Brahmanical nature of violence against women 1

Abstract

Dalit women’s lived experiences constitute an important element in theorising and developing a fuller understanding of caste-inflected social realities. The chapter depicts spheres of Dalit women’s reality, which are specific to their everyday life, and rather distinct from caste-privileged Indian feminists. It focuses on violence as a permanent threat, due to Dalit women’s peculiarly vulnerable socio-political-economic status working in the public domain. Sharmila Rege discusses various ways in which violence occurs against women and argues that the issue of violence ‘must be located in the links between’ caste and gender, failing which Indian feminism might itself end up contributing to inequalities. It gives us a glimpse of some realities that partially contribute to Dalit women’s lived experiences as a ground for their ‘difference’ with respect to savarna women.