Caste question: Everything is political: Lessons from 30 years of the National Federation of Dalit Women

Reflections on the long, continuing struggle for power and resources.

I rushed a Dalit woman to a police station. This woman had faced land grab and violence by dominant caste men in a slum in Bangalore. It was around 4 pm. The police inspector recognised me immediately and said with a smile, “Namaste madam, what would you like: tea or coffee?”

I looked at him and said, “I want your gun instead.”

He knew exactly why I said that. The police were complicit in this case. They had stood by and done nothing while this Dalit woman was tonsured in public, assaulted and dispossessed.

This episode reflects the crux of the Dalit feminist struggle. Every space we have entered has been and continues to be a site of struggle, whether in the world or in civil society and progressive movements.

As we mark 30 years of the National Federation of Dalit Women, I reflect on a journey forged through struggles and resilience. There is so much we, as Dalit women, have built against all odds. There is so much to celebrate and feel proud of.

Yet, one challenge continues to weigh heavily on our work today, just as it did three decades ago: the struggle for power and resources. The lack of it chokes our organising and sustenance. It stifles our vision. It must be named over and over again, until it changes.

Laying the groundwork

The establishment of the National Federation of Dalit Women was the result of more than a decade of emotional, intellectual and political struggle.

I started a women’s rights organisation called Women’s Voice in 1981, Bangalore. I led land struggles for urban poor women across Karnataka. Through mass grassroots mobilising and legal battles in the 1980s, we successfully got a long-term stay order from the Supreme Court against slum evictions in Karnataka. These grassroots victories were transformational in the lives of the urban poor but had little space within larger movements.

As one of the first Dalit activists entering the autonomous women’s movement, I quickly realised that Dalit women’s struggles were completely missing from the feminist discourse. I would attend meetings where women spoke passionately about power, patriarchy and sexuality but caste was invisible.

In those lonely early years, I found courage in the writings of anti-caste visionaries such as BR Ambedkar and Periyar. I read scholar-activist Gail Omvedt and Black feminists Audre Lorde and Angela Davis, who helped me find a language for what I was experiencing within the progressive movements and civil society in India.

Davis’s framework of race, class and gender resonated deeply. I adopted it to our context of caste, class, gender, and framed it as Dalit women are thrice-discriminated or triple-alienated based on their social location. I emphasised that “Dalit women are the Dalits among the Dalits”.

The Black feminist analysis of systemic oppression, of the need for self-determined leadership, moved me. I remember reading Black civil rights activist Vincent Harding saying, “Our ancestors did not wade through rivers of blood so that we might surrender the interpretation of their lives into the hands of others.”

That stayed with me.

Working at the grassroots, I witnessed how caste, gender, labour and inter-generational poverty intersect in the lives of the marginalised. That’s why I found myself equally engaged in the feminist, Dalit, unorganised labour and urban poor movements. I spoke extensively about the inter-connectedness of our struggles.

At the core was a clear conviction: our movements must be self-led, intersectional and political – non-partisan but political. It was this clarity that laid the foundation for several platforms I co-founded, whether it was one of the first registered Domestic Workers Union in India or the Slum Dwellers Federation, the National Center for Labour, or other national women and Dalit networks.

Self-determination is not divisive

On several occasions, I was told that by creating a separate platform for Dalit women, I was dividing the autonomous women’s movement. To which I would always respond that division occurs not because of us or our organising, but because of the caste system itself.

Dominant caste comrades asked me, “Why do you need a separate platform for Dalit women at the national level? Aren’t women agricultural workers and women informal labourers already being organised?”

I challenged them in public meetings and informal conversations: “Who is leading those movements/organisations/campaigns?” It was the elites from the dominant castes deciding what issues mattered. We Dalits, I insisted, must build our own platforms and strengthen our networks at the national level.

The formation of the National Federation of Dalit Women in 1995 was political, searingly political, not identity-based as elites reduced it to being. We were not building a platform simply to assert an identity. We were building an anti-caste, non-partisan, intersectional feminist movement, grounded in our lived realities.

In one of my earliest presentations on Dalit women in the late 1980s, I noted, “A Dalit woman is feminist, non-Brahminical, non-patriarchal and positively oriented towards ecology.”

Within the feminist movement, elite feminists welcomed Dalit women organising at the grassroots. There were several small community-based Dalit women’s groups at the state level and Dalit women’s networks in rural areas. The elites liked the image of “empowered poor women”. But when it came to leadership, resources and decision-making spaces, especially at the national level, they made sure we were kept out.

They ran the show, they decided what counted as “feminist issues” but the caste question was nowhere. They failed to understand that patriarchy cannot be dismantled without the annihilation of caste.

In preparation for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, the Women’s Voice and the Asian Women’s Human Rights Council organised the first-ever seminar designed as a public hearing on atrocities against Dalits in 1994. It marked a historic moment when Dalit women from across the country publicly testified to systemic caste-based discrimination and violence.

The jury headed by Justice VR Krishna Iyer and lawyer Nandita Haksar firmly reiterated that “Crimes Against Dalits are Crimes Against Humanity”.

This landmark recognition further solidified our conviction that we needed our own national platform, one led by Dalit women, for Dalit women.

The National Federation of Dalit Women was formally established on August 11, 1995, in New Delhi, weeks before the Beijing Conference in September. The formation was a radical assertion of our human rights. We declared that Dalit women were not just victims, but leaders, thinkers, organisers, visionaries and agents of change.

Achamma John, BM Leelakumari, Jyoti Lanjewar, Jyothi Amala, Jyothi Raj, Kumud Pawde, Martha Gladstone, Meera Velayudhan, Prema Shantakumari, Rajni Tilak, Ramakumari Panchal, Resley Abraham, Swarnalatha, Vimal Thorat were founding task force members of the National Federation of Dalit Women across states. So too were our fierce allies Aasha Ramesh, Anita Reddy and core members of our sister network, the National Alliance of Women.

The pre-and post-Beijing processes gave us the legitimacy and political space to collectively assert our rights at the national and global level. The Beijing process across the globe threw up the need for diversity within the feminist movement, and we, Dalit women, leveraged this opportunity. We used this moment to insert caste into the national and global feminist agenda and build trans-national solidarities.

Seen but not adequately supported

In the years following the Beijing Conference in 1995, “gender mainstreaming” became a buzzword across governments and civil society. Men-led organisations began to “discover” women leaders and feminist organisations increasingly started raising funds to work with “marginalised” women at the grassroots. The Dalit men-led organisations were not far behind.

It became a trend to have a “women’s wing/ Dalit women’s wing” or to be seen as working with marginalised women. Our presence became part of a donor requirement but it was hardly a commitment towards our political emancipation.

This shift led to a scramble for resources within the sector. The funding pie was limited. Elite organisations, feminist groups, Dalit women’s organisations, newly formed diverse NGOs, Dalit men-led platforms, and donor-favoured initiatives were all competing for the same pool of funds.

It was a cruel joke. The same structures that had historically excluded us were now appropriating our voices and struggles. They were tokenising our identities while sidelining our politics. Inclusion came, but only on their terms. Recognition came, but never with redistribution or reparations for Dalit women.

Everything is about power

In the post-Beijing years, the work on women’s rights was relatively better funded and women’s funds began to emerge. Yet, our demand for a dedicated Dalit feminist fund was systematically ignored through the years. Despite the progressive politics displayed, there was no political will to invest in our leadership and autonomy. We were only good enough for their reports and rallies, but never trusted with the resources to lead on our own terms.

Dominant-caste feminists in donor agencies spoke about “decolonising” funding and shifting power, yet remained largely silent on the urgent need to “debrahminise” it. Less than a handful of dominant caste women in influential positions ever moved resources to the National Federation of Dalit Women.

Power within the feminist movement was carefully guarded. The elites could not tolerate how some of us from marginalised communities with our “broken” English and presumed “lack of intellect” were beginning to lead and shape “mainstream” feminist agendas. I sure did not fit their mould of a “helpless Dalit woman” or of someone who gets to represent feminism and that made me a nuisance to them. Even a competitor, in some sense.

A renowned Brahmin feminist economist, from an illustrious family, served alongside me on several government of India committees, from the Ninth to the 12th Five-Year Plans. She would often say: “Ruth, you are an activist. I am an intellectual, I can articulate issues better, leave it to me.”

But while she brought data and pedigree, her measured voice rarely stirred the power corridors like mine did. My voice carried the fire and realities of my people’s struggles. And anyone who knows me, knows I was never one to be silenced – no matter who sat across the table.

Governments and bureaucrats, across party lines, knew me as a leader of the masses. And I was loud and unapologetic. Even when the resistance came from within, I stood my ground.

The fight for resource justice

A few years ago, a dominant caste feminist, who also happens to be a funder, said to me very candidly, “Ruth, we want to support new groups. Younger Dalit feminists. Fresh energy.”

“Great!” I said. “And what is your grant size per group, per year?”

She mentioned an annual amount – one that I knew was equivalent to what she earned in a month.

“So this is what funders mean by resource justice?” I asked

She went on to explain constraints of funding new Dalit feminist groups. “It is a capacity issue,” she said. “Many Dalit feminist groups start with enthusiasm but do not last, due to internal problems and lack of capacity.”

I replied: “You call it a capacity issue. I call it disinvestment.” If you want capacity, then build it. Stand with us for the long haul.

Supporting young Dalit feminists is undoubtedly important. There is no contesting that. But if you do not also fund the older organisations that created the very conditions for these young leaders to emerge, then you are not supporting a movement. Without sustained support, how will older organisations continue their work, pass on their knowledge and nurture the next generation?

Building the capacities of historically marginalised women takes time: years, sometimes decades. It requires consistent support, deep trust and the space to make mistakes and grow. Most of our organisations do not have the privilege of hiring graduates from elite institutions. We also intentionally make a political choice to hire from within our own communities: women with limited formal education and little exposure, but rich lived experience. This means we invest time and effort in strengthening capacity with every hire.

Unlike elite-led NGOs, which for decades have hired from top institutions and accessed world-class training, we start with far less. Their caste privilege is a web of advantages: socio-economic-cultural-political capital, with the ability to name-drop and navigate power, from the police station to the panchayat to Parliament.

Dalit women’s organisations are expected to perform miracles with crumbs. We are expected to do the most radical grassroots work, build a second line of leadership and sustain ourselves with no intergenerational investment.

It is time to radically revisit the idea of resource justice from the standpoint of historically marginalised women. Resource justice to us means recognising historical injustices and redistributing resources with urgency, depth and political intent. For us, resource justice is reparative justice. It means long-term, core, flexible support to those who have been kept out of power structures for generations. Without this shift, the promise of transformation will remain unfulfilled.

No neutral ground

We celebrate how far we Dalit women have come: our courage, our organising, our undeniable impact from the local to the global level. Through our relentless efforts, we have contributed to deepening the global discourse on inequality and intersectionality. However, I am also painfully aware of the work that remains.

Dalit women have always faced repression from state forces and social structures alike. But today, the space to organise is increasingly surveilled and silenced faster than we can reclaim. This political moment demands more from all of us than ever before.

So 30 years later, we ask again: who will stand with us?

The future of any transformative movement, feminist or otherwise, depends on how it stands with those at the very bottom of the social hierarchy. Will it rise to defend our right to co-exist, co-organise, and co-lead? Or will it remain comfortable in its complicity? Because in this political moment, there is no neutral ground. You either invest in transformation or you stand in its way. It is high time for the caste elites to share power, resources and solidarities. It is the only way forward!

Ruth Manorama is a Dalit activist and a founding member of the National Federation of Dalit Women.

Source : Scroll.in

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