Writing Caste/Writing Gender: Narrating Dalit Women's Testimonies

The women tell it like it is... So riveting is the narration that it is difficult to put down the book until their stories are finished. For a non-fiction academic work this is no small feat.’ — The Hindu Sharmila Rege’s path breaking study of Dalit women’s writings and lives offers a powerful counter-narrative to the mainstream assumptions about the development of feminism in India in the 20th century. Extensive extracts from eight Dalit women’s writings cover issues such as food and hunger, community, caste, labour, education, violence, resistance and collective struggle. The voices that resound throughout the book, reveal that Dalit feminism, far from being ‘silent’ as so often presumed, is rich, powerful, layered – and highly articulate.