Dalit Women in Mutation: The Birth of a New Social Organism

Abstract

This essay is concerned with ‘Dalit woman’ as a category constructed through the intersection of caste and gender. It contends that in their effort to present ‘woman’ and ‘Dalit’ as two distinct and unitary groups, mainstream Indian feminism and Dalit politics treat caste and gender as mutually exclusive. As a result, Dalit women and their issues are either ignored, or they are assimilated separately within ‘women’ or ‘Dalits’. This article proposes that mutation, as an interventionist theoretical tool, can become useful in posing ‘Dalit woman’ as a new social organism. Taking P. Sivakami’s autobiography, The Grip of Change (2006), as a case study, this article investigates the contours of ‘Dalit woman’ as a mutable category built in contradistinction to ‘woman’ in mainstream Indian feminism (wherein gender becomes the exclusive analytical structure) and ‘Dalit’ in Dalit politics (which sees caste system at the core of their oppression). Since this study investigates identity construction of ‘Dalit woman’, the exploration of the homogeneous representations of ‘woman’ and ‘Dalit’ primarily draws from autobiographical narratives.