Ambedkar

The history of reservations in India shows that it was an outcome of a long process of struggle to gain recognition and representation for the minorities, especially Dalits. It also shows that the Dalits as an important third force in politics, apart from the Hindus and Muslims, had to compromise and even sacrifice their legitimate demands in this process. Any tinkering with reservations, therefore, is in bad faith and an assault to the Indian nationhood.

.

Dalit women’s experiences as epistemic spaces form the basis for a new conceptual and theoretical framework of a Dalit “womanist–humanist complex” to analyse the materiality of caste, class, gender, sexuality, local economy, and power relationships, both within and outside of the Dalit community. How do Dalits navigate awkward contingencies, tenuous histories, socio-economic contexts, political pressures, and cultural realities to negotiate with the regimes of power, carve their agency, and contribute to feminist thought, praxis, pedagogies, and politics? The myriad ways through which Dalits have consistently expanded, challenged, and revolutionised feminism, by working on different potentials, hopes, and futures, are demonstrated here.

.