On Caste and Women’s Oppression in India

(Letter)

7 March 2013

To the editor:

We agree with the political substance of your February 8, 2013 article [WV No. 1017] on the Delhi rape protests. We are writing to comment on the wording of a few passages.

You refer to mob attacks by caste Hindus on “entire dalit villages.” The village is a basic social unit in rural India. Caste arises from an enforced, hereditary division of labor within the village. A village is thus necessarily made up of several castes, each of which traditionally has its own segregated place inside it to live. The place allotted to dalits (as untouchables are now known among journalists and activists) is typically farthest from the village center, at or just beyond the boundary of the village proper. To call these settlements “dalit villages” is to suggest that dalits have an independent society. Whereas in fact, as Harsh Mander points out in his preface to Untouchability in Rural India by Ghanshyam Shah et al. (2006), “[u]nlike the tribal people in India, who have lived until recently in relative isolation from the dominant culture, society and economy, Dalits have always been an integral part of these, but placed at the bottom.” Thus, for instance, the areas attacked by Vanniyar-caste mobs in an incident in Tamil Nadu last November which you go on to cite were dalit colonies attached to Vanniyar-dominated villages.

We question your skeptical use of quotation marks around the word upper in the phrase “‘upper’ caste.” Hierarchy is inherent to the caste system. Insofar as there are castes (which is to say, not in nature but in social reality), there are indeed higher ones and lower ones. Obviously, communists are not for the equality of castes (a contradiction in terms, like “separate but equal”), but for a casteless society.

You write that “Congress co-opted dalit leader B.R. Ambedkar to head up the drafting of the constitution, which banned ‘untouchability’ but left the caste system intact.” We are concerned, first of all, that this might give the impression that untouchability has been effectively outlawed in India. While the Indian government regularly cites the provision of its constitution to which you allude and related legislation to defend itself against international criticism, this “de jure prohibition,” as the bourgeois humanitarian group Human Rights Watch has rightly observed, “does not reflect the daily reality of the continued practice of ‘untouchability’ and persecution of Dalits in India. Dalits are systematically discriminated against and abused by public authorities and private actors, who act without any fear of punishment as they rarely face sanctions for their violations of Dalits’ fundamental rights.” (Hidden Apartheid: Caste Discrimination Against India’s “Untouchables,” 2007) In the second place, your implied criticism of the Indian constitution for having “left the caste system intact” could be taken to suggest that caste can be removed by an act of legislation. In reality, as you go on to say at the end of the article, it is “the enormous task of eliminating scarcity” which only a proletarian revolution will inaugurate that can “alone lay the material basis for eradicating the oppression of women and caste.” A revolutionary workers government will of necessity wage an active fight against caste oppression and caste-based discrimination in all its forms. But like the family—that fundamental locus of women’s oppression with which in South Asia it is inseparably bound up—caste cannot simply be abolished. Rather, its real social and economic function must be replaced within an egalitarian socialist order founded on abundance.

Fraternally, Alan and Sarah

WV replies:

We appreciate the point in this letter that dalit colonies are not separate villages but physically segregated areas within the village structure. The village is central to caste domination and to women’s oppression, as we noted in the article: “Caste oppression is enforced through the panchayat system of village councils that dictate what is acceptable in all aspects of social relations. These councils have the authority to punish anything from cross-caste marriages to violations of dress codes for women. Women’s liberation and the destruction of the caste system are inextricably bound together.”

The Indian constitution formally outlawed untouchability. However, as our article made clear, this had little effect on the reality of caste oppression. The caste system was preserved and strengthened, not only under British colonial rule but also after independence. As our article noted, Ambedkar himself said: “The same old tyranny, the same old oppression, the same old discrimination which existed before, exists now, and perhaps in a worse form.”

Elsewhere in the article we warn against liberal illusions that the Indian capitalist state will legislate the hideous oppression of women or of caste out of existence. We wrote that dowry deaths are widespread, but “the practice of dowry has been prohibited by law since 1961—so much for the liberal notion that rape and violence against women can be ended by legislation.” As for equality for women, we noted:

“The explosive nature of any attempt to fight against the oppression of women in India gives the lie to the liberal pipe dream of effecting a gradual transition to equality for women through reliance on the state and its laws. Indeed, women’s equality is already enshrined in the Indian constitution, for all the good that does. The burning issues facing women pose questions that only proletarian revolution can answer.”

The political premise of our article is that the Indian bourgeoisie is incapable of bringing about an end to the caste system or to the oppression of women, which are deeply rooted in capitalist rule in that country. India represents a striking confirmation of the Trotskyist program of permanent revolution, which means that only a workers and peasants government can lead India’s masses out of the depths of poverty and grinding exploitation. Working-class power on an international scale, throughout the subcontinent and extended to the imperialist centers, will lay the basis for genuine equality for all.