ALTERNATIVE STANDPOINT
Ambedkar’s Feminism
Karin Kapadia
V
irtually every day, the most brutal,
most gruesome rapes of Indian
girls and women fill the headlines.
From where does this vicious misogyny
come? Why are Indian boys still brought
up as little kings, while Indian girls, in
sharp contrast, are disciplined to be obe-
dient domestic servants? A profound,
deeply ugly bias against women pervades
Indian culture, even today. Our political
leaders—who are virtually all men—do
nothing about it. Why should they? It
benefits them, after all.
But we did, once, have a very great
leader who was also a passionate feminist.
All human rights are closely connected
and B R Ambedkar knew this. Thus,
while rightly venerated as the great icon
of Dalit liberation, he was also strongly
and intuitively feminist in his thinking.
But, his profound feminism has received
surprisingly little attention. It deserves
to be widely recognised as central to his
humane and enlightened perspective
because his feminism is both radical
and inspiring.
In his Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar
(2016: 213) mockingly asked if the Con-
gress party had discontinued its social
conference because very few Congress
members were genuinely interested in
social reform:
Does it prove conclusively that social reform
has no bearing on political reform? It will
help us to understand the matter if I state
the other side of the case. I will draw
upon the treatment of the Untouchables for
my facts.
He consistently argued that political
change had to start with social reform—
social reform had to be at the heart of
political reform. His conviction regarding
the primacy of social reform in all politi-
cal transformations indicates why he
was an intuitive feminist—he instinc-
tively recognised the profound connec-
tions between caste discrimination and
gender subordination in India.
10
Ambedkar was very aware that the
patriarchal oppression of Indian women
was essential to the continuance of caste.
In her excellent collection of Ambedkar’s
speeches on Brahminical patriarchy,
Rege (2013: 145) points out the centrality
of caste intermarriage for Ambedkar:
“In Annihilation of Caste, for instance,1
he presents intermarriage as the only real
remedy to abolish caste.”
Ambedkar was interested in political/
social issues concerning women from
an early age. In his early 20s, while study-
ing anthropology (among other subjects)
in New York at Columbia University,
Ambedkar focused on the position of
Indian women in a remarkably feminist
dissertation, exploring the patriarchal
control over female sexuality in India. He
concluded that male control of women’s
sexuality was essential to the reproduction
of the caste system. Without it, inter-
caste marriages would ensue and caste
identities would slowly wither away.
This crucial insight made him a passion-
ate campaigner for an important feminist
principle, namely women’s right to control
their own sexuality and to determine their
own choices in marriage. This attitude
was far ahead of his time and was con-
sidered scandalous by the conservative
society around him. Disregarding this,
in his preface to the third edition of
Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar critiqued
other reformers’ “preoccupation with
interdining as a means of ending
untouchability” (Rege 2013: 145) and
roundly declared,
To agitate for and to organize inter-caste din-
ners and [organized] inter-caste marriages is
like forced feeding brought about by artifi-
cial means. Make every man and woman
free from the thraldom of the shastras,
cleanse their minds of the pernicious notions
founded on the shastras, and he or she will
inter-dine and inter-marry, without your
telling him or her to do so. (Rege 2013: 145)
Ambedkar’s feminist ideas and his
feminist political positions evolved from
JANUARY 4, 2020
his relatively limited and conventional
views in his early years, to his extremely
vanguard and radical-feminist views in
the 1950s. His final position is embodied
in his 1951 article “The Rise and Fall of
the Hindu Woman” (Rege 2013). We
will discuss this crucially important
article later.
We now move from his dissertation in
New York, written in his early 20s, to 1936,
when Ambedkar was 45 years old and the
acknowledged leader of the Mahar Dalits.
In 1936, Ambedkar gave a famous speech
in Kamatipura, “the sex workers district
of Bombay” (Rege 2013: 145), to women
who belonged to a range of Dalit castes
that engaged in “hereditary”/“ritualised”
female sex work: Vaghyas, Devadasis,
Jogtinis, and Aradhis.
Here, we need to first briefly investi-
gate what instigates the involvement of
Dalit women in “ritualised” sex work.
Very poor Dalit castes have historically
been required to manually clean the
waterless toilets of “higher castes.” In
other words, they have been forced to
be “night-soil people” and do the most
unpleasant tasks that nobody else wants
to do. This filthy, yet poorly paid, work
has been demanded of them, and, in
recent times, when many of them have
refused2 to do this deeply humiliating
work, they have been attacked and beaten
up by the dominant “caste-Hindus” of
their villages.
In a similar way, extremely poor and
vulnerable Dalit castes have been “tradi-
tionally required” to provide their young
women and even their very young daugh-
ters for the sexual gratification of their
higher caste landlord-employers. These
Dalit castes are often bonded agricul-
tural labourers. Dalit women in these
bonded labour castes have been unable
to refuse to provide sexual services to
dominant-caste men because they have
been forced into sex work by their own
husbands/fathers and sometimes by
older women. These practices continue
even today (Anandhi 2017; Kapadia 2017).
Significantly, this sexual abuse of even
young girls is locally represented as an
“offering” to the clan goddess. But, what is
actually going on is the organised sexual
vol lV no 1 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
 ALTERNATIVE STANDPOINT

abuse of female children. This appalling
“ritualised” prostitution of female children
continues today, even in “progressive”
South India, particularly among impov-
erished rural Dalits in Karnataka, Andhra
Pradesh, and northern Tamil Nadu.
‘Come With Us’:
Ambedkar at Kamatipura
But, to return to Bombay’s red-light dis-
trict on 16 June 1936, where Bhimrao
Ramji Ambedkar stands talking to the
Dalit women sex workers. Then, as now,
impoverished Dalit women did not will-
ingly “choose” to enter prostitution. These
women had been forced into it by cir-
cumstances—or by their husbands. This
helps explain why Ambedkar chooses to
speak to them as he did. What exactly
did he say? According to the Times of
India of 17 June 1936 Ambedkar said:
But I insist that if you want to be with the
rest of us, you must give up your disgraceful
life. The Mahar women of Kamatipura are a
shame to the community … There are only
two ways open to you: either you remain
where you are and continue to be despised
and shunned, or you give up your disgraceful
profession and come with us. You will ask me
how to make your living. I am not going to
tell you that. There are hundreds of ways of
doing it. But I insist that you give up this
degraded life. You marry and settle down to
normal domestic life as women of other
classes do and do not live under conditions
which inevitably drag you into prostitution.
(Rege 2013: 146)3
We know that these sex worker Dalit
communities were highly patriarchal.
Therefore, an important subtext to
Ambedkar’s words was the collusion of
impoverished Dalit men in the prostitution
of their women kin. This is a subtext that
both Ambedkar and his female audience
would have been acutely aware of. Rege
(2004) herself has provided us with crucial
evidence for the lack of autonomy and
the tragic victimhood of many Dalit
Mahar women in her important book.4
When discussing Dalit marital relations
during this period, her account, based
on women’s own “testimonies,” details
the extremely brutal punishments that
husbands gave supposedly “disobedient”
wives, often inflicting dreadful physical
mutilations on them (Kapadia 2007). In
short, this was not a social context in
which women could either “choose” or
refuse to become prostitutes. It was
usually their male kin who decided this.
Once we recognise the collusion of
Dalit men in the sexual trafficking
of their female kin as the unspoken
backdrop to Ambedkar’s speech, we see
how Ambedkar challenges these Dalit
women to stand up for their own inter-
ests, rather than the interests of their
male kin. He, therefore, asks them to
quit prostitution altogether. His chal-
lenge is uncompromising—he tells the
women very plainly, almost harshly,
that he will not help them to find other
sources of income. They must do this
themselves and give up their “disgrace-
ful” sex work in Kamatipura for their
own sake.
Ambedkar and the Theris
We now come to 1951 and to Ambedkar’s
article, published that year in the Journal
of Maha-Bodhi Society, entitled “The Rise
and the Fall of the Hindu Woman: Who
Was Responsible for It?” (Rege 2013). By
this time, Ambedkar was deeply interested
in Buddhism, which he took very seriously.
He would soon convert to Buddhism on
14 October 1956, having been mentored
by the eminent Sri Lankan Buddhist
scholar-monk, Venerable Saddhatissa,

Appeal for Donations to the Corpus of the Sameeksha Trust

This is an appeal to the subscribers, contributors, advertisers and well-wishers of Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), published by
Sameeksha Trust, a public charitable trust registered with the office of the Charity Commissioner, Mumbai, India. EPW has completed
50 years of publications. We have become what we are at present because of your support and goodwill. Week after week, EPW publishes
at least 80,000 words by a wide range of writers: veteran and young scholars, senior journalists and public commentators, political and
social activists; elected representatives of the people, policy practitioners, and concerned citizens.
In order to meet new editorial challenges, confront technological changes, provide adequate remuneration to our employees and
contributors, enhance our reputation and grow in stature and scale while zealously maintaining our editorial independence and autonomy,
we seek your support. Given the growing uncertainty in flows of advertising income and the fast-changing nature of publishing, it is our
endeavour to increase interest income by enlarging the corpus of the Sameeksha Trust. We seek active support from both institutions and
individuals in this endeavour.
Do donate to the corpus of the Sameeksha Trust. The Sameeksha Trust, which owns EPW and the EPW Research Foundation,
is a public charitable trust registered under the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950. Donations to Sameeksha Trust enjoy tax exemption under
Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. We welcome donations to the corpus not less than Rs 1,000 per individual. Donations in foreign
currency and donations from political parties are not accepted. We welcome donations from non-resident Indians (NRIs) and persons of
Indian origin (PIOs), but only in Indian currency and through regular banking channels. All donors must provide details of their Permanent
Account Number (PAN) and a covering letter, stating that this donation is to the corpus of the Sameeksha Trust. Please note that a covering
letter and photocopy of the PAN card is mandatory.
If you need more information on how to support us, please email us at edit@epw.in and we shall be happy to provide you with details.
— From the Trustees of Sameeksha Trust and the Editor of EPW

Economic & Political Weekly EPW JANUARY 4, 2020 vol lV no 1 11

ALTERNATIVE STANDPOINT
who was renowned internationally. Some
5,00,000 of his followers converted to
Buddhism along with Ambedkar and
his wife.
That Ambedkar found joy and liberation
in Buddhism is evident in this article
in which he shares his delight in the
verses written by the Theris, the female
Elders of the Buddhist monastic Sangha.
These verses, known as the Therigatha,
the “Verses of the Theris,” attest to their
realisation of enlightenment. Orthodox
Brahminical Hinduism has always denied,
and continues to do so till this day, that
women can attain spiritual enlighten-
ment—they have to be reborn as males to
do so because only men can become spiri-
tually enlightened. Buddhism rejected
this view totally. Initiating a social revo-
lution, the Buddha opened his Sangha
(monastic community) to both Dalits and
women, going totally against the esta-
blished norms of his day.
Ambedkar quotes, in full, the Therigatha
verses of two Theris—Mutta (whose name
means “liberation”) and Mettika. The Pali
Text Society source that Ambedkar
referred to provided a short background
history of Mutta, the Buddhist nun, before
giving the verse she wrote:
Come to proper age, she was given to a
hunchbacked Brahmin; but she told him she
could not continue in the life of the house,
and induced him to consent to her leaving the
world. Exercising herself in insight, her
thoughts still ran on external objects of
interest. So she practised self-control, and
repeating her verse, strove after insight
till she won Arahantship; then exulting,
she repeated
‘O free indeed! O gloriously free
Am I in freedom from three crooked things:
From quern, from mortar, from my crook-
backed lord.
Ay, but I’m free from rebirth and from death,
And all that dragged me back is hurled away.’
(Rege 2013)
Thus, Mutta rejoices in her spiritual
enlightenment and in her freedom from
unpaid domestic work (the pestle and
mortar) and her husband. She not only
happily turns her back on the conven-
tional life of women, but, in her own
words, “hurls it away” with glee. Hers is
an exultant celebration of freedom from
domesticity and emancipation from the
shackles of orthodox Hindu marriage—
things that Mutta very explicitly defines as
12
fetters that “dragged her back” to death
and the cycle of rebirth.
Significantly, Ambedkar’s quote of
Mettika’s enlightenment verse is on the
same theme of female emancipation at
the crowning moment of spiritual self-
realisation. Mettika wrote:
Though I be suffering and weak, and all
My youthful spring be gone, yet have I come,
leaning upon my staff, and climbed aloft
The mountain peak.
My cloak thrown off,
My little bowl o’erturned: so sit I here
Upon the rock. And o’er my spirit sweeps
The breath of Liberty! I win, I win
The Triple Lore! The Buddha’s will is done!
(Rege 2013)
To win the “Triple Lore” or “Tevijja” is
to know that one is enlightened and will
not be reborn. In these verses, Ambedkar
is celebrating not only female spiritual
attainment, but also the Buddhist
rejection of the orthodox Brahminical
assumption that no woman is capable of
attaining enlightenment. He is also,
implicitly, together with these exultant
Theris, celebrating their rejection of
domesticity and marriage as the limits
of female existence.
In celebrating the Theris, Ambedkar
was, therefore, not only rejoicing in the
fact that they were women who had
attained enlightenment through the
eightfold path shown by the Buddha, but
he was also, in a radical-feminist man-
ner, celebrating women who had very
explicitly rejected married domesticity
and had chosen to walk away from the
safety of husbands and homes. In his
celebration of the spiritual attainments
of the Theris, Ambedkar showed how
deeply he empathised with women’s desire
to be free to do anything and to be any-
thing—in short, to be wholly emanci-
pated human beings.
Ambedkar clearly saw that caste
hierarchy has to be annihilated before
we can hope for the emancipation of
India’s women. Women can never be lib-
erated as long as the radical inequality
of the caste system is protected, as it
continues to be today. And, this is why
the ghastly rapes and the ugly misogyny
will continue in our country until all
women and all men, whatever their
caste, are seen as of equal worth. Caste
hierarchy has to be smashed before we
JANUARY 4, 2020
can hope for the emancipation of India’s
women. Women can never be liberated as
long as the caste system is protected, as
it is today. But, if women rebel and reject
arranged marriages, choosing their own
spouses, this will at least spell the begin-
ning of the end of caste. This is what
Ambedkar gave his life for—and this
should be our common pursuit.
Karin Kapadia (kapadiawriting@gmail.com) is
a research associate at the Oxford School of
Global and Area Studies, University of Oxford.
Notes
1 Rege’s footnote here notes: BAWS (Dr Babasaheb
Ambedkar Writings and Speeches), Vol 1, pp 28–96.
See https://www.mea.gov.in/Images/attach/
amb/Volume_01.pdf.
2 Note the huge political importance of such
refusal in the saga of Dalit struggle.
3 Rege’s own footnote here reads: BAWS, Vol 17,
Part 3, 150, emphasis added.
4 Also see Kapadia (2007).
References
Ambedkar, B R (2016): Annihilation of Caste:
The Annotated Critical Edition, S Anand (ed),
London and New York: Verso.
Anandhi, S (2017): “Gendered Negotiations of
Caste Identity: Dalit Women’s Activism in
Rural Tamil Nadu,” Dalit Women: Vanguard of
an Alternative Politics in India, S Anandhi and
Karin Kapadia (eds), London and New York:
Routledge, pp 97–130.
Kapadia, Karin (2007): “Reading Dalit Women:
Memories of Rural Lives in Maharashtra,”
Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 42, No 50,
pp 27–29.
— (2017): “Introduction: We Ask You to Rethink:
Different Dalit Women and Their Subaltern
Politics,” Dalit Women: Vanguard of an Alternative
Politics in India, S Anandhi and Karin Kapadia
(eds), Routledge: London and New York, pp 1–50.
Rege, Sharmila (2004): Women Writing Caste:
Testimonies of Dalit Women of Maharashtra,
New Delhi: Zubaan.
— (ed) (2013) Against the Madness of Manu:
B R Ambedkar’s Writings on Brahmanical
Patriarchy, 1985, New Delhi: Navayana.
Through EPW Engage,
our new digital initiative, we seek to
explore new and exciting possibilities
of communicating research in a
creative and accessible manner
to a wider audience.
www.epw.in/engage
vol lV no 1 EPW Economic & Political Weekly