Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of Difference and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position

The assertion of autonomous dalit women's organisations in the 1990s threw up several crucial theoretical and political challenges, besides underlining the brahmanism of the feminist movement and the patriarchal practices of dalit politics. While initially they promoted serious debate among both left party+based women' s groups as well as autonomous women's movement, they seem to have come to rest today. The apparent absence of a revisioning of feminist politics only suggests an ideological position of multiple/plural feminist standpoints. Within such a framework of 'difference' issues of caste become the sole responsibility of the dalit women's organisations. This absence of an exploration of different positions hinders dialectics, both of a revisioning of contemporary feminist politics and a sharpening of the positions put forth by autonomous dalit women's organisations.