The Indian Caste System & the Dalit Women

In case you didn’t know, India’s society is divided into four hierarchical groups called castes. Being born into India’s Caste System implies that your life and identity is established from birth, and that anything below the 4 mentioned castes is not worthy of consideration, such as the (approximate) 200 million Dalits. The latter group, once called “untouchables”, belongs to the lowest caste in India, meaning their birth automatically labeled them as impure or less than human. Not only are their lives constantly at risk, but they are also assigned the lowest jobs, they can’t drink from the same wells, wear shoes in the presence of an upper caste or attend the same temples. 

If being part of the Dalit group wasn’t hard enough, Dalit women face particular hardships. They form the largest socially segregated group globally and comprise sixteen percent of India’s population.

Being at the bottom of the caste ladder, the women are subjected to abuse, including ‘special’ acts of sexual violence reserved only for these women; upper-caste groups use them to reinforce the hegemony. The lack of adequate support systems, intrusive medical examinations, and difficulty in obtaining convictions are some of the reasons why crimes go unreported. Sexual assault can be an everyday occurrence, but families remain scared to report the crimes, which the police regularly ignore. Dalit women often do not know their rights, and many are illiterate. 

In 2020 a Dalit girl, Hathras, was brutally assaulted by a group of upper-caste men. Managing to crawl to a hospital in Delhi, her family were barred from visiting her. After videos emerged, Hathras’s case sparked worldwide protests, but the damage was done. Aged 19, Hathra died from a spinal injury and was inhumanly cremated in the middle of the night without the knowledge of her family.

These women are victims of culture, structures and institutions that oppress them, and they lie at the intersection between caste and patriarchy. All of these are factors that they cannot control. 

The poem below is an extract from A Dalit Woman in the land of Goddesses, by Aruna Gogulamanda, which reveals the hypocrisy of the Indian culture; it boasts about celebrating women as goddesses.

Her eyes two dry hollows bear silent witness
To hundreds of deaths of her mothers, daughters, sisters
Their dreams, respect and their bodies.
Her calloused hands, her unkempt hair
Her cracked heels, her wrinkled hair
Tell the tales of living through fears and years
Of centuries and millennia of violations and deaths.
She was told
That she was dirt,
She was filth and
In this sacred land of thousands of goddesses
She is called a Dalit.