Dalit Women and Citizenship: Theoretical Perspective
Dr. Pralhad V Chengte.
Assistant professor of Political Science, Government First Grade College Humanabad. India
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Abstract:
In this subsection we look at Dalit women specifically as citizens and examine the various forms of deprivation they suffer in the light of the rights normally considered to be the rights of citizenship.
Keyword: Dalit Women, Citizenship.
Introduction:
Dalits are India’s former “untouchables”, so called because their touch was considered polluting due to the work they did – handling dead matter (the hides of animals, tanning, cutting hair) or faces. The fight against untouchability is of long standing. The efforts of two great modern Indian leaders, however, had the greatest impact in bringing public awareness of the need for eradicating this acute and particular form of oppression: Mahatma Gandhi – who called them “Harijans” or “children of God”, and B.R. Ambedkar, a brilliant lawyer, himself from an untouchable caste, who led the drafting of India’s constitution. But although the Constitution of independent India outlawed untouchability and its practice in any form, and directed the government to take affirmative action to compensate untouchable castes for these historical wrongs, the stigma against them continues in both subtle and overt forms to this day.
participation in elected bodies having political power. Social rights range from the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security, to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society.
This definition is important not only because it is the widely accepted liberal conception of citizenship, as also is Marshall’s view that civil rights are essential if political and social rights are to be guaranteed. The date of this quote is the year in which India became a republic and adopted its postcolonial Constitution, which makes a similar set of rights available to the Indian citizen. Social rights have been described as different from the others because they imply a claim on resources; but in fact the state needs resources to guarantee any of the three sets of rights. Social rights do imply a commitment by the state to undertake redistributive economic policies, something which was and is widely accepted, but which is now being questioned in the neoliberal world order. Progressive income taxation, state institutions for education and health at least, and some government expenditure for public welfare and ‘development’, are the major instruments for the securing of what Marshall describes as ‘social rights’ of the citizen.
Dalits. Permanent National Commissions have been set up both for the SC’s and ST’s, and for Women. There are also various economic schemes announced from time to time creating employment or granting welfare payments or other benefits to the ‘weaker sections’. Reservation of some seats in Parliament and state legislatures for SC’s and ST’s enables political participation of these groups; in the elected bodies of local government, there are reserved seats for women also.All these provisions apply to Dalit women as they belong to both the categories recognized as disadvantaged, namely SC’s and women. But we will see in the following pages that the different specific kinds of violence, humiliation, violation, exploitation and control which Dalit women are subjected to cannot be adequately understood as ‘double subjugation’ –or rather triple, since most Dalit women are also belong to an economically deprived class—and hence cannot be removed merely by applying the above kinds of laws. To understand this better, we turn now to the feminist critique of liberal conceptions of citizenship.
Dalit Women and Citizenship:
Feminists also take issue with women’s work in the household as being excluded from economic production, which is considered an activity of the public sphere. Marxists also accept this conception of the economic, and conclude that the emancipation of women is not possible unless they are brought out of the household to take part in ‘social production’. Socialist feminists, on the other hand, as we have seen, consider work in reproduction to be as important as in production. In the west socialist feminists have often taken the lead in struggles against the state over social security payments to families, where the state usually applies a patriarchal logic, discriminating against female-headed households.
Feminists in the west, especially after Black feminists began to make their own formulations and interventions within the women’s movement, have drawn attention to the fact that the citizen is always implicitly portrayed as a ‘White, heterosexual, able-bodied male’, and groups that do not conform to this universal norm still represent ‘the other’ whose claim to citizenship is insecure. This is one of the aspects of social exclusion, and the democratic state needs to take corrective action in favour of these groups. In India, the norm would perhaps be ‘Brahmin/upper-caste, able-bodied, urban heterosexual male’. The constitutional provisions and laws discussed above do take account of some disadvantaged groups of citizens, of whom Dalits form a large part.
Conclusion:
judiciary in India is not only patriarchal but wedded to traditional caste values, as many judgments demonstrate. It is very difficult to get conviction in cases of violence against Dalit women committed by upper-caste men. The relationship between the Dalit woman’s work in production and reproduction is somewhat similar to that of other women, but her work in production is usually of the most laborious or unpleasant kind, and with the most unfavourable terms of employment. With worsening conditions in agriculture, migration for work is becoming more widespread, as we see in a later section. Dalits are prominent among migrant families, whose labour is usually hired by contractors who set husband-wife pairs to work. Gender inequalities in both the public and private spheres structure the nature of work and terms of employment.
Reference:
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2. Mamta Rajawat, Dalit Women Issues and Perspectives, 2005.
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