At the margins of feminist politics? Everyday lives of women activists in northern India (original) (raw)
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Contemporary South Asia, 2008
Dalit or ex-untouchable women's voices and perspectives have been marginalized not only in Dalit movements but also in upper caste Hindu-led women's movements. This paper aims at exploring the unheard voices and perspectives of Dalit women in the context of Dalit assertion in the state of Uttar Pradesh, north India. Scholarly writing examines the different facets of Dalit political assertion led by the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. Few scholars, however, examine the ways in which individual and organisational actors engage with women of Dalit castes through social activism in the state. This paper is an attempt to do so. Specifically, it examines, with special reference to issues of culture and identity, the engagement of a grassroots women's NGO with rural Dalit women in southern Uttar Pradesh. The paper begins with an enquiry on why engagement with issues of culture and identity is necessary for social activism with Dalit women, and how it is carried out. It then examines whether social activism and electoral politics with Dalit women cross-cut each other, and also what implications does this or its lack have on the women. Finally, it asks how far activism and politics can go towards re-inventing Dalit (women's) identity.
Running From Elections: Indian Feminism and Electoral Politics
India Review, 2012
Galvanized by the 1975 publication of Towards Equality, which is a report on the low status of women in India, hundreds of women activists formed groups to fight for women's rights as part of India's second wave of feminist activism. In 2005, a demonstration in front of parliament for women's day brought a few hundred women together to walk around waving placards in the name of the girl child. It merited a few minutes coverage on the 24 hour news channels but resulted in no new policy statement or program launch. Recent reports indicate that very little positive change has occurred: India remains near the bottom of the UN gender development index 1. Over a span of thirty years, feminist activists have remained at the margins of Indian politics. The women's movement 2 in India is composed of dispersed groups, some of which provide services while others engage in policy advocacy. While these groups have a few policy victories under their belt they remain outsiders in Indian politics. In recent decades they have been unable to garner the strength in numbers which is indispensable for political change in democracies. 3 This failure to use the democratic process to press for a feminist agenda is the focus of this article. In a time when women leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Mayawati, Jayalalitha, Meera Kumar, Vasundhara Raje, Sushma Swaraj, Sheila Dixit, and many others are leaders of political parties, holding offices in parliament and state assemblies, it is baffling that few among them can be counted as feminists. Why has the women's movement failed to co-opt these leaders, not to mention the male politicians who need women's votes to win office? The recent launch of India's second all-women's party-the United Women Frontcaused little excitement within feminist circles. While the women's movement in India has many accomplishments to be proud of, every activist is aware that there is a great deal left to do. Among the various goals of the women's movement is the primary focus on advancing women's socioeconomic status. One path toward creating a more equitable society goes through the ballot box. The women's movement in India has been most powerful when cooperating with the state through its involvement in electoral activity and welfare provision. The creation of autonomous women's groups in the 1980s which some hail as the high-point of Indian feminism was actually a blunder in some ways. At the time, there were compelling reasons for pursuing a policy of autonomy from political parties and the state. However, the consequences of that rupture have led to a different danger of cooptation by international development agencies with their own agendas. The division
Feminist politics in India: Women, identity and political activism
The equality of men and women in the matter of right has been established by a large number of the Constitutions, codes and laws. The real question is to what extent the legal declaration about the equality of the sexes has been effective in real life. It is globally acknowledged that 'gender equality and women's empowerment' is at the core of achieving development objectives, fundamental for the realisation of human rights, and key to effective and sustainable development outcomes. The bitter truth is that in India, which still requires schemes like 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' against the most horrific societal discriminations like female foeticide, women are treated as 'second class citizens' and denied their rights; hence their political status has remained relatively low. No doubt, various constitutional amendments, Acts are able to create a political space for women but they are not capable to guarantee a non-discriminatory environment for women to participate. Constitutional provisions do not mean automatic enjoyment of the rights conferred therein. This study stresses that women are still second-class citizens in spite of the equal rights conferred on them and seeks to identify the challenges of women in political leadership positions in India, the largest democratic nation. Findings from the study reveal that there is considerable progress in women's equality in the leadership role; however, there are certain crucial obstacles that still exist for women to be active in the political realm.
Dalit women and Politics in India
Submissive, subdued, subjugated, dominated, exploited have become the part and parcel unwilling traits of when it comes to being a woman. Women in this ‘developing’ universe have been meted to injustices throughout epochs. From time and again history has been the rightful evidence of such injustices inflicted upon women under the shameful veil of tradition, culture, caste, class and others. The pathos of being a woman in India escalates when one comes from the lower rung of the varnashram system i.e. a Dalit. A Dalit woman not only faces the exploitation of being a woman but bears the ill treatment of the savarnas or the twice born castes for being a Dalit. Her pathos soars when she has to bear the brunt of the atrocities of men belonging to her caste. These Dalit men being ruthlessly treated by the upper castes, satisfies their anger by hurling it upon their women. The crux of this paper is to present the hapless condition of the Dalit women in India, their rights from which they remain ignorant and the so called protective mechanisms of the country that goes numb when it comes to safeguarding a Dalit.
Organization, 2021
Why has the gender-based reservation system not succeeded in achieving gender equality in Indian politics? Both token theory and critical mass theory posit that equilibrating number of representatives from both genders will achieve gender equality. In India, this led to the reservation system for women in politics in 1993 and an increase in women representation, in some Indian states up to 50%. Yet, we argue, these women face role encapsulation in their double minority position. Inspired by interpretivist ethnographic methods, this study investigates everyday work of women politicians (village council presidents) in Tamil Nadu. We show that in their work context, women politicians are in token positions and this contributes to understanding the modest results met with the reservation system. Simultaneously, the study points to how women use their role encapsulation within the traditional family structure to serve their political ambitions despite patriarchy. We draw attention to individual resistance, more precisely, insubordination and everyday resistance, to stress how some of these women politician are challenging patriarchy. This contributes to enriching our understanding of the forms of assimilation in token theory:
Caste: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion, Special Volume on FREEDOM FROM CASTE: ANTI-CASTE THOUGHT, POLITICS AND CULTURE, 2022
The dominant post-constitutional Indian feminist discourse is a product of diverse movements born from different histories. These diverse feminist movements continue to inadequately provide a comprehensive and inclusive theorisation of the relationship between caste and gender. Dalit feminist movements have successfully made ‘Dalit women’ a critical part of the dominant feminist discourse and have confronted it for including a caste framework as imperative to understanding the women’s question. But the question of caste within the dominant feminist discourse has largely remained confined to reading and understanding the Dalit woman through the intersectional framework. Intersectionality is useful in providing a framework for categorising the Dalit woman and for highlighting the lacunae in understanding the intersections of caste and gender in existing discourses. Yet, when framed through the overarching lens of difference, it occludes the contingent co-construction of the Savarna woman and Dalit woman as categories, as well as the complicated relationality between these two categories. Treating intersectionality as difference, also ironically posits the Dalit women as a homogenous and essentialised category. This category is over-determined by vulnerability, exploitation, and, violence. Thus, the entire spectrum of experiences inhabited collectively by women placed under this category is erased. This article attempts to elucidate these arguments by focusing on West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. As two researchers from different locations, both disciplinary and socio-political, one a Savarna-feminist-ethnographer, the other a Dalit-feminist-legal-researcher, we then seek to understand what adopting a holistic anti-caste methodology rather than simply ‘doing intersectionality’, means while inhabiting both these locations.
The last 50 years of feminist activism in India has managed to challenge the 5,000 years of patriarchal order. The main achievements were the deconstruction of violence against women, questioning of male domination within the family, kinship, religion, media and the State, in addition to a series of legal reforms. Understanding of privilege to reshape the world has been the distinct contribution of the feminist movement along with the focus on the marginalised. The feminist space in India is distinctive and builds upon a diversity of women’s groups, political party networks, feminist and HIV/AIDS-related NGOs, nonfunded feminist and queer groups and individuals, democratic rights groups, eco-feminists, non-feminists, research institutes and universities. Despite the broad experience, this space remains rather disunited.