-Ramphal Kataria
Brahmanical Patriarchy: The Hidden Architecture of Gender Violence in India
For decades, discussions on violence against women in India have been framed in a universalist language—“women’s safety,” “patriarchy,” and “gender justice.” These terms, while important, often conceal the brutal fact that not all women experience patriarchy in the same way. In India, caste determines whose suffering is visible, whose dignity is defended, and whose body becomes expendable.
The violence experienced by Dalit women lies at the intersection of caste hierarchy and patriarchal domination. It is a violence that is structural, historical, and deeply political.
Dalit feminist scholars have long argued that mainstream feminist discourse in India often ignored caste as a fundamental axis of oppression. It was only in the late twentieth century that the scholarship of thinkers such as Sharmila Rege and Uma Chakravarti systematically exposed how caste structures gender relations.
Their work forces a difficult question upon the Indian republic: can gender justice exist without caste annihilation?
Ambedkar’s Feminist Vision
Long before contemporary feminist scholarship emerged in India, B. R. Ambedkar had already recognized that the subjugation of women was central to the survival of caste.
In his seminal 1916 paper Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development, Ambedkar argued that caste reproduces itself through strict control over women’s sexuality—particularly through endogamy, the rule that individuals must marry within their caste group.
Ambedkar wrote:
“The superposition of endogamy on exogamy means the creation of caste.”
Endogamy required elaborate social mechanisms to maintain caste purity. These mechanisms historically included:
• child marriage
• enforced widowhood
• prohibition of inter-caste marriage
• strict control over women’s mobility
Women’s bodies thus became the frontline of caste preservation.
In Ambedkar’s analysis, caste hierarchy could not survive if women were allowed freedom in marriage and sexuality. Patriarchal control over women was therefore not incidental—it was a structural necessity of caste society.
Ambedkar’s politics reflected this insight. As chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution of India, he pushed for constitutional guarantees that would dismantle caste discrimination and expand women’s rights.
Among these were:
• Article 14
• Article 15
• Article 17
Ambedkar’s feminist commitments became even clearer during his attempt to pass the Hindu Code Bill, which sought to grant women rights in inheritance, property, and divorce.
The bill faced ferocious opposition from conservative Hindu legislators, who saw it as an attack on traditional social structures. When the bill was stalled in parliament, Ambedkar resigned from the cabinet in protest.
His resignation speech remains one of the most powerful statements on women’s rights in Indian political history.
Ambedkar declared that the progress of a community is measured by the degree of progress which women have achieved.
Dalit Feminism: Rewriting the Narrative
While Ambedkar laid the intellectual foundation, it was the work of late twentieth-century scholars who gave shape to what is now called Dalit feminism.
Dalit feminism challenged both upper-caste feminism and male-dominated Dalit politics.
Mainstream Indian feminism—especially in its early decades—was largely shaped by urban, upper-caste women. Issues such as dowry deaths, domestic violence, and workplace discrimination dominated feminist campaigns.
These issues were undoubtedly important.
But Dalit feminists argued that they did not fully capture the realities of women who lived at the intersection of caste, poverty, and gender violence.
Dalit women faced not only patriarchal domination within their communities but also caste violence from dominant castes.
Their oppression was therefore dual and layered.
Sharmila Rege and the Politics of Testimony
The sociologist Sharmila Rege played a transformative role in bringing Dalit women’s voices into feminist scholarship.
In her influential work Writing Caste, Writing Gender, Rege argued that Dalit women’s autobiographies must be treated as critical theory, not merely as personal narratives.
These testimonies exposed the everyday violence that mainstream feminism often overlooked.
Dalit women wrote about:
• sexual violence by dominant caste men
• humiliation in public spaces
• caste-based labour exploitation
• exclusion from education
• policing of mobility
Rege insisted that feminist theory must be reconstructed from the standpoint of those most oppressed.
She called this approach “Dalit feminist standpoint epistemology.”
This framework insisted that knowledge about Indian society cannot be complete unless it includes the experiences of Dalit women.
Without those voices, feminist discourse remains structurally incomplete.
Uma Chakravarti and the Concept of Brahmanical Patriarchy
If Rege brought Dalit testimonies into academic discourse, the historian Uma Chakravarti provided one of the most powerful theoretical tools to understand caste and gender.
Chakravarti introduced the concept of “Brahmanical patriarchy.”
The term describes a system in which caste hierarchy and patriarchal control reinforce each other.
Under Brahmanical patriarchy:
• upper-caste women are controlled to maintain caste purity
• lower-caste women are sexually exploited to maintain caste dominance
This dual system produces different forms of oppression for different women.
Upper-caste women face severe restrictions on sexuality and mobility because they carry the burden of preserving caste purity.
Dalit women, on the other hand, are often subjected to sexual violence because dominant castes view them as socially disposable.
This framework explains why sexual violence in India is frequently caste-targeted.
Violence as a Tool of Caste Power
Sexual violence against Dalit women is not merely a crime of individual pathology. It often functions as collective punishment and social intimidation.
In rural India, dominant caste groups frequently deploy violence to discipline communities that challenge traditional hierarchies.
When Dalit families assert land rights, political representation, or educational mobility, violence against women becomes a weapon of retaliation.
Several high-profile cases have exposed this pattern.
One of the most disturbing examples occurred in 2020 in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh.
A 19-year-old Dalit woman was brutally assaulted and later died from her injuries. The case triggered national outrage when authorities hurriedly cremated her body in the middle of the night without the family’s consent.
The episode exposed deep institutional failures.
Police initially denied that rape had occurred.
Political leaders attempted to downplay the crime.
And the victim’s family faced intimidation during the investigation.
The case revealed how state institutions themselves can reproduce caste power structures.
Crime Data and Structural Inequality
Official statistics confirm that caste-targeted violence remains widespread.
According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau, crimes against Scheduled Castes have steadily increased over the past decade.
In 2022 alone:
• over 57,000 crimes against Scheduled Castes were recorded
• nearly 4,000 cases involved rape of Dalit women
These numbers likely underestimate the real scale of violence because many cases go unreported due to fear of retaliation.
Conviction rates remain distressingly low.
In many rural areas, dominant caste networks influence police investigations, leading to weak prosecutions or outright dismissal of cases.
The Demographic Context: Sex Ratio and Structural Discrimination
Gender inequality in India is also visible in demographic indicators.
The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India reported that the sex ratio at birth remains skewed in many states.
Despite legal prohibitions on sex-selective abortion under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, cultural preference for sons continues to distort demographic patterns.
The National Family Health Survey shows that the sex ratio at birth has improved slightly but remains uneven across regions.
Economic inequality further deepens gender disparities.
According to data from the International Labour Organization, India’s female labour force participation rate remains among the lowest in the world.
In 2023 it hovered around 25 percent.
Dalit and Adivasi women often participate in labour markets at higher rates than upper-caste women—but largely in low-paid and informal work.
Their economic participation does not translate into empowerment because it occurs within exploitative labour systems.
Law Without Transformation
India possesses an impressive architecture of legal protections against caste and gender discrimination.
Among them:
• Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act
• Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act
• Criminal Law (Amendment) Act
These laws were strengthened after the nationwide protests following the 2012 Delhi gang rape.
Yet the persistence of violence suggests that legal reform alone cannot dismantle deeply embedded social hierarchies.
Law operates within society, and when social institutions remain caste-bound, justice becomes fragile.
The Politics of Silence
Dalit feminists argue that Indian public discourse often erases caste when discussing gender violence.
Media coverage tends to frame crimes as isolated acts of brutality rather than as expressions of systemic inequality.
The result is a politics of silence.
Without acknowledging caste, society cannot confront the structures that enable violence.
This silence is not accidental.
It reflects the discomfort of confronting a social order that continues to privilege dominant castes even within democratic institutions.
Toward an Ambedkarite Feminism
For Dalit feminist thinkers, the path forward lies in reclaiming Ambedkar’s radical vision.
Ambedkar did not treat caste and gender as separate struggles.
For him, annihilation of caste was inseparable from women’s emancipation.
An Ambedkarite feminism therefore demands:
• land rights and economic independence for Dalit women
• stronger enforcement of atrocity laws
• representation in political institutions
• recognition of caste-based sexual violence
• transformation of social attitudes through education
Without these changes, legal equality will remain a fragile promise.
Conclusion: Democracy and the Measure of Justice
India often celebrates itself as the world’s largest democracy.
But democracy cannot be measured only by elections.
It must also be measured by the dignity afforded to its most vulnerable citizens.
Dalit women stand at the intersection of India’s deepest inequalities—caste, gender, and poverty.
Their experiences reveal the unfinished project of the republic.
The question confronting India today is not merely whether violence against women will decrease.
The deeper question is whether the nation is willing to confront the caste structures that sustain that violence.
Until that confrontation occurs, the promise of equality embedded in the Constitution will remain incomplete.
References
1. Ambedkar, B. R. Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development. 1916.
2. Ambedkar, B. R. Annihilation of Caste. 1936.
3. Rege, Sharmila. Writing Caste, Writing Gender. Zubaan, 2006.
4. Chakravarti, Uma. Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens. Stree, 2003.
5. National Crime Records Bureau. Crime in India 2022.
6. National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), Government of India.
7. International Labour Organization. Women and Men in the Informal Economy.
8. Government of India. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
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