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In rural Bihar in North India, untouchable landless Dalit women have taken up arms in response to violence against them by upper castes. To understand contemporary caste 'wars' or 'genocide' in the state of Bihar, but also in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Gujarat, it is integral to examine the dynamics of caste through intersecting discourses of gender and violence.
Caste, a contentious and much debated conceptual category, is an important dimension of the inequality which shapes gender relations in Indian society. Both material as well as ideological factors have been important in perpetuating and maintaining social and economic inequalities in rural Bihar. This is coupled with a less dynamic economy and steady politicization of caste. Interpersonal and casterelated violence between the upper castes and the Dalits (also referred to as the 'untouchables, depressed classes, the 'broken' people, or scheduled castes) or between upper castes and lower castes, is well documented by human rights organizations. The Dalits, are Off the social ladder' of the caste hierarchy, which includes the Brahmans and Khastriyas, as the dominant castes, and Vaishyas and Shudras lower down the hierarchy.
Atrocious Brutalities Enacted Against Dalits
The 'untouchable' and lowercaste men and women have historically been subject to discriminatory practices but more recently have been made a target of atrocious brutalities (ranging from their limbs being cut off, having their eyes gorged out or being made to witness gang rapes of women of their households). For example, the infamous case of Bhukli Devi who was paraded naked by Bhumihar Brahmins on the charge of stealing four potatoes from a field in Samastipur district (Bihar) in 1994. She was raped; then her sari was inserted into her vagina and she was killed. The insertion of a piece of cloth in her vagina can be understood as symbolic of the 'impurity' of the womb of the Dalit women and condemnation of the birth of any further progeny by the upper castes.
In another instance, on November 15, 1995, at the district and sessions court in Jaipur, the judge acquitted all five men accused of raping a 'backward caste' woman, Bhanwari Devi. The judicial system refused to believe that 'respectable upper caste...