“The subaltern cannot speak. There is no virtue in global laundry lists with ‘woman’ as a pious item. Representation has not withered away. The female intellectual as intellectual has a circumscribed task that she must not disown with a flourish.” – Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.

History is a representation of reality via the lens and limits of historians. The popularity and acceptability of historical narratives are heavily influenced by dominant institutions and knowledge. The Dalit group has been marginalised throughout Indian economic, social and political history.

With the growth of Dalit consciousness, the community’s better-positioned gender (male) gradually attempted to communicate its vulnerabilities from a masculinist viewpoint. The literature at the time could only portray women as extensions of male characters.

Even if the anguish that Dalit women experienced as a result of carrying intersectional realities differed from that of males, they were unable to establish a position as full creatures in themselves in early caste literature.

The trade union movements also failed to recognise the challenges of Dalit women labourers as distinct. Dalit women’s property rights, lifespan, education and empowerment are still highly androcentric since the state’s plans and regulations are predominantly heteronormative and male-centric.

Through a protracted, continuous process, a community is driven to the periphery. Women are increasingly excluded within the community as a result of patriarchy’s pervasiveness. The voice of a marginalised community is frequently ignored and unspoken.

Women are doubly marginalised when a community is marginalised. When it comes to Dalit women, the oppression is multiplied.

To comprehend the situation of Dalit women and the need of acknowledging their voices, it is necessary first to comprehend the broad word Dalit.

Many intellectuals and authors understand the word Dalit in terms of oppression. There are systems and practices in Indian society that have shown to be unfavourable to particular groups and their voices, such as Dalits.

Within the Dalits, the continued silence of Dalit women’s voices prevents the justice process from proceeding fully. It is critical to recognise that the issues of caste and gender are not vying for relevance; rather, they are deeply intertwined within the wider reality of justice, since one is not superior to the other.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Subaltern And Women

Subaltern studies are a subset of postcolonial theory. The notion of the subaltern was first mentioned by Antonia Gramsci, an Italian Marxist political rebel, in his piece Notes on Italian History, which was published in his most famous work Prison Notebooks, written between 1929 and 1935.

Gramsci chose the word “subaltern” to refer to a group of people in society who are sidelined by an authoritarian clique. Based on the word subaltern, several theorists such as Ranajit Guha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Dipesh Chakravorty developed their ideas.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has emerged as a key figure in postcolonial studies. Spivak used Gramsci’s word “subaltern” to refer to the subaltern category in Indian society. Can the Subaltern Speak?, was originally titled Power, Desire, and Interest, but the title was changed afterwards.

This is the most contentious article in which Spivak classifies women, nonwhites and lower castes as subalterns. Spivak asserts in her article that white Europeans have formed a dichotomy of self and “others” in which people from third-world nations are classified as “others.”

Identically, “third-world women are much more heavily shadowed”. Spivak’s article attempts to re-energise women’s agency. She discusses the widow’s self-immolation in India. Where males dominated society, who oppressed them and Britishers attempted to remove this practice for political reasons.

Spivak wants to ratify that women are always treated as “other” because they are subordinate to men under patriarchal order, as Simone de Beauvoir discusses the concept of the “other” in the emergence of The Second Sex. 

But Spivak also depicts the condition of third-world women as even more poignant because they are ostracised by their males and by the white upper class.

In India, lower caste people are also subalterns within the caste system where they are “other”. They are marginalised as third world people as well as lower caste beings. Dalit women, on the other hand, are eliminated three times because they are from a third world nation, because patriarchy exists and because of their caste.

Spivak also claims that subalterns are unable to talk not because they are unable to speak but because others do not know how to listen, or because when the subaltern tries to speak, their voice is deafeningly quiet.

Even when composing the Chronicles, the subaltern perspective was ignored; they were pushed to the periphery.

Anupama Rao: Indian Feminism And Dalit Women

Anupama Rao criticises mainstream male authors, feminist writers and Dalit male writers in India for alienating Dalit women. When questioned about this topic, numerous reasons manifested.

Men authors claimed that there are several other tectonic issues to pivot on, while Dalit male writers claimed that Dalit women are members of their society and represent them in a significant manner. India Feminists assert that Dalit women are represented in Dalit literature.

In her writing, Rao references Gopal Guru’s ideas. In 1995, Gopal Guru, a political science professor at Pune University, published an article in the Economic and Political Weekly, Dalit Women Speak in Different Tongues.

From mainstream writing, Guru defines the phrase “politics of difference”. Guru stated that this phrase was critical in defining a Dalit woman’s subjection as a result of her caste and gender identity.

Mainstream male and Dalit male writers repressed Dalit women under patriarchal ideals. Indian feminists isolated them due to Brahmanical hegemonic tendencies, who believed Dalit women to be “other”. Some feminists questioned the quota for Dalit women as part of a political goal.

However, Rao claims that many Dalit women in the Dalit Bahujan Party oppose this theory and political difference.

Mahasweta Devi’s Work And Dalit Women

There were a few female authors who spoke out about the “double colonisation” of Dalit women based on caste and gender. One such intermediary was Mahasweta Devi, who attempted to bridge the gap between Dalit women and Indian feminism.

Mahasweta Devi was a non-Dalit Bengali writer who was also a sociopolitical activist. In her paintings, she represented Dalit women who played the roles of M-other and others, and who were constantly ostracised and placed in positions of powerlessness.

She depicts the plight of Dalit women, particularly in her short tales. One of her short stories is Draupadi in which she satirised an occurrence from the epic Mahabharata in which Draupadi was saved by Lord Krishna.

Draupadi is the protagonist of her narrative, and she is a lower caste woman who is raped by army men. She is only a “body” for them, and in this modern India, no God comes to help a woman.

Shobhaa De: Dalit Among Dalit Women

In the Indian setting, the Dalit women are more visible than they are in most mainstream correspondence. The situation of these women was determined as a segregated domain, which is why no one was interested in researching the ideas or perspectives of these lower caste women.

The situation of Dalit women was never treated seriously by mainstream male authors. Dalit women were excluded from all social reform processes, remaining untouchables among untouchables.

Dalit writing began to take root in the early nineteenth century. Where Dalit writers brought up the issue of caste oppression in India. Some Dalit male authors spoke out against apartheid and persecution. However, while writing about Dalit women, Dalit men authors frequently misinterpret Dalit women’s similarities.

Dalit women were always passive in Dalit males’ narratives, where she was frequently represented as a peaceful, compliant and reliant spouse or as a solicitous and kind matriarch who oblates her life for her home and unquestioningly accepted the Dalit patriarchy.

Certain Dalit male authors discuss caste-based discrimination of Dalit women but not patriarchal tyranny. One such writer is Sharankumar Limbale, who talks about Dalit women’s oppression in his writings, but Dalit women themselves don’t have the agency to discourse.

Dalits have been neglected for generations, with Dalit women being subjugated as a result of caste, gender and social status. Even feminist Dalit women were tarnished and crippled by mainstream literature.

As a result, Dalit women took it upon themselves to write about their own experiences as Dalit women, from the periphery to the centre. Dalit women created a large body of writing, including memoirs, poetry and short tales, among other things. Their work advocated for Dalit women’s rights and emphasised the Dalit movement’s origins.

In many ways, Dalit women’s autobiographies differed from those of their male counterparts and higher caste women; they appropriated and desecrated the enclave controlled by mainstream writers.

As it is stated, renovation begins at home, and those from lower castes should cease thinking of themselves as second-class citizens. Even the higher caste should abandon their patronage of phoney caste notions.

Every human is equal and self-sufficient, and most importantly, identification should not be based on a person’s birth date; instead, each person should create their own identity based on their abilities.

Article Credits: YKA