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I. Introduction:
“Dalit Women face a triple burden of caste, class and gender”
--Ruth Manorama, Member, National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights
These words sum up the position of Dalit Women in present day society as being a class of individuals who cannot be classified independently and separately as Dalits or Women. The composite whole of Dalit Woman faces more oppression than separately as a Dalit or a Woman. The position of Dalit Women at the bottom of the caste, class and gender hierarchies exposes them to severe discrimination and violence as the result of heinously imbalanced social, economic and power equations. Despite the presence of Constitutional guarantees to safeguard their rights, the Dalit Women burn, regularly, in the flame of oppression from upper caste males. The complete understanding of the plight of these unfortunate women necessitates the understanding of the dynamics of caste and gender along with the study of the cultural and material dimensions of the intersection of caste-gender discrimination and violence. Many instances of this discrimination or violence never reach the media; the ones that do are horrifying enough to reveal a culture of violence, silence and impunity. This further exacerbates the denial of their rights to security of life and basic human dignity.
II. The Caste-Gender Intersection:
If one probes into the history of this discrimination, one is sure to pin the beginning to a period corresponding to what is referred to as the Later Vedic Age. Prior to this, women enjoyed a position equal to that of men in all walks of life, be it learning, education or intellect. The absence of any caste system made discrimination a very alien idea in that period of time. However, one must note that discrimination was not completely absent. The Later Vedic Period was shaped by the accumulation of such trickles of discrimination that led to the creation of a system that differentiated people on the basis of their occupation. The Caste of an individual was determined and ranked according to birth and occupation. This society, divided on lines of caste, soon adopted the concept of male supremacy. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, in his article titled The rise and fall of Hindu woman, pins the cause of suffering of women to the so called Hindu religious scriptures: the Atharva Veda, the Manusmriti and the Vishnu Smriti. These texts reduce women to a position where they cannot enjoy the rights to education, independence or wealth. The Manusmriti even justifies the treatment of Dalit women as sex objects. A few provisions in the Manusmriti will reveal the violent nature of this discrimination:
A man, aged thirty years, shall marry a maiden of twelve who pleases him; or a man of twenty-four a girl of eight years of age. If (the performance of) his duties would otherwise be impeded, he must marry sooner. (Manusmitri IX.94)
By a girl, by a young woman, or even by an aged one, nothing must be done independently, even in her own house.” (Manusmriti V.147)
Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never fit for independence. (Manusmriti IX.3)
Women have no right to study the Vedas. That is why their Sanskaras are performed without Veda Mantras. Women have no knowledge of religion because they have no right to know the Vedas. The uttering of the Veda Mantras is useful for removing sin. As women cannot utter the Veda Mantras, they are as unclean as the untruth. (Manusmriti IX.18)
A Brahman, Kshatriya, or Vaishya Man can sexually exploit any shudra (dalit) woman. (Manusmitri IX.25)
Even the killing of a dalit woman is explicitly justified as a minor offence for the Brahmins: equal to the killing of an animal (Manusmriti). If killing is a minor offence, one does not need a great deal of imagination to see how women were treated throughout their lives. The worst exploitation of dalit women involves a lifetime of suffering, torture and rape. Justified by the Vedic scriptures, the Devadasi system (fancy name for Temple Prostitution) was introduced by the High caste Hindus, and it still exists in some parts of India.
These ideas crystallised through the generations, as they were favourable to the high caste male, to completely change the manner in which the society functions. They plugged all economic, social, educational and personal channels for the dalit women to assert themselves. These channels, till date, remain plugged to a very large extent. Today, we still have less than 25 per cent literacy rate for Dalit women. The number of dalit girls dropping out of schools, as a result of or in apprehension of bullying and abuse by fellow school mates or teachers, is far from decreasing. More and more of these dropouts end up being child labourers. Maternal mortality and infant mortality is alarmingly high in case of Dalit women, primary reasons being lack of funds for getting medical attention and outright denial of medical attention by upper caste rural administrators. Dalit women are denied employment by many private contractors and are usually forced to earn their living by menial jobs like sweeping, cleaning of gutters, cleaning human faeces, washing clothes, cutting hair, disposing the carcasses of dead animals and other such jobs. They are even expected to do this without payment as part of their religious duty owing to their place in the caste system.
III. Violence:
The caste system and gender bias have done more than just plug channels for the development of Dalit women. They have ensured that a dalit woman lives a life full of pain and atrocities. According to the March 2006 report of National Campaign on Dalit Human rights, Dalit women are subjected to as many as twelve forms of violence, nine being in the general category – physical assault, verbal abuse, sexual harassment and assault, rape, sexual exploitation, forced prostitution, kidnapping and abduction, forced incarceration and medical negligence – and three being in the family – female foeticide and infanticide, child sexual abuse and domestic violence from natal and marital family members.
The report also enlists the frequency of these forms of violence - verbal abuse (62.4% of total women), physical assault (54.8%), sexual harassment and assault (46.8%), domestic violence (43.0%) and rape (23.2%), in descending order. Although the remaining forms of violence are faced by relatively fewer Dalit women (less than 10% of total women per form of violence), this does not discount their gravity, precisely because of the qualitative factor of force present in these forms of violence.
It is worth emphasising that not just the form of violence but also the sites where violence occurs reveal the true vulnerability of Dalit women. They face violence in public areas like streets, bus stands, fields, women’s toilet areas, etc. in and around villages and towns. This not only shows how insecure they are outside home but also the individual and collective community punishment meted out to them through public physical assaults and verbal abuse. Next common place for violence is within the home, where they face physical assaults, verbal abuse, sexual harassment and sexual assaults from family and non-family members. This reveals a common pattern of infringements of their right to privacy where perpetrators of violence invade the women’s homes in order to attack and abuse them. These women also face violence at their workplace by their employers or fellow workers and in government spaces like government hospitals, police stations, district administration offices, etc.
To bring these ideas into perspective, let us have a look at the various headlines in leading newspapers:
· Rajasthan Dalit social worker gang-raped
· Dalit women tortured in Jail – Punjab
· Dalit women denied passport
· Death in police station, probe sought
· Upper castes ill-treated us: Dalits
· Doctor robs Dalit woman of Kidney
· Dalit Woman beaten up and paraded naked
· Dalit paraded half-naked for ‘not toeing’ Panchayat line
· Village quiet after it ganged up to hack Dalit mother, 3 children
· INDIA: Dalit female village head unable to conduct her public obligations due to manipulative caste discrimination
· Safai karmacharis demand alternative livelihood
· Untouchability practices in Pudukottai District
· Dalit huts were burnt in Soolagiri
· Dalit girl refused to drop rape charge, burnt
The effects of such acts of violence are often long-lasting. Many women suffer from permanent physical damages, disfiguration, dysfunction of internal organs, sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS, etc. Plus, the trauma left by these acts of violence is a long-term suffering for these women. Thus, the harm caused to Dalit women by violence does not stop at the act itself; it has long-term and multiplying social, psychological and physical effects that are not being addressed. Outside of the social movements and organisations working with the community, little supportive or counselling mechanisms exist in India today to deal with caste-and-gender based violence meted out to Dalit women. The result is that the lives of many Dalit women are underwritten by layers of trauma, hindering their rights to live with dignity and reach their full potential.
(To Be Continued...)
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