From Delhi University to SOAS: Examining Savarna Feminism and the Emergence of Dalit Feminism
The first experience in a feminist reading group at Delhi University felt like finding a community. The room, adorned with posters of renowned feminist figures such as Audre Lorde and Virginia Woolf, buzzed with enthusiasm for liberation. As a young Dalit woman, there was a deep need for a space where I could articulate my struggles and feel acknowledged.
However, over time, a critical contradiction emerged. While the group fervently critiqued issues of race within Lorde’s work and patriarchy in Woolf’s essays, they hesitated to discuss the interplay of caste and gender. When I suggested that caste influenced access to “a room of one’s own,” a classmate politely commented, “Caste is more of a rural issue. In cities, it’s really just about class now. We don’t need to read caste into everything.”
This comment highlighted the painful divide between theoretical discussions and real-world experiences. Acknowledging caste as a central issue would require confronting their own privileges, leading conversations back to safer, abstract discussions rather than addressing the hierarchies affecting us in that very room.
This dynamic resonates with what bell hooks articulated regarding white feminists decades ago in the United States, noting their tendency to pay lip service to solidarity while marginalizing Black women (hooks, 1981, p. 23).
The Framework of Savarna Feminism
Savarna feminism, predominantly propagated by upper or privileged caste Hindu women, centers its narratives while neglecting the realities faced by women of lower castes and other communities. This strand mirrors white feminism, establishing a veneer of universalism that primarily uplifts their experiences and positions, often relegating Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi, and Muslim women to mere tokenistic roles, where their stories are cast as simple tales of victimhood.
As I participated in activism, NGO workshops, and academic settings, I observed how this exclusive narrative traveled internationally. Savarna feminism gained traction among global feminist movements due to its consumable format, which emphasizes individual empowerment rather than collective action to dismantle structural injustices.
The language of NGO proposals often features terms like “capacity building” and “leadership training,” which appear progressive but often omit critical discussions of caste or religious discrimination. When mentioned, these issues are frequently reduced to footnotes, stripping them of their profound impact on women’s lives and ensuring that Brahmanical patriarchy remains intact.
This pattern also manifests in academia, where research on South Asian feminism often overlooks caste entirely or addresses it superficially. Some scholars draw on intersectionality while neglecting to acknowledge their own caste advantages. To those unfamiliar with the Indian context, these presentations may seem advanced; however, they inadvertently safeguard their positions of power while obscuring the systemic hierarchies enabling their academic presence.
The Politics of Erasure
This phenomenon mirrors the history of white feminism in the West. In the 19th-century United States, white suffragists campaigned for women’s rights while systematically excluding Black women from their narrative. Angela Davis articulated this dilemma, stating that white women were not ready to surrender their allegiance to white supremacy for the broader fight for women’s rights (Davis, 1981, p. 54).
Today’s Savarna feminists similarly benefit from caste privileges while presenting themselves as leaders in Indian feminism, representing only their experiences when discussing “Indian womanhood.” This pattern of erasure is politically motivated, serving to protect their societal power while maintaining an image of progressiveness. By controlling the feminist narrative, they secure their international recognition, often sidelining Dalit and Muslim women, who become mere statistics or subjects of research.
Exploitation of Marginalized Voices
The appropriation of marginalized voices is particularly evident in academic and NGO contexts, where the experiences of Dalit and Muslim women are mined for intellectual or institutional benefit. A Dalit woman’s suffering may become fodder for a dissertation, while a Muslim woman’s activism gets repurposed into academic articles, often presented under the guise of “giving voice to the voiceless.” This patronizing stance assumes these women lack agency in international discussions, when, in reality, they are silenced by existing power structures.
I witnessed this in real-time at SOAS, where I attended a seminar where a Savarna academic analyzed caste violence in rural India without acknowledging her caste privilege or the power dynamics involved in her research. The audience, composed largely of Western academics, lauded her for her insights, neglecting to question why a Dalit scholar wasn’t presenting instead. Meanwhile, the lives underpinning her research were reduced to mere data points while she gained recognition and career advancement.
Though claiming to represent “the margins,” Savarna feminists often construct barriers to accessing platforms. This positioning maintains their appearance of radicalism while keeping discussions within the confines of mainstream acceptability, obscuring the radical potential of the very narratives they repurpose.
Complicity in Hindutva
This pattern of appropriation frequently coincides with a troubling silence regarding Hindutva. Many Savarna feminists express concerns about casteism and Islamophobia publicly, yet their critiques often remain abstract. In private settings, such as family gatherings or conversations, they typically refrain from challenging communal remarks or anti-Muslim sentiments, citing a desire to remain neutral. This is not neutrality; rather, it reflects complicity.
Savarna families often serve as breeding grounds for Hindutva ideologies, with Brahmanical supremacy reinforced through daily interactions and rituals. By failing to address these issues privately, Savarna feminists enable the unchecked growth of Hindutva. While they may perform allyship in public forums, they uphold their privileges that shield them from potential backlash, leaving marginalized communities vulnerable.
The repercussions of such silence are severe. As Hindutva gains traction, it has adapted feminist rhetoric to promote majoritarianism, branding campaigns as protective measures for women while simultaneously targeting minorities. The language surrounding “saving Hindu women” serves to vilify Muslim men, while calls for consent and dignity are exploited to justify surveillance and restrictions on interfaith relationships and Dalit women’s freedoms.
Failure to confront this appropriation undermines the integrity of feminist movements, creating a void that Hindutva is all too eager to fill.
The Rise of Dalit Feminism
In stark contrast to Savarna feminism, Dalit feminism emerges from the margins, prioritizing the voices of those previously silenced. It refuses superficial tokenism and emphasizes the intersectionality of caste and gender, illuminating how Brahmanical patriarchy perpetuates oppression across different communities.
As Sharmila Rege posits in Dalit Women Talk Differently, Dalit feminism transcends mere identity politics, presenting transformative frameworks that challenge how feminism and anti-caste politics are perceived. It emphasizes that true feminism must acknowledge the systemic inequalities within womanhood itself (Rege, 1998). Dalit feminism articulates its perspectives from the realities of those at the bottom of the caste hierarchy, revealing the intertwined nature of sexism and casteism, as described by Anandita Pan (Pan, 2019).
This approach rejects the false binaries that have historically dominated political discussions in India: caste versus gender and public versus private. By confronting these artificial divisions, Dalit feminism fosters coalitions that mainstream feminism often neglects (Arya & Rathore, 2019).
In the current landscape, Dalit feminism represents a crucial movement within India—one unafraid to identify Hindutva and Brahmanism as oppressive forces. It seeks to foster unity among Dalit and Muslim communities in the face of both caste and religious oppression. This conceptual framework views the margins not as objects of pity but as sources of radical knowledge and potential for revolutionary change.
As emphasized by Anandita Pan, Dalit feminism is not solely about representation; it concerns how to listen and mobilize effectively. Engaging with Dalit feminism involves a commitment to actively challenge the status quo and work towards a space in which liberation for one does not come at the expense of another (Pan, 2019). In this vision, feminism becomes a collective endeavor to dismantle hierarchies, aiming for a reality where the margins cease to exist.
Vaishnavi Manju Pal is a Gender Studies graduate from SOAS, University of London, and currently serves as a lecturer and module leader of Social Science in London.
Tags: Savarna feminism, Dalit feminism, Delhi University, SOAS, feminist discourse
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