Dalit Women: Emmerging patterns of Caste-based Violence

Description

This book is about the embedded nature of caste-based violence on Dalit women. It clears out the debris of academic understanding of violence on women in India that is based only on gender. Caste is the main source of violence that forces Dalits and Dalit women to be generally discriminated, exploited and humiliatedin a society where caste-based status takes precedence in most social functions and situations.

Dalit women experience the worst kind of daily violence, discrimination, and social exclusion. Their voices and narratives of caste violence have not only been ignored by the mainstream feminist movement but are also sidelined by Dalit movement. Despite the ban on untouchability four decades ago, caste discrimination and oppression against ‘untouchable’ women (or Dalits) remain a part of the social exclusion. Still, atrocities in Maharashtra state have been increasing. Dalit womenare being used as an instrumentto preserve the caste system through violence.

Therefore, it is necessary and this study attempts to understand the dynamics of caste, spaces, and unique patterns of violence in the context of caste from Dalit women’s selected case studies in rural Maharashtra.