DALIT WOMEN IN INDIA: UNIQUE SOCIAL EXISTENCE

Abstract

There is a requirement to attain a standpoint wherein significant issues of Dalit women are addressed such as their lack of voice, which are often neglected by the Dalit movement spearheaded by the males and the mainstream Indian feminist movement initiated by the upper caste women. 

The Dalit women are faced with triple intersection oppression based on caste, gender, and class giving them an “outsider within” status. Thus, these women can showcase diverse perspectives due to their standing in society which will help the readers understand the condition of Dalit women in society and the atrocities they battle on a daily basis. The initiation of the Dalit Feminism standpoint marks a social change and encourages empowerment and activism. 

In the words of Bell Hooks, "the movement of Feminism initiated to empower women all around the world, practiced the exclusion of women who did not have sufficient resources to change their living conditions." (1984) This statement is sufficient to prove the skewed functioning of the feminist movement prevalent in the society. The prevalence of this form led to the concept of feminism being a remote concept for numerous women in the world. 

One can trace the presence of Dalit women in the category of women who were excluded from the feminist movement. The Dalit women in Indian society have been faced with intersectional oppression due to their birth, firstly being a woman and secondly them belonging to the Dalit community (Sharma and Kumar 2020), as per Dr. Ambedkar, "Dalit is a depressed class" and per Beauvoir, "women are the second sex."