Who will Speak for the Pasmandaa Women? —Dalits, Women, Muslims, and the Politics of Representation

Abstract

This article questions the deliberate omissions of disadvantaged Dalit Muslim women, also known as Pasmandaa women, from feminist, Dalit, and subaltern discourses. To understand the multiplicative nature of oppression and discrimination that these women are continually subjected to, this article foregrounds the intersectionality framework to get a nuanced picture of intersecting vertices of discrimination. It argues that by excluding these severely disadvantaged women from their respective agenda, feminist and Dalit activists have contributed towards their perpetual marginality. Underlying such unaccounted absence of these women is an insouciant attitude of the Pasmandaa leaders towards them. Their approach towards the non-representation of their women and their specific concerns raises questions about the very efficacy of the Pasmandaa movement. This article has tried to seek answers to such questions by directly interrogating women of these communities through an exploratory study. Data for this article was gathered by intensive interviews of women from the community. The article draws on data from a larger ongoing study of these women in the states of UP and Bihar.