The Bravest Women I Know

By Ehi

The most profound portion of our study is under way. We are now trying to weave all of the observations we have about India into the questions we have for the students here. The stories we have heard on paper are eloquent and powerful, but nothing can compare to the strength of hearing it in broken English, Hindi and Gujarati directly from the sources. Nothwithstanding this task, I cannot help but hope that we don't get carried away in the surge of narratives that we have ahead of us. The truth is that Noopur and I have a task while we are in India. We have to weave the threads that we have picked, each of which represent only pieces of the entire Dalit struggle into a vehicle that translates into our projects, each of which are only piece of the struggle of women and minorities in the United States. With this in mind, we are designing a methodology to address the observations we have had about India, caste and gender. The object of that methodology is to present it to our subjects to test our hypotheses about the intersectional relationships we have noted.

Although it sounds very technical its actually quite simple. The process involves immersing myself so that I can learn how the men and women of DSK see themselves and the trajectory of their mobility. However, as I stumbled into groups of girls on the playing fields of the day, I realized that it was going to take a greater sensitivity than I had previously thought. At first I was uneasy with the idea of posing questions meant to extract insights that my subjects were not even aware of themselves. Then I realized that this was the reason why I came to India, to face these realizations. So my task from here on is to sensitively design questions that provoke insights into how the identity of each subjects is formed.

Coming from the West, I am realizing that I have had a tendency to view this movement in one dimension; Dalit struggling against a nationalistic framework that denies their existence. These interviews paint another picture, however. While the stories from the Dalit women's leadership were inspiring, their past seemed to mark them even through the day. When we interviewed the girls today, each of them were brimming with their ideas for the future. The longer I stay here the more I realize that there might be a generational gap between the young Dalit women and the older leadership. Although being female is largely subordinate to the Dalit leadership, these girls don't see it that way. Among them are budding entrepreneurs, police officers and even videographers. They generally don't see marriage as the final stop on the road of their lives. I don't either.