Dalit Women Talk Differently:

A critique of ‘Difference’ and Towards Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position

Author: Sharmila Rege

About the author:

Sharmila Rege (7 October 1964 – 13 July 2013) was an Indian sociologist, feminist scholar and author
of Writing Caste, Writing Gender. She led the Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women's Studies Centre, (the
department of Gender Studies) at University of Punewhich position she occupied since 1991.

Rege was one of the leading feminist scholars in India, whose work in developing a 'Dalit Standpoint
Perspective' has been crucial in opening up feminist debates in India to questions of class, caste, religion
and sexuality.
There was an eminent shift in the feminist thought in the 1980s and 1990s in terms of increasing visibility
of the feminist work of the black and third world feminist. Despite this there was a great degree of
resistance from the white feminist to address the challenge posed by the black and third world feminism.
Now there can be two assumptions for this resistance: first, confronting racism is the sole responsibility of
the black feminist second, the older assumption that the political process of becoming anti sexist includes
becoming anti-racist.

In the words of Rege;’ In the Indian context the political pitfalls of the ever increasing impact of post-
modernist and post structural-approaches in terms of the rise of the cult urological and
communitarian approaches(Joseph 1991); the rise of sub-altern subject and post colonial subject
have been noted ’. The post-orientalism framework focused solely on the colonial domination,
thereby neglecting the pre colonial roots of caste, gender and class domination. The Saidian
framework which uses colonial law, justice and administration as major framework when applied
to non Brahmin and feminist movement. The invisibility resulting from this framework has led
the scholars to regard the autonomous dalit voices as ‘different’.

The 1980s were marked by the newly emerging caste identity and consciousness of the role which caste
plays in social transformation. The early 1990s saw the assertion of the autonomous dalit women
organization both at regional and national level. This assertion initially led to a serious debate and
argument between the left party and the autonomous women’s movement followed by a relative silence
which can be interpreted as seeing this separate assertion as one more stand point.

Part 1: Feminist theorization: From “difference” to more “difference”

In the 1970s, feminism had developed due to differences from the left. These differences were in three
categories; women, experience and personal politics which were central to feminist theorization. But
these three categories were used in exclusion with the intersections of caste, class and gender. Woman
were assumed to be oppressed by the fact of their womanhood. The indifference of the left on the issue of
woman was countered by the argument that women were connected to each other and their subjective
experience of knowledge will be universalized experience of womanhood. But most of the feminist of the
1970s were white middle class and university educated. Therefore this experience became the tool of
personal politics and the only reliable tool for defining oppression. Thus three postulates came out from
this position:

1. There is a system of male domination

Thus due to the categories of ‘woman’ and ‘subjective experience’ black women got excluded.

The debate started building out against patriarchy, its material base and persistence. Both the radical and
socialist feminist in spite of all difference were in consensus to find out the original cause of patriarchy
and women’s oppression. From the 1980s the focus of feminist analysis shifted from causes to difference.
Now there were three reasons behind this shift in focus:

1. Collapse of existing socialism and loss of prestige for Marxist.

According to Rege a shift of focus from the difference to the social relations which convert difference
into social oppression is needed.

Part 2 : Historicizing Differences: Women in the Non-Brahmin movement

The history of late colonial India has always given priority to the Indian nationalism with an assumption
that world of political action can be analyzed by nationalism, imperialism and communalism. The non-
Brahamanical reconstruction of the historiographies of modern India are found in the works of Omvedt
(1976,1993,1994), Patil (1987). The histories of anti-hierarchical, pro democratizing collective aspirations
of lower caste masses were not easily included in the histories of modern India.

The feminist historiography made radical breakthrough by redefining gender and patriarchy. They have
developed a link between reforms and realignment of patriarchies in terms of caste and class hierarchy.

Rege also talks about Partha Chatterjee’s frame of ghar and bahar: where “ghar” refers to the private or
spiritual domain and bahar refers to the public or materialist domain. These new dichotomy were in
congruence with the gendered social roles. The upper caste women/ savarna women were identified with
the private or the spiritual domain. Therefore the lives of the middle class women and the changes in it
remained out of political negotiations. The nationalist struggle was co-opted over the women’s issue.
Infact the women’s issue was assumed to be resolved. According to Chatterjee woman’s participation was
at it’s lowest in the 20th century but on the contrary in the Ambedkatite movement their participation was
at it’s peak. Rege therefore criticizes Chatterjee for dismissing such movements as westren-inspired.

Another counter narrative was put by Jyotiba Phule. He talks about aspiring for Bali Rajya (symbol of
equality of all men) over Ram Rajya which is based on the Varna Ashram Dharma. Phule was also
against patriarchal male social reformers. According to him initially these Brahmin exercised their
patriarchy by dominating and exploiting the dalit, now the same people were exercising their patriarchy in
the form of bringing social reforms on the behalf of the dalit.

Rege also talks about Mukta Salve ( a student of Phule) or Muktabai and Tarabai Shinde two Dalit
feminist. Muktabai in her essay “The girls of Maangs and Mahars” talks about the deprivation of dalit
from their lands and she also compares the birthing experience of dalit women and Brahmin women.

Tarabai Shinde wrote the book “Stree Purush Tulna” where she attacks on brahmanical patriarchy as well
as the patriarchy of kunbi or the non-brahman.

The 1930s saw the organisation of independent dalit women in the Ambedkarite movement. This was
because of the obvious consequence of Ambedkar’s practice of orgnising dalit women’s conference along
with the general meeting. Women’s participation in the Ambedkarite movement can be understood from
his theory on caste and the theory on origin of male domination and women subordination. Thus the super
imposition of the endogamy over exogamy and the means used for the same hold the key to understand
caste system. This means that the caste system could only maintained by controlling the sexuality of
women since they are the gateway to the caste system.

Part 3: Masculinization of the Dalithood and savarnisation of womanhood

The new social movement of the 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of several organisation such as
Shramik Mukti Sangathana, Satyashodak Communist Party etc, none of these movements reduced the
dalit women to a token inclusion rather gave them a central place. But for the other two movements: The
dalit Panther movement and the women’s movement the case was different.

Dalit Panther Movement: This movement however made great contribution to the cultural revolt of the
1970s reduced women to mother and victimized sexual beings.

Women’s movement: It was divided into two parts. The left party based women’s front and the
autonomous women’s group. While the former worked on issues of economics and work, they merged
caste with class. The autonomous women’s movement made the issue of violence public but it held
strongly to the notion of sisterhood. As a result none of them challenged Brahmanism. With the women’s
movement getting momentum the mainstream concept of, development and state emerged. Now most of
the feminist agreed that in the Indian context, it would be very important to use the materialist framework
to study the condition of women. But even then the class was given more importance than caste. Rege
uses the example of campaign against dowry. The left based front saw it in terms of rise of capitalism in
India. The autonomous women’s movement saw it as patriarchal violence within the family. But the
practice of dowry according to her cannot be seen in exclusion from the process of Brahmanism.

In the past Mandal agitation, the young middle class women declared that they were against all kinds of
reservations including the ones for the dalit women. Here they protested as ‘citizens’.In another instance
of caste violence against Pimpri and Chundru Deshmukh the upper caste women participated as assertive
feminist. Post this incident when an active dalit kotwal was killed by upper caste men, the upper caste
women forward to support them, claiming that the kotwal was a pervert. Thus brahmanical patriarchy
woks in several ways to counter dalit resistene.
The increasing visibility of dalit women in power structure and knowledge making process led to a
backlash in form of rape or killing of kinsmen (example Bhanwari Devi working as Saathin against Child
marriage). This kind of backlash highlights the need of a dialogue between dalit feminist and mainstream
feminist to redefine gendered spaces.

Rege also draws from Ambedkar’s analysis of caste according to which caste defines division of labour,
sexual division of labour and division of sexual labour. Thus there exists multiple patriarchy which
overlaps onto each other.

Part 4: Non-Brahmanical rendering of the women’s liberation

In the 1990s there came up several independent and autonomous dalit women’s organisations eg. National
Federation of Dalit women, All India Dalit women’s forum and Maharashtra Dalit Mahila Sangathana.
All these different organisation have varying non Brahminical ideological positions but they were united
on the issue of reservation for OBC women. Rege also draws from Gopal Guru’s paper Dalit Women
Talk Differently. According to him the need for dalit to talk differently was due to internal and external
factors. Internal factors refers to the domination of dalit male in the dalit movement and the external
factor refers to the non dalit forces homogenizing the issue of dalit women. He further says that the social
location determines the perception of reality and therefore representation of dalit womem’s issues by non
dalit feminist as less valid and less authentic.

Several apprehensions were raised about the Dalit Mahila Sangathana’s chances of becoming a neo-
Buddhist women’s organisation. But Rege has countered this apprehension by citing from Pardeshi’s
work which regards these apprehensions as insensitive to the historical trajectories of the dalit movement
in Maharashtra. But she also cautions that Brahmanism should not be understood as only the non practice
on Trisaran and Panchsheel.

According to Rege the dalit feminist standpoint is seen as emancipatory since the subject of it’s
knowledge is generated from the visible lives of the dalit women. But the category of dalit women is not
homogenous there are multiple even contradictory standpoint of dalit women. Thus the dalit feminist
standpoint is open for interrogation.

My Reflections:

This paper has given me a sharper and deeper analysis of understanding the concept of feminism and
the issues related to it. Oppression of women through violence is one issue but it has completely
different meaning for different women. Violence for Savarna women may be related to dowry deaths
but for a Dalit it is more about public threat of rape by Savarna men . It helped me in understanding
that women are not just women but are a part of the intersectionality in terms of caste, class and
gender. If we see in terms of caste differences even the category of dalit women is very
heterogeneous in nature, there can be a dalit women who is educated and able to voice her opinion
while there is also a dalit women who is illiterate and has no agency of power. Example the Mahar
community in dalits is much more educated and expressive in comparison to other dalit castes. In
order to develop a very comprehensive and inclusive understanding we need to constantly be ready to
analyze the difference between similar looking categories.