by Raakhee Suryaprakash
Just as the integration or “interrelated
development goals” has become popular in development circles in the past decade,
since the 1990s the concept of intersectionality has garnered attention when
studying oppressive institutions within a society.
Intersectionality can be defined as
the study or concept of discriminative or oppressive institutions on
disenfranchised groups or minorities, and the way these groups are interconnected.
This theory is based on the concept that
racism, ageism, sexism, and homophobia, do not act independently, but are
interrelated and continuously shaped by one another; the focus is on how they “mutually
construct” one another.
According to UN Women Watch, intersectionality
of gender and race leads to ethnicity-based violence, trafficking, and
obstacles within the economic, political, and social spheres. Thus, just like
feminization of poverty, there is the feminization of racism. The soft targets
of this combination of racial and gender discrimination have been attracting
attention in issues like migration and events in the context of ethnic-based
conflicts within Bosnia and Herzegovina and Rwanda.
According to black feminism scholar Patricia
Hill Collins,
the very pervasiveness of violence can lead to
its invisibility. For example, feminist efforts to have violence against women
in the home taken seriously as a bona fide form of violence and not just a
private family matter have long met with resistance. … violence against such
groups [Native American, Puerto Rican, Mexican-American, African-American, and
other groups who were incorporated into the United States not through voluntary
migration] remains underreported unless captured in a dramatic fashion. … [H]ate
crimes against gays, lesbians, and bisexuals also remain largely invisible.
Through these silences, these forms of violence not only are neglected, they
become legitimated.
Intersectionality of Race, Gender, Caste, Colour in
India
As India’s economy improved it’s begun attracting
expats from the world over. Foreign students, especially from Africa, coming to
India for higher education form a significant portion of this migration. There
are an estimated 30,000 African students currently studying in India. Episodes
of violence against Africans have been reported in Bengaluru, Goa, Delhi, and
even Ludhiana! But it is not just regular citizens who discriminate against “dark-skinned
expats” – government intervention to curb such instances is missing,
and the police is both insensitive and unresponsive. Two instances of the
intersection of racial bias and misogyny include the 2014 incident when an Aam
Aadmi Party politician allegedly misbehaved with African women living in
Khirkee Extension – a neighbourhood in south Delhi; And recently in
Bangalore (February 3, 2016) when a mob attacked,
stripped and paraded a 21-year-old Tanzanian student following a Sudanese man
running over and killing a woman on that road. Why would you attack an African woman
who came on the scene long after the accident when the killer-driver was an
African male? Forget apathetic bystanders in both cases the bystanders were as
guilty as the perpetrators of prejudice!
More frequently the case of intersectionality in India involves the more
deadly toxins of caste, class and colour in addition to the usual brew of
misogyny and racism. Northeast Indians across the nations and South Indians in
North India and North Indians in the South regularly are viewed with suspicion
and ususally it’s the womenfolk who bear the brunt of the daily prejudices in
the quest for a better life away from home. But if you think it’s only “outsiders”
who face discrimination think again! Caste succeeds in dividing even the same
race, again hurting the soft targets first!
During the Jat agitation for reservation
which brought the national capital region and the connected cowbelt region to a
standstill witnessed gangs of men stopping cars on National Highway 1 and
gangraping women less than 50km from Delhi in Murthal in Haryana! The
authorities instead of capturing the perpetrators advised the victims and their
families to save their “honour” and forget the incident. Political pressure
continues to hush up the entire incident, and major news channels continue to
brush off the incident which is more of a blot on our national consciousness
and humanity than any of the “anti-national” and communal debates that rocked
the media simultaneously.
While the politically connected can curb
the “freedom of expression” of others, many women and women journalists writing
about the issues of dalits and other such sensitive issues especially face
unrelenting online harassment. The perpetrators roam free no matter how much
proof is produced.
Even in the case of coverage and
response to acid attacks, there were instances of prejudice. In the cases of Vinodhini
and Vidya – both of whom succumbed after acid attacks in Tamil Nadu less than a
month of each other, there was greater coverage and response from political
parties for Vinodhini than Vidhya as it was reported the latter was a Dalit and
the parties left the protests the latter case of caste political
representatives who had other priorities then!
Intersections of racism, chauvinism,
patriarchy, misogyny make for deadly Molotov cocktails that incinerate human
security, especially security of women. A weak tokenism is the only response to
norms of gender equality and racial and communal harmony. The safety and
security of women and “the other” rarely rocks the halls of parliaments and
leads to actions that change the prejudiced ground realities!
References
http://www.wikigender.org/wiki/intersectionality-of-gender-inequality-and-racial-discrimination/
https://genderpressing.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/the-crooked-room-race-gender-and-advertisings-beauty-ideal/
http://is.muni.cz/el/1423/podzim2012/SAN237/um/HillCollins_Hypatia-_Intersections.pdf
Short Takes: Power-Packed Talks with
Prajnya – “Sexism in the Media,” March 11, 2016.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/african-student-stripped-assaulted-by-locals-in-bengaluru/1/586328.html
http://scroll.in/article/765983/indias-racism-towards-africans-the-one-issue-modis-jamboree-for-africas-leaders-forgot
http://www.dailyo.in/politics/murthal-highway-mass-gang-rape-jat-agitation-haryana-national-media-arnab-goswami-mahishasur-barkha-dutt-the-tribune-smriti-irani/story/1/9266.html
