Illustration by Opashona Ghosh.

In a church adorned with jasmine flowers and fairy lights, I appeared into the eyes of my companion and mentioned “I’ll”. It was a couple of weeks earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic, and the pews had been full — my family and friends had flown into Visakhapatnam from everywhere in the nation, and the world, to attend the ceremony. I used to be sporting an off-white brocade sari, a champagne-coloured veil that matched the sari’s zari and a shade of lipstick that was in keeping with my brown-skinned basis. I preferred how I appeared. After reciting my vows, I walked the marriage march holding my companion’s suited elbows — feeling liked and achieved.

This second had been 16 years within the making. After a number of (exhausting) dates, a number of relationships that went nowhere, unspeakable abuse and hours of remedy, I discovered my house in a Dalit man. He got here into my life at a time after I had resigned myself to believing that love was too entangled in caste for it to be true.

My mom — additionally a Dalit feminist in her personal proper — had anticipated this second for fairly a while. This was typical for an Indian Christian household, however there was additionally a special cost to this as a result of I had misplaced my father 12 years in the past in 2010. His departure meant that my marriage ceremony turned her sole duty, and her lack of social capital would make the pursuit troublesome. In contrast to her friends, she had not coerced me into looking for an organized marriage, and she or he pushed again in opposition to those that undermined my “price within the marriage market”. She did her half to make me imagine in “real love” and wished that I, too, would discover somebody who cherished me as my father cherished her. The marriage, thus, was her miracle; a lot in order that she wore flowers in her hair for the primary time after my father’s passing. And to at the present time, she retains reminiscing in regards to the occasions that led as much as our marriage ceremony, together with the parai attam that kicked off our reception in Chennai.

Throughout my pursuit of this real love, I spent most of my twenties believing that “love conquered every thing”. I used to be unaware of my perceptibility as a dark-hued Dalit lady and the implications that held for others round me as I began performing upon them. “It’s a power in contrast to another”, I had internalised and argued, a power that transcended faith, like in Bombay, or caste, like in Kaadhal, or class, like in Maid in Manhattan. And with each bitter expertise, I satisfied myself that my companion was only one date away, one flight away or one swipe away.

I watched the second season of Bridgerton with a lot glee. Throughout certainly one of her conversations with Anthony, Daphne describes love as this: “In the event you say she is the one in whose presence, you can not correctly assume, and even breathe. In the event you say you’re feeling that feeling…the one which makes it unattainable so that you can look away from them at any given second.” The depiction she gives is definitely charming, endearing even. It’s also no completely different from what well-liked tradition has dictated about how need feels — this apolitical romantic attraction based mostly on preconceived notions of what a fascinating physique seems like. However it doesn’t take into account how need, in and by itself, may very well be a selection that’s conditioned, nevertheless private it might seem at first. And regardless that Bridgerton is just not a present I look in direction of to present me an astute articulation of caste and racial hierarchy constructions, what it does supply is fantasy. However, it does so with out acknowledging that fantasies are sometimes merchandise of systemic forces.

The query then turns into this: is it doable to really feel need while you haven’t already labored in direction of desirous to need that particular person? Haven’t been conditioned into desirous to need that particular person, socialised into wanting that particular person?

A decade in the past, I met a nadar Christian man on a matrimonial web site. He advised me it was “tremendous” that I used to be Dalit, “so long as I didn’t present it”. The extent of his bigotry and its egregiousness from that time unravelled shortly. Shortly after, he disclosed his perception that Hitler’s concept of Aryan supremacy made full sense and, by extension, so did brahmin superiority — which drew upon the identical logic of hierarchy and subjugation. The very subsequent day he advised me his household has insisted he marry into the caste. I continued up to now him, and in that, I went by means of extra emotional abuse that broke down my confidence in methods I may by no means heal from.

After I assume again upon all of it, it strikes me as painful dissonance. To say that I felt lonely as a Dalit lady navigating city areas within the face of an utter lack of relatable views on need, doesn’t cowl a modicum of the despondence I skilled due to the loneliness. On the one hand had been savarna feminists, who had been heralding a brand new world of sexual openness and exploration. They had been pursuing supposedly edgy and aspirational writings in regards to the orgasm hole, polyamory and informal intercourse. However, had been the ladies in my household, who had been harping on in regards to the significance of morality and modest aesthetics. I turned a residing paradox: feeling pressured to discover intimacy in a single second as a result of I used to be a “trendy lady” and guilt-ridden within the subsequent as a result of I used to be flouting 100 guidelines of respectability. Whereas rising up, I used to be advised that essentially the most cardinal of all sins was sexual promiscuity. This instruction, nevertheless, didn’t simply stem from our Christian beliefs however, somewhat, from a worry that we may get slut-shamed and the severity of the social penalties that will maintain. The precarity of our lives and reputations may very well be threatened even by an unfounded hearsay. Our solely supply of social capital — the Tamizh Christian neighborhood — may additional ostracise us along with the discrimination they had been already inflicting. The worry that I may very well be known as “simple” and the fact that males of all castes interpreted my innocuous gestures as “slutty”, influenced most of my romantic and sexual selections throughout my youth, after I approached need with trepidation.

Considered one of my first understandings of the sort of conservatism I used to be experiencing got here by means of my friendships. Curious variations between our experiences, regardless of some outward similarities, baffled me. It’s not like my savarna girlfriends didn’t have worry drilled into them too; they got here from households that had been conservative in their very own methods. But, their worlds had been starkly completely different from mine.

Most of them recognized as feminists and had the notice to recognise abuse inside intimate relationships, however they didn’t appear to grasp how energy differentials between companions — particularly when certainly one of them is a Dalit lady — intensified the potential for violence. They appeared unaware of the ecosystem that was enabling this hurt and would inform me that I used to be too choosy every time I shared my tales of those disappointments. I felt let down by this lack of engagement, to not point out their disinterest in understanding the specificity of my scenario and the stereotypes Dalit ladies should confront.

My expertise with the nadar man, and those that got here each earlier than and after him, felt alien to my savarna mates. In a single occasion, within the aftermath of an abusive episode with an ex-boyfriend, I used to be cautioned to “be very certain earlier than I broke up as a result of there was no assure I’d discover somebody once more”. By not understanding the unfairness inherent to the scenario, they distressed me additional. I clearly knew what I used to be listening to was unfaithful, however due to my poor self-confidence, I used to be unable to brazenly query it. I bear in mind freezing up as my buddy mentioned these phrases; certainly one of my fears was being validated by somebody I belief.

Dr Tamalapakula, in her sensible evaluation of the situations of Dalit ladies on Indian school campuses, explains:

Whereas the assertive mainstream feminist is revered, the assertive dalit lady is generally condemned each by upper-castes and dalit male teams. The reason is the seen assertion of feminist college students is known to be the results of superiority of their caste/class and concrete life […] the place because the dalit center class lady is anticipated to reject sexuality to suit the stereotyped picture of a sufferer of caste based mostly sexual violence.

No matter how my savarna girlfriends exercised their sexual freedom (informal intercourse, intercourse with coupled males, queer experiments), they by no means appeared to expire of prospects for courting or marriage. If any of them failed to search out an individual by means of trendy strategies of courtship, their households had been nonetheless capable of finding them a companion by means of organized marriage; their “hoe section”* not coming in the best way of this. They successfully leveraged international discourses on sexual liberation to permit themselves comfy selections.

Ladies’s life-style magazines had been worse; they printed a number of first-person items about sexual experiences however by no means acknowledged intimate abuse, not to mention delved into its intersections with caste — and the character of abuse that emerged from comparable interactions for a Dalit lady. Granted that the knowledge ecosystem in my early twenties was markedly completely different from what it’s at present, nevertheless it additionally exhibits how decision-making constructions had been skewed again then. It’s not shocking that the experiences of Dalit ladies — in romance, intercourse and need — weren’t of curiosity to editorial groups, which had been largely dominated by savarna women and men. This explains why I didn’t obtain the training to critically perceive well-liked tradition and the romantic lives of my savarna friends; it didn’t happen to me till my exes turned express of their casteism, when the language to grasp their contempt turned pressing.

Though my publicity to mainstream feminism, which manifested within the media I used to be consuming and thru my mates, made me need to blame the ladies in my household for his or her “regressive positions”, I later understood why they had been so austere when it got here to intercourse and need. They known as themselves “no-nonsense” — a time period that indicated a sure comportment; they hoped it might deter undesirable sexual advances. This resolution —made each purposefully and subconsciously, to take care of and mission a morally upright conduct — was essential for his or her survival, particularly amid the prevalence of caste-based sexual violence. They needed to work additional arduous to deal with the impunity with which this violence arose and to come back throughout as “respectable ladies of worth” as a result of Indian societies, by default, ascribe worth to people based mostly on caste.

In a piece I wrote in 2018, I discussed that in Hinduism, the brahmin lady is deemed to be essentially the most priceless amongst ladies — adopted by the kshatriya, the vaishya and the shudra. No worth is connected to the Dalit lady; she is thought to be one of many lowest of life varieties — polluting and soiled, and on par with wild animals. I had begun investigating the intersection of caste and need in my twenties, and I dug additional into the roots of what’s believed to legitimise violence and discrimination inside Indian courting. The next verses from the Manusmriti illustrate additional:

[Chapter 8: 373] “A double tremendous needs to be imposed on a person who has already been convicted and is accused (once more) inside a yr, and it needs to be simply as a lot for cohabiting with a lady outlaw or a ‘Fierce’ Untouchable lady.”
[Chapter 11: 176] “If a priest unknowingly has intercourse with ‘Fierce’ Untouchable ladies or very low-caste ladies, eats (their meals) or accepts (items from them), he falls if knowingly, he turns into their equal.”
[Chapter 12: 55] “A priest killer will get the womb of a canine, a pig, a donkey, a camel, a cow, a goat, a sheep, a wild animal, a hen, a ‘Fierce’ Un-touchable, or a ‘Tribal.’”

Dr Roja Singh, whose work I learn laste yr, in her e book Noticed Goddesses: Dalit Ladies’s Company-Narratives on Caste and Gender Violence, has commented on these verses:

“Within the Manusmriti, a Dalit lady will trigger the downfall of a caste particular person because the reification of curse. The caste one that has intimate relations along with her turns into “untouchable” as a result of she pollutes their purity and destroys probabilities of salvation […S]he’s the brute whether or not she is the sufferer or not, and her physique because the curse turns into the premise of victimisation of which caste males have to beware. Nevertheless, the Manusmriti doesn’t state that the untouchable lady may acquire redemption in sexual relations with a caste male embodying “purity” [.…] A Dalit lady is stagnant in her polluted state as “a curse” and “the cursed” as she can not recess into something worse or change into something higher.”

From the above, the distinctive types of aversion and domination reserved for Dalit ladies change into very clear. The Hindu texts are derogatory to all ladies, and the Manusmriti, particularly, has been influential in coding caste-wide misogyny into the Indian social system. However topic to the authority of brahmin males, brahmin ladies are nonetheless positioned on the prime of the pyramid of Indian womanhood, adopted by kshatriya, vaishya, and shudra ladies — all of whom are below the authority of their caste males and people positioned above them. This placement offers them (savarna ladies) sufficient authority to hegemonically dictate what constitutes need and who deserves to be desired.

Dalit ladies, who’re thought of inferior and untouchable, are positioned up to now under within the pyramid, that they’re topic to the authority of everybody above them, together with the ladies that belong to the shudra and dvija* (twice-born) castes. Social media influencers of the Indian diaspora, who’re reclaiming their desi feminist roots, should realise that Hinduism doesn’t take into account “ladies” as a homogenous class; as a substitute, it prescribes clear distinctions together with energy, labour and sexual self-discipline.

Thus the caste system, or extra appropriately brahminical patriarchy — “a algorithm and establishments by which caste and gender are linked, every shaping the opposite and the place ladies are essential in sustaining the boundaries between castes” — each victimises and advantages savarna ladies. Uma Chakravarthy in her seminal paper in Financial and Political Weekly, ‘Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India’, explains that “ladies’s perpetuation of the caste system was achieved partly by means of their funding in a construction that rewarded them even because it subordinated them on the similar time”. Consequently, their superior caste positions don’t simply entitle savarna ladies with the social energy to subjugate but in addition compel them to embody the traits of “ultimate womanhood”, which embrace chastity, purity, modesty, constancy, magnificence and sanctity — all as imagined by the brahmanical thoughts.

Over the ages, this “ultimate” has undergone a number of transformations. As a consequence of political, social and ideological interventions within the final century, whether or not it’s calls for for ladies’s training and property rights, the affect of Western media and feminist thought, and the participation of savarna ladies in nation-building processes — these mechanisms that sought to regulate the identification and sexual freedom of sarvana ladies have been disrupted. This shift has enabled them to redefine the very idea and expression of womanhood — from conventional to trendy, from conservative to progressive. However these transitions, whether or not intentional or not, have been tactical, integrating newer feminist components with older brahmanical notions. ‘An Ode To Fashionable Indian Girl and All That She Is…’, an article on Medium, places it this manner: “In the present day’s lady is progressive in pondering however nonetheless, has a deep-rooted respect for the Indian tradition and traditions.” Priyanka Chopra Jonas reclaiming the mangalsutra – an accepted image of caste endogamy — whereas dealing with no risk to her standing as a “trendy feminist icon” is a living proof.

Savarna feminism has thus been designed solely to problem patriarchy, not caste. It allows savarna ladies to train liberal politics, practise sexual freedom, exhibit fascinating aesthetics, entry international literacy and obtain financial success whereas preserving their caste energy and privilege intact. Their feminism doesn’t threaten their caste location and, in lots of cases, is even emboldened by it. That is why the empowered savarna lady archetype, in its many variations, is taken into account aspirational and engaging by the Indian psyche, which has been socialised for hundreds of years to see savarna as superior. It’s all the extra so in our present capitalist actuality, the place one’s caste might be leveraged and downplayed concurrently, in order to create a wholly new however evolving identification — the globalised, trendy Indian lady, who’s savarna however cultured sufficient to maintain her caste location delicate, worldwide, woke* and discovered. This collective accomplishment of savarna ladies, which turns into extra layered with each technology, is feasible solely due to their caste energy — one which they didn’t should work for, one which was bestowed upon them at start.

In sharp distinction are Dalit and different caste-excluded ladies, whose existence continues to be conceived inside stereotypes. Neither do they possess the caste energy to entry capital and sources nor can they meet the ever-changing cultural mandate for womanhood or wokeness, as outlined by these with caste energy.

Within the well-liked creativeness, Dalit ladies are additionally perceived to be mere victims, as people that may’t exist outdoors of violence. Though violence is an inescapable actuality for a lot of Dalit ladies, particularly for individuals who dwell in impoverished and unsafe situations — the amplification of the sufferer stereotype not solely engenders extra violence but in addition normalises it. Inside interpersonal contexts, notably these which are romantic or sexual in nature, the sufferer stereotype interprets into an influence dynamic that has the potential to oppress Dalit ladies.

However what exists in opposition to, and together with, this purported narrative of victimhood, is the final incredulousness across the crime when it takes place. At a panel dialogue that I used to be half of some years in the past, a communist male chief overtly opined that “Dalit ladies are too scary, we are able to’t contact them that simply.” Nobody within the viewers appeared to have an issue with that assertion; they welcomed it as truth. And but, crime statistics say in any other case. The misperception that was disclosed in that panel has not in any manner dissuaded perpetrators from inflicting heinous violence on Dalit ladies. However it has discouraged civil society members and lawmakers from taking caste-based sexual violence severely. Assaulting “scary, robust” Dalit ladies is unfathomable to the minds that imagine they’re too unfeminine to be touched.

Virtually each love curiosity of mine has tried to appropriate my behaviour and nudge me in direction of adopting a extra “ladylike” manner. Some have explicitly in contrast me to their savarna girlfriends or exes, saying that the latter had been womanlier and extra delicate, and, in consequence, evoked intense emotions in them. On their half, tv and cinema have reified this false feminine-unfeminine dichotomy between savarna and Dalit ladies and promoted the concept that femininity, as expressed by savarna ladies, is a key ingredient in heterosexual and heteronormative need.

A yr in the past, a buddy shared certainly one of her conversations with a savarna man, who had spoken at size about his sexual experiences. She recalled him saying that if he knew the lady he was having intercourse with was Dalit, he can be additional tough and do no matter he needed, as in opposition to a savarna lady with whom he can be mild. I wasn’t shocked by his revelation, nevertheless it triggered me all the identical, taking me again to my very own experiences of sexual exploitation and assault. Generally, there’s no arduous proof as an instance how caste breaches intimate boundaries. It’s felt within the predator’s contact, their careless tossing of 1’s physique, their indifference to ache and worry, and their gaze as soon as it’s over — a mixture of lust, disgust and conquest.

By casting savarna ladies because the love pursuits of its protagonists, well-liked tradition has additionally bolstered that they’re the one ones worthy of affection, lust and legitimacy. Even within the case of Dalit male protagonists, the one that turns into their love curiosity more often than not is a savarna lady (Sairat, Thalapathi, Kaadhal). Dalit ladies, if and when represented, are depicted as indignant, loud and verbally abusive. Pa. Ranjith’s Kaala, a 2018 Tamizh movie, is an fascinating instance, nevertheless. Selvi, Kaala’s spouse, is forged as a loud-mouthed homemaker, and Zareena, Kaala’s ex-girlfriend, is forged as a classy activist. Whereas the stereotypes are stored intact, what I discovered refreshing was Kaala’s selecting to be with Selvi, the Dalit lady. On a date with Zareena, who comes again into his life after a few years, he makes his disinterest clear and returns house to an anxious Selvi.

It’s with this data, context and knowledge that I would like us to re-evaluate our modern understanding of inter-caste love, intercourse positivity, physique politics and legitimacy. The latest slew of social media accounts run by savarna influencers, who’ve monopolised feminist narratives, with no consciousness of how these work together with caste, is a living proof. As an illustration, within the aftermath of the 2020 Hathras rape and homicide, in an effort to protest the gruesomeness of the act, a well-liked deal with began a marketing campaign that requested ladies to put up tongue selfies. Different mainstream feminist handles additionally continued to create content material round self-care, vagina appreciation and intercourse positions at the moment. To Dalit ladies who witnessed this response, and had been reeling with huge grief and anger, such campaigns are at finest insensitive, detached at worst.

Equally, well-liked anti-caste discourses that don’t take note of how societies undervalue Dalit and different caste-excluded ladies, are equally disempowering. Inter-caste unions, for instance, aren’t at all times anti-caste; it’s extremely doable that one’s option to companion with a savarna lady, who has historically been ascribed greater worth, is motivated extra by social conditioning. It can not essentially be learn as a need to annihilate caste. It’s revolutionary love solely when, as Dr B.R. Ambedkar says: “Make each man and lady free from the thraldom of the Shastras, cleanse their minds of the pernicious notions based on the Shastras, and she or he will inter-dine and inter-marry, with out your telling her or him to take action.”

We want a Dalit feminist standpoint that uproots your entire infrastructure round which concepts of need are being constructed. We want a feminism that interrogates caste as a lot because it does patriarchy.

Dalit ladies ought to be capable of categorical their need to anybody, with out feeling insecure about their desirability or having to measure themselves in opposition to a savarna ultimate — a radical Dalit feminist framework of need would allow that. They’ve a proper to sexual pleasure, in the best way they think about it, with consent and with out disgrace, which incorporates having ample information about secure intercourse, acquiring entry to contraception, selecting or practising a most popular sexual orientation, experimenting with out the worry of moralistic judgments, and having the house to speak about sexual pleasure and extra each inside feminist and anti-caste circles. And so they should really feel accepted and cherished in relationships, with out being pressured to always show their worth or vulnerable to abuse by advantage of their caste location. And so they have a proper to hunt marital unions in the event that they so determine, with out being judged by the savarna gaze for making “unfeminist” selections. Always prioritising savarna ladies and perceiving them as the one ones worthy of need will proceed to ignore Dalit ladies and, finally, rob them of their proper to like and be liked.

We should rediscover Dalit love inside our communities. Investing in one another is revolutionary, particularly within the face of caste hatred. It’s vital that we reimagine what sisterhood, neighborhood, parenting, friendship, solidarity and household means to us. In a world devoid of recognition, Dalit love will maintain us safe, valued and rooted.

Notes on Terminology:
1. Savarna refers to people or teams belonging to the castes which are a part of varna (caste) system. These embrace the brahmins, the kshtariyas, the vaishyas, and the shudras.
2. Dvija means twice-born, which incorporates solely the brahmins, the kshatriyas, and the vaishyas
3. On this essay, “Dalit” refers to solely these people and teams that had been earlier referred to as the untouchables. Notice that not all Dalits are formally categorized as scheduled castes. This essay additionally doesn’t declare to signify all Dalit ladies.
4. On this essay, the time period “caste-excluded” refers to avarna (outcastes) communities that weren’t traditionally recognised as being a part of the varna (caste) system.
5. The time period “woke” refers to being conscious of and taking a stand in opposition to social injustices. Within the Indian/South Asian context, it’s related to progressive politics and will imply “anti-caste”, “feminist”, “leftist”, or a mix of all three.
6. “Hoe-phase” sometimes refers to a time in an individual’s life when they’re mentioned to be particularly promiscuous.