LAUSR

abstract So far as Dalit studies are concerned, the field has managed to appeal to a narrow readership, limited mostly to the context of India and the global South. Having allowed a confined space to Dalit studies, there is a common notion that this space is enough to translate all the nuances of the marginalised identity. The practice of casteism, of course, is not an isolated form of oppression and yet the recognition of the impact of other possible intersecting identities go unnoticed. Perhaps the predominant ideology behind popular discourses on feminism is the idea of a sisterhood shared by those who challenge a hyper-masculine patriarchy. It caters to a very limited notion of sisterhood that generalises the nuances that might be present in one’s identity. This essentially means that if one’s politics demands a more radical approach, it is either subsumed or excluded. Thus, mainstream feminism in India has been, for a long time, quick to exclude Dalit feminists from their politics. While it reeks of a privileged upper-class/caste or savarna culture, the logic has been this – to divide Dalit identity into sub-identities is a challenge to the notion of a unified, singular Dalit community. Thus, at any given moment, the political ideologies of a person are forced to be limited either to a genderless caste or a casteless gender. This article aims to question the productivity of such an exclusionary politics by looking into the nuanced language of Dalit women who were shaping an alternate modernity for themselves that has countered not only the nationalist project in India but also the casteless discourse of contemporary mainstream feminism. For this purpose, the article chooses to study Dalit women’s political poetry from Marathi, Telugu and Tamil languages (translated into English) to demonstrate how Dalit feminism formulates a body of thought that balances both the identities of being a Dalit and a woman.