Public Violence
The majority of women of the lower castes are economically disadvantaged. Unlike women from the dominant castes, these women have to work outside the home, which is crucial for the survival of their families. Many homes run solely on women’s earnings as their men tend to spend theirs on themselves. The exploration of the texts shows that the women perform menial and survival activities such as procuring food, fuel, and water for their families, scavenging, tilling the land of landlords, and the rest. Thus, they have to work in the public realm to earn their living, making these destitute women vulnerable to constant threats of sexual molestation and rape by the dominant caste males. Thus, they are the victims of public patriarchy, also called extended patriarchy or extrinsic patriarchy, and undergo public violence owing to their caste, low status, and the nature of their work.
The select texts trace numerous accounts of upper caste tyranny towards the Dalit women in terms of labor, exploitation, and threat of rape. Being a Dalit woman is constantly being on a bed of thorns as they are constantly vulnerable to sexual harassment and abuse at the workplace. The narrative of Mariamma in Sangati speaks about the helplessness of women caught in interlocking oppressions of caste, class, and gender. Mariamma becomes a victim of sexual advances by an upper-caste landlord, Kumaraswami. She is accused, abused, and made a victim when she escapes from the landlord’s efforts to molest her. Kumarasami distorts the whole incident for fear of tainting his image. She is muted as the women are not allowed to present their viewpoints. The Panchayat disgraces her in front of all and makes her pay a fine. Kaliamma’s attempt to support her meets aggressive vehemence from the menfolk who silence her too. Mariamma had been warned by her friends:
It is best if you shut up about this. If you even try to tell people what actually happened, you’ll find that it is you who will get the blame; it’s you who will be called a whore… Are people going to believe their [upper-caste landlords’] words or ours? (Sangati 20).
Caste and gender, thus form a lethal combination that plays havoc with the lives of Dalit women. At times Dalit men are also helpless in protecting their women because it’s difficult to stand up or make an enemy of dominant people. Because, in the end, they have to go to them for employment. The mentioned case illustrates the interlocking nature of Dalit women’s oppression, which makes them voiceless and powerless. Their dignity and personhood have been crushed for centuries, leaving them like owned cattle or property. Urmila Pawar, a Dalit feminist activist writer, also represents the enforcement of archaic and unjust gender rules of caste panchayats15 and explicates the case of a widow in her memoir, The Weave of My Life (2015). The widow is pregnant. The whole village knows who the man is. But only she is given the verdict.
She was made to lean forward, and women kicked her from behind till the child was aborted. The villagers felt this was a valiant act of bravery. They felt proud that they had protected the village’s honor. If a woman was suspected to have erred, she was brought before the Panchayat for justice and punishment. She was publically judged and her other relatives would beat her up as well (Pawar 2015: 156).
Thus, Dalit women are subjected to severe exploitation by dominant groups. Rape and sexual abuse of the destitute low caste women by men of the dominant castes cause all the more concern. “Four Dalit women are raped every day, with several on multiple occasions” (The New Indian Express: 2019). Dalit Women Speak Out: Caste, Class and Gender Violence in India (2011), presents an analytical synopsis of the complexities of systemic violence that Dalit women face through an analysis of 500 Dalit women’s narratives across four states: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, and Utter Pradesh. Excerpts of these women’s narratives are utilized and analyzed to illustrate the wider trends and patterns of different forms of violence Dalit women are subjected to.
The more frequent forms of violence that are perpetrated against the majority of Dalit women are verbal abuse (62.4% of total women), physical assault (54.8%), sexual harassment and assault (46.8%), domestic violence (43.0%),
15 village councils.
and rape (23.2%), Thus, “[w]ithin the framework of ‘difference’ the issues of caste are primarily responsible for the oppression of Dalit women (Irudayam et. al 2011: 95).
The study also discusses the profile of Dalit women, the social context, forms, and frequency of violence, verbal abuse, physical assault, sexual violence, kidnapping, forced incarceration, medical negligence, female feticide, child abuse and domestic violence, casual factors for violence, and appalling effects of violence on these women. The study presents an analytical synopsis of the complexities of systemic violence that Dalit women undergo.
Similarly, the plight of Thangam in Sivakami’s The Grip of Change exposes caste and gender hierarchies outside and inside the home that renders the woman an outcast in her community. She is sexually exploited by the landlord but remains silent, “I did not want it. But Udayar took no notice of me. He raped me when I was working in his sugarcane field. I remained silent; after all, he is my paymaster. He measures my rice” (The Grip 7). Thus, poverty is one of the major causes of women’s exploitation and suffering. As the majority of the women are economically deprived and the responsibility to run their families lies on women’s shoulders, a unique social reality is revealed by Sharankumar Limbale, an iconic Dalit writer,
There are Dalit families that survive by pleasing the Patils sexually. The whole village considers such a house as the house of the Patil’s whore. Even the children born to her from her husband are considered the children of a Patil. Besides survival on the charity of a Patil, what else does a household expect? (The Outcaste 38).
The last words, “household expects” show a terrible pun. A Dalit woman meets the expectations of the household as amid poverty, hunger, and starvation she is expected to do anything for the survival of her family. The household of Dalits feeds on the charity of Patils; Immorality is committed by Patils, and a Dalit woman, who effaces herself to feed her family is titled a ‘whore.’ At times if a woman gets pregnant, the oppressive social structure holds the woman responsible for the birth of an illegitimate child and she is many a time punished and paraded (Baluta 270). Kandasamy in the poem, “Shame” (Touch 58), portrays the plight of a Dalit girl.
“Dalit Girl Raped” Is much too commonplace. Humiliation gnaws The sixteen-year-old. Gory scars on a wrecked body, Serve as constant reminders Of disgrace, helplessness. (“Shame” L. 9-15)
The poet further writes that there is no hearing against such crimes as dominant caste men are granted impunity for their crimes because of their caste-based status.
But, the criminals have Already mainstreamed— Their Caste is a classic shield. (“Shame” 6-9)
Caste disparities lead to violence against lower-caste woman, who is expected to yield to uppercaste male chauvinism. The cruelty of caste discrimination is exposed when she moves from passivity to active assertion of her anguish against the exploiting masculine brutality and has to suffer social indignation. The study of The Grip explicates when the liaison between Udayar and Thangam is disclosed, Udayar’s brothers-in-law attack her and beat her, and threaten to kill her. Udayar also abuses her:
Ungrateful whore! Even if she was hurt by the hand adorned with gold! A parachi [low caste] could have never dreamt of being touched by a man like me! My touch was a boon granted for penance performed in her earlier births (The Grip 31).
But, Thangam’s saga of exploitation lingers and now she is exploited at the hands of the rich of her own [Dalit] community. As she seeks help from Kathamuthu, a Dalit leader, his help proves transitory. He provides her shelter but exploits her sexually. In the afternoon while she was sleeping in the kitchen, he rapes her, and then he compels her to be his mistress. He finally marries her to grab her money, which she gets from the court case. Therefore, the narratives of Thangam, Marriam, and others implicate the helplessness of Dalit women, their poverty, oppression, vulnerability, and sexual exploitation. Therefore, every time a woman from the lower caste is sexually assaulted, it becomes clear that the existing casteist social structure and the status of women in society are responsible for the violation of their human rights. While explaining the sexual assault on Dalit women, Anupama Rao states:
Dalit women’s bodies are seen collectively as mute, and capable of bearing penetration and other modes of marking ‘upper’ caste hegemony without the intervention of a discourse of desire and/or sexuality, because of the overdetermination of this violence as caste privilege (Rao 2003: 293).
Furthermore, newspaper archives and social media also reveal their physical, mental, economic, and sexual exploitation due to the intersectional nature of caste, class, and gender. Various cases of violence committed against Dalit women have always been reported. Few are included here.
The Khairlanji massacre 2006 On 29 September 2006, four members of the Bhotmange family belonging to a Scheduled caste were murdered in a small village called Khairlanji in Maharashtra. The women of the family, Surekha and Priyanka, were paraded naked in public before being murdered. Enraged by a police complaint lodged the previous day by Surekha over a land dispute, the accused dragged out Surekha and two of her sons, and daughter, paraded them naked in the village, and then hacked them to death.
Numerous cases of atrocities committed against Dalit women have been recorded in Unheard Voices An alternative report for the 15th – 19th periodic report on India submitted by the Government of the Republic of India for the 70th session of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Geneva, Switzerland Jan. 2007 by Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum16 . For example:
Rajasthan Dalit Social Worker Gang-raped –January 24th, 2006
In a chilling reminder of the Bhanwari Devi case, a Rajasthan Anganwadi worker was allegedly gang-raped by her supervisors during a state-sponsored training session. Instead of
16 Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum is a state-level initiative (in India) for women’s rights and gender justice. Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum (TNWF) was started in 1991 in order to train women for more leadership, to strengthen the women’s movement, and to build up a strong people’s movement.
helping the 25-year-old Dalit woman, the police tried to hush up the incident, declaring her mentally unstable and packing her off to a psychiatric clinic. However, the rape incident of Bhanwari led India to pass and implement the ‘Sexual Harassment Law’ (Unheard Voices, 2007).
Dalit Women Tortured in Jail – Punjab February 18, 2006
Three Dalit women from Muktsar district in Punjab have accused the police of torturing them, including administering electric shock to their “private parts” and confining them illegally (Unheard Voices, 2007).
Dalit Woman beat up and paraded naked
A 50-year-old Dalit woman in a Jharkhand village was beaten up and paraded naked for allegedly “selling” a 12-year-old boy in Uttar Pradesh two years ago (Unheard Voices, 2007).
Dalit Women paraded half-naked for ‘not toeing’ the Panchayat line
Bhopal: A woman was allegedly beaten up, stripped, and paraded by women in Dedgaon village of Harda district because a young girl from the village had been found in her house in a compromising position with an upper-caste boy (Unheard Voices, 2007). Despite a 1989 law to prevent atrocities against the community, there are persistent cases of violence against Dalit women. They continue to be stalked, abused, molested, raped, and murdered with impunity.
Uttar Pradesh Dalit girl, the victim of brutal gang rape, dies in Delhi hospital- September 29th, 2020
A 19-year-old Dalit girl from Hathras village in Uttar Pradesh was brutally assaulted by four upper-caste men and later strangulated and dragged with her dupatta. She succumbed to multiple injuries and was admitted to Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi (The Hindu: Sept. 30, 2020). And following reports tell tales of contradictions and the truth getting lost in the cacophony. From Khairlanji to Hathras, the rape story repeats itself for Dalit women. We cannot ignore the context of caste and see Hathras, Khairlanji, or thousands of other assaults merely as sexual crimes. Still, the unique issues of Dalit women remain unaddressed in Feminist movements.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: Indian Feminism and Intersectionality
- Select Writings of Dalit Women
- Domestic Violence
- Public Violence
- Victims of Religious Practices
- Conclusion and Approach to Prevention
- References