Illustration by Opashona Ghosh.
In a church adorned with jasmine flowers and fairy lights, I appeared into the eyes of my companion and mentioned “I’ll”. It was a couple of weeks earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic, and the pews have been full — my family and friends had flown into Visakhapatnam from everywhere in the nation, and the world, to attend the ceremony. I used to be carrying an off-white brocade sari, a champagne-coloured veil that matched the sari’s zari and a shade of lipstick that was in line with my brown-skinned basis. I appreciated how I appeared. After reciting my vows, I walked the marriage march holding my companion’s suited elbows — feeling cherished and achieved.
This second had been 16 years within the making. After a number of (exhausting) dates, a number of relationships that went nowhere, unspeakable abuse and hours of remedy, I discovered my dwelling in a Dalit man. He got here into my life at a time once I had resigned myself to believing that love was too entangled in caste for it to be true.
My mom — additionally a Dalit feminist in her personal proper — had anticipated this second for fairly a while. This was typical for an Indian Christian household, however there was additionally a special cost to this as a result of I had misplaced my father 12 years in the past in 2010. His departure meant that my marriage ceremony grew to become her sole accountability, and her lack of social capital would make the pursuit troublesome. Not like her friends, she had not coerced me into searching for an organized marriage, and he or she pushed again towards those that undermined my “price within the marriage market”. She did her half to make me consider in “real love” and wished that I, too, would discover somebody who cherished me as my father cherished her. The marriage, thus, was her miracle; a lot in order that she wore flowers in her hair for the primary time after my father’s passing. And to this present day, she retains reminiscing in regards to the occasions that led as much as our marriage ceremony, together with the parai attam that kicked off our reception in Chennai.
Throughout my pursuit of this real love, I spent most of my twenties believing that “love conquered all the things”. I used to be unaware of my perceptibility as a dark-hued Dalit girl and the implications that held for others round me as I began appearing upon them. “It’s a drive not like some other”, I had internalised and argued, a drive that transcended faith, like in Bombay, or caste, like in Kaadhal, or class, like in Maid in Manhattan. And with each bitter expertise, I satisfied myself that my companion was only one date away, one flight away or one swipe away.
I watched the second season of Bridgerton with a lot glee. Throughout one among her conversations with Anthony, Daphne describes love as this: “When you say she is the one in whose presence, you can not correctly assume, and even breathe. When you say you’re feeling that feeling…the one which makes it not possible so that you can look away from them at any given second.” The depiction she provides is actually charming, endearing even. It is usually no totally different from what in style tradition has dictated about how want feels — this apolitical romantic attraction primarily based on preconceived notions of what a fascinating physique appears like. Nevertheless it doesn’t contemplate how want, in and by itself, could possibly be a selection that’s conditioned, nonetheless private it might seem at first. And although Bridgerton is just not a present I look in the direction of to offer me an astute articulation of caste and racial hierarchy buildings, what it does supply is fantasy. However, it does so with out acknowledging that fantasies are sometimes merchandise of systemic forces.
The query then turns into this: is it doable to really feel want while you haven’t already labored in the direction of desirous to want that particular person? Haven’t been conditioned into desirous to want that particular person, socialised into needing that particular person?
A decade in the past, I met a nadar Christian man on a matrimonial web site. He advised me it was “tremendous” that I used to be Dalit, “so long as I didn’t present it”. The extent of his bigotry and its egregiousness from that time unravelled shortly. Shortly after, he disclosed his perception that Hitler’s concept of Aryan supremacy made full sense and, by extension, so did brahmin superiority — which drew upon the identical logic of hierarchy and subjugation. The very subsequent day he advised me his household has insisted he marry into the caste. I continued so far him, and in that, I went by means of extra emotional abuse that broke down my confidence in methods I might by no means heal from.
After I assume again upon all of it, it strikes me as painful dissonance. To say that I felt lonely as a Dalit girl navigating city areas within the face of an utter lack of relatable views on want, doesn’t cowl a modicum of the despondence I skilled due to the loneliness. On the one hand have been savarna feminists, who have been heralding a brand new world of sexual openness and exploration. They have been pursuing supposedly edgy and aspirational writings in regards to the orgasm hole, polyamory and informal intercourse. Then again, have been the ladies in my household, who have been harping on in regards to the significance of morality and modest aesthetics. I grew to become a residing paradox: feeling pressured to discover intimacy in a single second as a result of I used to be a “fashionable girl” and guilt-ridden within the subsequent as a result of I used to be flouting 100 guidelines of respectability. Whereas rising up, I used to be advised that essentially the most cardinal of all sins was sexual promiscuity. This instruction, nonetheless, didn’t simply stem from our Christian beliefs however, reasonably, from a worry that we might get slut-shamed and the severity of the social penalties that will maintain. The precarity of our lives and reputations could possibly be threatened even by an unfounded hearsay. Our solely supply of social capital — the Tamizh Christian group — might additional ostracise us along with the discrimination they have been already inflicting. The worry that I could possibly be referred to as “simple” and the fact that males of all castes interpreted my innocuous gestures as “slutty”, influenced most of my romantic and sexual choices throughout my early life, once I approached want with trepidation.
One in every of my first understandings of the form of conservatism I used to be experiencing got here by means of my friendships. Curious variations between our experiences, regardless of some outward similarities, baffled me. It isn’t like my savarna girlfriends didn’t have worry drilled into them too; they got here from households that have been conservative in their very own methods. But, their worlds have been starkly totally different from mine.
Most of them recognized as feminists and had the attention to recognise abuse inside intimate relationships, however they didn’t appear to grasp how energy differentials between companions — particularly when one among them is a Dalit girl — intensified the potential for violence. They appeared unaware of the ecosystem that was enabling this hurt and would inform me that I used to be too choosy every time I shared my tales of those disappointments. I felt let down by this lack of engagement, to not point out their disinterest in understanding the specificity of my state of affairs and the stereotypes Dalit girls need to confront.
My expertise with the nadar man, and those that got here each earlier than and after him, felt alien to my savarna associates. In a single occasion, within the aftermath of an abusive episode with an ex-boyfriend, I used to be cautioned to “be very certain earlier than I broke up as a result of there was no assure I’d discover somebody once more”. By not understanding the bias inherent to the state of affairs, they distressed me additional. I clearly knew what I used to be listening to was unfaithful, however because of my poor self-confidence, I used to be unable to overtly query it. I bear in mind freezing up as my good friend mentioned these phrases; one among my fears was being validated by somebody I belief.
Dr Tamalapakula, in her sensible evaluation of the circumstances of Dalit girls on Indian school campuses, explains:
Whereas the assertive mainstream feminist is revered, the assertive dalit girl is usually condemned each by upper-castes and dalit male teams. The reason is the seen assertion of feminist college students is known to be the results of superiority of their caste/class and concrete life […] the place because the dalit center class girl is anticipated to reject sexuality to suit the stereotyped picture of a sufferer of caste primarily based sexual violence.
No matter how my savarna girlfriends exercised their sexual freedom (informal intercourse, intercourse with coupled males, queer experiments), they by no means appeared to expire of prospects for relationship or marriage. If any of them failed to seek out an individual by means of fashionable strategies of courtship, their households have been nonetheless capable of finding them a companion by means of organized marriage; their “hoe part”* not coming in the best way of this. They successfully leveraged international discourses on sexual liberation to permit themselves comfy decisions.
Girls’s way of life magazines have been worse; they printed a number of first-person items about sexual experiences however by no means acknowledged intimate abuse, not to mention delved into its intersections with caste — and the abuse that emerged in that place of intersection. Granted that the knowledge ecosystem in my early twenties was markedly totally different from what it’s at present, nevertheless it additionally exhibits how decision-making buildings have been skewed again then. It isn’t shocking that the experiences of Dalit girls — in romance, intercourse and want — weren’t of curiosity to editorial groups, which have been largely dominated by savarna women and men. This explains why I didn’t obtain the training to critically perceive in style tradition and the romantic lives of my savarna friends; it didn’t happen to me till my exes grew to become express of their casteism, when the language to grasp their contempt grew to become pressing.
Though my publicity to mainstream feminism, which manifested within the media I used to be consuming and thru my associates, made me wish to blame the ladies in my household for his or her “regressive positions”, I later understood why they have been so austere when it got here to intercourse and want. They referred to as themselves “no-nonsense” — a time period that indicated a sure comportment; they hoped it could deter undesirable sexual advances. This choice —made each purposefully and subconsciously, to keep up and venture a morally upright conduct — was essential for his or her survival, particularly amid the prevalence of caste-based sexual violence. They needed to work additional arduous to deal with the impunity with which this violence arose and to come back throughout as “respectable girls of worth” as a result of Indian societies, by default, ascribe worth to people primarily based on caste.
In a piece I wrote in 2018, I discussed that in Hinduism, the brahmin girl is deemed to be essentially the most useful amongst girls — adopted by the kshatriya, the vaishya and the shudra. No worth is connected to the Dalit girl; she is thought to be one of many lowest of life varieties — polluting and soiled, and on par with wild animals. I had begun investigating the intersection of caste and want in my twenties, and I dug additional into the roots of what’s believed to legitimise violence and discrimination inside Indian relationship. The next verses from the Manusmriti illustrate additional:
[Chapter 8: 373] “A double tremendous must be imposed on a person who has already been convicted and is accused (once more) inside a yr, and it must be simply as a lot for cohabiting with a girl outlaw or a ‘Fierce’ Untouchable girl.”
[Chapter 11: 176] “If a priest unknowingly has intercourse with ‘Fierce’ Untouchable girls or very low-caste girls, eats (their meals) or accepts (presents from them), he falls if knowingly, he turns into their equal.”
[Chapter 12: 55] “A priest killer will get the womb of a canine, a pig, a donkey, a camel, a cow, a goat, a sheep, a wild animal, a chicken, a ‘Fierce’ Un-touchable, or a ‘Tribal.’”
Dr Roja Singh, whose work I learn final yr, in her e-book Noticed Goddesses: Dalit Girls’s Company-Narratives on Caste and Gender Violence, has commented on these verses:
“Within the Manusmriti, a Dalit girl will trigger the downfall of a caste particular person because the reification of curse. The caste one who has intimate relations along with her turns into “untouchable” as a result of she pollutes their purity and destroys possibilities of salvation […S]he’s the brute whether or not she is the sufferer or not, and her physique because the curse turns into the premise of victimisation of which caste males must beware. Nonetheless, the Manusmriti doesn’t state that the untouchable girl might achieve redemption in sexual relations with a caste male embodying “purity” [.…] A Dalit girl is stagnant in her polluted state as “a curse” and “the cursed” as she can’t recess into something worse or turn out to be something higher.”
From the above, the distinctive types of aversion and domination reserved for Dalit girls turn out to be very clear. The Hindu texts are derogatory to all girls, and the Manusmriti, specifically, has been influential in coding caste-wide misogyny into the Indian social system. However topic to the authority of brahmin males, brahmin girls are nonetheless positioned on the prime of the pyramid of Indian womanhood, adopted by kshatriya, vaishya, and shudra girls — all of whom are underneath the authority of their caste males and people positioned above them. This placement offers them (savarna girls) sufficient authority to hegemonically dictate what constitutes want and who deserves to be desired.
Dalit girls, who’re thought of inferior and untouchable, are positioned to date beneath within the pyramid, that they’re topic to the authority of everybody above them, together with the ladies that belong to the shudra and dvija* (twice-born) castes. Social media influencers of the Indian diaspora, who’re reclaiming their desi feminist roots, should realise that Hinduism doesn’t contemplate “girls” as a homogenous class; as an alternative, it prescribes clear distinctions together with energy, labour and sexual self-discipline.
Thus the caste system, or extra appropriately brahminical patriarchy — “a algorithm and establishments by which caste and gender are linked, every shaping the opposite and the place girls are essential in sustaining the boundaries between castes” — each victimises and advantages savarna girls. Uma Chakravarthy in her seminal paper in Financial and Political Weekly, ‘Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India’, explains that “girls’s perpetuation of the caste system was achieved partly by means of their funding in a construction that rewarded them even because it subordinated them on the identical time”. Consequently, their superior caste positions don’t simply entitle savarna girls with the social energy to subjugate but additionally compel them to embody the traits of “perfect womanhood”, which embody chastity, purity, modesty, constancy, magnificence and sanctity — all as imagined by the brahmanical thoughts.
Over the ages, this “perfect” has undergone a number of transformations. As a consequence of political, social and ideological interventions within the final century, whether or not it’s calls for for girls’s training and property rights, the affect of Western media and feminist thought, and the participation of savarna girls in nation-building processes — these mechanisms that sought to manage the id and sexual freedom of sarvana girls have been disrupted. This shift has enabled them to redefine the very idea and expression of womanhood — from conventional to fashionable, from conservative to progressive. However these transitions, whether or not intentional or not, have been tactical, integrating newer feminist components with older brahmanical notions. ‘An Ode To Trendy Indian Lady and All That She Is…’, an article on Medium, places it this fashion: “At the moment’s girl is progressive in pondering however nonetheless, has a deep-rooted respect for the Indian tradition and traditions.” Priyanka Chopra Jonas reclaiming the mangalsutra – an accepted image of caste endogamy — whereas going through no risk to her standing as a “fashionable feminist icon” is a living proof.
Savarna feminism has thus been designed solely to problem patriarchy, not caste. It allows savarna girls to train liberal politics, practise sexual freedom, exhibit fascinating aesthetics, entry international literacy and obtain financial success whereas conserving their caste energy and privilege intact. Their feminism doesn’t threaten their caste location and, in lots of cases, is even emboldened by it. For this reason the empowered savarna girl archetype, in its many variations, is taken into account aspirational and engaging by the Indian psyche, which has been socialised for hundreds of years to see savarna as superior. It’s all the extra so in our present capitalist actuality, the place one’s caste may be leveraged and downplayed concurrently, in order to create a wholly new however evolving id — the globalised, fashionable Indian girl, who’s savarna however cultured sufficient to maintain her caste location delicate, worldwide, woke* and discovered. This collective accomplishment of savarna girls, which turns into extra layered with each technology, is feasible solely due to their caste energy — one which they didn’t need to work for, one which was bestowed upon them at start.
In sharp distinction are Dalit and different caste-excluded girls, whose existence remains to be conceived inside stereotypes. Neither do they possess the caste energy to entry capital and sources nor can they meet the ever-changing cultural mandate for womanhood or wokeness, as outlined by these with caste energy.
Within the in style creativeness, Dalit girls are additionally perceived to be mere victims, as people that may’t exist outdoors of violence. Though violence is an inescapable actuality for a lot of Dalit girls, particularly for individuals who dwell in impoverished and unsafe circumstances — the amplification of the sufferer stereotype not solely engenders extra violence but additionally normalises it. Inside interpersonal contexts, notably these which might be romantic or sexual in nature, the sufferer stereotype interprets into an influence dynamic that has the potential to oppress Dalit girls.
However what exists in opposition to, and together with, this purported narrative of victimhood, is the final incredulousness across the crime when it takes place. At a panel dialogue that I used to be half of some years in the past, a communist male chief openly opined that “Dalit girls are too scary, we are able to’t contact them that simply.” Nobody within the viewers appeared to have an issue with that assertion; they welcomed it as truth. And but, crime statistics say in any other case. The misunderstanding that was disclosed in that panel has not in any means dissuaded perpetrators from inflicting heinous violence on Dalit girls. Nevertheless it has discouraged civil society members and lawmakers from taking caste-based sexual violence severely. Assaulting “scary, robust” Dalit girls is unfathomable to the minds that consider they’re too unfeminine to be touched.
Nearly each love curiosity of mine has tried to appropriate my behaviour and nudge me in the direction of adopting a extra “ladylike” manner. Some have explicitly in contrast me to their savarna girlfriends or exes, saying that the latter have been womanlier and extra delicate, and, because of this, evoked intense emotions in them. On their half, tv and cinema have reified this false feminine-unfeminine dichotomy between savarna and Dalit girls and promoted the concept femininity, as expressed by savarna girls, is a key ingredient in heterosexual and heteronormative want.
By casting savarna girls because the love pursuits of its protagonists, in style tradition has additionally bolstered that they’re the one ones worthy of affection, lust and legitimacy. Even within the case of Dalit male protagonists, the one who turns into their love curiosity more often than not is a savarna girl (Sairat, Thalapathi, Kaadhal). Dalit girls, if and when represented, are depicted as offended, loud and verbally abusive. Pa. Ranjith’s Kaala, a 2018 Tamizh movie, is an fascinating instance, nonetheless. Selvi, Kaala’s spouse, is solid as a loud-mouthed homemaker, and Zareena, Kaala’s ex-girlfriend, is solid as a classy activist. Whereas the stereotypes are stored intact, what I discovered refreshing was Kaala’s selecting to be with Selvi, the Dalit girl.
A yr in the past, a good friend shared one among her conversations with a savarna man, who had spoken at size about his sexual experiences. She recalled him saying that if he knew the girl he was having intercourse with was Dalit, he could be additional tough and do no matter he needed, as towards a savarna girl with whom he could be light. I wasn’t shocked by his revelation, nevertheless it triggered me all the identical, taking me again to my very own experiences of sexual exploitation and assault. Typically, there’s no arduous proof for instance how caste breaches intimate boundaries. It’s felt within the predator’s contact, their careless tossing of 1’s physique, their indifference to ache and worry, and their gaze as soon as it’s over — a mixture of lust, disgust and conquest.
It’s with this data, context and data that I would like us to re-evaluate our modern understanding of inter-caste love, intercourse positivity, physique politics and legitimacy. The current slew of social media accounts run by savarna influencers, who’ve monopolised feminist narratives, with no consciousness of how these work together with caste, is a living proof. As an illustration, within the aftermath of the 2020 Hathras rape and homicide, in an effort to protest the gruesomeness of the act, a well-liked deal with began a marketing campaign that requested girls to publish tongue selfies. Different mainstream feminist handles additionally continued to create content material round self-care, vagina appreciation and intercourse positions at the moment. To Dalit girls who witnessed this response, and have been reeling with large grief and anger, such campaigns are at greatest insensitive, detached at worst.
Equally, in style anti-caste discourses that don’t consider how societies undervalue Dalit and different caste-excluded girls, are equally disempowering. Inter-caste unions, for instance, aren’t all the time anti-caste; it’s extremely doable that one’s option to companion with a savarna girl, who has historically been ascribed larger worth, is motivated extra by social conditioning. It can’t essentially be learn as a want to annihilate caste. It’s revolutionary love solely when, as Dr B.R. Ambedkar says: “Make each man and girl free from the thraldom of the Shastras, cleanse their minds of the pernicious notions based on the Shastras, and she or he will inter-dine and inter-marry, with out your telling her or him to take action.”
We’d like a Dalit feminist standpoint that uproots your entire infrastructure round which concepts of want are being constructed. We’d like a feminism that interrogates caste as a lot because it does patriarchy.
Dalit girls ought to have the ability to specific their want to anybody, with out feeling insecure about their desirability or having to measure themselves towards a savarna perfect — a radical Dalit feminist framework of want would allow that. They’ve a proper to sexual pleasure, in the best way they think about it, with consent and with out disgrace, which incorporates having sufficient data about protected intercourse, acquiring entry to contraception, selecting or training a most well-liked sexual orientation, experimenting with out the worry of moralistic judgments, and having the house to speak about sexual pleasure and extra each inside feminist and anti-caste circles. And so they need to really feel accepted and cherished in relationships, with out being pressured to continuously show their worth or vulnerable to abuse by advantage of their caste location. And so they have a proper to hunt marital unions in the event that they so determine, with out being judged by the savarna gaze for making “unfeminist” decisions. Consistently prioritising savarna girls and perceiving them as the one ones worthy of want will proceed to ignore Dalit girls and, finally, rob them of their proper to like and be cherished.
We should rediscover Dalit love inside our communities. Investing in one another is revolutionary, particularly within the face of caste hatred. It’s vital that we reimagine what sisterhood, group, parenting, friendship, solidarity and household means to us. In a world devoid of recognition, Dalit love will preserve us safe, valued and rooted.
Notes on Terminology:
1. Savarna refers to people or teams belonging to the castes which might be a part of varna (caste) system. These embody the brahmins, the kshtariyas, the vaishyas, and the shudras.
2. Dvija means “twice-born”, which incorporates solely the brahmins, the kshatriyas, and the vaishyas
3. On this essay, “Dalit” refers to solely these people and teams that have been earlier often known as the untouchables. Be aware that not all Dalits are formally categorised as scheduled castes. This essay additionally doesn’t declare to signify all Dalit girls.
4. On this essay, the time period “caste-excluded” refers to avarna (outcastes) communities that weren’t traditionally recognised as being a part of the varna (caste) system.
5. The time period “woke” refers to being conscious of and taking a stand towards social injustices. Within the Indian/South Asian context, it’s related to progressive politics and will imply “anti-caste”, “feminist”, “leftist”, or a mix of all three.
6. “Hoe-phase” usually refers to a time in an individual’s life when they’re mentioned to be particularly promiscuous.
