Editor’s Note: This month, that is April 2020, FII’s #MoodOfTheMonth is Dalit History, where we invite various articles about historical moments in Dalit movements as well as Dalits (Ambedkar, Savitribai Phule) in history who have been part of the anti-caste movement in India. If you’d like to share your article, email us at pragya@feminisminindia.com.
Trigger warning: Sexual Violence Against Women, Rape, Violence Against Dalits
With the emergence of Dalit academia Dalit History month is celebrated signifying the birth of Dr. Ambedkar, which is an occasion to share the platform for Dalit academic literature and personal writings on lived experiences of exploitation and oppression. Ambedkar’s own writings and that of other Dalit scholars have been slow in coming of age in post- independent academic scholarship due to inherent marginalisation of Dalits as a source of sociological knowledge also due to intentional institutional neglect of Ambedkar’s theorisation of caste. The Brahminical social order has successfully attempted to keep feminist approach to read the complicity of caste, gender and sexuality also as their exclusive preserve.
It is now time that production of knowledge on caste should be dominated and highlighted by Dalits themselves. This knowledge production by Dalits has the tendency to reshape the way caste has been viewed not only in the intellectual academic space but in society in general.
One of my key observations as a legal Dalit feminist scholar has been that literature on Dalit women produced by Dalit feminist scholars is minimal. My aim is not to undermine or critique feminist knowledge production on the question of Dalit women by upper-caste feminist scholars but to merely highlight the fact that not enough Dalit women have been able to access the privilege of producing intellectual work on the experiences of Dalit women. A Dalit woman is unique and her experiences are largely different from not only upper-caste women but Dalit men as well. This identity needs to be embraced, questioned and further understood through the lens of complex intersectionality.
This article attempts to highlight the Dalit woman’s body and experiences within the Indian courtrooms and judiciary. It not only aims to assert that the Dalit woman’s experience of violence, oppression and vulnerability results in systemic oppression; even the last resort i.e., the courtroom is not built to protect and ensure basic rights. It not only fails them but exploits them and discriminates them at every step in the struggle to obtain justice.
The process of justice redressal for Dalit women itself leads to new levels of harassment, the hierarchies of caste and gender deeply embedded in state structures and social bias lead to a whole new struggle. The legal mechanism and the language of the law is limiting due its structural frameworks. The courts and legal processes are ignorant and lack sensitivity when dealing with the cases of violence against Dalit women.
The process of justice redressal for Dalit women itself leads to new levels of harassment, the hierarchies of caste and gender deeply embedded in state structures and social bias lead to a whole new struggle. The legal mechanism and the language of the law is limiting due its structural frameworks. The courts and legal processes are ignorant and lack sensitivity when dealing with the cases of violence against Dalit women.
In order to contextualise this, I will use two famous cases of atrocities against Dalits as an entry point to underline the Dalit woman’s experience within the Indian courtrooms. It should exhibit how the law and its mechanisms fail to comprehend the complexity of oppression that continues to surround Dalit women even while attempting to access justice.
The first judgment that I shall use is the well known case of Bhanwari Devi. The Bhanwari Devi case sparked a movement which later resulted in the formation of the Sexual Harassment at Workplace laws. However, despite the popularity of this case gained throughout India (so much so that a movie starring Nandita Das was made on this issue) the realisation, assertion and importance of Bhanwari Devi’s caste is ignored or rather non-existent not only in the general discourse curated by the media but even within legal and feminist scholarship.
The second (once again well known and popular) judgement that I shall elaborate on is the Khairlanji Massacre. This case gives prominence to the brutal atrocities committed against Dalits by upper caste perpetrators and how the legal system fails them at every step of the dispensation of justice. However, again the important emphasis laid here is that the atrocities that took place against the women of the Bhotmange family were overshadowed by the larger discourse of violence against Dalits.
Bhanwari Devi
Bhanwari Devi’s case is a case which demonstrates the influence of caste bias in the justice delivery system and the inability of lower caste women to obtain redressal.
The facts of the case are briefly highlighted below:
Bhanwari Devi joined the Rajasthan government’s Women’s Development Programme, as a Sathin worker. In April 1992, she reported an incident of child marriage of an one-year-old girl in the Gurjar community to the authorities. The police came to the village and tried to stop the ceremony. On September 22, 1992, in the presence of her husband, Bhanwari Devi was gang raped by members of the Gurjar family in retaliation for her intervention in the child marriage. Upon approaching the police, Bhanwari Devi was told however, that she was too old and unattractive to merit the attentions of young men and that as she was a lower caste woman, a Gurjar man could not have raped her as he wouldn’t touch an untouchable.
Interestingly, this case was a watershed movement which led to legislation of law for Sexual Harassment at the Workplace, however, nowhere in the Supreme Court judgement can one read about the harassment faced by Bhanwari Devi because of her caste, the harassment by the men in the village, the harassment by the police when filing her complaint and the harassing comments by the judge in the District court judgement.
The trial judge acquitted the accused with the reason that, “Rape is usually committed by teenagers, and since the accused are middle-aged and therefore respectable, they could not have committed the crime. An upper-caste man could not have defiled himself by raping a lower-caste woman.” This is precisely the language used by the “honourable judges” in Indian courts. The Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 was not implemented.
Judgments have the power to change the way society functions and provide structures for the society to instill Rights based ideals of equality and basic Human Rights. Judges are bestowed with the responsibility of providing justice and setting precedents which have the power to transform society and rid it off inequality and discrimination. However, the judgment discus