Any measure of feminist progress that shies away from tackling caste in India will end in rights which are ultimately conditional on feminine participation in perpetuating the caste system, not absolute.
To state an ideal authorized reality – that ladies belong solely to themselves and usually are not communal, caste or household property – shouldn’t be tough. And but, articulations of this reality have been uncommon sufficient within the Indian political discourse to warrant discover. Whereas Rahul Gandhi’s recent words in Pune are vital and really welcome, whether or not they translate into or encourage significant motion will rely upon an element that’s deeply embedded within the Indian polity.
In a society the place caste and patriarchy are inextricably intertwined, you can’t smash one, with out additionally smashing the opposite. The query is subsequently whether or not the society he seeks to talk to (and for) is able to dismantle each.
Caste and patriarchy are intertwined
As historian Uma Chakravarty factors out, the policing of feminine company and sexuality within the Manusmriti didn’t evolve within the summary. The Manusmriti’s abject paranoia about feminine sexuality and feminine “wickedness” and its absolute prohibitions on feminine company (quoted by Rahul Gandhi in his speech) are inextricably tied to the assumption that the social order it sought to promulgate was totally depending on guarding and controlling the reproductive energy of girls.
The caste system couldn’t survive with out endogamy. Feminine company, particularly with respect to marriage or sexual relations was subsequently seen as incompatible with the upkeep of that system. Whereas patriarchy in every single place seeks to limit feminine autonomy to keep up patrilineal succession, the upkeep of caste purity provides a further and infrequently insurmountable barrier to reform in India.
The existence of caste honour killings and the prevalence of “love jihad” paranoia in Hindu society in the present day counsel that not a lot has modified with respect to how society views feminine company. A 2021 Pew Analysis survey discovered that 80% of Hindus believed it was a minimum of considerably vital to forestall ladies from marrying outdoors the caste. 64% believed it to be “crucial”.
As per data presented in parliament, there have been 221 “honour” killings between 2017 and 2021. {Couples} that aren’t bodily harmed usually report being threatened, compelled to go away their hometowns and being ostracised by their households. It’s not shocking that endogamy stays probably the most resilient caste based mostly practices.
Piecemeal social reforms and even the discount of inequality between castes by redistribution don’t change this. For instance, honour killings are prevalent even in states like Tamil Nadu, with a powerful historical past of caste justice actions. It is because the straightforward redistribution of energy amongst castes – from the “higher” castes to the opposite castes – doesn’t dismantle caste itself.
So long as caste stays the first unit of upward mobility or political energy (as is the case in Tamil Nadu), ladies stay lowered to caste property that have to be guarded, and their consensual relationships are painted as makes an attempt by the decrease caste to “steal” the property of the upper one.
Typically such violence is most pronounced the place the hole between the castes within the ritual hierarchy is small. The 2024 Justice Okay. Chandru report on caste violence in academic establishments in Tamil Nadu for instance factors to disturbing ranges of caste based mostly segregation, indoctrination, caste pleasure and violence on college and faculty campuses in Tamil Nadu.
This violence was most frequently perpetrated by dominant castes categorized as backward in opposition to Dalits, and was accompanied by political discourses focussed on preserving endogamy and violently punishing makes an attempt to subvert it.
The brutal killing of Kavin Selvaganesh, a younger Dalit software program engineer in 2025 by the household of his associate is probably the very best recognized case, however it’s removed from the one one. Proof, a Madurai based mostly NGO, says that they’ve documented at least 80 cases of honour killings since 2015 in Tamil Nadu.
With out annihilating caste, feminism stays handicapped
Discussions on ladies’s liberation among the many early progressive Hindu reformers tended to concentrate on bettering the fabric situation of Hindu ladies with out touching broader social buildings like caste. In Annihilation of Caste, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar attracts a distinction between social reform, and what he phrases reform of the Hindu household.
Hindu social reform would require the reconstruction of Hindu society and the dismantling of caste, whereas the reform of the Hindu household was restricted to the reform of customs prevalent within the upper-caste Hindu household (for instance, baby marriage and prohibitions on widow remarriage). Whereas there was some assist for the reform of the Hindu household inside progressive minded Hindus, there was nearly none for the dismantling of the caste system.
When it comes to ladies’s rights, this translated right into a curious paradox the place there was assist for measures that might make the higher caste Hindu lady extra comfy inside the higher caste Hindu household, like ladies’s schooling, ending baby marriage and inspiring widow remarriage, however little or no assist for reforms (just like the Hindu Code Invoice in its authentic kind) that might permit them independence from the household construction altogether.
In some ways that is the place ladies in India stay caught in the present day. Ladies can, to some extent, search schooling and even employment however are typically not free to decide on their very own sexual and reproductive companions. Whereas in an growing variety of circumstances, the opinion of girls is taken under consideration by mother and father, organized marriages stay the dominant route to marriage and copy in India.
Along with not having the ability to select reproductive companions only a few ladies seem to have the capability to opt-out of marriage and childbearing altogether. Some research estimate that 97% of Indian women are married by the age of 30. Marital rape will not be criminalised in India. What this implies is that Indian ladies, regardless of progress in different fields, stay tied to their core perform in Brahmanical patriarchy, which is copy that maintains caste purity and perpetuates the caste order.
On this context, we should ask ourselves what smashing the patriarchy means. So long as ladies stay tied to their main reproductive perform in perpetuating the caste order, every other measure of liberation turns into conditional on their participation within the system. Younger ladies for instance are instructed they’ll examine or work, so long as they’re prepared to “quiet down” with a associate of their mother and father’ alternative at a time of the household’s selecting.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.
Vastly unequal participation in unpaid home care work signifies that regardless of having the capability to hunt remunerative employment, married ladies fulfilling their roles on this order discover themselves with so little time that they decide to not, resulting in sub-par female participation in the work force. Suicides are the leading cause of death amongst younger Indian ladies, and housewives regularly feature prominently among the many demographics most inclined to demise by suicide in India.
Even on the subject of bodily security inside marriage, ladies going through harassment, abuse and even merely marital incompatibility are instructed to “regulate” fairly than search divorce. Hundreds of girls die every year from dowry associated harassment. A number of the victims even maintain {qualifications}, jobs or the power to reside independently, however are unable to train that freedom when it issues probably the most, to save lots of their lives. It is because a good portion of society, together with their very own natal households, nonetheless worth them for his or her docile participation in perpetuating the caste order by staying in these marriages, as an alternative of as people able to contributing to society on their very own.
Any measure of feminist progress that shies away from tackling caste in India will end in rights which are ultimately conditional on feminine participation in perpetuating the caste system, not absolute. Once we try to handle the restrictions on ladies that come up from this type of patriarchy with out addressing the foundation trigger (caste) we’re left with piecemeal schemes and guarantees which are at all times topic to being dismissed once they stand in the best way of the larger aim – perpetuating the caste order. Ladies’s rights develop into secondary to the upkeep of caste, and ladies whose rights develop into a risk to this order, just like the hundreds struggling life threatening violence inside marriages yearly, are sacrificed.
Rahul Gandhi’s statements don’t stand in a vacuum. Earlier this yr, the Congress authorities in Karnataka within the aftermath of the brutal “honour killing” of a younger Lingayat lady handed the Freedom of Selection in Marriage and Prevention and Prohibition of Crimes within the Title of Honour and Custom Act, 2026. The regulation (which was opposed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)) particularly acknowledges that consenting adults don’t want familial approval to get married and declares a framework for his or her safety. Whereas it stays to be seen as to what influence this may have, it’s undoubtedly a step that expressly recognises the hyperlink between caste and patriarchy.
Younger folks in India in the present day stand at a second of political churn. Whereas there’s a stream of research on “what Gen Z needs”, the validity of all of this evaluation is caveated by the truth that it is a technology that’s discovering its political voice from first ideas. This course of creates room for surprises.
By placing his voice, and his views on patriarchy into the combination, Rahul Gandhi is stating a place that’s maybe abjectly unpopular each within the mainstream political discourse and inside a bit of the youth. However by doing so, he’s giving Gen Z one thing to consider. Whether or not this may take them to a spot the place they stand able to dismantle each caste and patriarchy is a query that Gen Z should reply.
Sarayu Pani is a lawyer by coaching and posts on X @sarayupani.
Lacking Hyperlink is her column on the social points of the occasions that transfer India.
This text went reside on August twenty-eighth, two thousand twenty six, at fifty-seven minutes previous two within the afternoon.
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