Frontline

July 2000
Cover Story


‘Indian women need to free themselves from caste bondage’

Ruth Manorama’s growth into a dynamic leader of Dalit women grew out of her work with the urban poor in Chennai and Bangalore. The founder of Women’s Voice and the Dalit Women’s Federation, she spoke to Teesta Setalvad on the Dalit women’s critique of a homogeneous Indian feminist vision. Excerpts:

How and why did you feel the need to form a Dalit Women’s organisation?

My work began with organizing the urban poor, first in Madras and then in Bangalore. In 1981 we started Women’s Voice, which, from the start, has been an organisation of the poorer women of all groups – Dalit women, Muslims, Christians, backward classes, other minorities. Through this process, I began to observe the stark difference between the Dalit and non-Dalit population – the segregated spaces, the dehumanizing life. At the same time, I was raising serious questions within the Indian women’s movement that I found reflected narrow, middle class issues. What is the status of Dalit women within the discourse? How do the women’s studies researchers treat them? Where is the so-called ‘mainstream women’s movement’ even looking into the problem? And why not?

This question was a burning one for me because, by then, I had been almost 15 years into the women’s movement. We got the distinct feeling that raising Dalit issues within the Indian women’s movement will simply not make us popular! When we raised issues of slum women, of the poor, we were told that all these were class issues, not women’s issues!

It was a period of much introspection, many questions. If the denial of water is not a woman’s issue, the absence of toilets is not a woman’s issue, what is? It is the poor women, women who come from our rural areas and settle into slums who face all these problems. They are all Dalits. There is no forum to look into their problems, the government does not look into them; neither do organisations that we have helped build up.

Specifically, how does the women’s movement treat the issue of caste? How does the trade union movement treat the issue of caste? What has been the contribution of the Marxist movement to an understanding and analysis of the whole issue of caste?As the questions grew, my understanding grew. I realised that the same upper class is also upper caste. Today, I can clearly articulate that Dalit women are thrice burdened with class, caste and gender oppression. We also began questioning the internal workings of the Dalit movement, why were there no Dalit women visible?

At this time, I also started reading more on the Black Women’s Movement who’s own experience made Black women organise separately.

Put together, all these experiences convinced us that Dalit women need to be organised and organised separately. However, we did not see our movement as a counter to the women’s movement, we only felt that Dalit women have to be the heart of the Indian women’s movement.

So, in 1987, we organised the first meeting of Dalit women, Dalit Women—Their Struggles and Aspirations. From 1987 on, I went all over the country, talked to women, intensified my reading and understanding of the Dalit-Ambedkarite movement; my search was for an understanding of Ambedkar on Dalit women; I found that Ambedkar is very powerful on the women’s question. Before every meeting or seminar or sammelan that he addressed, he would sit with women separately and help them to articulate their thoughts and help them to grow. Slowly out of all these efforts was built up the Dalit Women’s Federation that was launched on August 11, 1995.

What in essence is your critique of the Indian feminist vision?

If women are to be really free in this country, they have to address the issue of caste. The whole question of sexuality and fertility that the Indian women’s movement has been talking about is, in my understanding, a narrow understanding. Caste strengthens patriarchy, and patriarchy strengthens caste.

If Indian women want to be free, they have to be free from the violence of caste, they need to free themselves from caste bondage. If caste does not go, patriarchy will never go. We cannot talk of gender discrimination in isolation from caste discrimination. It was then that I began to be asked to speak on gender and caste, caste and patriarchy. I articulated the theory that the Dalit woman’s struggle is three-fold. We are alienated thrice-over. We are not only women of the lowest caste or the outcaste, we are also the poorest in the country. We also face gender oppression because we are Dalit women, not simply because we are women. Caste oppression, class oppression and gender oppression – is the triple burden of Dalit women.

How was this critique received?

There was resistance. Many said, yes, the Indian women’s movement must have a Dalit feminist vision, that it must provide spaces to different sections. Others said, no, we are one; women are one, all of us women are facing gender inequality.

Our response was clear. Dalit women are the single largest group, 100 million out of 200 million Dalits! Who can ‘provide spaces’ for us? We should be the heart of the movement! Moreover, if the issue was one of providing democratic space it should have happened in the past half century. I was also very clear that we are not one. We do not come from the same cheris (segregated colonies of Dalits). Other women come from a village, we come from cheris. Their issues and our issues are not the same. Gender oppression may unite us but the gender repression that a Dalit women faces is very specific and very different.

What emerged out of this critique?

Anyway, despite the resistance and differences the Dalit Women’s Federation was born in 1995. It was a historic event. Dalit women had created their own platform for the first time. The timing seemed appropriate. Our vision was clear. Dalits would be leaders, we would decide what we want. We also consistently attacked the patriarchy within the Dalit movement.

However, despite our distinct articulation as Dalit women, we were also clear that this does not mean that we will work alone, we would work in alliance with all the struggling people. This remains our vision. A vision based on secularism, democracy and women’s leadership. Slowly we have built the federation and today 600-700 strong and capable Dalit women are active within the movement that is an all-India movement. We have professionals, teachers, scavengers and Devdasi women. We have extended solidarity and support to Muslim women’s organizations. Our whole experience and articulation in theory and practice has been acknowledged academically as the need for a Dalit feminist vision. How has the whole Dalit culture been suppressed within other kinds of social and economic repression?

The slogan of the Dalit movement is, "We have lost our land, we have lost education, we have lost our tools". Dalits are not merely the working class who constitute agricultural labour. Dalits were the possessors of vast skills, which have been taken away from us. But, despite over 3,000 years of oppression, Dalits are able to stand up even today. That is the mystery of the oppressed communities. Just like the Blacks.

They want to finish you off, they don’t want to see any trace of any black colour in the world but it does not happen.

Just like the racial apartheid in the West, the social apartheid in our country simply wanted to finish the Dalits off. By using all kinds of means. By telling us that what we are wearing is the wrong dress, what we eat is the wrong meat, what we are beating is the wrong drum. Everything that we did was supposed to be demeaning — demeaning work, and demeaning knowledge — which is why we were called the outcaste. We are not even part of the caste system, we were cast outside it. We were made to think and believe that we were stupid.

Hence, the need for a whole counter-culture to arise. A culture that asserts, yes, we are people, ‘Dalit is dignified’, ‘Black is beautiful.’ The movement is giving the slogans, people are organizing. Oppression is there but a consciousness is building up. At the start of the recent public hearing, in Madras I said, "The drum is our pulse. It denotes our struggles, it denotes our aspirations. For death we beat, for joy we beat, when the child is born we beat, when the child dies we beat; when there is struggle and war we beat, when there is peace we beat."

Drum beating is at the heart of our culture. The drum beats and announces the state we are in. This culture been taken away. Our land and dignity has been taken away. We have lost our land and our humanity too. We need to recover, reconstruct it. That is the part of the Dalitisation process that is going on all over the country right now.

Though there is oppression all around we see that the struggle is on. Dalits are organizing, questioning their own leaders, questioning national human rights groups, trade unions, organisations of agricultural labour. Why are we not there? Why are we not occupying these positions and space?

How do you see the role of the Dalit feminist vision in the light of the aggressive communalism that has made inroads into Indian State and polity?

Dalit women identify with the notion of lived secularism in a very real sense. They are looking for a society that is based on justice. Where not only Dalits and minorities and women will get justice, but where everyone will get justice. This kind of framework or ideal in India has to be a secular framework. On paper and in deed.

The broader Dalitisation process that we are experiencing is anti-Brahmanic, it is anti-Hindutva. Therefore we need to identify allies who are victims of the same Hindutva forces, the Muslim and Christian minorities who by their sheer religious identity are the victims. The communal forces of Hindutva are simultaneously consumerist and traditionalist.

The coming days are going to be more and more difficult. Like-minded forces need to come together, burying narrow differences. Our enemies today are much larger. One father, one husband or one brother is not the enemy. It is a whole State, a whole ideology, the Hindutva ideology and Hindutva forces who are our enemies. How do we counter these forces?

That is what we need to urgently grapple with.

 


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