ABSTRACT
Journeying through the various stages of the author’s career, the chapter reflects upon her understanding of caste and how it has been shaped by Ambedkar’s idea of graded inequality. The chapter points out the role of caste in buttressing patriarchy. Class, caste and gender are inextricably linked since the structure of marriage, sexuality and reproduction is the fundamental basis of the caste system. It is also fundamental to the way inequality is sustained: the structure of marriage reproduces both class and caste inequality and, thus, the entire production system through its tightly controlled system of reproduction. The text then lays out how an intersectional framework is necessary to view critical issues in Indian society today such as love jihad, eruption of communal riots and so on. What is the way forward? In this relation due attention must be given to movements and articulation of Dalit women activists who critique their invisibility in mainstream autonomous women’s movement. Contentious issues around how feminists should view forms of contemporary labour, especially caste based labour, complicated by gender and sexuality, has in the last couple of decades opened up the scope for dialogue between the mainstream women’s movement and Dalit feminists. The debates, anger, reluctance and betrayal haven come out in the open, forcing those of us who want to be a part of the democratic process to contemplate what political choices we make, how we shape the debates and the activism that we are engaged in, the standpoint we position ourselves in and work from.
