Uncuff India Episode 7: Resisting gender-based violence by armed forces

Through this fresh episode of Uncuff India, we attempt to understand the differential impact of armed violence on women and the impunity state forces enjoy. Through real-life examples from the Indian context, our magnetic guest, Chitrangi Kakoti, talks us through the multi-layered impact of armed violence on women, its consequent intergenerational trauma and what we can do to preserve memory regarding it. Chitrangi Kakoti has an MSc. in East Asian Relations and an MA in Critical Gender Studies. Her research interests broadly include gender and security studies, feminist social movements, cyberfeminism, and sexuality studies. Currently, she is working as a Senior Program Associate at TARSHI, a Delhi-based NGO.
Chitrangi Kakoti's photograph on a white background which is set against a patchwork quilt background. The image mentions the number and name of the episode and OFC's logo.

Transcript

Sanchi

Hello everyone and welcome to our podcast Uncuff India by One Future Collective. My name is Sanchi and my pronouns are she/her.

 

Uttanshi

My name is Uttanshi, and my pronouns are she and her. We are your hosts today, and it’s so good to have you all listening in. In today’s episode, we will explore the gendered impact of the increasing legitimacy of military violence. Military violence continues to remain a central feature of intrastate law and order, as well as international foreign policy.

 

Sanchi

Yes, absolutely right, Uttanshi. And as we also know, violence and abuse and the robbing of bodily integrity have become normalized aspects of the lived experiences of women, particularly those in what have been termed “conflict ridden zones”. As a result of this legitimization, women have been reduced to the collateral damage of these conflicts.

 

Uttanshi

To discuss this and share insights on what can potentially be done to mitigate and resolve this, we have with us Chitrangi Kakoti. Chitrangi has an MSc in East Asian Relations and an MA in Critical Gender Studies. Her research interests broadly include gender and security studies, feminist social movements, hyper feminism and Sexuality Studies. Currently she’s working as a Senior Program Associate at TARSHI, a Delhi-based NGO.

 

Uttanshi

We’re so excited to have you join us, Chitrangi. It’s really lovely to be learning from you and talking to you about this very important topic.

 

Chitrangi

Thank you for having me and inviting me on a podcast to talk about such an important topic.

 

Sanchi

Yes, like Uttanshi said, Chitrangi, we’re very happy to have you with us today and thank you so much for making time to join us for this conversation. We are really looking forward to learning thoughts and I will start us right off and let us begin at the very basics. So, Chitangi, why don’t you tell our listeners if you think that a situation of armed violence impacts women differently and how or how not does this happen?

 

Chitrangi

Thanks Sanchi for the question. First of all, I’d like to preface our conversation by saying that all thoughts and opinions expressed during our conversation are mine alone and do not reflect TARSHI’s. And thank you for that question. You know, the prevalent belief is that wars and armed conflicts are the realm of men and the masculine, while peace is the realm of the feminine, or that men are active participants during situations of armed violence and women suffer silently in the peripheries. But research by feminist scholars working on conflict and peace studies has shown that the gendered reality of conflict is far more complex. Women and children, especially young girls, are more likely to be killed as civilians. Women and children are also more likely to become displaced and become refugees and find themselves in camps that do not have adequate resources or structures to support them, be it food, shelter, hygiene, safety and so on. Also, during armed conflicts and war, women and young girls are more vulnerable to sexual violence at home. In refugee camps and prisons, in the hands of soldiers and even peacekeeping forces, they are also at risk of being abducted, trafficked and becoming victims of forced and militarized prostitution. Moreover, once the war or conflict is over, survivors are often not welcomed back into their families and communities, as their bodies have been or are perceived as having been violated. So there is a strong connection between war and control of women’s bodies, especially their sexuality and reproduction, due to nationalist scripts of honor and shame that are attached to women’s bodies. So the destruction, and also another point is that the destruction of the natural environment during war due to say a policy of scorched earth or contamination of wells etc. also has gendered impacts because in most communities, especially rural, rural communities, it is often women who grow food, gather fuel, collect water for the household, but, of course, here we must also ask which women? Because women is not a monolithic group and women’s experiences of war and armed conflict are diverse and influenced by a lot of factors such as age, class, caste, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality and also national identities. So women from marginalized communities are impacted more not just during situations of armed conflict, but also in their everyday lives. Also, another dimension to this is that women also directly participate in wars as competence or participate in and support the military economy. In fact, some feminist scholars in security studies have argued that the state and its militaries rely on women’s labor as nurses, clerical workers, faithful wives, patriotic mothers and sex workers to sustain its war missionaries. So to answer your question, yes, situations of war and armed violence are highly gendered and impact women differently. But we must also keep in mind that one, women’s experiences and the impact of armed violence greatly differ based on the intersections that one is located at. And two, armed and militarized violence is a part of the spectrum or continuum of everyday violence that women experience.

 

Uttanshi

Thank you for that, Chitrangi. I think a key point that came out for me while I was listening to you was, of course there is a difference in how women, you know, experience these situations. But also an important point about how women as a group is not a homogeneous group and there exists multiple intersections within that group that we need to be extremely mindful of as well. And I wanted to understand from you really, you know, there is a certain sense of impunity that state forces enjoy, that there is a certain level of legitimacy attached to them. What, according to you, encourages this impunity that they enjoy, what, according to you, you know, makes them feel like this is something that if they’re right or that is they can, they can get away with it?

Chitrangi

Well, there are many factors that encourage the impunity that state forces despite like that state forces enjoy despite being perpetrators of violence against women. One is, as I mentioned before, the fact that armed violence lies within a continuum of everyday violence against women and a larger culture of impunity in our patriarchal societies. So you have rhetoric such as the supposed “uncontrollable male libido” that justifies sexual violence and it is the women’s responsibility to protect herself. So you hear similar rhetoric to justify sexual violence perpetrated by armed forces during situations of war and armed conflict as well. Moreover, there’s a culture of excessive and pervasive militarization in a society that glorifies the society and our state forces. And that relies on the citizens of the nation being unquestioningly loyal and obedient to the state in return for protection from external and internal threats which are often manufactured or constructed. So lately in discourses, in public discourses, you have the “Muslim other” against which the Hindu state will offer you protection, or there is an insurgence at the borders of the nation state against whom Indians, Indian citizens must be protected. And, you know, this nature of militarization is supported by so-called special powers that have been given to the army through laws such as the AFSPA order, UAPA. But of course, only certain bodies or lives are worthy of the state’s protection and it is often through women’s bodies that this rhetoric of protection, disciplining and surveillance works, since women’s bodies are the symbolic bearers of ethnonational identity due to their role as the producer of the community or the nation. So sexual violence against women then becomes a tool for punishing, disciplining, and humiliating the enemy or the other even within the nation state and like the impunity, allows state forces to exert power and control over women of communities precisely because of these meanings that are attached to women’s bodies, as the bearer of, you know the honor of the community against whom these state forces are deployed. So yeah, these are some of the reasons why state forces enjoy impunity and the state in fact silences  symptoms of violence against women by any means possible. I mean, that’s why despite multiple demands, recommendations and protests to repeal laws such as the AFSPA, like the, these laws continue to be implemented.

 

Sanchi

Yeah. Thank you so much for bringing up these points Chitrangi and I think it was very interesting how you spoke about how the state tries to meet this rhetoric of protection against the other. And I think what also really stood out to me was when you were talking about this continuum of violence and listening to you, I was just thinking about the generational or the long term impacts that this continuum might have then on women. Would you like to share your thoughts on that?

 

Chitrangi

Thanks Sanchi. This is an extremely important question, so thanks for asking that. So memory and trauma are embodied, you know, the body remembers. So just to speak from my research, when I was doing research on Korean comfort women under Japan’s military during the Second World War, I read testimony after testimony of the long term impact that the forced militarized prostitution had on the comfort women. So for decades after the end of the war, the women could not speak up about the experiences and they had to suffer in silence because they feared being isolated from their communities or becoming outcasts. In India, we know of incidents of state sanctioned violence against women in conflict zones such as Kashmir or in the Northeast, and these stories have been repressed for decades. We don’t know so many of these stories precisely because survivors, due to the lack of accountability on the part of the state, or even recognition of the of the state, or even recognition of the violence and trauma that their bodies have gone through, often cannot access health facilities in the immediate aftermath of the violence, which leaves long term physical and mental health implications. Survivors also cannot access legal systems to get justice, especially when the violence is state sanctioned and occurs with impunity and armed forces are protected by special laws. Moreover, highly militarized regions of our country are subject to exceptional governance and exceptional laws under which civilians do not have access to justice systems that citizens in the rest of the country have access to. So women therefore have to either suffer in silence or resort to extreme for extreme forms of resistance such as hunger strikes and naked protests where whereby they weaponize and sacrifice their lives and bodies in an effort to get justice. Another point that I’d like to add here is that living in a state of conflict for decades does result in intergenerational trauma due to continuous sexual violence under conflict. Related PTSD and social, social, cultural disruptions, and even the destruction of a lot of these communities in conflict zones. But as I mentioned, unfortunately, due to repression and silence around state violence in conflict zones, our histories and political and legal systems hardly recognize the intergenerational or long term impacts of violence on women.

 

Uttanshi

You know, Chitrangi, as I was listening to you about these intergenerational impacts of this violence, I’m also thinking are there, you know, in your research and in your, you know, understanding of this theme so far in your study, have you come across instances where there is like how community has probably supported women or like has there been any evidence or any research done on? What helps a situation like this, if there is anything at all, Chitrangi, anything, right? Like what does it look like to be offering support in a situation like this to the survivors themselves as survivors, but also, as you know, bystanders.

 

Chitrangi

One is that there are organizations, say, like the Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International and other national organizations that work on human rights violations, that do a lot of groundwork in documenting and archiving, you know, these incidents of violence. They also offer legal support to file case courts, sorry, court cases against armed forces. But, as I mentioned, because of the impunity enjoyed by state forces and also because these are state sanctioned, it’s extremely difficult unless and until you have popular support to actually get justice. And so what happens is that it’s often that community members or the women within the community turn to each other for support, I mean, of course now there are, you know, there are more resources, although not as much as one would like for say, psychological support and trauma-informed counselling etc. But again, access to these services for people living in conflict zones continue to be really difficult, often within the community, and also due to the perseverance, dedication and commitment of organizations working in conflict zones where people or women find some form of support. But it’s again like I said as it’s very difficult to access these resources and services.

Sanchi

While you were talking Chitrangi and since we were talking about community and about justice, I was also wondering if you’d like to share with our listeners what does, like in such a situation then, an ideal support system or an ideal community ecosystem look like according to you? And has this also come up in your research or would you like to share thoughts on this?

 

Chitrangi

My research has not really looked at community support. My research has has looked at resistance against violence on the, yeah, armed conflict. So I would like to dwell upon that in answering your question. I think preserving stories of women’s lived experiences and their resistance against militarism and conflict is very important because they act as counter narratives to nationalist narratives of glorified, you know, militarism. So, again, you need resources and in terms of money and you know, infrastructure to actually build archives, so again, which is very difficult in conflict zones, but you know, there have been stories embedded in our popular discourse about women’s resistance against militarism. So, if I may, I’d like to not share, like just briefly talk about two stories of women’s resistance that have fascinated, intrigued and inspired me since I was a child, which are Irom Sharmila’s 16-year-old, sorry, 16-year-long hunger strike from 2000 to 2016, and the Meira Paibis’ naked protests in front of the Assam Rifles headquarters on July 15, 2004, both of which were protests against the AFSPA in Manipur. In my opinion, both these protests showed how women create an ecosystem of support for one another in order to resist violence or to challenge and even call out the state for sanctioning violence against the communities and the impunity that is offered to the state forces. Yeah, because you see, I mean Meira Paibis, which is a grassroots movement of women in Manipur, they have had a long history of, I mean, it began as a movement to address alcoholism and substance abuse in their communities and violence that is faced by like domestic violence that is faced by women in Manipuri communities, but then it evolved into a movement against the continued presence of the armed forces and the sustained conflict in the state. So yeah, here you see how women support each other in, sorry just a pause. So you see, so you see how women themselves have to create systems of ecosystems of support in absence of support from the state or even, you know, the rest of the country. It’s the support and the counselling and the remembering comes from the members of the community itself.

 

Uttanshi

Yeah, for sure, Chitrangi. And I think generally we’ve also understood really the value of, you know, preserving memory and preserving the stories and lives of of of such resistance. And I’m sure there are many such such important stories that are yet to be told as well. But thank you so much for sharing the ones that really stood out for you. As we’re approaching the end of this episode, I also wanted to check in with you, Chitrangi, if you have any quick, you know, things that our listeners can do to support and to to resist against such forms of violence. I understand that there is a wide group of listeners, but it will be helpful to understand from you what you think our role could be and what we could do to resist this form of violence and to demonstrate our solidarity with people who face such violence.

 

Chitrangi

Thank you for that question. That’s a very, I know, difficult question to answer. I think especially in the context of state sponsored violence during conflict because the state is so powerful, right, so how do you even resist it? But I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that we document, archive, and preserve women’s experiences and memories of violence, especially of violence under a state of conflict, because, you know, national histories and archives which build, which build popular discourses, largely do not document women’s experiences. It is important that these stories are embedded in collective memory and that we speak of them over and over and loudly and make them visible so that these memories are preserved and they also make us question and challenge nationalist histories and narratives, as well as the impunity that state forces experience in conflict. It can be as small as you talking to your friends and families and making them aware that you know these stories exist, these memories exist, these experiences exist. Another point that I think is important is that we all carry with us what feminist scholar Cynthia Enloe calls feminist curiosity, so feminist curiosity opens up ways to notice and challenge the insidious ways in which our sociopolitical systems function and maintain power structures. You know, we often do not challenge them or question them and just accept them as they are, so I urge our listeners to always be curious, to question and challenge these so-called traditions, cultures, societies and institutions. Look into the gaps, you know, and the silences. Be curious about them, ask questions about them and lastly, believe in women’s stories and support women’s resistance movements against violence. Yeah, so I’ll stop here and thank you for having me on this series.

 

Sanchi

Yes, thank you so much for sharing these very important points with us today, Chitrangi. And I think what you shared about counter storytelling, I think that’s that’s so important and I think we, at One Future Collective, also really value that and value the importance of sharing these narratives and sharing them loudly, as you said. And I also think that it’s wonderful that you quoted Cynthia because we’ve had the honor of having her on this very podcast for another episode, so I think it’s a great full circle moment and for all our listeners listening and do keep an eye out for these very interesting episodes then. Thank you so much for making the time to be with us today, Chitrangi. I think we’re taking back a lot of learning and so many things to reflect on and I’m sure that our listeners will absolutely agree with this. Thank you so much for your time.

[Outro begins]

Uttanshi

Thank you for tuning in today. Please leave us any questions you may have as voice notes on Anchor or in our DMS. We would love to hear from you. This podcast is brought to you by One Future Collective.

 

Sanchi

Yes, thank you so much. And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Facebook at One Future Collective and at One Future India on Twitter. And keep an eye out for future episodes, out every second and fourth Thursday of the month. Until next time!

[Outro ends]

Mapping and negotiating power

Uncuff India Episode 10: Dimensions of conflict and peace: visioning a utopian world

Uncuff India Episode 9: Civic space and dissent: A pathway to social justice

3 Questions from SAHELI’s ‘Building a Brighter Future’ panel

At One Future Collective, our work is based on developing the leadership capacities of people and communities, towards enabling them to access their rights. Participating in conversations that centre key communities needing, and capable of propelling, structural change are therefore crucial in our journey to nurturing social justice leadership. 

Our founder and CEO, Vandita Morarka, was a panelist on a panel titled ‘Building a brighter future: How do we empower young girls in our society?’. This panel was hosted by the Navi Mumbai Hub of the Global Shapers Community for their project SAHELI, and Teach for India, on September 16, 2023. 

To learn more about the specific objectives of this panel, and to get to know the panelists alongside Vandita, visit here

For a recording of the panel on YouTube, watch here

The panel discussed the importance of preserving the choices of young girls, approaching the issue of agency resulting from education and employment with nuance, how the patriarchy is upheld in the everyday, such as through the ‘tabooing’ of menstruation. Read below to learn about our key lessons from this series.

 

  • What does the patriarchy have to do with it?

Opening the conversation, panelist Prabha Vilas, founder and CEO of Work for Equality, discussed, with statistical evidence, the ‘double challenge’ of gender- and caste-based discrimination she faced in her journey as a first generation learner from a marginalised background. Panelist Samrudhi, who is a student working with Work for Equality, illustrated patriarchal oppression in the home in both rural and urban contexts through restrictions on women’s mobility and access to choice. Radhika Dhingra, founder of Badlaav Social Reform Foundation, further discussed how the patriarchy informs the physical, emotional and socio-cultural impact of menstruation on young women, leading to poor self-image, reduced self-confidence and physical and social mobility (through education and employment outcomes) for them. Vandita agreed, adding that oppression has multiple, changing agents – family members, caste groups, etc. The complex nature of power, she noted, can make it so that a group that may be marginalised in its own communities can be oppressive to others, stating the example of women from oppressor castes, who can perpetuate oppression not only to men and women from oppressed castes but also within their own families, to younger women. They also highlighted how patriarchal and other oppression need not always be active – sometimes, even the silence or inaction of those in positions of power can lead to continued oppression. They also gave examples of ‘patriarchy in small things’. 

 

  • Who are the key stakeholders in this process?

Through the discussion, the panelists identified three main stakeholder categories in the process of building a future for young girls: systems, communities, and the self. Vandita outlined this difference as being one of impact –  while personal reflection and growth in understanding one’s rights and the processes of accessing them is important, ‘no amount of personal training can change a system’. 

Prabha also highlighted the role of governments as an institution which are crucial to empowering young girls. Are policies written only on paper, or are they also executed for people? They stressed the importance of girl-led, girl-centered advocacy to improve how systems and communities see and engage with women – do people really want young girls to do better, if they are uncomfortable at the idea of women actually doing better and becoming ‘too’ loud, ‘too’ educated, occupying ‘too much’ space?

Vandita underscored the role of communities like families in building ecosystems of support around young girls – their experiences do not need to be understood in order to stand by them, ensure that their trust isn’t violated, and preserve their agency over their own bodies and circumstances. They also called the home the ‘last barrier’, and spotlighted One Future Collective’s Ghar Ki Baat campaign. 

Samrudhi discussed the role of the self in future-building – ‘No one will listen to us, unless we speak!’ She also highlighted the importance of building identities for the self and for one’s communities over time. Prabha agreed, talking about young girls traversing the journey from, ‘What can I do?’ to ‘I can do anything!’ 

 

  • What levels does change need to be actioned at?

Apart from the changes needed from the stakeholder categories identified above, the panelists also stressed the importance of changing our priorities in the conversation around social justice. 

Vandita talked about the role and space for men and boys in such future-building: they talked about how programs that engage men to address the harm done to them by patriarchal systems need to be differentiated from those for young girls and other gender minorities. Finally, they shared that the conversations around ‘including’ men in agenda setting for the empowerment of young women should focus on the need for men to be comfortable with letting go of power. If there is a fear of men having less power as a result of women having more, Vandita asked, then is it really about empowering women? Can more seats not be built around the table, if there aren’t enough?       

Radhika talked about the need for naming our taboos and confronting what about a subject makes it taboo. Similarly, Prabha expressed anger at the prescriptions communities and systems place on young girls like their behaviour, actions, attitudes, appearance – for young girls to reflect on their conditions and organise for action, they must have access to spaces that nurture radical thought and reflections on changework. Samrudhi shared how Work for Equality creates such spaces.  

 

What are your key questions when building a future for young girls?

Mapping and negotiating power

Uncuff India Episode 10: Dimensions of conflict and peace: visioning a utopian world

Uncuff India Episode 9: Civic space and dissent: A pathway to social justice

Uncuff India Episode 5: Caste violence, resistance and justice

Episode 5: Caste violence, resistance and justice

Through the fifth episode of the podcast, we aim to unpack caste violence, its agents and its various manifestations. Our insightful guest, Dr Swati Kamble, also speaks to us about the history of Dalit resistance, the role of women in the movement and also how writing became the medium for seeking justice.
Dr Swati Kamble is an anti-caste intersectional feminist and independent researcher-activist whose research broadly focuses on human rights and social justice movements, decolonisation and intersectionality. Currently, she is researching the digital activism of Dalit women and middle-class Dalit women’s mobility in the Indian neo-liberal market and is also collaborating with Dalit, indigenous and marginalised groups and organisations in India for the mapping and archival of indigenous forms of knowledge and decolonisation.
Content warning: mentions of caste violence and genocide, untouchability, physical abuse, gang rape, rape, sexual assault

Transcript

[Intro]

 

Abhinaya

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Uncuff India Podcast. I’m Abhinaya and my pronouns are she and her. 

 

Uttanshi- My name is Uttanshi and my pronouns are she and her. We are your hosts for today and it’s lovely to have you all listening in. 

 

[Intro ends]

 

Uttanshi

In this episode, we aim to understand the processes which inform writing and sharing about violence by the State, particularly by and about people from Dalit communities. We will do this by exploring how the State treats their writing and reporting of state violence, and will critically assess the challenges that the Dalit communities face, including the institutional violence embedded within the process of speaking up. 

 

Abhinaya

And State agencies are modeled on existing, unequal social systems. In practice, this can look like replication and aggravation of existing forms of violence. This becomes possible for the State due to the socio-political, and oftentimes even legal sanctioning of the actions of these agencies. Moreover, given that India’s ranking in the Press Freedom Index has only dipped consistently in the recent past, the silencing and erasure of marginalized narratives is often the outcome. Given these circumstances, through this episode, we aim to understand what’s speaking up against the State and or even speaking out about one’s lived realities mean for people at the intersections of these multiple vulnerabilities. 

 

Uttanshi

Thanks Abhinaya for that. To discuss this and to share their insights on this very important topic with us, we have with us Dr. Swati Kamble. Swati is an anti caste intersectional feminist and independent researcher activist. Her research broadly focuses on human rights and social justice movements, decolonization, and intersectionality. She has a PhD in Socio Economics from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Geneva and her doctoral research focused on the political mobilization of India’s caste affected, caste oppressed communities, their movement history and how this movement has shaped oppressed caste women activists into agents of change. In this research, she studied how Dalit women activists influence policy processes by negotiating and navigating androcentric upper-caste bureaucratic spaces of power. Additionally, she has studied Roma women’s movement in Hungary and how the European Decade for the Roma Inclusion Plan policy did not reflect the issues of Roma women that the Roma civil Society has been advocating for. Currently, she is researching the digital activism of Dalit women and middle class Dalit women’s mobility in the Indian neoliberal market. She is also collaborating with Dalit indigenous and marginalized groups and organizations in India on a project around mapping and archival of indigenous forms of knowledge and decolonization. I am so thrilled to have you join us for this episode, Swati. It’s been phenomenal to be learning from you and to be hearing your thoughts on this very, very important topic. Thank you for being here.

 

Swati

Thank you so much, Uttanshi. I’m looking forward to this conversation.

 

Abhinaya

Thank you so much Uttanshi and  Swati. I think to start off Swati, I think that there’s a tendency to generally deny that caste violence even exists in our society. So would you be able to shed some light on instances of violence that Dalit communities have experienced in India?

 

Swati

Yeah, Thank you very much, Abhinaya. Absolutely. There is this tendency due to the constitutional safeguards that exist today-  be it on paper most of the times that within India, Dalit communities marginalized communities in general be it also the Adivasi Scheduled Tribes Vimukta and (NT and DNT)-nomadic tribes and denotified tribes communities that who are protected, who have affirmative action, you know, reservation ensured through affirmative action or there is atrocities Prevention of Atrocities Act of 1989 that ensures that you know any form of atrocities against these marginalized communities would be punishable offense. So, and untouchability is constitutionally abolished within India we have these, you know, very very strong legal frameworks that address these injustices, historical injustices meted out against the untouchable communities of yesteryears who are named now Dalits and other vulnerable communities. But our society has not caught up to the constitutional morality that we have. And as we know that the fabric of our society, our Indian society, is a caste fabric, it’s woven in caste. So, all around us we see instances of violence right from institutional violence where students going into higher education or for that matter primary schools, you see that students experience casteism, students are told I mean they’re they are told about their caste while they are asking difficult questions. So, you are always told that you know be grateful for the favor that is done to you by the State. So, State and the society thinks that you are this protected category and are now benefiting from these fruits and you’re not deserving of these fruits. So you have case very, very famous case of Rohit Vemula in 2016 where not only was he a very brilliant scholar, we got to read him only through his suicide note which caused fervor in our our Indian society. And it led to a very strong momentum of student movement within India. A student movement of anti-caste communities, anti-caste students were when he asked difficult questions in the institutions around the Hindutva nationalistic rhetoric that is going around him and other anti-caste students were not allowed to enter the university premises. And when they protested by staying outside the university premises, it’s almost looked at as you know, the very symbolic performance of caste. Where you are ousted, you are ostracized in the similar fashion as written in the scriptures, like you’ll be punished if you have dared to read the Vedas, you will be punished with molten lead in your ears or your tongue would be chopped off. This is what scriptures prescribed, some 2000 odd years ago, 2005, 500 years ago and these archaic rules you see being played out in contemporary times too very very much. Where as a form of protest, Rohit Vemula committed suicide and the anti-caste community’s term it institutional murder. You have this very strong instance where his suicide note talks about his birth being his fatal accident that a human is not acknowledged for his shared humanness. But there will be these labels of caste, of gender, of how much money you have, what is a social cloud that you have, what are your social networks. These are the ways in which humans are graded. And that’s what we see time and again in our Indian society and it’s not only in this direct form of violence that we can not only it’s not only in this direct form of violence where people are murdered, people are killed, but also structurally because you’re not expected to be in these spaces, you’re not allowed to be in this spaces. So when you be there, you be amicable, you be docile, don’t ask questions, follow the norms, norms prescribed by the caste. You don’t do that. You are going above what you’re supposed to do. So this very strong power dynamic conflict arises when subversion takes place within the marginalized, when marginalized ask difficult questions, when marginalized ask truth. Speak truth to the power- the power be it educational institutions, power be it the State, political institutions, judiciary, you get confronted, yet you know Dalit communities have been very, very assertive asking for their rights because there is a 200 years long legacy of movement social movements and that really sort of has emboldened, emancipated a whole lot of Dalit communities. You have other very recent instance of Hathras gang rape in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is, I dare say, one of the most feudal states in India, most populous state and very divided state in the contemporary Hindu nationalistic State that we are in and you have three years ago, this young woman who was gang raped by the Thakur caste men and her mortal remains were burned by the police. So, police and judiciary worked hand in hand in covering up the entire atrocity that was meted out. Not only that, when the verdict comes out, you see acquittal of the four out of three of the accused and only one of the accused convicted and convicted under the Prevention of Atrocities Act. Despite the dying declaration of the victim who named clearly that she was forcibly sexually violated. So you see that our Indian society is very much steeped in this brahmanical patriarchy where Dalit communities are also taught lesson by controlling women sexually by, you know, doing this. So, Dalit women bear the multiple burden of violence. So you see, educated masses, the critical mass within the community gets the strong bowl blow. The women get the strong blow and these are the ones who are at the forefront of the movement too. So, their assertion on top of the violence that is over, like omnipresent, you see that when they assert, when they dissent and when they ask difficult questions is when they also experience violence. Yes. So these are two instances, but there are multiple of them. In Maharashtra you have Khairlanji that happened in 2006 and I was 20 year old who had just come abroad to study in Sweden. And I remember this very clear, clear as day September of 2006 when we heard of how the entire family was hacked to death, death, how the women of the family were raped, brutally dismembered and the violation is beyond, you know, it’s such a monstrous act. The violation is so extreme that one disbelieves. So I think the majority of society also plays an ostrich. It puts head under the sand and says, oh, look what all we have done. They had only reservation for 10 years. It was meant to be 10 years. It’s been prolonged and it’s been prolonged and it’s been prolonged all the while forgetting that the reservation is not an act to just remedy the, you know, class of poverty. It is an act to reparative justice, you know, all those in historical injustices need to be turned. That’s when we can say that this form of reservation can be ended or when the violence is like not only absence of direct violence, because absence of direct violence can be created by snifling the voices, but you could also, I mean you have to focus on restorative, reparative justice.

 

Uttanshi

 Yeah, no, definitely, Swati. I think there’s so much to unpack in your answer to our question and I think.

 

Swati

There is, yes, yes, it’s very complex.

 

Uttanshi

Yeah, definitely. And you know, I’m very intrigued to also step in to just break down some of this complexity a little bit more for our listeners. And I wanted to understand from you, you know, you shared experiences and examples of people from the Dalit community speaking against this form of violence and, yeah, you know, not being silent in the face of this sort of violence. And I wanted to ask. You, you know, what are, what are some of the ways by which we can start thinking about the challenges that a Dalit person faces when they come out and they speak truth to power, right?You of course mentioned some of them, but if you could just highlight, say two or three for our listeners to get that understanding and to be able to really empathize with the challenges that members of the Dalit community may face, it will be really, really fantastic.

 

Swati

Definitely. So you know I can go back to 2007 and eight when I was a master student and I decided to look at the constitutional guarantees or amendment that’s were made to ensure political participation of women and schedule caste and scheduled tribes. So because and this is also in the background of the 90s where we were really looking at decentralization of government and when we look at decentralization, it looks like ideal panchayat Raj where people have power or to true democracy where, you know, people collectively make decisions about their ways of living in the village. It sounds very sustainable and it sounds very romantic also. But looked at from the caste lens, the villages small, you know, closed knit communities tend to be the dense of, you know, casteism and violence. So, my research was looking at the violence experiences experienced by  Dalit communities, specifically Dalit women in the in Maharashtra in beed district- Marathwada region of Maharashtra, which is also within Maharashtra context is one of the very kind of a state region where Dalits have experienced extreme forms of violence also because of the existing movement of existing vibrant Dalit movement there. So, you see side by side the existence of Dalit movement and violence. The Maratwara region experiences the NAMANTAR ANDOLAN server, you would want to look that up. Namantar Server is changing the name of Maratwara University to Dr. Ambedkar University. Now Dr. Ambedkar had contributed tremendously in building educational institutions and, you know, laying out a framework for educational upliftment of marginalized folks. And so, therefore, it was only logical for the state of Maharashtra to lend that honor to him by giving the name of the university and symbolically, it’s not a very huge act, but when the society is casteized, when the society does not acknowledge the revolutionaries and leaders of the communities and when these symbols become, you know, markers of creating histories, taking spaces, acknowledging laying claim to these public spaces, universities, roads and so on, statue building, all these become contested issues. How do they become contested issues? That’s, you know, you rewriting that you were here, you are marking, you’re creating a signpost and then that signpost is not accepted by the dominant society. So, Marathwada region is a very unique region and that’s why I chose to go there to work with a Manavi Haqq ka Abhiyan, which means Human Rights Campaign organization led by late advocate Eknath Awad and there I was looking at how Dalit women are trying to participate in this constitutional amendment of 73rd and 74th Amendment, where you can participate in the Panchayat Raj as a chairperson. You can go for elections and become the chairperson or be the members. Now what was happening in 2006 and seven is that a lot of reports were coming forth. What kind of reports were coming forth of the political participation after a decade, decade and a half of this amendment implementation is that women are merely while women’s participation has increased, they are merely proxies or beti bahu brigade as in beti bahu and wives, daughters, wives and daughter in laws were made proxies to the seat of chairperson. So, the whole business would be taken care by the men of the family and within the Dalit communities it would be the landlord. So, the power dynamic in the villages were playing out and so this was the reporting that was going on in the newspapers and so on. On the other hand, I was also reading civil society organizations, reports, reports of assertion of Dalit communities to exercise the chairmanship and and then the violence meted out to them. So, you had NCDHR bringing out a report called Dalit Women Speak Out and there they mapped out violence against women who were participating in politics. In that research, I looked at 20 women who were participating in politics and, as a young researcher, I saw that you know I went with this feeling that our I went with this knowledge because, you know, you are also studying in educational institutions which are highly colonial, highly upper caste institutions. So you sort of take in what is told to you and I thought that I will have narratives of women experiencing extreme form of violence and I did encountered a lot of, you know, experiences of violence, but what intrigued me further was how these women were in the face of violence still going ahead, claiming their rights. So how did they claim their rights? They were not allowed to sit on the chair. So I wouldn’t be sharing the names of the women. This was already a decade and a half ago, but one of the women that I interviewed, she ensured sitting on the chair by having two police personnel around during the meetings. Another one invited during the flag hoisting of 26th January. She was not allowed to hoist flag for first two years. The third year comes, a whole team of police who stand there and she hoists flag in the presence of police. Now, she tells me these both women told me with amusement, but  to have these mere simple symbols of your citizenship as your as being a chairperson being played out you you are sort of having to have police protection. You have someone who went up to Supreme Court because she had a no confidence motion against her because she was asking too many difficult questions during the her chairmanship and she went ahead from High Court to Supreme Court and in the end the President of India felicitated her and she was very proud, but the ordeal that one goes through to sort of claim your simple citizenry rights that should be just ensured to you and it’s it’s quite intrigued me and it sort of turned my attention to look at what are the factors that facilitate the marginalized communities to sustain against all this backlash against all this violence and that’s what my research kind of tried to bring forth. You have many, many famous cases where you know a tribal community person, Mathura Mathura’s case or you look at the Bhavri Devi’s case, you see that these victims of violence, rape then become sort of face of the movement. BhavrI Devi in fact became so very active in her like trajectory after being the survivor of violence. So, these are a few instances from the like your yesteryears, you have the whole strong movement that has come up in recent years against the institutional violence that is taking place, student groups emerging. So, these are the instances where members of the Dalit communities are kind of and writing sort of like intellectually engaging, keeping the discourse going, talking over and over and over again that look around you violence happens because it can be easily forgotten to the point that, you know, Dalit communities are accused that you are crying the same cries all over again and you’re playing a politics of this caste discrimination to forward your own interest. These are the sort of accusations that are slapped at Dalit communities, leaderships and yeah we can even further talk about, you know, other sorts of allegations that the lit women face, Dalit men face, the question of Dalit patriarchy- the term that is introduced by the lip scholar Gopal guru. But how it is used, misused, twisted. How intersectionality is misused and twisted in our future questions.

 

Abhinaya

Thank you so much for your insights on that question, Swathi, and also for. Also, for depicting what forms Dalit resistance has taken over the years and what it manifests as as well, and since you also specifically mentioned the role of Dalit writing in sustaining and nourishing the Dalit resistance movement, I wanted to understand from you if you could elaborate on that a little bit more and also shed light on the value continuously writing about violence against Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi folks bring the brings to the table.

 

Swati

Thank you Abhinaya for that question. Dalit writings in recent years and even in the past years, like you know if you go you’ll have to trace back the history of the one of the first sort of documentation of Dalit writings you you look at  Mukta Salve was one of the students of Jyotirao Phule and Savitribai Phule, the first educators of in India of indigenous, you know, background and Mukta Salve writes very critically about the plight of Mahar and Mahan communities in Maharashtra and you see her ask very, very critical, pertinent questions and she talks about the multiple burdens faced by the Dalit women. She talks about intersectionality. I mean, of course, intersectionality came into being just 30 years ago, but the intersectional way of thinking already existed in Dalit writings. So she talks about how Dalit women bear the burden of labor. So, they are laboring classes, but laboring intellectuals. You see that they are, you know, in her writing she talks about how they have to give birth to their babies without a roof and the grueling labor that the men and women continue and that education is going to emancipate them. So, this emphasis on education is already there right from the beginning because she’s the one of the first ones of the community who has received, you know, the benefits of it and has gained her own voice. You come to the 60s and the 70s and you see Dalit writings taking much more revolutionary edge in terms of, you know, the Dalit Panthers movement, which led to literally movement to use literary movement. You look at Namdev Dhasal’s writing, it’s so explosive. One of the poem that touches me to the core is man- you should explode and you you get so uncomfortable by the way he is pouring out this sort of, you know, destruction and towards the end, he says once you are done with all this destructive way of being man, you should become human and that, like you know, is the essence of  Dalit writing. I feel Dalit writing invites us to find our humanity. It democratizes our, you know, social fabric which is, you know, very graded. So, you see in the 60s, 70s, 80s, much more Dalit literature coming up, which is it was coming up in such a sort of form that the label was attached to it-Dalit literature. You have Arjun Dangle’s Poisonous Bread, you have the Yapawars Baluto in Maharashtra, you have Urmila Pawar and Urmila Pawar writing. We also wrote Histories, a book where she’s documenting the activism of micro organizations of the little women in the city of Bombay in Maharashtra and she’s trying to unearth and uncover all these unnamed unsung heroines and heroes in her writing. Across India, writing sort of became an exchange within the communities to come together to mobilize. It was sort of a kind of creation of manifestos. What are we experiencing? What are we aspiring to? And it’s so it’s a very radical form of kindness, if I may say so. It’s a radical form of asking critical questions. It’s brave. And I don’t want to romanticize because there are a lot of issues within Dalit and other marginalized communities, but you know, women have been also at the forefront of asking these critical questions through their right things. They have also talked about the way Brahmin Brahmanical patriarchy has affected the Dalit Solidarity or Dalit household. You have Bama’s writing Karukku and you have U-turn by Omprakash Valmiki in the north. So these are very, very interesting books and thoughts produced in them kind of give way forward to Dalit communities. It’s a venting and you know the literature gets sort of accusations that it is descriptive, that it is experiential, that it is anecdotal and that there is no analysis, but if you read through, you see greater philosophical thoughts in those writings. My Mukta Salve is talking about education as emancipation. I mean that’s that’s so profound- like Jyotirao Phule talks about truth seeking society where he’s talking he he invites you to have a critical mind and you know this is way before Pedagogy of Oppressed which invites you critical consciousness came into being and I it’s it’s it’s really for me I feel that it it has made- I mean in in the the the 70s, 80s literature has kind of given a foundation for Dalit communities. And you you see in contemporary times, Dalit women mostly engaging in writings on digital platforms, art, they’re using digital platforms to communicate through their art forms, through their writings, by talking to each other, they’re coming together and internet space, which is also where you know now talking about marginalization, talking about racial discrimination and sort of has kind of garnered some attention- you see Dalit women hypervisiblised in a certain way and Dalit women try to challenge that. They try to challenge the victimization that is their victimization imposed on them. They are they have been victims of the violence, but that is not the only narrative that defines the lit women, Dalit women’s multiple, multiple ways of being are showcased in these forms of writings or communication and knowledge creation and in fact, you know, writing is a contemporary form relatively new to our human society, but before that, there have been indigenous ways, anti-caste ways of being. You know, to the point where I would even say that the dissenting communities of the yesteryears got this and I think I know that Ambedkar writes in his book Whoever Who were the untouchables, Who were the shudras– he’s in fact trying to say that the, you know, when the human divisions happen, those who were defeated or those who were asking who were dissenting were graded lower in the hierarchy. And so it was very important for the caste norms to in fact Ambedkar’s writings are also so very important. It’s no, it’s like, you know, intellectual work and I would also take it as very important literature. And he’s talking about castes in India, their genesis, the mechanisms and so on. Early in the 1930s, already in 1960s, sixteen is his first essay caste in India, then he in 30s, he writes Annihilation of Caste. So, in that 20 years of span he’s already thinking of how these mechanisms have worked to divide our society and how we have sort of ways to annihilate. I we’ll just briefly for a minute talk about someone who is sort of scholar of conflict and peace from Norway- Johan Galtung who, in fact, talked about triangle of violence and this this scholar in fact talks about how a structural violence, cultural violence and the direct violence clubbed together intensifies and creates this whole you know strong wall and I think Dalit writings have been trying to take off brick, brick by brick this structure and in his works around aspiring to peace, Galton also talks about, you know how we should focus on not merely in absence of violence as achievement of peace or achievement of conflict being resolved, but we have sort of have to envision this world of cooperation coexistent Co have like co creating justice. So we need to weave a new fabric of justice, and that’s what, you know, indigenous communities, Dalits have been trying to write.

 

Uttanshi

Yeah. And I think especially when you are speaking about, you know, how powerful their voices can be, reading about their work can be. It’s really something that makes us reflect a little bit more on, you know what, what kind of literature or what kind of stories are we listening to when we grow up? And what kind of stories are we sharing with the people in ours?

 

Swati

Precisely. Precisely.

 

Uttanshi

Yeah. And I think it’s so powerful to listen to you and especially the final thought that you shared with us and our listeners about about, you know, we need to weave a collective understanding of justice and what that means for us and it’s just, you know, the entire time you were speaking Swati, I’m just constantly thinking about. How insightful this conversation has been for both Abhinaya and me, but also I’m sure it will be for all our listeners as well. I also know that there is so much to talk about, but thank you so much, Swati, for the time to do this, for, for talking about this, with this much patience and and and with this much care. It’s really been phenomenal to be listening to you.

 

Swati

Thank you so much, Uttanshi. I really look forward to this episode and comments of the listeners too.

 

Uttanshi

 Yeah, definitely. Swati, I also want to just take a quick moment to thank our listeners. 

 

[Outro]

 

Uttanshi-Thank you so much for tuning in today. Please leave us any questions you might have as voice notes on Anchor or in our Dms. We’d love to hear from you and hear your thoughts on this episode. This podcast is brought to you by One Future Collective. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Facebook At the Rate One Future Collective and One Future_India on Twitter. And keep an eye out for future episodes.

 

[Outro ends]

Mapping and negotiating power

Uncuff India Episode 10: Dimensions of conflict and peace: visioning a utopian world

Uncuff India Episode 9: Civic space and dissent: A pathway to social justice