Casteing Gender At The Ballot Box

Goddess. A divine aura is often conferred on the Indian woman in common speech. The reality that fills daily lives, though, is the spectre of a broken body. Not broken by its fragility, but by deli­­b­erate violence. Mayawati has faced this violence바카라�a political opponent바카라�s sexually-loaded barb in 2016, a physical assault by armed goons of another rival in 1995. She came out strongly on both occasions, calling herself a Devi of the Dalits as a riposte. She would often refer to those abuses as a Dalit, as a woman. These are wounds women face, subjects of debates on women, for women and by women, from which, many rhetorical questions arise, activists say. Women, especially Dalits, ask바카라�is it patriarchy, or is there a double violence, that of caste? And as Uttar Pradesh gets ready for assembly polls, similar questions crop up. Are women a caste or a constituency? There has already been social engineering of caste. Now, there is talk of re­organising caste. Where does gender stand in all this? How do ordinary women, caught between caste and gender, or outside of it, express their political aspirations at the ballot box?

The questions come on the back of assembly elections in Bihar, West Bengal and Assam that threw up 바카라�women as vote banks바카라� recently. With north India바카라�s caste parties swatted aside in poll after poll since 2014, the air is rife with speculation about the possible emergence of newer political equations and questions. Will women decide who rules Uttar Pradesh? What role will caste play in the equation?

UP is no stranger to strong women in politics, from India바카라�s first woman chief minister Such­eta Kripalani, to Indira Gandhi and now Maya­wati. Over the past year, Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal have retained power on the back of women바카라�s votes. But in UP, where caste is deeply entren­ched in the socio-political fabric and domina­tes electoral politics, can women as a homo­ge­nous voting group work?

Gender as a Political Category: Women as an exclusive political group is not a novel idea. In the West, recognition of women as a separate category goes back to 바카라�first wave바카라� feminism, which focused on universal suffrage. In colonial India, similar demands led to reservation for women in politics, education and jobs. But since the turn of the new century, a demand to recognise intersectionalities within feminists has grown stronger, helped in no small measure by the empowerment and emergence of Dalit-Bahujan women as a political force.

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Sociologist Vivek Kumar of JNU feels that despite political leaders and their parties foregro­unding women바카라�s issues from time to time, int­­er­sectional issues of women across social and economic stratifications like caste and class have remained untouched. He stressed the need for parties, governments and feminist groups to look beyond gender. 바카라�If society is so infected with caste, how can women remain untouched by it? How then can women organise independently with gender as their primordial identity?바카라� Kumar asks.

According to Bahujan scholar Kalyani K., policy instruments and outreaches for women still fail to reflect their intersectional needs because of the lack of recognition of 바카라�Dalit-Bahu­jan woman바카라� as a separate category. 바카라�Caste ide­n­tity has doubly marginalised Dalit-Bahu­jan women, by excluding them across social, cultural and political realms,바카라� she points out, adding, 바카라�Even if their presence has made a dent in political dynamics, their contribution is limited as something in passing, or as a matter of vote banks and alignments.바카라�

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This, according to activist Shobhna Smriti, is the main reason for the 바카라�invisiblisation바카라� of Bahujan and minority women as voters. 바카라�We get nothing. The centre and states have sche­mes like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Ujjwala, etc. But most of it is eyewash.바카라�

Smriti feels Bahujan women in UP have almost no representation, despite forming a chunk of the women voters. 바카라�There are caste vote banks, there are women vote banks. But what about lower-caste women?바카라� she asks.

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No party understands the importance of caste equations and of perceptions better than BJP. PM Nar­en­­dra Modi recently launched Ujjwala 2.0, yet another scheme to woo women voters ahead of UP바카라�s assembly polls. Mean­wh­ile, the Yogi Adityanath government laun­ched the third phase of Mission Shakti, which makes women바카라�s safety and dignity the cornerstone of development in the state.

All these programmes, Smriti says, treat women as a homogenous group, while ignoring ground realities. As per NCRB data from 2019, ten Dalit women and girls are raped every day across India, but only 29 per cent of the accused are convicted. 바카라�Successive governments have made provisions for women as a homogenous category. As a result, caste-based crimes get presented as crime against a woman, not as one against a Bahujan woman,바카라� Smriti says. She adds, 바카라�This is intrinsically wrong, as it tries to depict women as an identity that is caste-less, or a caste in itself.바카라�

Gender as Caste?: The argument of looking at gender as a homogenous 바카라�backward바카라� category akin to caste has been repeated several times, especially in the context of women바카라�s reservation. In her book Gendering Caste, historian Uma Chakravarti looks at how the caste system controlled upper caste women through their sexuality, and lower caste women by appropriating their labour. She highlighted an incident when upper-caste women protested against reservations during the Mandal Commission upheaval. One of their placards read: 바카라�We don바카라�t want unemployed husbands바카라�.

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In his first paper, 바카라�Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development바카라� in 1916, B.R. Ambedkar argued that the caste system survived upon oppressing women by controlling their sexuality through endogamy, that is the custom of marying within a local comunity. Thus, both caste and gender oppression are rooted and codified in Indian scriptures and texts like Manusmriti.

With the weakening of BSP in UP, the political participation of Dalit-Bahujan women has taken a back seat, feels Kalyani K., whose research focuses on Dalit-Bahujan politics in the state. 바카라�However, Dalit-Bahujan women are now exploring newer Ambedkarite alternatives through Chandrashekhar Azad바카라�s Azad Samaj Party and other political coalitions,바카라� she adds.

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As the state readies for a long-drawn election season, one thing is clear바카라�by labeling women as a homogenous vote bank, especially in a state as stratified as UP, issues important to women may once again get swept under the carpet.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Casteing Gender At The Ballot Box")

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