Between Her Legs: Hindutva and Dalit Women - Meena Kandasamy

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Bali Raj and rereading of the Ramayana story, Periyar’s counter-epic
Keemayana and the subsequent holding of Ravana lilas, and
Ambedkar’s scathing criticism on Ram in the Riddles of Hinduism, the
publication of which sparked widespread rioting—at no point of
time have our leaders failed in revealing the truth about this image
of Hindutva. But the Sangh lauds this same Ram, its politics of the
Parivar revolve around him, he is their axis, their vote-bank
consolidator. This duality of approaches displays the duality of
attitudes.
If we go about such a comparison we are faced with a
resounding emptiness: the Sangh Parivar’s absolute and wellconceived
absence of emancipatory ideology relating to Dalits and
women. The Parivar’s aims are clearly exploitative and smack of the
fascist idea of maintaining the subjugation of both Dalits and
women. What has the Sangh Parivar done to the Dalits other than
imposing the false and oppressive Hindu identity and recruiting
them, in large numbers, as foot soldiers against the Muslims?
Except that the Sangh ‘worshipfully’ continues to treat women as
bearers of the womb and as begetters of militant sons what is the
contribution of the Parivar to Indian womanhood?
Hindutva in Periyar land
If the Sangh Parivar has vigorously worked its way into an
Ambedkarite bastion like Maharashtrian Dalits and put forth its
Bhimshakti-Shivshakti campaign—which resembles unfortunately, an
ad for a popular detergent—a Hindutvaization, that is even more
shocking has been taking place in the land of Periyar, Tamil Nadu.
The Sangh Parivar which currently uses the religion of the majority
as its mobilization potential has no qualms about using caste in the
same manner. As long as there is the possibility of a vote-bank
involved, one can expect the Sangh to stand at the forefront.
Recently, human rights organizations in the state had to work hard
to prevent the VHP International general secretary Praveen Togadia
from participating in a Thevar (a land-owning OBC ok to add?yes
oppressor caste in Tamil Nadu) conference in Madurai where he
intended to distribute trishuls apart from delivering his customarily
hateful speeches. Look at who the natural allies of the Sangh Parivar