Dalit-Bahujan Feminism: A Newly Emerging Discourse

Abstract

Dalit Feminist Theory: A Reader is a collection of essays written by feminist writers in India. Feminism as a school of thought emerged in India in the early 1980s and since then, several scholarly works have been produced by feminists. Towards the beginning of the movement, there were two distinct groups of scholars, both educated in the English medium. The common factor in both groups was that the scholars all came from the dwija1 castes (Brahmin, Bania, Kayastha, Khatri and very few Kshatriya). The difference lay in the political positions which informed their standpoints—one group were Liberal Democrats, the others were Marxist feminists. After the 1990 Mandal movement, a third ideological school started to emerge. They foregrounded caste as a theoretical framework in understanding man-woman relations in India, as opposed to their predecessors who only theorized from the framework of class and democratic institutions. The editors of this book have chosen to reproduce several essays written by both Marxist and Liberal Democratic, non Dalit-bahujan women writers and in doing so have made clear their Dalit feminist position. Sunaina Arya is a young Dalit woman Ph.D candidate and research scholar in the field of Philosophy. The