Dalit Women in Politics: Bhavani Ilavenil on Karunanidhi's history of claiming credit and invisibilising work of Sathyavani Muthu

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 fourth of the  series of speeches . Bhavani Ilavenil is the author of “Thaltapatta Makkulku Kalingnar M Karunanidhi Seydha Droham: Sathyavani Muthu Varalar” (How Kalaingnar M Karunanidhi Betrayed Oppressed People – Dr Sathyavani Muthu’s Struggles), a book which looks at the life and struggles of three-time MLA and MP Dr Sathyavani Muthu, one of the earliest Dalit leaders of DMK. Dr Muthu quit the DMK citing prejudicial behaviour by M Karunanidhi and went on to form her own party. *** I believe it is very important to discuss this topic “Politics of Dalit women in the past, present and future” because self-realisation is very important.  I think this discussion will be an opportunity for us to analyse the present state of women in society and politics and to understand how we can move forward.  My congratulations and wishes to everyone who made this discussion possible and is behind it. Politics! There are many kinds of politics, out of which we only focus on three important categories. First individual politics, then movement-based politics at the grass root level, and third, the electoral politics. The secret lies in how Dalit women handle these three kinds of politics. Many women have come up in individual politics. Some of them have succeeded and some haven’t. I have witnessed many such women and there are multiple examples. We come across many women who have boycotted electoral parties, associated themselves with grass root level movements and are working with people.  Many Dalit women have already come up as the voice of the public in electoral politics within the democratic framework but there is no support and solidarity for them.  It is not easy to have reached this level.  Be it Savitribai Phule, Babasaheb Ambedkar or Periyar in Tamil Nadu, because of their vision for women’s empowerment and hard work, women have seen some upward mobility. We have seen some progress on education, economic conditions and employment. But is this enough? Definitely not. It is important for us women who are empowered in education, financial status and employment to get political empowerment. There is a need for it and it is important that we strategise this. [caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Bhavani Ilavenil is the author of “Thaltapatta Makkulku Kalingnar M Karunanidhi Seydha Droham: Sathyavani Muthu Varalar”. Image courtesy: Priyadharshini[/caption] In power politics, dominant women have easily accessed power without doing any fieldwork. The examples are Jayalalithaa and Sonia Gandhi. We can never compare BSP’s Mayawati with these women. People coming into politics purely based on their fieldwork at grass root level can never be compared with people coming because of caste network and nepotism. In such a political ecosystem, there were two towering women leaders in Tamil Nadu.  How many of us from this generation know about them? Most of the upcoming Dalit women who are involved in fieldwork do not know about our women leaders, their history; those who worked and struggled for us. We are identifying only male leaders today. I felt even we who work with the public have failed to take our women leaders to the masses. After realising this, I have been continuously talking about Meenambal Shivaraj and Annai Sathyavani Muthu in the North Madras area, because these two leaders have predominantly operated from there. Sathyavani Muthu has been repeatedly elected from the Perambur constituency. I think I need to expose how the current state of Dravidian politics is here. Their continuous propaganda of “we have done so much for Dalits in the last sixty years”, “we have done this and that for Dalit women". There are many narratives that are prevalent here, such as “only because they have given separate reservation for ST category we have got empowered”. Honestly, there is a big question mark on whether it is the Dravidian parties that have done everything for Dalits today. It can be confirmed from the recent talks of people like Su Ba Vee and some others. Meenambal Shivaraj is a Dalit woman, someone who has led the anti-Hindi movement and is a great leader. As a woman she has occupied so many important positions, the list is endless. But the Dravidian movement has continuously erased such a woman, a Dalit woman. Let us take this book as an example. Those in favour of the book say, “so many women have participated in the anti-Hindi movement, just because we erased one woman, we forgot to mention one woman, we are not casteists. Only you, who are asking about one woman, in particular, is casteist.” We are painted with casteist image. This book is written by Asiriyar Veeramani. Those of you who have the opportunity, please read it. It has the recorded history of who all participated and led the anti-Hindi movement, who conferred the title of Periyar to Thanthai Periyar. There is no mention of or credit to Meenambal Shivaraj anywhere in the book. Why are we raising this? Because there is a continuous effort to erase Dalit women leaders all over India, especially there is an intense effort in Tamil Nadu, the land of Periyar. Look here [reads from the book] Meenambigai, Va Ba Thamaraikani, Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammal, Dr Daramambal, Malar Mugathammair, there is no mention of Meenambal Shivaraj, and written by Asiriyar Veeramani. When I ask why have you not written about our leader, why you are not taking our leaders to the next generation, I am a casteist. I am a Dalit woman and they are trying to restrict me within a small circle. Not only this, DMK which came from DK is also doing the same thing. Sathyavani Muthu was appointed as the Chennai president of “All India Schedule Caste Federation” by Dr Ambedkar.  She is one of the 50 major leaders responsible for growing and expanding the DMK. Why is that our history is not taken to the next generation, women’s rights are not taught? Because if we know our leaders, how dominant they have been, we will get awareness, we will try to bring change. The Dravidian parties have continuously erased our history. All the policies envisioned by Sathyavani Muthu, Karunanidhi have claimed credits for, there is a long history behind it. I have compiled them in this book titled “Thalthapatta Makkaluku Mu Karunanidhi Seiytha Throgam” (M Karunanidhi’s Betrayal of Oppressed People). This book is a compilation of various sections from Sathyavani amma’s autobiography. There has been a lot of opposition against the title. And the prominent opposing voices are from Periyarists and Dalits. They say it should not be titled this way, it will help BJP in coming back to power. They don’t want the book to be released. This society cannot tolerate and doesn’t want one Dalit woman to identify with another. Dalit parties here do not even have the guts to critique the book itself and debate whether what is written in the book is factual or not. Because of “Dalit History Month”, Meena akka’s efforts and many such efforts, the book has somewhat reached the public. Only BSP party members have taken up this issue. But why should they take this up? We have to think about why this betrayal needs to be talked about. The rootstock of all political parties here are Dalits. To remove Dalits from these parties, we need a tool, a weapon. I see this book as that weapon. Dalit parties opposing a Dalit from releasing this book are those who occupy the positions of both the party leader and head of the women’s wing. Only those who want to be the voice of everyone have opposed this book. I have even received death threats. Why is this happening? It is our history, we are identifying someone from our community, someone who has worked for our people. We are in a society which is not even ready for a discussion. Why I am telling this is because we need to move forward. If we want the politics of Dalit women to move forward, we need to introspect within ourselves. I will say Sivakami IAS is an example for current political leaders. She has both negative and positive sides. We need to learn a lot of lessons from her. And she also has done a lot of work – we cannot take anybody’s work lightly.  Next, the towering leader is Ms Mayawati, who heads the third largest political party at the national level. Even in political parties headed by Dalit women, the situation is such that there is largely no space for Dalit women to participate. It is not only for Dalit women, even when Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Jayalalithaa were leading their parties, the situation was the same. This is the ground reality today.  The reality of Dalit women and all women’s political movements in the past and present. Where should the change come from? Definitely from Dalit men. We do not know how many Dalit men have tried to support Dalit women entering social spaces till now, but if they try now it is definitely possible. A Dalit woman is oppressed by savarna women, savarna men and also Dalit men. A Dalit woman has to face these three categories of people. So compared to other women, Dalit women have more stamina. Dalit women are heroes because it is difficult to manage these three people. In spite of all this, Dalit women who are in the field, politics and movements, and who are managing three layers of oppression are the real queens and princesses. Hence we must bring reservation within political parties. What I see as the future of politics is to bring reservations within Dalit organisations. We need to bring women in all spheres of power. Dalit parties have shown no intention till today of giving importance to women, of bringing them into positions of power, be it a party headed by a woman or a man. I have made this demand. I have made this demand openly on many platforms. We do not have even the space to add pictures of Dalit women like Savitribai Phule on the party banners. Reservation should not be just in parties. It has to be in everything – and not 33 percent but 50 percent. People like us should fight and work diligently towards that – that is my humble request.  It took me eight years to speak amongst seniors here… These discussions are new to me. It hurts inside to think that if it took eight years for an activist like me to speak here, how long will it take for women coming after me?  We need to move forward and we need to accelerate. We definitely need to bring in reservations – that is my strong demand. Dalit parties and all other parties should bring in reservations. Men should bring their wives and daughters to political parties and should work for their success from the background. Let us bring change at least in that way for the first generation. The generation that follows will enjoy the actual benefits. Our goal is to capture power in Tamil Nadu politics. I work in the field with that ambition. We know the target is huge. Only when we aim high will we reach somewhere, and we will definitely achieve. Only with our hard work and collective effort can we make this possible. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. (Speech translated by Kanaga Varthan)