Editorial notes by Dr. Barbara R. Joshi: Beginning in the early 1800s, individuals- in a number of India’s hereditary Untouchable castes began to challenge the humiliation and exploitation of the traditional caste system and the religiously legitimized practice of untouchability Their struggle, now known as the Dalit (“Oppressed)”” movement, is far from over, but it has already had a profound impact on the reshaping of Indian society and polity. Recently two Dalit women, Meenakshi Moon and Urmila Pawar, set out to record the role of women in the early days of this momentous change. Their research took them into the homes of a c 1ss-section of Dalit women from the state of Maharashtra, where the late Untouchable leader, Dr. Ambedkar, developed one. of the most influential movements of resistance and reform. Their study, written in Marathi, was published in Pune in 1989 under the title,” We Made History Too. “In many ways the authors themselves are continuing to make history. Both are self-taught historians and writers who have encouraged other Dalit women to write and lo take an active role in the continuing struggles against oppression of Untouchables and of women. We must hope that news of their work will encourage Dalit women in other— regions of India to research and record the rapidly fading history of women in the early days of other distinctive Untouchable movements. The following synopsis was prepared by Mrs. Moon and Mrs. Pawar to describe their findings and their experiences during their research.
GIRLS TO GOD
The story of women’s participation. in the Untouchable Movement is an interesting one. To trace the early activism of Untouchable women one has to go back to the beginning. of the 20th century. In the following decades women’s activities developed from mere participation as beneficiaries or as audience, io the shouldering of significant responsibility in various fields of activity in the Ambedkar movement. In the first decade of the 20th century, we find Shivram Janaba Kamble taking up the mission of moving the stigma of prostitution from the face of the Untouchables. In 1908, through his magazine Showmanship Mitra, he wrote articles asking his community to accept in marriage the hands of women who had been thrown into the degrading profession of prostitution through the practice of giving girls to Hindu temples as devadasis (slaves of the God).
Besides writing articles Kamble conducted various meetings to awaken and enlighten people and appealed to them to abandon the practice of offering girls to the god and goddess of Jejuri known as Khandoba and Yellamma.
Kamble’s efforts yielded positive results. One devadasi named Shivubai responded to the call and wrote a very long letter explaining the miserable life of the wretched women and offering herself in marriage to any willing person. In response to her call, published by Kamble in his magazine, one of his associates, Ganpat Rao Hanumant Rao Gaikwad, agreed to marry Shivubai. Accordingly, the marriage was solemnized and was given wide publicity. Not only did Kamble encourage such marriages but he also saw to it that these women got respect and dignity in society. His propaganda against the devadasi system was so effective that in the year 1909 not a single girl was offered to Khandoba as a devadasi. It was also found that other slave girls of the God (prostitutes) were accepted by the young boys of the Untouchables community as their wives.
The early movement of Untouchables in Maharashtra also led to increasing participation by women in conferences. A Nagpur woman, a nurse, described her experiences of untouchability to the all-India women’s conference of 1920. Other women were brought before audiences either to welcome the guest speakers in the conferences or to sing the welcome songs in the meetings.
NASIK SATYAGRAHA
The movement begun by Dr. Ambedkar generated even more enthusiastic participation. Dr. Ambedkar organized several conferences of the Untouchables. He saw to it that women’s conferences were held simultaneously with those for men. By 1930 women had become so conscious that they started conducting their own meetings and conferences independently.
In Mahad in 1927, during the historic satyagraha movement to claim the right of Untouchables to take water from the public tank, Dalit women not only participated in the procession with Dr. Ambedkar but also participated in the deliberations of the subject committee meetings in passing resolutions about the claim for equal human rights.
In the Nasik satyagraha, started by Dr. Ambedkar in 1930 for the right of Untouchables to enter Hindu temples, several hundred women conducted sit-in agitations in front of the temple and courted arrest. Every batch of volunteers consisted of some women.
Some of the women still alive have been interviewed during this research.
This satyagraha was carried on until 1935, when on the 13th of October Dr. Ambedkar declared at Yeola {near Nasik) that he had been born a Hindu but would not die a Hindu. In the Yeola conference Dr. Ambedkar announced this ‘satyagraha was terminated, as the heart of the Hindus was not likely io change. He also said that his objective was to organize and to awaken the Untouchables themselves.
SEPARATE ELECTORATE
During Untouchable women, Efforts this period, women conducted meetings to support separate electorates for the. Untouchables, and passed resolutions accordingly. In May 1936 the women held an independent conference along with one for men in Bombay to support Dr. Ambedkar’s declaration of intent to convert to a non-Hindu religion. The speeches of women, reported exhaustively in Janata Weekly, show that women were very frank in stating that they wanted a religion that would recognize their freedom, dignity, and equal status with man.
The resolutions passed by women in various conferences demanded:
(1) Free and compulsory education for girls,
(2) Women’s representation in state legislative assemblies, local bodies etc.
(3) Training for self-protection of Untouchable women, such as wielding of sticks or karate,
(4) Starting a women’s wing in the Samata Sainik Dal (Equality Volunteer Corps),
(5) Prohibiting child marriages. Efforts also were made to rescue women from prostitution areas. This was done in Nagpur in 1936.
NAGPUR GIRLS SCHOOL
Efforts were made by all Ambedkarite workers to encourage women’s education. The research revealed that the first girl’s schools in the Untouchable community was started by Kalicharan Nandagavali, who later became the first Untouchable representative from Gondi to the Central Provinces Legislative Council during the 1920s. Similar schools were started in the Konkan region and at a few other places. In 1924 in Nagpur the first woman to start a girl’s school was Jaibai Chaudhari, who herself secured an education against heavy odds and against the wishes of her husband. She was encouraged and helped in her work by a Christian nun. Other women social workers started independent hostels exclusively for girls during the 1930s.
The political movement begun by Dr. Ambedkar brought forth the political ambition of Untouchable women. The women conducted conferences and passed resolutions to support the Independent Labor Party and later the Scheduled Castes Federation programs. In describing the 1942 conference of women at Nagpur, held at the same time as the meeting of the Scheduled Castes Federation, Dr. Ambedkar said, “The presence of women in the conference in their thousands was a sight for the gods to witness. Their dress, their cleanliness and the confidence with which they behaved in the conference brought delight to my heart.” Similar conferences of women of great magnitude were organized at Kanpur (1944), Bombay (1945), and Calcutta (1946).
MARRIAGE REFORMS
In all these conferences women leaders, viz. Minambal Shivraj from Madras, Sulochana Dongre of Amravati, Shanta bai Dani and several other women addressed the meetings. Radhabai Kamble, a worker in a cotton mill, had come up as a labor leader in the Ambedkarite movement in the 1920s. She gave evidence before the Royal Commission of Labor in 1929. The Untouchable women also joined the political agitations and courted arrest and underwent jail during the Scheduled Caste Federation’s 1946 satyagraha in the State Assemblies. From all this it will be clear that women had made great strides in achieving political consciousness.
The research shows that women also were interested in reforming the marriage system. Untouchable society already permitted divorce, remarriage, and widow marriage, but the women in the movement brought several further reforms in the marriage system. They opposed child marriage, and actively encouraged remarriage and widow marriage. They tried to eliminate unnecessary rituals in the marriage ceremony, and tried to reduce expenses in the marriage. They even adopted marriages through advertisement, which was not acceptable then even among higher? classes. Even marriages among different Untouchable sub-castes were welcomed. Such reforms were often ahead of the higher castes.
GOODBYE TO HINDUISM
The research has also documented the change that has occurred among women since the great conversion to Buddhism in 1956. Normally it is believed that women are mostly conservative in cultural matters and not amenable to change, but Dalit women accepted the progressive religion of Buddha voluntarily and adopted the new religion. They have given up old customs, rites and rituals, visits to Hindu pilgrimage sites, fasting on various Hindu festivals, etc. The women have also adopted the Buddhist. form of worship and way of life which is based on morality, wisdom and compassion. The conversion has changed their outlook about caste so much that the new generation of Buddhists hardly knows its sub-caste, and many inter-caste marriages have been welcomed in the Buddhist faith. Formerly girls were given contemptuous names which indicated their low position and – Buddhist women name their daughter after great women from Buddhist history (p.70)
(Reproduced from south Asia bulletin, USA, Vol.9 no.2, 1989)
