Contemporary South Asia

ISSN: 0958-4935 (Print) 1469-364X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccsa20

Dalit women speak out: caste, class and gender

violence in India

Sameena Dalwai

To cite this article: Sameena Dalwai (2016) Dalit women speak out: caste, class and gender
violence in India, Contemporary South Asia, 24:2, 210-211, DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2016.1200425

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2016.1200425

Published online: 19 Aug 2016.

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Contemporary South Asia, 2016
Vol. 24, No. 2, 210–222

BOOK REVIEWS

Dalit women speak out: caste, class and gender violence in India, by Aloysius Irudayam
S.J., Jayashree P. Mangubhai and Joel G. Lee, New Delhi, Zubaan, (2011) 2014, Reprint,
ISBN 9789383074761

Rohit Vemula’s death, the latest of the Dalit student suicides, has driven home the cruel
implications of caste discrimination once again. It shows that Dalit, tribal, women and min-
orities are not just left behind but are actively shunned or used as fodder in the march
towards ‘India Shining’. Dalit women speak out brings to the fore the caste–gender–
class oppression unique to our society through the lens of intersectionality. The book effec-
tively combines anecdotes from 500 Dalit women from across 4 different states – Bihar, UP,
Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu – covering North and South India, focusing on the unique
patterns of violence that Dalit women face that neither Dalit men nor other women are sub-
jected to. Reading this book leaves the reader shocked and shaken with its detailed accounts
of everyday violence and the harsh life conditions that Dalit women face in twenty-first
century India.
The response of the state machinery is inadequate. Take the Atrocity Act: only its least
stringent sections are applied, for instance, those dealing with verbal abuse and the use of
caste names, rather than the sections that deal with forcing Dalits off their land, making
them work without wages, imposing sexual relations or prostitution on women and children,
and so on. Verbal abuse itself, as the book shows us, has a severe impact on the Dalit women,
eroding their confidence and will to live. Upper caste men and women use abusive epithets
such as ‘Mala bitch’ and ‘Bhangi whore’ publically in order to reinforce the Dalit woman’s
inferior position in society. Threats of rape and sexual assault are hurled at Dalit women in
order to instill fear and gain control over their bodies and labor. Different categories of vio-
lence – verbal, physical, sexual – are not watertight and often accompany each other, for
example, verbal abuse followed by, or along with, sexual or physical assault.
Caste patriarchy reserves opposite roles for upper caste and lower caste women. Upper
caste purity is maintained by keeping women inside homes, away from the public gaze and
restricting their movement and sexual autonomy. Lower caste women, on the other hand,
are assigned ‘free’ sexuality for the purpose of fulfilling the sexual desires of dominant
caste men. Challenging this assumption and expectation is met with abuse.
The culture of impunity and silence wherein men believe it their right and women their
fate has been fostered further by the law enforcement agencies that protect the offenders and
silence the victims. Out of the 500 women interviewed, only 13% managed to get their
cases registered, and only 0.1% received justice. Police actively blocked 17.5% of
women who reached the police station. Dalit women have internalized this response, and
so rather than reporting crimes committed by dominant castes, they accept the violence
as ‘normal’, even though it degrades them as human beings.
This dark picture possesses a silver lining due to the courage and resilience that some
women have displayed. Against tyranny, they have stood up for their right to be treated with
dignity and respect. They have pushed back with words, individual and collective action
and, at times, come up with unique strategies to attain poetic justice. The book effectively
 Book reviews 211

captures the ideological conflict between the dominant caste and lower caste worldview;
one that seeks to maintain the status quo and live off hierarchy and subjugation versus
one that believes that democracy offers equality and rights for those even at the lowest
rungs of society. Dalit women, in this sense, emerge as the true citizens of Indian
democracy.

Sameena Dalwai
O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipath, India
sdalwai@jgu.edu.in
© 2016, Sameena Dalwai
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2016.1200425

The Pakistan paradox: instability and resilience, by Christophe Jaffrelot, London, C.

Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., 2015, 670 pp., ISBN 978-1849043298

Pakistan in recent times has been viewed largely from a security centric paradigm that
explores connections to religious fundamentalism and international terrorism. Such an
understanding often obscures deeper complexities in its state and society. Christophe Jaffre-
lot in The Pakistan paradox: instability and resilience attempts to elaborate these complex-
ities by delving into the historical continuities and contestations in the Pakistani state and
society. Following a sociological interpretation, Jaffrelot locates the country’s chronic
instability in three contradictions whose roots lie in tensions apparent since the 1940s.
The contradictions are located in (i) the juxtaposition of the centralizing tendencies of
Pakistani nationalism and the centrifugal tendencies of ethnic nationalism; (ii) the way in
which the concentration of power has alternated between civilian and military regimes
and (iii) the role of Islam in the public sphere (10–12). Factors of resilience, on the other
hand, are located in the people, judiciary, media, civil society and reforms in the army.
The author asserts that Pakistan has been able to sustain itself through the simultaneous
presence of antagonistic factors of contradictions and resilience.
The book follows a thematic pattern that unravels the contradictions in three parts. In the
first part, Jaffrelot draws attention to the differing interests and cultures of the Muslim
majority and Muslim minority provinces of British India that were only blurred superfi-
cially with the formation of Pakistan. These differences failed to find expression in the cen-
tralist agenda which Jaffrelot equates with Islam and the Urdu language. Meanwhile,
conservative elitism sought the repression of ethnic nationalism rather than its accommo-
dation. The recent trends towards provincial autonomy and internal migration fostering
multi-ethnic provinces hold the key to defusing this tension. Though the continuities in
the contradictions are well covered empirically, the conclusion fails to sufficiently link
the empirical work with a robust theoretical discussion on nationalism (limited to Benedict
Anderson and Ernest Gellner in the book). Discussion of Partha Chatterjee’s work (e.g. The
nation and its fragments. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) would be interesting
in understanding the anti-colonial nationalism that emerged in Asian and African societies.
These societies asserted ‘difference’ in their interaction with the colonial state which is an
important factor in determining the content and trajectory of nationalist movements. Also,
the focus on elites as the driving force fails to recognize the agency of common people;
hence, bringing in Eric Hobsbawm would have helped develop an understanding of nation-
alism as a dual phenomenon, ‘constructed from above’ but which needs to be ‘analyzed