Beyond Feminism

Dalit women's fight for equality and assertion has been as much with the 'woman' as with the 'man'

- Rakhi Bose

THE women’s rights movement in India has had many strands and lived several lives. The most vibrant and audacious strand is perhaps represented by the Dalit women of India who have fought a parallel struggle for equality both alongside the national feminist movement and within it. Following the teachings of Savitribhai Phule which came as a boon for the education of Dalit girls initially, the historically subjugated and oppressed women of Dalit communities started absorbing the works of Phule, Periyar and eventually Babasaheb Ambedkar, who was the first to link caste oppression with gender.

In the 70s and 80s, the women’s movement in India was largely driven by uppercaste women. These university-educated women from upper-middle-class families were the galvanising force of the movement. This was also the same time when women from historically marginalised communities were becoming part of the larger movement. By the end of the 70s, Dalit women started to realise that their realities were not being reflected in the larger women's movement narrative. In the post-independence era, Babasaheb was the only first one to mobilise Dalit women as a constituency and for the first time, they were able to build a vision of how they wanted their own emancipation.

"I started writing short stories in 1975-76. I wrote about my experiences as a woman. The subjugation of gender, issues like wanting male children, marital abuse and dowry. It was only after I read about Babasaheb Ambekar's views on women's role in the caste system, endogamy and exogamy that my perspective underwent a sea change. I realised that within the feminist argument, I am not just a woman. I am a Dalit woman," says Marathi poet Urmila Pawar, a longterm member of both the feminist and Dalit feminist movements in India.