A Gentle Reminder
What Dalit women face everyday in India and the rest of South Asia is undoubtedly terrible, and our response to it must be immediate, urgent. While here we are, enlisting and documenting atrocities, our sisters are the ones battling forces, which seek to systemically oppress and rip them of resources they have painfully managed to gather for their families and communities. Yet, every time, they arise as brave, courageous women, who will not go quiet, who will not give up. Let’s not kid ourselves: Caste-based sexual violence is indisputable and rampant; facts have been found, evidences have been recorded. And the culture of impunity that follows and envelops every crime against a Dalit woman is something that this country’s oppressor-caste media, government, and people consistently deny. We know this, and we know this well.
Now to run away from this reality, and to pick and choose only those parts of the narrative that aligns with our so-called intellectualising is not just unfair, but plain wrong. To say that Dalit women are only victors, and not survivors or victims of a horrendous, disgusting system there is, is not only untrue but also, perhaps, reflective of our unwillingness to call out what needs to be called out, and to look at the monster in the eye.
The truth is, no strategy is 100% discerning of pitfalls. No plan of action is perfect. And hand on our hearts, our histories are defined by our struggles. We may have sought different partnerships, we may have converted into religious institutions that enforced its own dogma on us, we may have crossed seas, we may have stepped on to the corporate ladder. Whatever it is, we did it. More accurately, our ancestors did it; they walked the night. And their resilience and resistance are quite really, gifts that we have received. Gifts that we need to pass on to our children, our partners, our people, our sisters, and our peers.
We don’t use these gifts to tear each other down, we use these to build one another. We use these, and all our intellect, to challenge and brainstorm and execute, together. We use these to remind ourselves that strategies may fail and our allies/partners might desert us, but we will have the gumption to stand together, as Dalit sisters. Also more importantly, to do this with compassion.
And to do this now.
