GENDER & SOCIETY

REFLECTION SUMMARY

Cast(e)ing Gender
She was told
That she was dirt,
She was filth and
In this sacred land of thousands of goddesses
She is called a Dalit.

The module on cast(e)ing gender talks about how the intersectionality of caste and gender
plays a role, i.e., being a woman and being a Dalit- the two lowermost, discriminated strata in
a society. Just like the instance of Radhika Vemula being shown as ‘branding’ her identity by
those in power, she being a ‘woman’ and a ‘Dalit,’ suffers from the intersectional oppression.
Rohith Vemula, suffered from institutional oppression, wherein he being a Dalit and a
student. When it comes to rapes, when we think about those in the lower castes, not many
such rapes come to our mind. As for the reporting by our media, they do not sensitize the
world with the rapes happening among the lowest strata of our society, they question the
validity of the rape and the poor victims, they bring on to the fact that the victim is ‘impure.’
This is such a sad state of affairs making it oblivious to the fact that the Dalit women suffer
from intrinsic as well as extrinsic patriarchy. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was correct in saying how
the caste came into existence. The practices of untouchability, widowhood, endogamy, is how
the caste came into existence and is still solely maintained on the basis of the same. Even in
the contemporary times, there have still been instances of marrying into the ‘same caste’ or
else one would be looked down upon by the others. The caste is a construction of ideas,
practices and values, giving rise to a spider-web like situation which binds the person to their
own web, coming out of which makes the person an object of caste-based oppression,
violence and in case of women, sexual abuse. Ambedkar correctly pointed out that wherever
Indians go, they’ll take caste problem with them, and it will become a world problem. The
feminist groups in India must take into account the intersectionality aspects of caste, class
and gender and then take up an approach workable for all the aspects. There have been many
recent ‘condescending’ judgments by courts like the ‘provocative dress’ order, the order
saying that ‘it is unbelievable that the accused would touch the body of the victim fully
knowing that she belongs to the SC community.’ If this kind of language is used in the
‘justice’ system, it will make the patriarchy as well as caste inequalities even more grounded
and would make it difficult for those in the lower castes to even enter the justice system. I
mean, what has really changed since the Mathura case and the Vishakha case? The fact that
even after so many anti-caste movements like Dalit Panthers, we can still see the existence of
caste in schools, universities and also at homes, there is a lot of truth in Ambedkar’s saying
that inter-caste marriages is the first step in breaking the caste based system of atrocities.