International Journal of Advanced Academic Studies 2021; 3(2): 156-160

E-ISSN: 2706-8927
P-ISSN: 2706-8919
www.allstudyjournal.com Feminist reclamation of Ambedkar in Indian
IJAAS 2021; 3(2): 156-160
Received: 02-05-2021 discourse
Accepted: 03-06-2021

Praveshika Mishra Praveshika Mishra

Assistant Professor,
Department of English, Mata
Sundri College for Women, Abstract
University of Delhi, New 20th century India was riddled with clash of ideologies. People were divided on lines of their socio-
Delhi, India political views on patriarchal structure of the Indian society, constantly critiqued by the newly
emerging radical thinkers to abolish age-old, inane dogmas and superstitions with the reasoning of the
west. Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar’s birth as an untouchable and in a society based on graded inequality
and refutation of basic human rights to his community served as an impetus for him to bring changes in
the system through legislation and social reforms. Through his scholarly reasoning and intellectual
deliberations, Ambedkar brought his oeuvre which raised issues concerning caste, gender equality,
social realism and legislation. His understanding of feminist concerns was a result of his exposure to
the western philosophies and his question of their fundamental rights, political inclusion and
advancement, fair treatment and right over inheritance mirrored the global feminist concerns. In the
name of conforming to Hindu religion, women were trapped in the vicious circle of timidity, masculine
subjugation, lack of awareness about their rights and no decision-making powers. He contributed in
Hindu personal laws and introduced many women welfare provisions in Indian Constitution, generating
consciousness among deprived, uneducated women and encouraged them to combat against
discrimination and injustice. The present paper attempts to study his speeches and writings in the light
of 20th century Indian feminist discourse and tries to position his indefatigable contribution to the
emancipation of women today.
Keywords: Clash of ideologies, global feminist concerns, Hindu personal laws, women welfare, Indian
constitution

Introductions
Iniquities prevalent in a society can be aptly spelt out by someone who has lived at the
periphery and internalised social exclusion from the position of being an untouchable.
Ambedkar opined that the hegemonic social order prevalent in India was caste-driven and
the reason behind the growing divide and narrow, singular positions taken by various
feminist groups leading to a difference of voices in discourses on women oppression, Hindu
social structure, question of identity and representation. Reading his philosophy becomes
crucial to understanding our social fabric and how caste politics has done us more harm than
good. As a pupil at Cambridge and London School of Economics, he was highly influenced
by the civil right movement and women’s emancipation struggles in the West. The global
feminist demands of placing women at par with men resonated with Ambedkar’s own
conceptualisation of an equal world. The Hindu Code Bill was the weapon that he brought to
combat the injustices done with Indian women in the name of religion, piety and feminine
decorum. He sought to acquire legal rights for women to inherit property and wed outside
their caste by introducing reformatory measures and legislative act. His major concern for
the status of women was reflected in the drafting of the protection Acts in the Indian
constitution. In his 1916 paper presented at an Anthropology seminar at the Columbia
University, Ambedkar offered an insight that the caste system propagates its values by
navigating women’s lives, and that caste is a result of sustained endogamy. He goes on to
say:

Caste in India means an artificial chopping off of the population into fixed and definite
Corresponding Author:
units, each one prevented from fusing into another through the custom of endogamy.
Praveshika Mishra (Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development)
Assistant Professor,
Department of English, Mata “Brahmanical patriarchy” as famously coined by Historian Uma Chakravarti explains how
Sundri College for Women, certain dominant castes wield autocratic rule over less powerful groups, where castes/classes
University of Delhi, New below one another feel more oppressed by the one above them.
Delhi, India

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The Hindu society moderates its women’s sexuality by Ambedkar held Manusmriti responsible for the plight of
proposing only three singular customs for them- Sati, Indian women. The notion that women should not be given
enforced widowhood and girl-child marriage- to safeguard freedom and be made subservient to masculine assertion
itself from exogamy. It is actually ironic to see the entire was advocated in it. Women had to face various
society being threatened by the sexuality of women alone deprivations in matters of their basic human rights. The
and no policies and practices were offered to the menfolk to caste Hindu women bore the baggage of their religion and
abstain themselves from licentious behaviour. Since time remained dispossessed subaltern in the social order until
immemorial, these customs have been honoured but nothing Ambedkar brought the armour of legal rights to counter
could vouch for their origin and existence. They have been atrocities meted out to Indian women in the early 20 th
responsible for the continued subservience and century.
voicelessness of women across castes, cultures and religions
in India. Ambedkar’s quest for equality
Poonam Singh demystifies Indian womanhood by referring Indian women’s reform movement gain momentum in the
to Uma Chakravarti where she contends that the Vedic 19th century when radical figures like Raja Ram Mohan
period upheld a facade of Indian woman’s magnanimous Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Swami Vivekananda,
image. It is only the upper caste women who were Rabindranath Tagore, Mahadev Gobind Ranade, Swami
categorised as respectable, learned Hindu women and the Dayanand Sarwaswati along with Mrityunjay Vidyalankar
slave women folk remained at the tangent in those times, addressed the plight and injustices done to women of
more profoundly than ever. The self-abnegating Indian various social groups. Raja Ram Mohan Roy advocated for
womanhood was awe-inspiring for the western eye and the reformist laws to abolish Sati, Hindu women’s inheritance
Indian Vedas were seen as the basis of Hindu religion where rights, condemned child-marriage, polygamy and sought
women occupied a sophisticated position. They were right to education to civilise human behaviour. However,
epitomised as the power-yielding women who would not Roy’s emancipatory efforts remained limited to the issues of
shudder at the thought of displaying jauhar or climb the caste Hindu people and the depressed classes remained at
funeral pyre of the dead husbands. The question of agency the bottom of the social rung in a deplorable, parasitic state.
in deciding their own fate remained elusive and this Untouchability was widely practised and women of the
romanticisation only did well in keeping up the ‘high’ status lower castes faced double marginalisation on the caste/class
of women in ancient India. Also, she cites nationalistic axes. Therefore, reform groups like Brahmo Samaj, Arya
reasons against the foreign rulers to uphold this robust Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission and others lacked the strength
image to suit Indian “proto-nationalists” cause. The slave to address the injustices prevalent in Indian society that is
woman remained a non-existing entity in the mainstream based on age-old ‘Chaturvarna’ system. Jotiba Phule and his
discourse of Indian woman’s question, because validating wife, Savitribai Phule’s efforts at establishing schools for
their experiences as important and impactful would have untouchables and other girls and eradication of
been highly uncomfortable for the Hindu social reformers. untouchability and the caste system laid the foundation for
They could neither claim equity in the society nor had reform movement in Maharashtra. Dr. Ambedkar’s advent
viable caste status to be regarded as the emblematic Indian in the sphere of struggle for gender equality began with his
woman against the counter forces. To see it in its entirety, legislative stance against the social order which taught
Indian women of all classes/castes lived a dubious submission to women and forced them to remain subjugated
existence, their identity pivoted around the conditions laid to male domination and adhere to a typical feminine
down by the dominant social order. (Singh, 2020, p. 19-20) behaviour. He believed in a link between caste and gender
[11]
. and asserted that elimination of gender is a natural corollary
The status of women deteriorated in the later Vedic period to annihilation of caste. He maintains,
because of gender biases and imposition of stringent rules
on them by the lawgiver, Manu in his code of conduct book, Ethnically all people are heterogeneous. It is the unity of
Manusmriti. It was one of the first Sanskrit texts on laws for culture that is the basis of homogeneity.
expected virtues of Brahmins and Kshatriyas to govern the
society. The revered Hindu scripture divided the social And continues to posit,
fabric into four broad groups on the basis of their vocations.
This hegemonic placement displaced humans of their basic Caste is a parcelling of an already homogeneous unit,
rights to survive and lauded as the “just” system to govern. and the explanation of the genesis of caste is the
In his book, Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar expostulates explanation of this process of parcelling. (Castes in
the self-aggrandisement of Hinduism: India)

I think that breaking-up of Caste amongst the Hindus is Ambedkar presents in his treatise a long argument and
well-nigh impossible. At any rate, it would take ages factual reasoning to prove how patriarchy operates in a
before a breach is made. But whether the doing of the society based on the caste-based social division of work,
deed takes time or whether it can be done quickly, you furthering inequality amongst different sub-groups. He
must not forget that if you wish to bring about a breach started his movement with the release of his journals Mook
in the system then you have got to apply the dynamite to Nayak and Bahishkrit Bharat, emphasising on gender parity
the Vedas and the Shastras, which deny any part to and the need for education to eradicate darkness from the
reason, to Vedas and Shastras, which deny any part to lives of the deprived social groups, including women. He
morality. You must destroy the Religion of the Shrutis urged them to register oppression and to be educated,
and the Smritis. Nothing else will avail. This is my agitated and organised in their struggle. The Hindu code bill
considered view of the matter. (Ambedkar, p. 74-75) was a series of laws that aimed to codify and repair Hindu

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personal law, to annihilate the caste system and grant a injustices. The gender struggle has been registered and
chance at life to women. But, unfortunately, his Dalit recorded in the feminist writings of 19 th and 20th centuries.
identity hindered its execution and the parliament stalled his As Rege says,
draft of the bill, following which he resigned from the
Nehruvian cabinet in 1951, only to witness it pass smoothly The dominant narrative of gender and modernity, that
between 1955 and 1956, however in an abridged version has concealed the complicity of Brahman women in
and in four separate Acts bringing new rules in matters of class privilege and Brahmanical patriarchy, highlights
marriage, succession, adoption and maintenance and privileged caste women’s struggle with tradition and
minority and guardianship during Nehru’s second term as their desire to be modern. (26)
the Prime Minister.
The defining tropes of iniquities need a close examination to
The laxity in reception of Ambedkar’s feminism study the nexus between caste and gender operations in
Ambedkar was a protean scholar who theorised how the Dalit feminist writings. The utopian, glorious images of
intersection of gender and caste was imperative for the celebration of feminine identity cannot feature as the lived
survival and flourishment of the Brahmanical patriarchy. He experiences of the hapless, ostracised women.
informs that it was the “infection of imitation” that caught Quoting Ambedkar without quoting the strength portrayed
all the non-Brahmin social groups to go their separate ways by Dalit women is an instance of a grave erasure of them
and form various endogamous castes. Referring to French from the history of caste oppression and feminist liberation
sociologist, Gabriel Tarde, he explains that the castes closest at the same time. Sulochnabai Dongre and Ramabai,
to the Brahmins imitated all the three customs of Sati, Ambedkar’s wife, were associated with All India Women’s
enforced widowhood and girl marriage and ensured to Congress prior to the inception of All India Depressed
protect women from succumbing to the temptation of Classes Women’s Conference. However, she along with
forming bonds outside their own castes. The ones who were Ramabai and other Dalit feminists, left the All India
less near, maintained the patriarchal system by imposing Women’s Congress as a result of social exclusion in a
widowhood and girl marriage; and others, a little further off, conference where Savarna feminists asked them to dine on a
had only child marriage; and those furthest off ensured that separate table put out for them. Their casteist nature
they do not defy the law of the father by trangression. travelled far beyond their “sisterhood” or any sort of
(Castes in India) He laments that the whole caste privilege feminist sensibility. To put it simply, they did not have a
is an exercise of power of the oppressor on the oppressed. concept which acknowledges the subjectivity of Dalit
Caste Brahmin or the servant of the God served as the women. Shailaja Paik recounts the struggles for Dalit
pattern for the rest to follow in a theocratic society and non- women’s access to education and reveals the contradictions
caste communities like Mohammedans, Jews, Christians and between Dalits’ and upper castes’ agendas of education,
Parsis became ‘castes’ with respect to each other. streeshikshan (women’s education) and the reform of
Subsequently, if one caste wanted to be endogamous, women. Dalit feminism entails questions to rethink and
another one had to be so by sheer force of circumstances. revitalise feminist theory and praxis, by centering Dalit
This was the root cause of all the discrimination of lower women’s lived experiences under excess discrimination,
castes. In his book, Waiting for a Visa, Ambedkar enlists a hurt and humiliation. In her first book, Dalit Women’s
few incidents of discrimination that happened to him and Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination (2014)
others. He restates the fact that untouchables are considered [6]
, Paik locates Dalits’ experiences as epistemic spaces to
untouchables across all religions. Even a Parsi or a Muslim create conceptual and theoretical frameworks to analyse the
thinks low of an untouchable though they do not practice materiality of caste, class, gender, sexuality and power
Hinduism. Similarly, women have been considered relationships, both within and outside the Dalit community.
‘inferior’ across all religions and every religion has its own Sumita Puri in her essay, “The Politics of Patriarchy: A
way to unleash its sexism. Ambedkar, the reformist, cannot Case Study of Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics” alludes to an
be pigeonholed only as a Dalit leader, but a visionary who account from Norman Mailer’s An American Dream in
lived for all the marginalised. which the protagonist, Stephen Rojackat, first kills his wife
Despite his keeping the egalitarian battle above his own for happily “enjoying” marital infidelity, and then asserts
failing health, Ambedkar’s ideology has not been himself sexually on an unyielding maid-servant when she
completely understood by Indian feminists and his original refuses to give in to his physical brutality. Having molested
insights have been neglected by the mainstream women the woman, his male ego finally soothes when the woman’s
activists. Academia as well as feminists remain initial resistance turns into a willing demand. The maid,
unresponsive and detached to credit his exhaustive labour to Ruta, not only succumbs to the sexual politics at play, but
comprehend the inadequacies in the system. In her book, also behaves in conformity with patriarchal perceptions of
Against the Madness of Manu: B.R. Ambedkar’s Writings on lower class women. Puri defines it as a United States
Brahmanical Patriarchy, Sharmila Rege commends congressman’s “racial revenge” on a Nazi servant,
Ambedkar’s feminist view on caste. She provides a performing a “patriotic act”. (Puri, 2016) [8] The dominant
theoretically advanced interpretation of Babasaheb’s man exercises his authority and sexually oppresses the
thinking on the intersection of the cast and gender questions. labour woman. Here, the
She provides us the logical argument to study the cross-
currents of caste with gender and to reclaim Ambedkar’s sexual intercourse becomes a display of sexual politics,
writings and speeches as feminist viewpoint on Brahmanical where caste and class decide the gender roles to be
patriarchy. He believed that the concept of endogamy is a played, making the one with the higher caste and class
political move to maintain the equilibrium and absolutely no the master, and the other strive to ‘surrender’, ‘serve’
justification for perpetration of caste-based violence and and be ‘satisfied’. (Ibid, p. 41-42)

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It is assumed that a lower caste woman would easily give in of the struggles for gender justice, being thoroughly pursued
or her sexuality is publicly available and hence, a prey for until the rapists were hanged till death. The category of rape
savarna male consumption. Talking about the “difference” was redefined by public outcry and pressure through
in articulation of Dalit women’s experience, Rege admits, rebellion when the subject in question was a non-Dalit. The
collective consciousness that needs to annihilate the vicious
Issues of sexuality are intrinsically linked to caste and interlinkage between caste and patriarchy needs questioning.
addressal of sexual politics without a challenge to Validating Gopal Guru’s assertion of Dalit women’s
brahmanism results in lifestyle feminisms. (Rege, 1998, “difference”, Rege critiques how “Masculinisation of
p. WS-43) [9] Dalithood and Savarnisation of Womanhood” obliterated
the Dalit women’s experience from the canon of Indian
In a society based on graded inequality, a woman’s feminist discourse, leaving “Brahmanism unchallenged”
treatment is first accorded by her caste and then her gender. (Rege, 1998, p. WS-42-43) [9]. Ambedkar believed in
The upper caste Hindu women get the privilege of inclusion inclusion of women in issues concerning them. He was an
of their voices in the ‘mainstream discourse’, but inspirational figure whose words made women understand
confronting casteism remains a sole responsibility of Dalit oppression and the need to educate and agitate to be able to
women. Classic Hindi writer, Premchand in his cult novel, carve a niche for themselves. The only possibility of an
The Gift of a Cow shows how a Dalit girl, Siliya is sexually egalitarian society, as envisaged by Ambedkar in his
exploited by Matadin, the Brahman boy she loves. She philosophy, rests on according a “Dalit feminist standpoint”
cannot be accepted as a daughter-in-law in the upper-caste to create an emancipatory Indian feminist identity. Rege
household. Siliya’s father demands for Matadin’s Brahman also underlines the danger of Dalit feminists succumbing to
caste in exchange of robbery of their honour. Her father, narrow “identity politics” if their experiences do not
Harkhu, is aware of the Brahmanical hierarchy at work and contribute to the larger, shared experience. A non-Dalit
openly challenges Matadin’s father, Datadin if he would feminist’s reinvention as Dalit feminist would be
accept Dalits in his Brahman caste. He agrees that they emancipatory when she rejects
cannot become Brahman but can make a Dalit out of
Matadin. It is a society where one can be doomed by more completely the relations of rule in which we
slipping down the social ladder but cannot do the reverse. participated (i.e, the brahmanical, middle class biases of
Her mother rebukes Matadin: earlier feminist standpoints are interrogated). (Ibid. WS-
45)
You’re so pious—you’ll sleep with her, but you won’t
drink water from her hands. Dalit feminism needs to explore the possibility of an
(The Gift of a Cow, p.305) impartial, humanistic and non-judgemental approach of non-
Dalit feminists to address their concerns and empathise with
Her kins defile Matadin’s religion by enforcing a piece of their “different” set of experiences and life histories.
bone in his mouth, which ironically, is restored after Together their writings can emerge as the new, shared
spending a huge chunk of money in purification rituals. A identity of the Indian woman discourse.
Brahman can return to his religion after purchasing penance
but can a woman’s chastity be restored? Conclusion
Caste plays a significant role in Ambedkar’s life and philosophy is symbolic of his quest to
strive for equality, fraternity and justice for all human
The collective and public threat of rape, sexual assault, beings, irrespective of their caste, class, religion and gender.
and physical violence at the workplace and in public. The true spirit of Ambedkarite ideology lies in activism to
(Rege, 1998. P. WS-43) [9]. manifest an egalitarian nation. Denigrating Dalit feminist
writings as narratives of simple recounting of oppression
Being at the bottom of the social ladder, Dalit women are and crisis will only serve as politicisation of the feminist
most vulnerable and exposed to caste and gender discourse. A true inclusion would mean equal and liberal
oppression. This intersectionality needs to be studied as to rights to cohabit the space of intellectual and theoretical
how sexual violence is exercised along the lines of one’s frameworks. Marking 130th birth anniversary of Dr. Bhim
caste, religion and ethnicity. A case of Dalit woman’s rape Rao Ambedkar, i.e, 14th April 2021 as ‘Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
is not an attack on her identity alone, but a choice of power Equality Day’ does invoke us to strive to protect and ensure
display on her entire social clan as an assertion of a tolerance and acceptance of multiple standpoints as one
dominant caste’s sway over the meek lower-caste people. collective Indian viewpoint.
The upper-caste attackers know that the society will not let
them be penalised so they do not see it as a crime against References
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