 164.
170–72, 196n45 See also historiography
autobiographies, 50–51, 83–54, Manusmriti, 53, 175
80–82, 96–100, 176. See also patriarchy, 48, 76–77, 83, 97,
writers 114–18, 120–29, 144–53,
Amar Jibon, 56–63 184–90, 217
Ami Keno Charal Likhi, 81, 90–96
Joothan, 68, 70–75, 80 caste, 48, 89, 96, 99, 122, 173
Karukku, 34, 81, 87–90, 100 breast tax, 196n57
My Story, 36, 63–67 citizenship 90–95
The Outcaste, 67–68, 75–77, 80, class, 62–63, 121, 187–88
127–28 and communists. See Telanaga
The Prisons We Broke, 81–87, 90 Peasants’ Revolt
261
(caste, cont.) Dalit Mahila Swabhiman Yatra, 1

dalit literature, 73, 75, 90–92 Dalit Panthers, 69, 147, 200n116.
dalit refugees, 92–94 Dalit Politics. See also Dalit Feminism;
internalization, 85, 98 Phule, Jotirao; Periyar, E.V.R.
knowledge production, 164. accessibility, 176. See also Mahad
See also historiography Satyagraha
labour, 130–32 Ayyankali, 172
land, 121–23, 125. See also caste and class, 62–63, 121–22, 125,
Khairlanji massacre; 187–188. See also Dalit Panthers
Marichjhapi; Una agitation and historiography. See
pariah, 87–88 historiography
stigma, 72, 122, 130–32 land, 120–26. See also Khairlanji
untouchability, 72, 132, 171 Massacre; Una March
Cixous, Hélène, 47 nationalism, 166–67
Chodorow, Nancy, 53–54, 60 and patriarchy 34, 35. See also
patriarchy
Dalit Feminism, 15. See also Black Ravikumar, 176
Feminism; historiography vetti, 187. See also Telangana
Bhanwari Devi, 2, 16, 17n7, Peasants’ Revolt
137n54 dalit women, 14, 134–35
cultural assertion, 11, 79–80, 177–78 assertion, 89–95, 112
difference, 2–3, 7–8, 21–30, 33, citizenship, 90–9, 93–94
116, 133–34, 146, collective, 83, 89, 95, 99–100,
education, 89, 99 144–145, 148, 150. See also Baby
intersectional lens, 114–16, 124, Kamble; Bama; Urmila Pawar
152–55, 196–97n57, 208 and Meenakshi Moon
intersectional standpoint, 7, devadasi, 114, 118–19. See also
14–15, 35–40 140–41, 159, films/documentary
202–07, 209 education, 89, 99
labour, 99, 118–19, 188. See also hygiene, 169. See also Muktabai
Bama; films/documentary impurity, 124, 148, 164, 172–73
negotiation, 130, 140–45, 152–54 labour, 130–34, 143
patriarchy. See patriarchy movements, 86. See also Telangana
sexuality. See sexuality Peasants’ Revolt
solidarity, 30–32, 96, 145, 149–52, rape, 48, 76–77, 94–95, 114, 120,
154 123–24, 127–28, 148, 217–18.
standpoint, 37–38, 148–49, See also Marichjhapi massacre
154–55, 191–92, 203. See also sexuality. See sexuality
standpoint theory Vedic dasi, 184–86
Dalit Mahila Samiti (DMS) 30, 31 victim, 126–27
Index 263
Ektara Collective, 150–51 Kamble, Baby, 78, 81, 83–86, 90, 92,
98, 100
films/documentary Khairlanji massacre, 120–26. See also
Kakkoos, 130–34 Dalit Politics
Lipstick Under My Burkha, 203–05 Kumar, Radha, 10–11
Sairat, 205–07
The Dirty Picture, 112–16 Mahad Satyagraha, 156n27, 171–72.
Turup, 150–52 See also Rege, Sharmila
Marichjhapi massacre, 91, 93–94
Gallop, Jane, 8–9 marriage
duty, 64–66
Hall, Stuart, 109–11, 134–35, 154 endogamy, 152, 153, 156n27,
historiography, 50, 162–63. See also 173–75
Dalit Feminism; standpoint inter-caste, 150, 178, 190, 206
theory lineage, 175
dual patriarchy, 190–92 sankara, 4–5, 76, 175
Savitribai Phule. See Phule, social reform, 57–59
Savitribai Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, 145–47
Subaltern Studies, 160–62 Muktabai, 168–69
Walter Benjamin, 159–61 Mumbai Dance Bar Ban, 116–20,
144. See also sexuality
Indian Feminism, 2, 12, 29, 124, 134.
See also Dalit Feminism; Rege, National Federation of Dalit Women
Sharmila (NFDW), 21–22, 30–31
autobiographies, 54–67, 63–67, Non-Brahmin Manifesto, 179
96
motherhood and sexuality. See patriarchy, 33–35, 97, 113, 129, 163,
Periyar, E.V.R. 169. See also Brahmanism; Dalit
representation, 111, 129, Feminism
140–41 dalit, 84–85, 98, 139–40, 148, 206
intersectionality, 23–30, 213–18 Pawar, Urmila and Meenakshi Moon,
2 Live Crew, 114–15 147, 172–73
Catharine MacKinnon, 227–28 Periyar, E.V. Ramasami, 178–84
inter-categorical, 123 brahmanical nationalism, 1781–79
intra-categorical, 125, 134 Gandhi, M.K., 180
Kimberlé Crenshaw, 24, 215–16, gender, 182–84
224–27 Self-Respect movement, 179–80
Leslie McCall, 25, 123 Phule, Jotirao, 162, 165–68
Mary John, 29 Aryan Race theory, 165, 194n23
Nivedita Menon, 28–29 education, 167
(Phule, Jotirao, cont.) Una March, 1, 122–23

production-related knowledge, upper-caste women. See also
167–68 Brahmanism; patriarchy
Cultivator’s Whipcord, 168, 195n29 domestic, 57–59, 185
Gulamgiri, 166 purity, 57–59, 114
Phule, Savitribai, 163–65, 167 labour, 61–62
marital rape, 64
Rege, Sharmila, 6–8, 39–40, 191 motherhood, 185
religion, 88–89, 150–51. See also
Bama; Brahmanism White Feminism, 9, 27, 43n46, 50,
Rowbotham, Shiela, 55 136, 225, 232. See also Black
Feminism.
sexuality, 113–19, 128, 148, 153, Wilson, Bezwada, 130, 132
144–45, 173, 189, 204–05. See also Womanist Party of India, 117
Brahmanism; films/documentary Women’s movement, 30–32.
standpoint theory, 218–22, 228–33. See also Indian Feminism;
See also Dalit Feminism; intersectionality
historiography writers
Dorothy E. Smith, 38–39, 230–32 Baburao Bagul, 126–28
experience, 5–6, 163, 201, 221–22, Baby Kamble, 82–87, 99–100
229 Bama, 87–90, 99–100, 148–49
knowledge, 18–19n48, 192n2, 218, Challapalli Swaroopa Rani, 35
231 Gautam Ali, 128–29
positionality, 2–8, 154–55, 191–92, Gogu Shyamala, 149–50
209, 220 K. Gunasekaran, 77–81
Sandra Harding, 37–38, 228–30 Kalyani Thakur Charal, 90–96,
Sharmila Rege. See Rege, Sharmila 99–100
strong objectivity, 221 Kamala Das, 63–67, 97–98
Stree Shakti Sanghatana, 147, 188–90 Kancha Ilaiah, 58, 70, 167,
Subaltern Studies, 160–61 170–71
Telangana Peasants’ Revolt Mahasweta Devi, 143–45
(Telangana Peoples’ Struggle), Omprakash Valmiki, 70–75
147, 162, 186–90. See also Stree Rassundari Devi, 57–63, 66–67,
Shakti Sanghatana 97–98
SharankumarLimbale, 75–77
Udupi March, 1, 125 Sukirtharani, 47–48
UN World Conference Against
Racism in Durban, 22, 32 Yashada Fact Finding Report, 125
About the Author
Anandita Pan is an Assistant Professor at the Department of

Humanities and Social Sciences, IISER Bhopal. She obtained
her PhD from IIT Kanpur. Her research explores the myriad way
in which ‘Feminism’ is viewed and practised in India, and puts
special emphasis on women and nature, women and labour, and
speculative narratives by women.
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Mapping Dalit Feminism

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SAGE was founded in 1965 by Sara Miller McCune to support

the dissemination of usable knowledge by publishing innovative

Los Angeles | London | New Delhi | Singapore | Washington DC | Melbourne

First published in 2021 by

SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd STREE

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020945415

ISBN: 978-93-81345-55-9 (HB)

Please write to me at contactceo@sagepub.in

Vivek Mehra, Managing Director and CEO, SAGE India.

For orders and enquiries, write to us at

Subscribe to our mailing list

This book is also available as an e-book.

About the Author265

I ntersectionality is one of those unique ideas the usefulness of

In India too, feminist researchers have debated the idea closely.

Centre for Development Studies

M y engagement with Dalit Feminism began purely as an

Bhaduri of Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Professor Ananya

Bhopal, April 2020Anandita Pan

T he Una March in 2016 marked new directions in Dalit Politics

More recently, the #MeToo movement that has taken the

Guru establishes Dalit Feminism as a moment where dalit women

between identity and positionality continues to pervade. While

mother (dalit) highlighted the obsession over the patriarchal and

historiography’ (see Chapter 5) is the recognition of an awareness

groups to ‘educate themselves’ about the struggles of dalit women.35

Mapping the Field

The idea and process of mapping a field, as conceptualized in this

feminist criticism. Gallop’s attempt differs from previous feminist

discourses and practices and, hence, its resistance also requires a

struggles rather than individual biographies and autobiographies.43

have started incorporating large numbers of articles focusing

scattered events and show the specific conceptual contributions

It is not that these global [totalitarian] theories have not provided

Foucault’s observation provides an important corrective to claims

makes in mainstream Indian Feminism and Dalit Politics. Hence,

Chapter 3 explores how Dalit Feminism problematizes mainstream

Through analysis of texts that are neither centered on dalit women

Judgements that Changed India (2013); Sarpotdar, ‘Sexual Harassment of

assume subject’s/researcher’s distance from the object of research as

The Emergence of Dalit Feminism

The 1990s is credited with the emergence of independent and

when communal difference among women was recognized with

Hardtmann notes that dalit women’s presence in Durban should

Intersectionality: Conceptualizing Difference,

At the core of Dalit Feminism is the understanding that ‘dalit

The Dalit movement is a movement for total human freedom. It

Pawar’s statement here foregrounds two important analytical omis-

of oppression affecting black women and challenges the homogen-

an attempt to homogenize feminist politics. As a result, women

Many women began to argue that their lives were affected by

The realization that concerns projected as universal are far

which crucially contribute in perpetuating the oppression of differ-

Black feminists faced the black community’s accusations of inau-

to recognize the complexity of race and gender oppression. Instead,

As a result, black feminists realized that ‘the master’s tools will

in place in marginalized politics in India, Menon asks, ‘How does

mapped in terms of identifying its constituency, ‘dalit woman,’ as

We are concerned that dalit women in India suffer from three

This declaration points at three intersecting factors of gender,

About the Author265

Centre for Development Studies

Bhopal, April 2020Anandita Pan