Understanding Inter-sectionality In Rural Uttar Pradesh
India Fellow Social Leadership Program
Change Starts With You
I started the fellowship, with a new pattern of thoughts, a new set of emotions, an entirely varied way of connecting to the community and immense faith in myself. What is my journey? How were my thirteen months? Trying to put it to words, I would define it as tackling the challenges that came in my way while creating a space for myself within the community. A space that recognises me as a familiar face and gives me the flexibility to make people accept my rationale and ideas.?
A huge part of my journey is shaped on account of me being a female and also not belonging to the Hindi heartland. A woman working away from home is not quite the norm of the society, yet.
Speaking a language not known to the locals makes me more of an outsider. Sometimes I feel that ‘they’ think I am from another part of the world as some students show me common trees and vegetables and ask if these grow in my home state or not. They mock the language that I speak and yet, plead me to teach them some words every time I take a phone call or talk to my co-fellow in Odia.
Sometimes I wonder, feeling amused that does my co-fellow who is working as a fellow in my home state, Odisha, on account of being an outsider there in his own right. Coming back to Sitapur, on a regular basis I am questioned about my choices of working away from home. Questions about why in a village so far, what are the real benefits of me working there. These questions were very difficult to answer. My experience has unfolded before me several types of intersectionality; which I wish to explore here.
The term ‘intersectionality’ was coined in 1989 by Kimberle Crenshaw. She wrote and expanded on the oppression faced by black women, because of their race and gender and how these two factors lead to a very different experience of subordination. “The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discriminations or disadvantage; a theoretical approach based on such a premise,” reads the Oxford English Dictionary.
The essence lies around how different factors affect people and subordinate them, and then the experiences for a weaker section who are at the end of several subordinated contexts are extremely different. For example, a white upper class man would have an extremely different experience from a black lower class woman, or for that matter even a white middle class woman.
Every parameter brings with it a constitution of power. These parameters work in binaries, that is, dominating and dominated. When several parameters cross each other or are identified in a character and the oppression level is measured, that is called analysing intersectionality.
The first fold that comes to my mind is that of the intersection of gender and power, which I have reasons to believe as I elaborate further, is the root of the patriarchal system - from which arises a whole of problems like misogyny. With each intersectionality, I have added annecdotes from my fellowship days which I have observed or been a part of.
Gender And Power
Every space in the village is political and each of it has certain power dynamics in play. Patriarchy in the broad sense sees the intersection of gender and power. When there are five female members and one male member, and he can veto a decision, you definitely know that something is wrong. The foundation of the system is wrong. Just like the five permanent members of the Security Council of United Nations, this is undue power given to the male person. And oh, why? Because they earn money just like the ‘Permanent Five’ initially contributing to the maximum funds of the United Nations.
Family as an institution has several layers of oppression within it. Defined gender roles and the segregation of the public and the private spaces are primary concerns. Women are supposed to do household chores and take care of children in the private space while men are supposed to go out in the public space and earn for the entire family. There are several cases in the village where families do not want their girls to go out and study because they feel there is no necessity to do so. They want her to get married to a boy who earns so that the girl stays at home and does what she is ‘supposed’ to do.?
In the educational space, that is, in school teachers also imbibe this in the students. Certain tasks are always assigned to girls, for example, making creative charts for the school. The assumption underlying this is that, girls are supposed to be good at art and craft. In inter-house competitions, the house masters forward female students only for the competition. While if there is some work like, setting up benches for an event, the boys are supposed to do this.
Home Science as a subject option for Class 9 and 10 is portrayed to be a choice for female students only. These activities are so normalised that, boys tend to neglect practicing art and then blame it on their gender. At several instances, they take themselves to be superior to the girls. Lines like, “Ye kya karengi”, “Ladkiyon se nahi hoga” are common.
Parents focus on educating their boy child and prepare their girl child for being a good homemaker.?At several homes, the boys are sent to the nearest private schools for better education and girls are sent to the government school. While casually interacting with a shopkeeper about his daughter’s higher education, he remarked,”What will she gain by studying? That too so far away, in Bangalore. My profits were huge last year, I can get her married off to a good family now. There’s no need for her to go to Bangalore.”
According to Census 2011 details of Sitapur, the average literacy rate is 61.12%, while the female literacy rate stands at 50.67%. It is lower than the national literacy rate which is 74.04%.
Clicked by the author in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh
Students, including girls, would take a male teacher’s voice over a female’s any day. Salary quotation also follows a gender bias because well, a female earning is just some extra amount to help the family while a male needs to ‘run’ his family with his salary. Do I see a hope for the better future? Yes. I see hope, when a sister fights for her rights in her house; when she asks for her pocket money to be equal to her younger brother and even when she says that she needs some time for home work.
A spark of rebellion for the better in adolescent girls is a pavement for a less unequal future. People need to understand that each child needs some space to grow and build themselves. Imposing gender roles on children and forcing them to follow what the misogynist society expects out of them, hampers their growth.?
Caste And Gender
Anti-caste discriminatory provisions are incorporated in Article 17 by abolition of untouchability. Also right against exploitation (Article 23 and 24) is present to ensure prohibition of caste discrimination. As such right to equality is provided under Articles 14 to 18 of the Indian Constitution. Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 prohibits atrocities and thus caste discrimination based on caste. Indian Civil Rights Act 1955 is meant to ensure equal civil rights to all the citizens of India.
Uniform Civil Code (Article 44) in the Constitution of India is also directed to prevent discrimination based on caste. However, all these rights and provisions against caste discrimination are not observed in practice and caste discrimination is rampant in Indian society, and I have very evidently observed this in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh.
The caste system in Hinduism has been established three thousand years ago. The hierarchy still exists, even after sixty eight years of it being outlawed. In the villages, people reside caste wise. The area of the lower castes in marked as untouchable for the children and people of the upper caste.
It is normalised to such an extent that at times when I ask children about why they do not visit certain parts of the village, they say, “Ma’am there is so much dirt around there. Our side is much cleaner and better. So we never feel the urge to go there. Our parents will not say much. We choose not to visit that place.” From their childhood, this concept has been so ingrained in their head that without even seeing that place they speak with much assurance that the other part of the community is ‘dirty’.
On questioning about how could they judge if that place is dirty without paying a visit to this place, the students answer “They rear goats, hen and pigs. The excreta causes the place to be filthy.”
Further into the conversation I asked if the cows they reared did not make the place dirty. The answer to this was, cow is a holy animal and it can never make a place filthy. Digging a little deeper, let us take a look into an already oppressed Scheduled Caste family, where patriarchy comes in and supresses a woman much more than a man.?
The oppression for a female of a lower caste is at an aggravated level than that of ‘Savarna’ women. Apart from dealing with the men of the house, they are also subdued by the upper caste women and men. There are more restrictions for her, especially restriction on movement in public places.
They are not allowed to enter temples built and owned by the upper castes, and in fact there are separate tube wells for the lower castes and untouchables. At institutional workplaces, several women ask for work according to their caste. When asked about what work they would do, some specify that they will only do dusting and not floor cleaning and washing utensils. Some would cook and wash utensils but not clean the floor.
In school, there is a careful consideration while choosing the person cooking the midday meals. In fact there are a few teachers and students from the higher castes who do not eat at school because the tea or food is not made by a woman of their caste. Sharing a lunchbox is also a rare scene, considering the castes of the children. This has an impact on the student friendships as well, on who they can be close with and who they can mock about.
Gender And Sexuality
Gender intersecting with several forms of sexuality is also something that can be observed here. Although it is very easy to assume that people from the rural sector would not embrace any sexuality other than the binaries that are widely recognised. In a small sample size, I have seen one instance of a family openly embracing their daughter’s sexuality.
This case is also accepted by the other people in the village. From early childhood, Anjali has urged for dressing up like the society would want a boy to dress. Her parents have always allowed her to dress like she has wanted. She keeps extremely short hair, and is always adamant on keeping it short. When she joined school, she was forced by the authorities to take the girls’ uniform in the name of acceptance.
Her parents had a hard time convincing her to take the girls’ uniform. However, they would have been at ease otherwise as well. Some students make fun of her, some look at her as a rebel, and some as an inspiration. The neighbours accept her only because her family is accepting in nature. Despite all the support she is still a victim of unwelcoming glances from her friends and outsiders. I have never talked to her abut it explicitly, but from her attendance is school as compared to her siblings, it does seem that she could be in some emotional distress at times.
In another family, there is a complicated case of a slightly constructed sexuality. Most families in the village want a boy child because a boy brings in wealth while a daughter just drains the wealth.
A certain family has three daughters with an age gap of one year each among the three sisters. The youngest one, however, has been brought up like a society would like a boy to be brought up as. Her father wanted a boy who would someday enter the police services. So when you ask her about her aim in life, she promptly says, “Police Superintendent”.
While her elder sisters are not allowed to roam around in the village and play with other children in the village. She has been given the entire freedom not just to roam inside the village but also to go to the nearest market area to get groceries for the house. This is a big deal for the family as even their mother has to take prior permission if she has to step a hundred metres away from the house. She has learnt how to ride a bicycle, is comfortable in pants and steals mangoes from the dense orchards.
At first I would have thought it was just her natural self but I dealt closely with her, I could see how she admired her sisters dressing up and she would also do the same but if someone spoke about it, she would look ashamed. She would look as if she was guilty of committing a crime.
Here, I am not trying to reinforce any gendered norms. The only reason I have cited this instance is because in an environment that runs by these norms, she was normalised into being someone she probably would not have been naturally. She enjoys this freedom to a great extent, but here the question arises, why would the other sisters be deprived of these little pleasures in their childhood?
Religion And Gender
Predominantly, people from two religions co-exist in the village of Amberpur, Hindus and Muslims namely. Being in the Hindi heartland, the Muslims are a minority even in this village. The Muslim rural population is about 10.64% from a total of 19.23% Muslim population of the state (Census 2011).?There is always this unspoken tension between the two communities.
Both the communities are so against each other, and have their spatial rules as well. A conversation with students would reveal what the educated mass can think. There is a huge problem with the non-vegetarianism. Some people cannot even justify why they are not allowed to visit each other’s house or share food with each other. They simply say that the norm is that they do not belong to our caste and religion, so we are supposed to follow certain rules when it comes to our behaviour towards them.
They even get the India vs Pakistan debate into this. While the older generation blames the Muzaffarnagar riots for polarisation and justification for the tension, the younger generation catches on to the Hindu dominated India (which is quite well brought out by Hindu fundamentalist politicians that they look up to) and a Muslim dominated Pakistan.?
Once when a student had an argument with her best friend who belonged to a Muslim family, she was really upset. She came up to me asked me, “Why is it that I always have a fight with my best friend about India and Pakistan. Why does she support Pakistan when it is India that is feeding her?” They have such strong feelings that one can already see the future generations adding to this polarisation.
Muslims as a minority have mostly felt unsafe. For this reason, they have adopted several habits that would call them conservatives. Being a girl in a Muslim family becomes all the more tough with extra restrictions added after the already conservative atmosphere. As I have conducted several events at school, I never see a Muslim girl participating in any dance activity. Even in class while I am conducting an energizer, they move aside and say that they do not want to or are not allowed to dance.?
Another incident occurred when a girl was selected for a leadership residential training program, she was not allowed to go as she would have to stay with ‘other’ girls whom she did not know. From the fear of being dominated by the majority to extending that fear to obstruct a girls’ career, a woman in a Muslim family feels trapped. The mother of the child who was not allowed to go for the training program was weeping, as she felt helpless. She said she has always wanted her daughter to do well and really wants her to go but this decision is not for her to take. It is for her father, her uncles and the eldest in the family - her grandmother. She would not even try speaking up to her husband. Her tears were just a result of the losing battle she watched her child fight.?
Despite all this, the child would not even think of rebelling against her father just because family values come first. Here, the family values mean the religious norms that have been imposed along with the patriarchal power as well as a defence mechanism to appear strong despite being a minority community. At school once, when the girl raised her voice about why the prayers in the school’s morning assembly were sung only for Hindu Gods. A female teacher replied, “Why? Doesn’t Goddess Saraswati help you with your studies?” She stood there without saying anything, rebellion only limited to the glances through her eyes.
Thus, we see how several parameters brought together gather different experiences for different women. Many say it is a battle field where we need to battle this system but the truth is this might look like a battle for every single person is fighting their own battle mixed with several factors. To put them under a common umbrella of just gender or caste might be over simplification.?
Similarly, recognising those factors is always a matter of privilege. One takeaway from this entire process of observation for me is that one can only learn to empathise when one recognises one’s already existing privileges.
The person needs to keep that aside, learn about the intersectionality that the subject is going through and only then can the process of empathising have a fair start. It is not an easy journey and it is very easy to be mistaken as sympathising, which reminds me of a quote from William Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’ where the character Jacques says, “All the world’s a stage; and all the men and women merely players”. While empathising makes you a player but if you are mistaken of sympathising, then you are just the audience watching Shakespeare’s work in theatre.?
The oppression that these women go through cannot be measured. They stay quiet about it and the worst part is the integration of this subjugation is normalised for them. They say that this is the way it happens, and that it how it works. The societal rules are nature’s law for them. No matter how much pain they are in, they would not dare to speak up.
Because how much can you? If there are several parameters pushing you down, how many will you tackle at a time? One might fight against one factor, say caste but again the power play in the family roles will throw her back exactly where she had started to rebel from. Situations are gradually changing, but the system is deeply entrenched with numerous power relations that it is difficult to get a dynamic change.?
The author (in the centre) with kids in the mobile library that she helped set up in villages of Sitapur as an India Fellow with Swarachna school
Personally, if I was to place myself in the above context, I would not find a definite place. On a daily basis, my experience takes into account, a gender-power dynamics, not belonging to the Hindi heartland – as oppressive factors and being an outsider - as a privilege. Students in school and even their parents, listen to what I have to say or advice but the same statement told by a male person belonging to their region will have a greater impact and it becomes more likely that people will listen to them.
There is a strong and visible power dynamics visible on the staffroom table consisting of both female and male teachers. For several things that the students do not want to believe, they will just casually tell me that things work differently but I would not know as I am an outsider. Hence, at several instances where people would be averse to certain progressive views, they create space for my views and at least listen to them by the virtue of fact that I am an outsider and might have a different cultural background.
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About the author: Swati Sradhanjali is an India Fellow from 2018 cohort. She is a trained Odissi dancer and heartily enjoys dancing and being expressive in general. Swati also takes interest in learning about the history of several spaces. Currently, she is working in Karta Initiative, and running her own social enterprise, Nijaswa, after completing her masters degree in development studies from SOAS.