Writing Dalit women in political economy of agrarian crisis and resistance in Punjab

Abstract

In recent years, Punjab has witnessed significant political mobilisation of small-marginal peasants and agricultural labour in several parts of the state. The participation and leadership of Dalit women in these mobilisations is even more noteworthy. Punjab has been a centre of peasant struggles but these have been in the past the bastion of male farmers. Today this is changing in a significant way. In the recent agrarian mobilisations in Punjab, women, landless Dalit and marginalised farmers have been an integral part. These mobilisations are around issues of the rights of Dalits over village commons, their right to live in the villages even when the distribution of resources is such that it leaves them no ownership of the land they live on and till, the recognition that Punjab's agrarian crisis – evident in the suicides of peasants – is being borne also by the landless and, above all for ending impunity for sexual violence which women, and Dalit women in particular, endure as caste and patriarchal oppression. The coming together in these movements of labouring Dalit women and men and the immiserised small and marginal peasantry, including their women, are opening the possibility of building new solidarities and political alliances of the oppressed. These movements also return us to some of the long-standing questions in feminist politics and understanding around political alliances with movements which are presenting a critique of the contemporary mode of production and distribution and which, at the same time, are trying to grapple with caste and gender questions.