Understanding the Dalit Self Politics and World View Review

Categories of caste and gender and their impact on Indian order are undertheorised in all respects. Thus, Dalit feminism besides could not gain much attention in the status qouist-bookish space that cherishes the homogenous construction of Indian life worlds. S. Anandi and Karin Kapadia'southward edited book,Dalit Women: Vanguard of an Alternative Politics in India, thus departs from this trajectory of caste and gender-blind social sciences/humanities and moves towards a broader canvass that attempts to capture the nuances of degree and gender in the context of India'due south polity.

The introduction past Kapadia helps the reader into the nuanced fabric of the unabridged book. Mapping the major themes that are discussed in the book, she locates them within the field of current important social science debates. The first section of the book tries to understand the environs of the 'new Dalit women's politics'. This department contains essays past Anand Teltumbde and Manuela Ciotti.

Dalit Women: Vanguard of an Alternative Politics in India, edited by S. Anandhi and Karin Kapadia (Routledge, 2017)

Teltumbde in his foreword to the volume attempts to examine the political question of Dalit women through revisiting major debates in Dalit history. Questions of organized religion and civilisation are explored to sympathise the roots of social and political locations of Dalit women. He says that Dalit conversions to Buddhism in Maharashtra could not move beyond the civilization of dominant castes and therefore failed to provide "an alternating paradigm that was dissimilar from that of hegemonic Indian culture". Thus, the Dalit movement failed to generate any rigorous critique of patriarchy.  He further says that class as a category needs to be re-examined in the backdrop of the major debates related to the agency of Dalit women. The gaps that exist between the debates related to caste, class and gender, for Teltumbde, have to be analysed in club to arrive at a meaningful dialogue on the Dalit women's question. Telumbde also critiques the Dalit intelligentsia's agreement of patriarchy. He notes that B.R. Ambedkar's could not motility beyond the orthodox, patriarchal, societal framework when information technology came to gener equality.

For instance, Teltumbde re-reads some of Ambedkar'due south exhortations to Dalit women as patriarchal in nature. Teltumbde writes, "The first mention of women in the Dalit movement occurs during the 2nd Mahad conference (December 22-25, 1927) when Dalit women from the surrounding village had come to run into Ambedkar equally their leader. He welcomed them and especially addressed them, stressing the importance of their office in social reform. If one analyses his spoken language, however, one finds that while he encouraged these Dalit women to participate along with their men, he used the illustration of the joint responsibleness held by a married man and wife for their household, where the married man remains the unquestioned head – the very epitome of patriarchy. He brash the Mahar women to give up their traditional community and to emulate upper class women in specific ways, particularly in their style of wearing their sari and in the kinds of ornaments they wore … Although Ambedkar urged them to participate in the motility, his exhortation was yet within a conservative traditional framework wherein the women were to aid their men. The style of dress of upper degree women was to be emulated considering this would not brand information technology possible for caste Hindus to place Mahar women … Ambedkar's comments here are non patriarchal. They are Sanskritisational." (Teltumbde, 2017:57).

While analysing the role of left, Teltumbde argues, "The being of a dissever Dalit movement is always grudged by the mainstream, progressive move, especially the Marxist Left, considering it takes away its potential feed of members. Just these groups do not seem to recognise their own responsibility in creating the condition of this separation".

On mainstream feminists, Teltumbde says:

"The same could be said of the mainstream feminist movement vis-a-vis the Dalit women's move. If mainstream feminists had taken a grassroots approach and focused on the plight of Dalit women, in that location may non have been need for poor Dalit women to organize separately. Violence (and the threat of violence) against women may be a common feature faced by all women in India, but there is no denying the facts that certain kind of violence are 'customarily reserved' by the upper castes solely for Dalit women. For instance, this upper-caste violence includes the extremely filthy verbal abuse of Dalit women and addressing them by sexual epithets, the naked parading of Dalit women, the dismemberment of the corpses of murdered Dalit women, forcing Dalit women to drink urine and eat carrion, branding Dalit women, pulling out the teeth, the tongues and the nails of Dalit women to 'punish' them and the murder of defenceless Dalit women after proclaiming them 'witches'. These grotesque, inhuman and extreme forms of upper caste violence are reserved solely for Dalit women"

1 of the central issues in Teltumbde's articulation is that it fails to engage with the historical specificity and distinct, ideological nature of Dalit assertions. Ambedkar's exhortations to women cannot exist subjected to the parameters of feminist ideologies.

Manuela Ciotti'due south essays engages with the ways in which Dalit women are existence constructed in the due north Indian context and strives to translate the social and political construction of n Indian Dalit women within the pan-Indian Dalit women's assertions. She argues, "There is a profound link between India's relation with Dalit minorities and the making of Dalit subjects. This relation could exist indexed under at least three rubrics inspired by a social justice agenda: positive discrimination policies, the anti-untouchability legal framework and evolution measures. Against this background, the making of dalit subjects has been profoundly shaped by liberation movements, religious conversion, social mobility and political mobilization."

Ciotti argues that "Overall, knowledge product on dalit women has complicated the image of these women every bit embodiments of supposedly equal gender relations, 'free sexual mores', and freedom from oppressive gender regimes in place among higher degree communities amidst others, while exposing the multifold forms of oppression, margianlisation and violence they endured. Ciotti enquires into the rejection and utilize of the category of 'Dalit' among Dalit women activists. In improver to the agreement related to the category of Dalit, she questions the "trope of dalit women/quintessential victim every bit the consequence of noesis product projects and representation in the public sphere. I contended that accounts of dalit women which speak of them equally all-round personae and not-victims are rare".

Ciotti states that her endeavour is not to deny the marginalised status of Dalit women. On the contrary, it is to appoint with the agency of Dalit women. She excavates the background to the typical representation of Dalit women. It is observed that the Dalit women's question has to be conceived as "residue of postcolonial studies inquiry". The absence of Dalit women and Dalits is read every bit the conceptual force that converts them as the residues of postcolonial approaches. The theoretical dimension of this essay, all the same, is not linked to its empirical role. The author studies the political bureau of Dalit women activists who were associated with the Bahujan Samaj Party. She likewise analysed these women activists and thus finds the category of Dalit as disempowering rather empowering their social and political mobility. This essay weaves the complex, theoretical and empirical dimensions of the political articulations of Dalit women activists from North India. Nonetheless, the deeply degree-ridden north Indian society and its forms of patriarchy are not given much attention in this essay in a systematic manner.

If the beginning section of the book is historical and theoretical in nature, the second section  provides perspectives on Dalit women's theorisation of caste difference and their modes of collectivity confronting the exploitative caste system.

Due south. Anandhi'due south essay conceptualises the category of 'the Dalit modern' against caste hegemony and its contradiction via its appropriation of patriarchal values of Adi Dravidar (Scheduled Caste) men in Tamil Nadu. It responds to the larger questions of caste, gender and patriarchy among the Adi Dravidars. Particularly, information technology categorises the interrelations of gender and caste through the political consciousness of Adi Dravidar women and their attempt to cancel sexual exploitation. Those women's vehement critique to the internal – Adi Dravidar patriarchy – also as the external – Naidu caste based patriarchy – has been interpreted past the writer as significant to such Dalit women's social/political interventions. Information technology is also investigated how they identify with Dalit women's collectives (sangam). Nevertheless, this essay could non penetrate the fundamental caste ideology and its constructors before delving into a historical mapping of caste tensions within the Dalits in Tamil Nadu. Thus, the author could not tease out the ideology of caste and its pernicious proliferation via creating conflicting concept/do of internal-caste differences. The critique to the Brahmanic ideology that reproduces caste is absent in this essay. Consequently, it lacks the rigorous assay on the intricacies of Adi Dravidar women's assertions.

Hugo Gorringe'due south essay explores how Dalit women'due south question is being addressed past the largest Dalit party chosen 'Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi' in Tamil Nadu. Gorringe tries to tease out the mode in which Dalit women are gaining space within the patriarchal space of leadership. The category of leadership of Dalit women is foregrounded by Gorringe equally a conceptual move to measure the contemporaneity of the movement. Moreover, the disquisitional narrative has not been reframed within the framework of degree, patriarchy and social movements. Dynamics of gimmicky Dalit movements within the rubric of Indian republic thus largely focused on this department. Gorringe, as a consequence, provides specific motion picture about representation of Dalit women in Tamil Nadu.

On the reverse, Isabelle Guerin and Santosh Kumar'due south co-authored essay shows the states the fractured infinite of Dalit women's politics determined by degree, gender and self-help groups in northern Tamil Nadu. This essay is significant because information technology evaluates Dalit women question in the background of diverse political-civil societal trends. However, authors take non differentiated the conventional, autonomous Dalit movements, Dalit political parties and cocky-help groups within the Dalits in Tamil Nadu. Authors take not engaged with typologies and conceptual frameworks that have emerged related to diverse forms of political expressions. This essay lacks conceptual clarity to distinguish the salient nature of Dalit women's political aspirations. Thus, second section of the volume tin be considered as one that generates different reading regarding the bureau of Dalit women.

Caste and gender that fragment the empowerment of Dalit women are the key themes of the third section. Clarinda All the same gives a critical account of the interconnections between Dalit women, rape and resuscitation of patriarchy that decide the life chances of Dalit women. Still seeks to explain question of honour and female respectability that condition the lives of Dalit women. Dalitisation of patriarchy, for Even so, thus has to exist differentiated from Sanskritised appropriation of patriarchy. In other words, Dalit approaches to tackle patriarchy have not gone beyond the oppressive, dominant castes' patriarchy. Such form of patriarchy is also probed as the amalgam of upper degree gender norms and notion of Dalit dignity. Intergenerational aspirations and putative, caste-course identities are too explored in this essay as function of aforementioned, cultural transitions of Dalit women. Patriarchy and its embedded nature inside the caste particularly in the due south Indian context practice differ co-ordinate to the regional and caste variations within the various regions of south India. Such circuitous, south Indian scenario has not been integrated into this narrative. Yet has non compared the empowerment of Dalit women from due south India to that of north Republic of india.

Radhika Govind'southward essay differs from Still due to its ambiguous interlinkage of concepts and empirical approaches. Govind engages with the intersectional dimensions of agency and activism of the Dalit women political activists from UP. Her essay discusses the agency of Dalit women political activists. Information technology is ironical that in that location are hardly any attempts from the author to revisit the debates related to construction and bureau in the wild field of social theory. The postmodernist undercurrent of this essay, therefore, is limited because information technology operates inside the binary opposition between fixed Dalit identity and the open ended, political category of Dalit women. Therefore, theoretical vagueness cripples the entire narrative. Author could not build her narrative on transforming economic ideologies and its relations also restructure the overall development of Dalit women.

Ishita Mehrotra's essay differs from the economy-blind analysis of Govind. Mehrotra'due south essay scrutinises the unfree labour of women and its relation with capitalism and male labour. Information technology discusses larger questions of social structures, labour relations and political agency. Intergenerational differences are deployed by Mehrotra to decode gendered differences related to labour. Broadly, the labour of Dalit women is theorised every bit something that is caught within unfree labour relations and patron-client relations. There are idea provoking debates that accept been raised by scholars such as Jairus Banaji and Tom Brass related to the category of 'unfree labour'.This essay does not revisit such pioneering debates. Thus, this essay creeps into superficial approach to Dalit women question and its relation with labour. This department may sound equally theoretical in its arroyo, but becomes peripheral assay due to its non-committal approach towards the preceding, pioneering theoretical interventions connected to caste, gender, agency, labour and so on.

The terminal department of the book deals with the thought of religion equally Dalit political practice. Nathaniel Roberts's essay unfolds the irresolute and suffering subject, finding interlinkages betwixt caste-class and gender in slums within Pentecostal discourse. Roberts positions organized religion as Dalit political practice and analyses the ways in which Dalit women are being interpellated by the Pentecostal discourse in Chennai. The intersectional nature of the life worlds of Dalit women is seen past Roberts through the nodes of caste, class and slum.  Questions of transformation in the context of their social locations are integral in Roberts' portrayal of Dalit women.  His essay would have been nuanced if he had revisited the global discourse of faith and its role as a political tool for the oppressed. For instance, the relation betwixt Afro-Americans and Christianity, the Burakumins in the social space of Japanese Buddhism and Shintoism and so on. 1 of the central questions that arises from this section of the book is if conversion has helped Dalits to empower themselves to overcome their stigmatised, degree-jump social locations.

On the other paw, Karin Kapadia writes about the massive religious conversion that happened in Chennai. Kapadia argues that Dalit conversion to Pentecostal Christianity is adamant more by "resistance to gender and patriarchal domination" than "rejection of caste domination". Thus, such conversion is categorised as a "counter-hegemonic identity move" that responds to interlinkages of the caste and class status of Dalit women. One of the key facets of the essay is that it explores the roots of the success/failure of the alternative/counter religions in confronting degree based oppression.

Uma Chakravarti in her afterword revisits her own past and social location in the groundwork of anti-caste scholarship. She discusses the manner in which socialisation and educational institutions make up one's mind the ideology of caste. The idea of self and other, for Chakravarti, is recovered through her perspective on the feminist movement. Narrating her personal experiences thus revamps the category of the political. Reflexivity in this narrative strengthens Chakravarti's accounts and thus it becomes an open ended path at the cease of the book.

This book is an important intervention on degree and gender discourse which accommodates plural Dalit women's perspectives. It compares those vibrant Dalit women's articulations with that of the socially regulated political economy of Republic of india. The book volition be helpful to all those who fight confronting injustice and the violation of rights of Dalit women.

Smita M. Patil teaches at the School of Gender and Development Studies, Indira Gandhi National University, New Delhi.

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Source: https://thewire.in/books/dalit-women-caste-gender-book-review

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