caste 

Over the last two decades, women's experiences and oppression as linked to religious and caste identity have become clearer than ever, as has evidence of how practices of class and caste respectability and privileges produce inequalities amongst women. Since the 1990s, Saheli has organised internal and open meetings to explore the various dimensions of how gender and caste intersect, to share our experiences and address the challenges; to understand the relationship between the caste-based movements, caste-based women’s groups and the women’s movement in general; and to strategise ways of strengthening the interconnections, with a special focus on the role that the autonomous women’s movement needs to play at this particular political juncture.

From deliberations on the challenges thrown up by the brutality in Khairlanji, to organising the session on Caste-based Identities, Discriminations and Struggles along with SAMA and CADAM at the Conference of Women’s Movements in Kolkata 2006, we have focussed on overarching issues of the patriarchal control of caste norms and boundaries on all women, the challenges this poses to women’s rights and struggles. In 2008, we published Talking marriage, caste and community: Voices from within, the outcome of a study on the intersection between the institutions of marriage and community. Subsequently, we have evolved a play titled, Kaun Jaat that uses on monologues to foreground women’s experiences of community control and trigger discussions on the issue. Of late, we have also been engaging with the role of caste panchayats as they control the sexuality and freedoms of women.