Dalit Women in Politics: Aishwarya Rao on why disabled women must be included in mainstream dialogues

If we look at our country’s politics, there has been no one from the scheduled castes who has become the Prime Minister of India till date, let alone a scheduled caste woman. Political engagement of Dalits is necessary, but more importantly, it has to include Dalit women leadership in political spaces. The  panel on "Dalit Women in Politics: Past, Present and Future" — organised by The Blue Club, a collective for providing mentorship and support to women filmmakers, and All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch (AIDMAM) — was put together with the above vision in mind. More than 60 Dalit women leaders from across India participated in the conference. Firstpost will be publishing some of the important speeches from this panel. This is the first of the series of speeches . *** Although the primary topic of discussion today is the politics of Dalit women, we have also addressed other aspects within the intersection of feminism. When we talk about extreme marginalisation, we talk about it on the basis of gender, religion and caste. Another kind of marginalisation is on the basis of so-called “ability”. And there is a generally limited understanding of what ability means. Whatever one’s structure permits is perceived as ability. A person’s impairment is never equal to ability, that is the understanding. Let’s begin with some statistics. According to the Government of India 2011 survey, 2.2 percent of the population, ie, three crore people are disabled. But this was proven to be false, the reality being 7-8 percent of population. Among this, 2.6 percent are Dalit. Now, if we take the entire Dalit population, only 7-8 percent are disabled. But, if we were to look into the entire disabled population across all strata, we will find that 35-45 percent happen to be Dalit. Thus, being a Dalit poses a high risk for disability. But this fact remains most unaddressed in all spaces. Feminists, politicians, educationalists do not speak about this. Dalit movements absolutely do not address this. [caption id=“attachment_6208961” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Dr Aiswarya Rao. All images courtesy: Priyadharshini[/caption] The most prominent politician with a disability that comes to mind is Mr M Karunanidhi. He was in the wheelchair for nearly three general elections. Two major elections he fought in a wheelchair. It was believed that in the 2011 elections, DMK would emerge as the winner but that did not happen due to the 2G scam. For that particular election, Mr Karunanidhi went campaigning for six months in a wheelchair. This wasn’t discussed by any political analyst but my theory (while I am no DMK supporter) is that the image of a prime candidate being projected as a disabled person did not impress voters. I think that a potential chief minister being an old, ailing and disabled man became a major weakness for the party. And this was one of the reasons why they did not win the elections. My grandmother, a Dalit woman, was the Panchayat head in her village back in the 1960s. She was rich and also owned little land. She was quite an active and successful politician but her career resulted in her losing all her land and money. So now, ‘politics’ is known as a bad word in my family and we have been vehemently discouraged from pursuing a political career. Last year, a number of election laws were deemed discriminatory and were appealed to be amended, especially in local body elections and in the Co-operative Society Election Act. One law states that whoever is unable to read or write in a local language cannot contest as a candidate. There was one case in April 2018, where a blind person who had been a director of a society and was, in fact, a post-graduate, was disqualified from contesting in a co-operative society election as a presidential candidate since he cannot sign his name by hand. His literacy, his education and various other capabilities were disregarded due to a narrow-minded approach to interpreting a law, and ignorance of the universally accepted fact that blind people communicate through Braille and use their fingerprint as signature on all important documents. Even though the Commissioner from the District Disabled Persons Commission urged the election panel to accept the candidate as a nominee, the members refused to do so. After five days of protests, the panel finally relented. This sort of thinking is due to extremely regressive and poor understanding of disability. When I speak of politics, I do not only mean electoral politics but also school politics, college politics and church politics, all of which I have participated in. After a bitterly contested election, I became the head girl in my school. In college, I was the cultural secretary and later, the magazine editor, both of which were contested positions. My worst experience, however, was in church politics. My church was made up of Telugu Dalit Christians and I was the Chairperson for the Pastoral Diocese. My job was especially difficult as a young person and a woman heading a committee mostly consisting of men in their 80s and 90s. I had to plead and fight for the most trivial decisions. At last, they collectively wrote a letter with signatures of all the church members saying that I am not eligible to head this committee as I am a Dalit. The letter contained signatures from all my family members including my aunt. When I asked her why she would sign such a letter, she said she didn’t know what the letter was about. She did not read it. She signed it simply because she was told to do so. This is why I believe that women should be encouraged to take interest in politics by their families and that women must stand together in elections. I also want to add that Dalit men are the most discriminatory towards Dalit women when it comes to the latter pursuing leadership. This is due to the misogynistic belief that women should not involve themselves in politics. In the 2016 elections at Kaattumannarkoil constituency, Thol, Thirumavalavan lost by 87 votes. If only he had addressed Dalit women, especially disabled women and garnered their interest, he would have easily gotten the 87 votes. According to rural statistics, every ninth household has a person with a disability and had he campaigned to attract their attention, he may have very well received the votes necessary to win. I read in the newspaper today that in IMH, 150 inmates are registered voters with the hospital listed as their address. My organisation ensures that all elections are inclusive and welcoming to disabled persons. We go to every polling booth to inspect the infrastructure and make sure it is accommodating for disabled people. We ensure that Braille is available in English and Tamil. Because politics is not just about competing, but also about participation by casting vote. My request to everyone, especially to the youth is to address and consider all vulnerabilities. Article 14 of the Constitution states that no Indian must be discriminated on the basis of gender, religion, caste etc. I’d like to add that no one must be discriminated on the basis of ‘ability’ as well. Lastly, I want to say that the constituency of Dalit disabled women is highly significant and they must be included in mainstream dialogues around disability and women’s rights. (Speech transcribed by Aurpera) Dr Aiswarya Rao is a pediatrician, public health expert and a disability rights activist.