Voices from the Indian Feminist Movement
Shibani Chaudhury
The feminist movement is at a reckoning moment. All over the world, including in India, women are bringing down their sexual harassers and assaulters. Feminism has finally made a resurgence in a global third wave. But as this happens, we have to decide who we are as a movement. Are we a phenomenon of Hollywood and Bollywood actresses, or do we stand for something more? Do we stand for all women, or just the ones who have a Twitter account? How do we go about intersectionality and diversity? Shibani Chaudhury, a filmmaker and executive director of the Society for Rural, Urban and Tribal Initiative (SRUTI), helps us answer these questions in an Indian context.
Mahatma Gandhi abolished India’s caste system at the time of Independence, but the repercussions of this 3000-year-old social system are still being felt today. Lower-caste women, or Dalit women, face the brunt of the discrimination. “There is a lot of violence that they deal with”, says Ms. Chaudhury. “There's a lot of alcoholism they deal with in their husbands. [They also] get married early, and their bodies are not strong enough, but they have to give into the physical intercourse that is expected after marriage. They also have to go through early pregnancies. They're not equipped to be taking decisions for themselves, and yet they become mothers with no access to education. They don't know their rights.” She continues that “[Dalits] are stratified into doing the roles of sweeping and sewage workers and sanitation workers. In the smaller towns you still
have manual scavenging of human waste. And therefore, because of
the extreme poverty and social stigma around the lower castes, the women end up being extremely, extremely exploited. Their role in voicing their rights within their own community becomes very difficult.” Often, the lower-castes are treated as “untouchables”, which reduces them to subhuman. Dalit women have it 100 times worse, because they are women in a deeply patriarchal and caste-driven society.
The first step [to inclusivity] would be to actually understand where there is agency, and where there isn't.
We move on to tribal and indigenous women, or Adivasis. Tribal people make up 8.4% of India’s population, and are often overlooked in political discussions. This is due to a variety of factors, not least of which that they do not make up a significant portion of the voting population; i.e they are not a
significant vote bank. Consequently, tribal women are often excluded from feminist dialogue. “It's not as if all tribal women are exploited and all tribal women are without agency. That’s a general kind of type cast. The first step [to inclusivity] would be to actually understand where there is agency, and where there isn't.”
“What do you mean by a tribal woman? What do you mean by a Dalit woman? Which part of India are you speaking
about? What kind of context do they come from? Because different parts, different people have claimed different levels of agency or are endorsing different levels of exploitation”. Understanding the plight of various groups is the first step in advocating for their equal rights. The narrative of the oppressed non-urban woman is entirely two-dimensional and regressive. Shibani Chaudhury is one woman helping to combat it.