This article was downloaded by: [School of Oriental and African Studies]

On: 25 August 2012, At: 12:11

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Contemporary South Asia
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccsa20
Futurity in words: low-caste women
political activists' self-representation
and post-Dalit scenarios in north India
Manuela Ciotti
a
a
Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Edinburgh,
Edinburgh, UK
Version of record first published: 09 Mar 2010
To cite this article: Manuela Ciotti (2010): Futurity in words: low-caste women political activists'
self-representation and post-Dalit scenarios in north India, Contemporary South Asia, 18:1, 43-56
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09584930903561622
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-
conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation
that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any
instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary
sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,
demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Futurity in words: low-caste women political activists self-representation
and post-Dalit scenarios in north India
Manuela Ciotti*
Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Drawing on ethnographic eldwork in Uttar Pradesh, this article explores low-
caste women political activists self-representation. Low-caste communities have
been mobilised to supra-local ideologies that posit classic forms of subalternity
such as the Dalit condition and the rights and entitlements attached to it as
their rallying symbols. This article oers a counter-intuitive example to
expressions of the burgeoning Dalit identity in north Indian society. In particular,
it shows resistance to the usage of the Dalit label for self-representation by a
number of low-caste women activists within the Bahujan Samaj Party. From
womens narratives it emerges that Dalit implying a caste-laden ontological
condition of subalternity is denied on the grounds of its disempowering
connotations. These narratives are all the more salient in consideration of the
layered structure of gendered, socio-economic, cultural and political marginalities
that low-caste women usually experience. While these ndings unearth the
discrepancies between subaltern pasts and cultures vis-a`-vis their appropriation by
low-caste women in contemporary north Indian society, they also point to
vernacular understandings of Dalit in circulation in the Uttar Pradesh public
sphere. Moreover, these ndings point to the need to de-link caste identity from
agency, and to ethnography as a tool to (re)construct their nexus. Finally, by
foregrounding the historicity of the Dalit label, this article encourages reection
on its widespread use.
Keywords: Dalit; representation; gender; politics; Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP);
north India
Introduction
What if a group of archetypal subalterns such as those who would be ordinarily
classied as Dalit decide not to identify themselves as Dalit? And what if those
who designate themselves as non-Dalit are Scheduled Caste (SC) women who,
according to the existing literature and development indicators, embody the
stratied layers of marginalities reinforced by the patriarchal regimes existing
within their own communities (see Khare 2003; Guru 2003)? How do we think of
this refusal vis-a`-vis the legacy of the Dalit movement encapsulated in the term
Dalit,
1
and Dalit literature and intellectuals distinguished from mainstream
precisely for being the expression of Dalit society and its cultural dierence? Given
*Email: manuela.ciotti@gmail.com
Contemporary South Asia
Vol. 18, No. 1, March 2010, 4356
ISSN 0958-4935 print/ISSN 1469-364X online
2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09584930903561622
http://www.informaworld.com
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

the widespread use of the Dalit label for self-representation amongst activists, in
the diaspora, and in anti-caste-discrimination campaigns, would this refusal be
considered as detrimental to the Dalit cause? These questions would also include
reections on the formation of a separate stream within Indian feminism self-
identied as Dalit, which emphasises the nexus between low caste and gender
underpinning their gender analysis and claims. The above refusal would also
suggest an incongruence with the idea of Dalit studies aiming to study also those
who do not recognise themselves under the Dalit classication. Last but not least,
how do we think of the Dalit labels refusal when the women in question are
activists within a political formation such as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)? This
party has mobilised the low-caste masses in north India through supra-local
ideologies that posit classic forms of subalternity such as the Dalit condition, and
the rights and entitlements attached to this condition, as its rallying symbol. Has
Dalit politics turned against itself?
This article will begin its investigation of womens refusal of the Dalit label by
considering the features of institutionalised Dalit politics in north India; in
particular, the birth and consolidation of the BSP. The BSP is by now a widely-
researched phenomenon in the social sciences literature from India. The partys
unique roots lie in the eorts of a union of government employees created by
Kanshi Ram, the BSP founder, and called the Backward and Minority Community
Employees Federation (BAMCEF). Speaking from the viewpoint of a patronage-
democracy framework, Chandra argues that the representational blockage that the
upwardly mobile oce-seeking SC elite had found within the Congress in Uttar
Pradesh (UP), for example, was key to this elite being channelled towards the BSP
and becoming central to its formation (2004, 172). It was the BAMCEF that
provided the BSP with its initial base of cadres and considerable institutional
support (Chandra 2004, 144), and Chamars amongst the SCs were the most
numerous representatives. Sudha Pai has argued that the party emerged from two
trends: democratisation processes and armative action policies (Pai 2002, 3).
More specically, Pai contends that the BSP:
is a middle-class Party, formed by a new generation of educated, better o and upwardly
mobile Dalit leaders. Its formation was deliberate, to gain a share in the fruits of
development and political power, rather than a reaction to poverty, oppression and
domination. (2002, 21)
The Party has experienced impressive growth over the past 25 years, while its
original ideology and social composition have shifted to accommodate antagonistic
political and power interests over time. The party has focused on symbolic means
of mobilisation and empowerment, and this has led to the transformation of UP
cities, roads and parks into celebratory spaces for historical Dalit leaders and BSP
politicians. The BSPs hegemony has not just been established through the
conquest of seats in the state assembly and in the national parliament: in addition
to the above strategy of presence in space, the BSPs emergence and consolidation
have been accompanied by a massive campaign of low-caste symbolic assertion
focusing on presence in time, and crafted from below. I refer here to the eorts of
reinvention of the past by the low castes in which actors from these backgrounds
have been invested with heroic roles and woven into Indian historys major events
(Narayan 2006). These trends are revealing of how the matrix of low-caste identity
44 M. Ciotti
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

politics has transformed itself in north India, and of the expansion of the political
into new battleelds. The two strategies of fostering presence in space and time
should be viewed as substantiating one another. At the time of unprecedented
visibility of the Dalit question, also thanks to the BSP, UP has however been
reported as the state with the highest number of atrocities against the SC/
Scheduled Tribe (ST) population in India: in 2007, UP registered 20.5% of all such
cases in the country (Ramakrishnan and Mahaprashasta 2009). This datum points
to a major contradiction in the state:
Dalits were at the receiving end in large parts of Uttar Pradesh, where the politics of
empowerment of the S.Cs and the S.Ts, the protection of their interests, their physical
safety and the assertion of their constitutional rights had acquired, in comparative
terms, the highest political and electoral acceptability. (Ramakrishnan and Mahapra-
shasta 2009)
Moreover, while an increase in caste atrocities has been triggered by Dalits socio-
economic mobility and rights assertion, there have been massive diculties in the
implementation of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (1989)
throughout the country (Ramakrishnan and Mahaprashasta 2009). It is against
the backdrop of the unique roots of the party, its strategies as well as the climate
of violence and curtailed dignity and freedom in reaction to Dalits mobility and
assertion that this articles arguments need to be situated.
2
Through extensive eldwork carried out since the late 1990s with a semi-rural
community of Chamars in eastern UP and focusing on a range of dierent topics, I
have had the opportunity to analyse the unfolding of BSP strategies and ideologies
in the lives of the above Indian citizens and investigate the ways their political
allegiance is intertwined with other aspects of social life.
3
Building on this research,
the ethnographic material discussed in this article is part of a wider investigation of
the forms of political participation that the BSP has engendered amongst its low-
caste women activists in the UP capital Lucknow. There is a paucity of accounts
on low-caste women in institutionalised politics in Indian history, while no other
account is available of women political activists in the BSP. The ethnographic
material I collected with them raises new questions about low-caste identity and
agency and in the eld of gender and politics, while oering insights into the ways
in which the presence of low-caste women can shape the history of womens
activism in India. What is more, my investigation attempts to individuate the
deeper structures and features of low-caste womens political participation, features
that dis/connect them diachronically and synchronically to women and men in
Indian politics. Building on the identication of these structures, the broader
question consists of how given gender regimes in the case analysed, those in place
in north India yield certain kinds of women leaders and politicians.
Subsequently, I interrogate the data collected amongst low-caste women for the
ways it shapes the constitution of the non-western woman political subject as well
as exploring this subjects comparative potential. So far I have deployed several
entry-points into the above questions: these entry-points range from an analysis of
the political economy of womens participation, to metaphors and representation
of the political, to comparisons with women of the Hindu Right.
4
These analyses
have often returned startling accounts of the economies and the dynamics of low-
caste womens participation and the ways in which women envision their activities
through a language that is often not governed by caste.
Contemporary South Asia 45
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

This article oers yet another counter-intuitive account of BSP women activists,
which is the refusal of the Dalit label for self-representation. It is argued that this
refusal does not mark their disengagement from the Dalit cause, rather the contrary.
In connection with the description of the partys origins provided earlier, a key
element to evaluate this refusal consists of their caste and class features: many BSP
women activists I interacted with and whose narratives I draw upon are from the
Chamar caste and are often married to government employees. My research testies
to the importance of social mobility strategies to BSP women and class
transformation in shaping their political participation as well as in allowing this
participation itself. Shifting identities and processes of assertion are tightly
connected with self-representation and with the dilemmas that the term Dalit
posits to middle and low classes alike.
5
There are two intertwined issues at stake,
which this article aims to introduce and assess: the rst concerns the heterogeneity of
Dalit communities in India and the ways in which this is reected in these
communities scholarly representation; the second touches on these communities
self-representation. On the rst issue, Shah (2002) has expressed concern about
claims of oppression that do not take into consideration Dalits heterogeneity and
the unproblematic use of Dalit by scholars.
6
On this matter, Marriott (2003) has
conducted a survey of the use of Harijan and Dalit in scholarly publications in recent
decades, and discovered that Dalit was the preferred term. He then analysed ndings
from the National Family Health Survey carried out during 19981999 in which SC
interviewees besides providing other information had to declare their caste name.
Harijan resulted as the preferred term for self-representation, and Marriott has
summarised his ndings as follows:
Whatever the reservations about the data the scale of the dierence in the use of dalit
and harijan suggests that there is a real contrast in the preferred name chosen by
external commentators and SC people themselves. Ambedkar may be winning the
posthumous rivalry among the scribbling classes but Gandhi remains the dominant
opinion-former among the SCs themsleves [sic]. (2003, 3752)
This argument introduces the second issue the rubric of the low-caste politics of
naming and self-representation, which includes a multitude of claims made over
time. These claims range from collective requests for caste name changes in colonial
times in order to acquire a higher and more respectable status to the creation of
large political communities that, for example, have come to recognise themselves
under the Dalit banner, to the micropolitics involving family names.
7
Recent
evidence on the politics of self-representation appears as non-univocal: for example,
drawing from materials collected in Karnataka, UP and Punjab in connection with
political mobilisation with the BSP, Chandra argues that amongst her respondents
the more common term for self-identication was the term Scheduled Caste (SC), or
the name of the caste category among the Scheduled Caste to which an individual
subscribed (2004, xv). On the other hand, in her study of the Dalit movement in
India and in the diaspora, Hardtmann uses Dalit as an emic concept, referring to
people who use it self-ascribingly (2008, viii).
8
My previous research with semi-rural
Chamars in eastern UP testies to several dynamics and positionalities at play
concerning the use of collective names SC, Harijan, Dalit and Chamar. For
example, while Harijan was still used by both Chamars and other castes, BSP
politics had the eect of revitalising the troubled caste name Chamar which is still
a term of abuse in north India rather than spreading the term Dalit. In the late
46 M. Ciotti
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

1990s, its popularity was limited amongst this Chamar community of BSP
supporters, living in the Dalit political heartland and nearby a large urban centre.
In his reections on the politics of naming, a politicised Chamar educated young
man captured the issues at stake as follows: Dalit means lower caste, any person
who is nancially weak and below the poverty line. Anyone can be a Dalit, even a
Brahman. I prefer Chamar, said in a polite way, so that I will not feel bad (Ciotti
2010a, 205). Family names in the village signalled the adoption of titles amongst the
younger generation such as Kumar or Bharatiya the absence of which betrays a
low-caste status.
9
The BSP women analysed in this article are activists within the party catering to
the low-caste masses such as the above Chamar villagers.
10
The analysis of womens
surnames for those who have a SC background, mainly Chamar reveals that they
range from the high-caste Singh to the Buddhist Gautam, to other titles like Devi
or Chaudhari, as well as to no surname at all. So their politics of naming reect a
concern with the image they wish to convey. Regarding the self-identication with
broader collectives such as the Dalit one, as I will show below, these women have
often expressed their refusal and ambivalence towards the term, in contrast with the
celebrated history of the Dalit movement. Gorringe has argued how:
In the latter half of the twentieth century SC groups, frustrated at continuing
marginalisation, have increasingly organised and mobilised for socio-political change.
Calling themselves Dalits, many ex-Untouchables have demanded the proper
implementation of the constitution and sought to challenge the various manifestations
of caste at the local level. The term Dalit, Zelliot notes, implies those who have been
broken, ground down by those above them in a deliberate and active way. There is in
the word itself an inherent denial of pollution, karma, and justied caste hierarchy.
(2009, 152)
Along similar lines, Pandey argues how Dalit remains the preferred term by Dalit
activists: Literally meaning crushed, broken, or downtrodden, it has since its
use by the militant Dalit panther movement in the 1970s become a term of self-
assertion, reclaiming a millennial history of exploitation and humiliation and of
resistance to it (2009, 335; original emphasis). So why do BSP (low-caste) women
not recognise themselves in this history? Or better, in what ways do women want to
put this history to use? As the ethnographic and interview excerpts contained in the
next sections indicate, rather than a symbol of assertiveness, Dalit as a subaltern
ontological condition is denied by women on the grounds of this terms
disempowering connotations. More importantly, womens narratives convey the
idea of them being non-suering subjects while they often make remarks about
their communitys improvement.
11
It is suggested that categories such as Dalit be
historicised and evaluated vis-a`-vis the communities socio-economic, political and
religious status; that is, taking into account the internal heterogeneity within the
large Dalit constituency. Further, the binary between victim and assertive subject
should also be problematised. While unfortunately there is plenty of evidence for
what makes Dalit a victim in contemporary India and of the structural conditions
that perpetuate this status there is a paucity of knowledge on what constitutes an
assertive subject especially if this subject is a woman. I suggest a re-imagination of
the low-caste woman as the non-victim socio-political subject and an evaluation of
the questions she poses to the Dalit social category. The suggestions put forward so
far highlight the discrepancies between categories widely present and used in the
Contemporary South Asia 47
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

scholarly, media and activism domains versus these categories understandings and
nuances amongst those they are supposed to represent. Not only are the low-castes a
highly heterogeneous group at the socio-economic and political levels, but they also
show dierent paths of social mobility and civility struggles. Ultimately, the
acknowledgement of the dierent uses and journeys of a category in the public sphere
need careful analysis vis-a`-vis the particular socio-economic and political position-
alities of those who self-represent.
True Dalits
Lakshmi is a BSP Chamar woman activist with an ocial position within the party.
She lives on the outskirts of the city and is married to a Chamar Railways manager
posted outside Lucknow district who returns home on weekends. Forty years old in
2005, Lakshmi recounts how she had been married at the age of 15 and, as an
inexperienced young bride, had learned how to cook from her husband. After her
marriage, she had resumed her studies and graduated. She had received an early
political training from her father, himself a government employee: at the age of 10
12, he would take Lakshmi to meetings and rallies organised by the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Her mother had asked Lakshmi not to follow him but
she recalled going with her father like a boy. Her elder brother is also involved in
politics as a trade union member at his workplace. She did not like the RSS and that
is why she did not pursue that organisation. She joined the BSP after her children
had grown up. At the time of our encounter, Lakshmi had two children in college, a
house in a multi-caste neighbourhood, several amenities (such as a washing machine
and air conditioning), and a car. She had held several positions in the party and had
been encouraged by many people including her husband to contest local elections as
municipal corporator in Lucknow. Within her assigned geographical area of activity,
she had greatly increased the number of party supporters (including 250 women) and
activists.
For all of the above, Lakshmi must have created envy among her Brahman
neighbours. Not an unheard story in times of low-caste social mobility and assertion.
Neighbours once objected to Lakshmi and her family members sitting on chairs in
front of them, instead of squatting on the oor as it is customary for the low castes in
villages. The Brahman family had seven children and sold vegetables for a living.
When they turned at their next-door Chamar neighbours, it must have seemed to
them as the world had turned upside down. On one occasion, members of this
Brahman family had tried to create problems between Lakshmi and her husband.
She had come back home late at night in connection with her political activities and
the Brahmans had threatened to inform Lakshmis husband about it. Lakshmi had
promptly replied to them that it had been her husband himself who let her in late at
night. At the time of eldwork things had changed and Lakshmi said to me that
everybody, including that Brahman family, supports her.
During an interview I had with her, I asked how she would dene herself. She
had replied I am a BSP worker. To the question Do you dene yourself as a
Dalit?, she said Dalit? No. I am manush (human), Dalit is a name given by the
pandits. What is the dierence, I am educated, I am more active and prepared than
you, why am I Dalit? (eld notes, 2004). When I asked her why she had decided to
enter politics and what was her goal in politics, she had argued I do politics to help
the poor and the destitute, and I want to give them their rights (haq) (eld notes,
48 M. Ciotti
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

2004). To explain further the motivation behind her political activities, she narrated
the case of a female domestic servant called Asha who worked in a nearby colony,
and provided her services in an apartment inhabited by a medical doctor and his
wife. The doctor had accused Asha of stealing money. As a result, the police would
regularly call for the servant at the police station, they would keep her there for the
day and release her at night. Asha had sought Lakshmis help and the leader had
inquired about the matter with the doctors wife, who denied the theft and so did her
husband. Subsequently Lakshmi had visited the police station where she was told
that there was no complaint against the servant. The police were apparently teasing
her. Finally Lakshmi brought the servants trouble to an end and Asha shifted
employer. However, Lakshmi told me that the event that had sparked Ashas
accusation was the doctors request for sex, and when Asha had turned it down, she
was accused of theft.
Ashas story appears as the typical tale of oppression typical but not less
grave one out of the many that occur everyday in India. Bearing in mind the low
castes position in an interrupted history of patronage, if in pre-BSP times Asha
had had the chance of receiving any help at all, this would have been most
probably provided by someone from an upper-caste milieu with the power to
intervene in the matter. In BSP times, Asha had found Lakshmi. Ashas case came
up again on the occasion of another of my visits to Lakshmis house. After
spending time at home with her, talking and eating, Lakshmi had given me a tour
of her assigned party area. After a while, she had pointed to me a settlement of
makeshift huts sitting by a sewage canal. Lakshmi would hold party meetings over
the sewage canal bridge and the slum dwellers would make donations for the BSP.
Women in the slum seek domestic service in peoples houses to do the washing up,
in the face of untouchability conventions. Asha lived in that very slum. Lakshmi
had then commented: They are the asli [true] Dalits. I regard this statement as
highly signicant: to Lakshmi, a political leader with a husband with a managerial
job in the Railways, a car, appliances and two kids in college, and more
importantly the authority to enter a police station to solve a case of harassment,
12
asli Dalit made perfect sense. Rather than her disengagement from the Dalit cause,
Lakshmis imputation of Dalit authenticity to others signalled her own process of
social mobility and assertion as a local political leader. The histories of shared
suering that many ordinary Dalits recite as a proof of the discriminations they
endured in the past are historical marks of identity that are evoked, but that for
some no longer exist. Lakshmi is a case in point. She would recount how
untouchables used to go around with a broom tied to their back to erase their
footprints and bring a lotah [metal vessel] to fetch water and avoid contaminating
wells. I had already heard these narratives amongst Chamars in eastern UP. While
modern devices to avoid pollution are in place today under more or less overt
guises these narratives testify to the progress that some Chamar members witness
within their own community. And amongst low-caste communities, Chamars are
amongst those who have managed to reap many of the benets of the policy of
positive discrimination. Lakshmis activities are all but disjoined from helping
disadvantaged individuals with whom she might well share a caste membership
and from acknowledging the discrimination attached to the untouchable status.
On the basis of her social mobility trajectory and her role as local party leader,
Lakshmi in common with the other women I describe below had emphasised
the salience of other identity traits to represent herself.
Contemporary South Asia 49
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

Dalit no more
My eld notes often featured biographies such as Lakshmis, narrated with the same
assertive tones and determination, which seemed to unify BSP women party workers
who had often settled in Lucknow from dierent provinces of UP. Within this party,
women are part of what I have called a proletariat of politics, those who rarely held
posts of importance. At the same time, these women are a living testimony of ways of
living the political captured by Chakrabarty in the following passage:
How do we think the political at these moments when the peasant or the subaltern
emerges in the modern sphere of politics, in his or her own right, as a member of the
nationalist movement against British rule or as a full-edged member of the body
politic, without having to do any preparatory work in order to qualify as the
bourgeois-citizen? (2007, 1011; original emphasis)
BSP women are a perfect example of these full-edged citizens, despite their low-
caste status, and often only a few years of schooling, marriage at an early age,
children-rearing, and what we would call a vernacular apprenticeship into politics
rather than a bourgeois one. The BSPs success lies in the proselytising eorts of its
activists, the time women (and men) devote to politics and the respect of hierarchies
within the partys capillary organisation.
During the interviews I carried out separately with each BSP woman party
worker, many of them argued against the Dalit label for self-representation or
manifested ambivalence towards it. Most of their narratives pointed to its
disempowering eects. The awkwardness around the Dalit category as a tool for
self-representation matched my own at the time of discussing it with interviewees: the
more I asked women activists questions about their supposed Dalit identity, the
more I felt embarrassed about my own questions. I was often under the impression
that the semantics around the term Dalit I had in mind diverged from that of
womens. Lakshmis explanation of the origins of the term Dalit was a good
example. There had been times when I preferred not to pursue identity questions
further. It is also important to note that women talked about their self-
representation knowing that their answers would be recorded rather than in a
casual conversation and therefore wanting them to be recorded in such a way. It
was our mutual awkwardness that prompted my reections on the wider and
unproblematic use of Dalit. Below, I have transcribed a sample of narratives. I have
taken out those from BSP women workers from backward castes and the
Muslim community (who might not feel much inclined to associate themselves
with the label Dalit, which apparently contains an (untouchable) caste content, while
it should be noticed that some of them did not refuse the term for self-
representation). The following narratives are Chamar womens answers to the
questions How would you dene yourself? Would you dene yourself as Dalit? in
the context of a lengthy interview with each of them that took place in their homes
during 2004 and 2005.
No, now we are not Dalits but before joining the party we were Dalits. [This
informants husband is present during the interview and adds: Dalit are the exploited
class]. When we joined the BSP other people started to be scared. Thats why we are
not Dalit anymore. Since we joined the party, we have the power to oppress [daba
dena] Brahmans and Thakurs. (Middle-aged housewife, married to a government
employee, ve children)
50 M. Ciotti
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

Yes. One minute! Stop! I am Dalit, am a Chamar, but I am not weak [kamjor]. Earlier in
Hindu dharm, those who are kamjor, were called Dalit. My caste is Chamar, I can do
things, am not weak. Behenji said me chamar ki beti hu! [this is a reference to
Mayawatis public claims to be the daughter of Chamars]. (35 year old housewife,
married to a man with a small business, two children)
I think I am a Dalit. In India castes were divided. If someone goes out to another
country, nobody can recognise that he is Hindu or a Muslim, unless he tells people that
he is from such and such caste. There are two jatis: purush, mahila [man, woman]. One
has principles and humility otherwise if someone is Brahman and teases, he is not
Brahman. (40 year old housewife, married to a government employee, four children)
No I am not a Dalit, from the beginning I never lived with relatives, never went to a
marriage in my community. I mostly live with good family background people and
nobody understands I am a Dalit. (Young unmarried activist)
I am not Dalit. Why? The meaning of Dalit is shoshit [exploited], we are not exploited
people, because my husband has a government job and I am doing politics. (Middle-
aged housewife, married to a government employee, four daughters)
I do not feel a Dalit, but other people think that I am a Dalit. (Middle-aged housewife,
married to a government employee, two children)
I do not think that I am a Dalit, because God has created us all the same, the pandits
have created this jati. I do samaj seva [social service].
13
(Middle-aged housewife, married
to a government employee, three children)
I am a woman and a leader [neta]. I am from the Dalit samaj, and I am insan [human
being]! (35 year old housewife, married to a construction worker)
I do not think I am a Dalit. Why not? Because Buddhaji said that caste system is
nothing, one is insan, manush [human], I am manush. (Middle-aged woman, one of the
rst women leaders in the party, not in politics anymore, married to a government
employee, three children)
Dalit, sure! My community improved a lot, they are not slave [Mera samaj bahut accha
gae, gulam nahi hai]. There should not be untouchability. There is a lot of dierence
from before. (35 year old housewife, married to a government employee, four children)
I am a leader. Dalit, no nothing. My work is going on, I am happy. (Employed, married
to a casual labourer, ve children)
Dalit ki zamane nikal gae! [Dalit times are over]. I am an Indian woman. Itni buddhi hai,
dalit kaise hai [I am so wise, how can I be Dalit]. (Middle-aged housewife, married to a
government employee, three children)
I am a great woman. Why do I think of Dalit? (Housewife, short career in politics,
married to a government employee, two children)
I do samaj seva and I am a leader. (40 year old housewife, married to a government
employee, three children)
Gendered subjects of political modernity
The politics of representation conveyed by the above narratives questions the
generalised understanding and representation of the low castes as Dalit put
forward by scholars, activists and the media. Rather than just pointing to
powerlessness and oppression, in the womens view the term Dalits semantic eld
contains a strong caste element while it is also believed to be a name given by the
Pandits. If, on the one hand, womens vernacular understandings of Dalit point
to them not being aware of its intellectual genealogy, on the other this is also an
indication of how the term is perceived in the UP public sphere. By contrast,
womens refusal expresses their anti-caste feelings and distance from their
Contemporary South Asia 51
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

perceived stigma attached to the low-castes a position that paradoxically evokes
the meanings carried by the term Dalit and its appropriation in Zelliots view
mentioned earlier in this article. The alternative self-representation suggested by
women is one that points to gender and their status as local leaders, avoiding
identication with a particular caste background. From their refusal, a further
reection follows that concerns the absence of a claim for Dalit dierence. Pandey
(2006, 4739) argues how the strive for fundamental equal rights, equality and
justice amongst subalterns is intertwined with a claim of dierence. Neither this
research with BSP women activists nor my research with Chamars in eastern UP
seem to support this thesis, however. In the latter setting, I very often found a
strong desire to be fully incorporated within mainstream society (pace the special
SC identication required by the policy of positive discrimination). This argument
raises the need to focus on the agency of those who claim dierence and to map
the circumstances in which this takes place. Refusing the association to Dalit
also displaces caste-as-suering as a key identitarian value for women. This
argument intersects with the Dalit woman question. Usually the Dalit woman
is portrayed as a subject at the crux of several subalternities a condition that no
doubt aects the vast majority of them. By contrast, BSP women refuse to
associate themselves with the suering Dalit woman subject while, for example,
Asha one of the true Dalits they intervene to help fully embodies it.
14
Concerning this issue, it is interesting to note that the ways in which the nexus
between the Dalit woman question, her self-representation and the gender
analysis of low-caste women resonates with similar debates in the history of
representation of Indian women, combined with long-standing critiques of Third
World women by postcolonial feminist critics. Decades of scholarship on women
in India have turned iconic powerless and passive women who have been and
undoubtedly are still the object of penalising political economies and gender
regimes into agentive subjects regardless of whether they are victims of those
economies and regimes or not. When we talk of Dalit women and their
representation, it is not easy to strike the ne balance in the victim/assertive
subject binary especially when many of them experience unbearable living and
working conditions and/or are subject to extreme violence. By rejecting the Dalit
label, women activists rst place themselves in a new historical realm other than
the shared histories of suering, pain and slavery that circulate orally and
textually in north India and that constitute the Dalit emotional heritage and
second, they state their dierence from the contemporary condition of women
(and men) like Asha.
In this article, women experience specic identity dilemmas around class and
cultural membership and articulate these dilemmas from the standpoint of their
social mobility trajectory and political activities. A cross-regional analysis of low-
caste womens self-representation would yield many more variations on how these
dilemmas are articulated. Tied to these dilemmas is the question of what it means
to be a low-caste woman vis-a`-vis what it means to be a woman from other
backgrounds in contemporary India. The complexity of this question is amplied
by the heterogeneity observed amongst low-caste women and personied by
Lakshmi and Asha.
15
Here, a class-based analysis reveals the trajectory that gender
modernity has taken amongst the low castes. What Lakshmi and Asha do not
share is class status. While being an untouchable or a SC alone does not
52 M. Ciotti
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

suciently explain the multifaceted gap existing between them, this identity is
useful to explain class formation. Lakshmi is the outcome of at least two
generations of government employment (that of her family of origin and of her
own family), while Asha does not have the means to access this policy nor access
to alternative dignied sources of livelihood.
16
Through a study of low-caste
womens involvement in BSP politics which is also the outcome of processes of
upward social mobility the relentless production of inequalities amongst women
(in particular, those from a low-caste background) emerges and strongly invokes
policies of resource redistribution. Lakshmis example shows how such a
redistribution in her case through positive discrimination, which however did
not see her as direct beneciary has led to forms of empowerment. In her case,
these forms were catalysed by her involvement in BSP politics but nd expression
in other domains alike.
The relation between Lakshmi and Asha also suggests reections on the nature of
political society to borrow Chatterjees concept to analyse recent forms of the
entanglement of elite and subaltern politics (2006, 3940). The study of political
society needs to include that of the social background of the new elites while the
trac between these sections of society needs to take into account the axis of gender.
Despite the inequalities that BSP women perceive themselves in local gender regimes,
their often powerless status within the party, and the constraints that party politics
place upon their agency, the women activists analysed are a group of assertive
women, a kind of elite in relative terms amongst their communities, who are
nevertheless committed to the Dalit cause. Their refusal of the Dalit label signals an
anti-caste stance, class assertion and a leadership statement. Instead of retrieving
low-caste womens agency and assertive identities in the future, their assertive agency
and self-representation should be given attention in the present. This entails
expanding the horizon of identity and representational possibilities for such
communities and avoiding totalising experience of caste and Dalit identity. This
also raises the question of the creation of new post-Dalit identities in particular,
as a consequence of political participation.
Conclusions: beyond Dalit? A glance at futurity
This article has oered a snapshot of womens self-representation at the time of
eldwork, and at a particular moment in their political careers. While women
described here were almost always several years into their party activism, I have not
provided a microhistory of their self-representation. What is more, I have not
examined the complex question of how does one become a non-Dalit, which should
be asked in parallel with how does one become a non-subaltern (and, conversely,
one should also ask what makes one a subaltern), and what is the process through
which low-caste members acquire a non-stigmatised identity. In this respect, the
outcome of a process has been presented rather than the description of the process
itself. This synchronic picture should be combined with the ethnography of their
political participation about which I have written elsewhere. In turn this
combination would also allow the comparative investigation of the relation between
colonial and postcolonial subalterns and their political participation, their shifting
assertion modes and identities.
17
The refusal of the Dalit label by a minority of elite
Chamar women might well be a broader phenomenon but this can only be
Contemporary South Asia 53
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

substantiated through further investigation. Rather than oering a xed set of
conclusions, I wish to raise further questions to be addressed through future
research. First, one might wonder whether a political formation such as the BSP has
achieved a paradoxical situation amongst its core women activists that is, the
empowerment of low castes who now consider themselves as non Dalit signalling
their distance from a caste-laden label and a condition of oppression and
powerlessness.
18
The BSP politics of presence in north India and the symbolic
empowerment it has initiated might well have surpassed its scope amongst its
activists. I do not think Dalit politics is turning against itself: rather, we might well
be witnessing what I have termed a new politics of caste after caste politics as we know
it (Ciotti 2010a, 208). It would be most interesting to investigate the long-term eects
of this politics on the low castes in shifting political scenarios in UP especially in
consideration of the Congress partys eorts in this state to attract the Dalit vote
bank back into its fold. Secondly, from women narratives Dalit identity appears as
a transitory condition of powerlessness even if it is not entirely disjoined from the
xity of caste. Rather than a label marking assertiveness, Dalit is a condition an
individual can grow out of be it through class mobility and/or politics. However,
this might be a possibility only for a few individuals like the women analysed here. In
these womens view, Dalit appears to be a hybrid construction comprising power,
status, caste and class elements. The third set of questions attempts to envisage a
post-Dalit future(s). As also suggested by a woman activists narrative, it is possible
that subaltern categories such as Dalit might have become history. If the refusal of
the Dalit label was found to be a widespread phenomenon, what would this future
look like? What would happen, for example, to Dalit Studies? Instead of reiterating
this articles opening questions, I seek to problematise the tension between womens
understandings of Dalit and that of scholars combined with an analysis of the
atypicity of these low-caste women as assertive subjects in an eort to recalibrate
our analytical tools. I propose to think in terms of futurity in the impossibility to
privilege Dalit experience unlike in writings on Dalit womens autobiographies,
for example (see Nair 2008, 181) and in the absence of claims for Dalit dierence.
In essence, my aim is to de-link (low-caste) identity from agency. Rather, this nexus
must be investigated and (re)constructed each time, to avoid the risk of essentialising
agency and thus avoiding risks of reproduction in social theory together with the
careful examination of the circumstances that sustain both identity and agency. This
aim is underpinned by the separation between the analytical and the political in the
study of low-caste communities. While the struggle against untouchability and the
unity of its supporters would not be aected, a deeper understanding of the diversity
within the vast socio-economic cultural and political realities subsumed under the
Dalit category would receive greater attention. Subsequently, a more detailed
picture of class transformation including that of the labouring class would
emerge as well as the specic conditions that are dierently activated by caste
membership and its dierent outcomes. Against this backdrop, discrepancies
between subaltern pasts and the appropriation of these by contemporary low-caste
women citizens, their shifting self-representation, their almost paradoxical detach-
ment from these very pasts although not a disownment would be situated in the
appropriate context.
If we operated these shifts, Lakshmis and Ashas life histories could be
positioned in the broader history of the dialectics between equality pursuit and
inequality production. While Asha testies to the layers of marginalities women
54 M. Ciotti
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

endure, Lakshmi shows us that becoming a non-victim for a woman with a Dalit/
untouchable background is possible.
Acknowledgements
The author is greatly indebted to all women who participated in this study whose help,
hospitality and patience made research in India possible. Names of women appearing in this
article have been changed as well as minor details concerning their lives while details as to
location of the ethnographic setting have been omitted. Fieldwork was conducted during 2004
and 2005 under the tenure of a Nueld Foundation New Career Development Fellowship.
The author is extremely grateful to the Foundation for the generous funding provided. Earlier
versions of this article were presented in 2007 at the 36th Conference on South Asia,
University of WisconsinMadison, and in 2009 at the Annual Meeting of the British
Association of South Asian Studies, University of Edinburgh. The author thanks the
audiences at these events for the stimulating discussions, the Contemporary South Asia
anonymous reviewers for helping bring the arguments into a sharper focus, and Crispin Bates
and John Zavos for their precious support.
Notes
1. For a detailed account of the etymology of the term Dalit, the genealogy of its usage by
dierent leaders in history, and its transformation into a social category, see Narayan
(2006, 3334).
2. For an analysis of the most recent trends of BSP politics, its strategies and policies, see
Gupta (2009).
3. Based on this research, see Ciotti (2010a) for an account of non-elite modernity in India.
4. See Ciotti (2006, 2010b, n.d.).
5. These dilemmas nd their expression in literary production too. For example, Beth
(2007) has brought to light forms of reexivity amongst Dalit middle-class writers of
autobiographies in Hindi. One of the diculties for these authors lies in dealing with
symbols of their untouchable past (in the case of the Bhangi community Beth analyses,
the pig) whose celebration would be expected from a Dalit writer but it is one that clashes
with upward mobility and the imperatives of the middle class milieu. One of the writers
questions, What does it mean to be Dalit? (Beth 2007, 550), captures these dilemmas
most poignantly.
6. Similar questions were raised by Charsley (1996) in his analysis of the genealogy of the
untouchable category.
7. For a larger-scale analysis of the combined eects of the low-caste politics of naming
amongst family and collectives, see Pandey (2009).
8. Hardtmanns study includes activists eorts in revitalising the Republican Party of India
in Lucknow.
9. For a detailed discussion of these issues, see Ciotti (2010a, 201).
10. It is important to note that data on names and self-representation with two sets of
Chamars discussed here were collected at dierent times: during 19981999 amongst
semi-rural Chamars in eastern UP, and in 20042005 with BSP women in Lucknow.
11. The narrative of betterment, reform and progress at least social is a strong feature
amongst the Chamars I came to know in UP.
12. On BSP low-caste women and the police, see Ciotti (2010b).
13. I have written on low-caste womens use of seva as self-representation in Ciotti (2010b).
14. In Ciotti (2010b) I have written about the absence of victimising language amongst BSP
women to speak about themselves, and the ways in which the resulting representation
depart signicantly from existing ones.
15. This heterogeneity has been noticed also across Indian states: on the dierences between
Maharashtrian and Tamil Dalit women, see Kapadia (2007, 2829).
16. I have examined class and gender dynamics in relation to government employment and
casual labour amongst Chamar women in Ciotti (2009b).
17. For reasons of brevity I cannot include this analysis here.
18. I am not implying here that all BSP activists consider themselves as non-Dalit.
Contemporary South Asia 55
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2

References
Beth, S. 2007. Hindi dalit biography: An exploration of identity. Modern Asian Studies 41, no.
3: 54574.
Chakrabarty, D. 2007. Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial thought and historical dierence.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Orig. pub. 2000.)
Chandra, K. 2004. Why ethnic parties succeed. Patronage and ethnic head counts in India.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Charsley, S.R. 1996. Untouchable: What is in a name? Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute 2: 124.
Chatterjee, P. 2006. The politics of the governed. Reections on popular politics in most of the
world. Delhi: Permanent Black. (Orig. pub. 2004.)
Ciotti, M. 2006. At the margins of feminist politics? Everyday lives of women activists in
northern India. Contemporary South Asia 15, no. 4: 43752.
Ciotti, M. 2009a. The conditions of politics: low-caste women and political agency in a
northern Indian city. Feminist Review 91: 11334.
Ciotti, M. 2009b. The bourgeois woman and the half-naked one. Modern Asian Studies.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type1&d5565580&jidASS&
volumeId-1&issueId-1&aid5565572
Ciotti, M. 2010a. Retro-modern India. Forging the low-caste self. Delhi, London: Routledge.
Ciotti, M. 2010b. Challenging dalits representation: Low-caste women party activists between
the nation and its others. Unpublished paper presented at the University of Oxford.
Gorringe, H. 2009. Subaltern politics and Dalit studies. Review essay. The Journal of Imperial
and Commonwealth History 37, no. 1: 1515.
Gupta, S. 2009. BSP at the crossroads. Economic and Political Weekly, June 27, vol. xliv, nos.
26&27: 1922.
Guru, G. 2003. Dalit women talk dierently. In Gender and caste, ed. A. Rao, 805. New
Delhi: Kali for Women.
Hardtmann, E. 2008. The Dalit movement in India. Local practices, global connections. New
Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Kapadia, K. 2007. Reading Dalit women: Memories of rural lives in Maharashtra, Book
Review. Economic and Political Weekly, December 15, 279.
Khare, R.S. 2003. Elusive social justice, distant human rights: untouchable womens struggle
and dilemmas in changing India. In Changing concepts of rights and justice in South Asia,
ed. M.R. Anderson and S. Guha, 198219. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Marriott, A. 2003. Dalit or Harijan? Self-naming by Scheduled Caste interviewees. Economic
and Political Weekly, September 6, 37512.
Nair, J. 2008. The lateral spread of Indian feminist historiography. Journal of Womens
History 20, no. 4: 17784.
Narayan, B. 2006. Women heroes and Dalit assertion in North India. Culture, identity and
politics. New Delhi: Sage.
Pai, S. 2002. Dalit assertion and the unnished democratic revolution. The Bahujan Samaj Party
in Uttar Pradesh. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Pandey, G. 2006. The subaltern as subaltern citizen. Economic and Political Weekly, May 6,
177988.
Pandey, G. 2009. Can there be a subaltern middle class? Notes on African American and Dalit
history. Public Culture 21, no. 2: 32142.
Ramakrishnan, V., and A.A. Mahaprashasta. 2009. Victims always. Frontline 26, no. 24:
November 21December 4. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20091204262400400.
htm (accessed November 19, 2009).
Shah, A.M. 2002. The Dalit: Category and its dierentiation. Economic and Political Weekly,
April 612, vol. 37, no. 14: 13178.
56 M. Ciotti
D
o
w
n
l
o
a
d
e
d

b
y

[
S
c
h
o
o
l

o
f

O
r
i
e
n
t
a
l

a
n
d

A
f
r
i
c
a
n

S
t
u
d
i
e
s
]

a
t

1
2
:
1
1

2
5

A
u
g
u
s
t

2
0
1
2