The School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad hosted Ms. V. Geetha, a prolific anti-caste feminist writer and activist, for the ninth lecture in the Golden Jubilee Distinguished Lecture Series. As University of Hyderabad steps into its Golden Jubilee year, the Institute of Eminence has supported this incredible lecture series which witnessed discussions across disciplinary boundaries. Her lecture titled “Constructing a Lineage of Indian Feminist Thought” was held on 15th of March 2022 at the CV Raman Auditorium, University of Hyderabad campus. The welcome address was delivered by Dean, School of Social Sciences, Prof. Jyotirmaya Sharma and the lecture was chaired by the Head, Centre for Women’s Studies, Prof. K. Suneetha Rani, who also introduced the speaker and her expansive scholarship. The lecture witnessed earnest participation from students and scholars, not only from the diverse disciplines at the University, but also among the audience were students and scholars of various colleges and universities in Hyderabad.
In tandem with the title of the lecture, the speaker, V. Geetha invoked a critical trajectory of feminist thought in the Indian context. Addressing its contested and polemical origins, she acknowledges the various dialogues that feminist thought has engaged with in arts, music, culture, activism and academic disciplines. At the very onset, she points to the extended title of the lecture, “Method, History and Practice” and argues that feminism has incorporated a dynamic combination of methodologies: conversations, dialogues and oral testimonies in order to understand the life-worlds of women. This must be understood within the contextual history of feminism, which located women’s work and their experiences of domestic life as spaces of epistemic knowledge production. One of the important methods leading to the emergence of feminist thought is through collective reporting: “We will report to each other;” that feminists will be accountable to each other. Feminist theory subverted the idea of women’s conversations as gossip and transformed it into meaningful knowledge. While many move away from the term, and others attempt to add prefixes and pluralise it, V. Geetha finds a critical intervention in Dhammasangini’s work who identified as a feminist-ambedkarite, thereby complicating and intertwining their histories.
In defining feminism, she emphasises adequately on the influences of global movements in shaping feminist demands and questions. For her, it is not a definitive term, rather it encompasses politics, positionality as well as identity markers. It is a distinctive politics of how one visualises the world, that is, feminism a) is a method of unpacking the interconnections between various institutions such as politics, economy, culture; and b) seeks to historicize the processes of social reproduction as its domain of knowledge. In this process, feminism also critically exposes the naturalising tendency of women’s unpaid care work by a brahminical, patriarchal capitalist state. Feminist theory subverted the idea of women’s conversations as gossip and transformed it into meaningful knowledge. While many move away from the term, and others attempt to add prefixes and pluralise it, V. Geetha found a critical intervention in Dhammasangini’s work who identified as a feminist-ambedkarite, thereby complicating and intertwining their histories.
Drawing on Marx’s understanding, she used the term social reproduction, not only within the context of capitalism, but in understanding how caste-class relations and inequalities are produced and maintained; the ways in which production and reproduction of social order facilitates continuous existence of invisible labour work by women, that allows the capitalist economy to maintain cheap labour and gender inequalities. In a sense, therefore, feminism lays bare the relationship between economy, culture and the ideology of gender that controls social inequalities.
Moving on to the contested history and lineage of the feminist thought in India, V. Geetha brings to the fore the differences in feminist articulations among women in India, determined by the class-caste context within which their experiences were shaped. Putting emphasis on the Ambedkarite tradition and the self-respect movement, V. Geetha points to the intersecting nature of feminist demands that emanates from dalit, bahujan and tribal women’s everyday experiences. Drawing from the writings and activism of Pratima Pardeshi, Gail Omvedt, Veena Das and others, she critically foregrounds the lineage of Indian feminist thought in Anti-caste, Ambedkarite and Self-respect ideologies. While White and upper-caste feminism put emphasis on freedom and equality of women with the men of their classes, the intersectional feminist perspectives located women’s inequalities and violence against them in larger issues of political economy, such as state and corporate led land grabs, casteist discrimination from brahminical social order and so on.
Drawing on Ambedkar’s writings and dalit feminist theoretical positions, the speaker presented a history of feminist thought that was rooted in women’s intersectional experience within the brahmanical and capitalist order. Her lecture ended with a series of interesting questions from the students, faculty members and guests, which was followed by high tea and informal discussions.