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ID:
118927
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this paper I take the women's movement as the site for unpacking some of the strains and tensions involved in practical interpretations of secularism in present-day India. Several sources within and outside the movement point out that there has been a tendency to take the existence of secularism for granted, and that the supposedly secular idioms and symbols used for mobilizing women have been drawn from Hindu religio-cultural sources. Women from Dalit and religious minority communities have felt alienated by this. Hindu nationalists have cleverly appropriated these idioms and symbols to mobilize women as foot soldiers to further religious nationalism. Through a case-study of a grassroots women's NGO working in Uttar Pradesh, I seek to explore how women's organizations may be reshaping their agendas and activism to address this issue. Specifically, I will examine how and why the 2002 Gujarat riots affected the NGO, the ways in which it has started working on the issue of communal harmony and engaging with Muslims since the riots, and the challenges with which it has been confronted as a result of its efforts. In doing so, I will show how the complexities of NGO-based women's activism have become intertwined with the politics of secularism.
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| 2 |
ID:
084244
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| Publication |
2008.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Dalit or ex-untouchable women's voices and perspectives have been marginalized not only in Dalit movements but also in predominantly upper-caste Hindu-led women's movements. This paper aims at exploring the unheard voices and perspectives of Dalit women in the context of Dalit assertion in the state of Uttar Pradesh, north India. Scholarly writing examines the different facets of Dalit political assertion led by the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. Few scholars, however, examine the ways in which individual and organizational actors engage with women of Dalit castes through social activism in the state. This paper is an attempt to do so. Specifically, it examines, with special reference to issues of culture and identity, the engagement of a grassroots women's non-governmental organization with rural Dalit women in southern Uttar Pradesh. The paper begins with an enquiry into why engagement with issues of culture and identity is necessary for social activism with Dalit women, and how it is carried out. It then examines whether social activism and electoral politics with Dalit women cross-cut each other, and also what implications this or its lack has for the women. Finally, the paper asks how far activism and politics can go towards re-inventing Dalit (women's) identity.
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