Author: Uma Chakravarti
No. of pages: 183
Published in August 2006
What I will attempt here is to review the book, though am not exactly qualified to do, except by the fact that I read it to completion. I also want to review it for myself and other people who seek to understand the women trapped within oppressive caste structures. I sincerely hope that my readings or understanding of the book isn’t colored by my ‘leanings,’ identity, or experiences.
The book is divided into 9 chapters, each dealing with the different aspects of the caste structure, how it has affected the women trapped, besides helping the reader understand how this entrapment is crucial to the very existence of the caste structure. The obvious question of course is how understanding this entrapment will help us break the structure, or whether the structure can be broken by just freeing only the women? Well, the book left me with many more questions, which we will come to later.
Here, I will provide a gist of each chapter and also end it with questions that anyone of you reading this can answer or take to your groups for further discussion, analysis, and action.
The book starts with a prologue dealing with the anti-Mandal agitation, which saw several dharnas and extensive media coverage. An interesting incident that the author talks about is a placard that some women students from dominant caste backgrounds demonstrated with: we don’t want unemployed husbands! Now, the Mandal commission did not propose any gender-based reservation; the women could have protested for themselves, rather they were protesting for the husbands they haven’t yet met! Should one assume that these women do not plan to study and work, thereby reservation wouldn’t really matter to them? Or, are they saying it is impossible for them to marry the employed husbands, who will be from depressed castes? The author talks of how the women students had a self-imposed code of marrying within one’s caste, which in turn is crucial to continue the caste structure. The prologue also talks about the critique of how the feminist movement did not address the oppressive nature of caste and also the experience of Dalit women, since the oppression that a Dalit (or depressed caste) woman faces is multifaceted. It seemed like the book might fill this gap, but one realized that gap is far too big to be filled that easily!
Chapter 1: Understanding Caste
In this chapter, the author describes the changing perspectives on caste, the brahminical insistence on only the ritual aspect caste vis-à-vis Ambedkar’s clear articulation of it being a system of graded inequality where castes are arranged in an ascending scale of reverence and in a descending scale of contempt. She talks about the need to look at the cultural aspect of this caste structure, where the exploitation faced by the dalit woman is far more dehumanizing than the economic exploitation. My point is, the exploitation that the author talks about is the exploitation meted out by the dominant castes, and not by one’s immediate circle/caste/family. We are introduced to Viramma, a dalit woman writer from Tamil Nadu who resists the concept of purity and pollution. Again, it’s a response to the oppression from the brahminical castes. She also goes into detail, explaining the operation of caste through the Vedas and Manusmriti. She also correlates caste and class and how even today caste-based obligations are thrust upon people through coercion and other means. She touches briefly on access to resources such as knowledge and power, which was available only to the dominant caste male.
Questions for discussion:
- Throughout the chapter, one hardly found any evidence of the patriarchy that lower caste women face from men from the lower castes?
- Extrapolating the point, isn’t it too simplistic to assume that any patriarchy within dalit household is borrowed? In the sense, even there one looks up to the Brahmin?
After reading this chapter, I started to wonder who the bigger enemy is: Brahminism or Brahminical patriarchy? Doesn’t Brahminism include patriarchy?
Chapter 2: The Axis of Gender Stratification in India
In this chapter, we are introduced to how the caste structure functions. She talks in detail about endogamy an d marriage practices. It strives to establish how women are the gateways of the caste structure.
I reproduce here verbatim an important paragraph from this chapter: Brahminical Patriarchy is a mechanism to preserve land, women, and ritual quality. I we add to it the necessity of ensuring labor supply to work the land, we can see that caste and patriarchy in early India required not onky a control of the woman’s reproductive power of the upper caste, through whom ritual and land was to be preserved, but also of all castes to ensure an adequate supply of labor.
The chapters discusses at length about enforced widowhood among upper castes and forcible remarriage of widows among lower castes. This really hit a nail, because only hardly sees widows, well with clear markers, among lower caste women as much as we see among Brahmin women.
Questions for discussion:
How does one look at the lower caste woman who is also part of the labor force and not just the reproductive force? In that context, how does patriarchy change its color?
Chapter 3: Class, Caste, and Gender: The Historical Roots of Brahminical Patriarchy
In this chapter, the author traces the way the evolution patriarchy across societies, from tribal to the vedic society. Of course, one cannot deny the overarching presence of the Vedas and the dhramsutras in this understanding. There is also evidence from Buddhist and jaina texts that talk about a close relationship between caste and class. Especially, where certain varnas are given judicial privileges by virtue of their birth. The social institutions that were recognized were family and private property.
Detailed rules of marriage about who can be and who can’t married and what type of woman qualifies for marriage has been collected meticulously.
The chapter also deals with the stratification of the society on the basis of caste and the social changes it brought forth. Here, the author discusses briefly texts like Arthashastra that actually detail the means for expansion. She also talks of the intensified stratification that happened in the Tamil society (which till about AD 300 remained less stratified).
Chapter 4: The Formation of Patriarchy and Subordination of Women
This chapter in toto deals with the subordination of the uppercaste woman. Some of the areas covered are: Kaliyuga and Fear and Subversion, Control of Female Sexuality, and the Ideology of Maintaining Structures.
Questions for discussion:
- How about the structured, caste-based oppression of a lower caste/dalit devadasi? Isn’t she a subordinated victim of brahminical patriarchy?
- Does sita’s ordeal by fire to prove her chastity or Renuka’s plight (at her desire for another man) really make a difference to building the consciousness of building patriarchal constructs within a lower caste woman today? Even chastity (or its understanding in its nuances/complexes) is almost a luxury for a lower caste woman, who might be beheaded (not by men from her community) if she models herself against such women.
Chapter 5: The Diversity of Patriarchal Practices
In this chapter, the author talks about different types of patriarchical practices: widowhood, devadasi system, and dalit patriarchy.
Expectedly, it was a shorter chapter. Clearly, more work needs to be done.
Questions for discussion:
- How do women drawn from upper middle class, dalit families view patriarchy? How different is patriarchy there?
- How do today’s women view sex work vis-à-vis the devadasi system that seeks to provide sexual labor of lower caste women to upper caste men? Especially, here, there’s no question of choice.
- How do women look at class? How do feminist women look at caste and the privileges from it.
Chapter 6: Critiques of Caste and Gender Stratification
This chapter traces the various movements that challenged caste, including women voices. The way women asserted themselves within Buddhist sanga is also dealt with in detail. The contributions of the Bhakti movement and the virasaivite movement are also detailed.
Chapter 7: Pre-Colonial Structures of Caste and Gender: An Eighteenth Century Example
This chapter deals with the consolidation of caste and class against lower castes and women in the Pune. And, how the actions of both these groups were policed by the community and state.
Here, one is also exposed to the idea of social mobility of castes with usurping of power.
Chapter 8: Caste in the Colonial Period
This one was my favorite chapters because of the amount detail and the depth in the discussions. It talks about how the British actually played up the caste divisions and didn’t quite change much. However, they also bring me several laws that are definitely pro-women, such as the education an remarriage laws. The conversions and the social liberation (however flawed it may be) brought to the converted dalits are well covered. The gender angle is also beautifully captured in detailing the incidents such as the breast cloth controversy.
Questions for discussion:
- How does one look at the breast cloth controversy? Only the way the men looked at this controversy is given. How do women look at this? The shanar men, for example, wanted their women to cover their breasts exactly the way the upper caste women did. How did the women feel about being told to d something, as if she lacked any individual faculty to decide for herself in the context of liberation through embracing of another religion?
- How should one view caste mobility in today’s context? The aim of the movement should be annihilate caste than seeking an upward movement; how can that be enabled? Doesn’t that require coming together of critiques of caste and class? And, in this context, how does one bring in gender?
Chapter 9: Caste and Gender in Contemporary India
The chapter brings you back to the actual reality of caste and its hold on the country. The author has painstakingly collected several instances of caste violence, both from the state and the community. She presents evidence of how caste is a major factor when it comes to marriage, going by the types of ads in the matrimonial columns. But, yes, she ends the book on a positive note as she traces Dalit politics, which has emerged as a formidable force, especially in the context of the Dalit Panther party in Maharashtra. She also talks on women, especially dalit women, in this struggle against caste.
Questions for discussion:
One must be able to understand patriarchy and its forms to be able to question it and call it by its name. How does one do that? Brahminical patriarchy has its own way of snaking itself into dalit and lower caste households and naturalizing the same. How does one stem at rot?
