A high-ranking Dalit Indian Administrative Services (IAS) official recently disturbed a hornet’s nest by stating that caste-based reservations can be discontinued only after a Brahmin father offers his daughter’s hand in marriage for my son, or if she is allowed to have a relationship with him. https://thewire.in/women/saakhi-caste-as-women-experience-it
A heated debate followed in the media about how an upwardly mobile Dalit had chosen to malign upper castes, especially Brahmins and brazenly challenged traditional Hindu caste hierarchies. The official has since been served a notice by the state government for his audacious views.
This also throws up a basic question: how far can the transaction of one woman being between two men be deemed proof of: A) the demolition of the Manuvadi caste system, and B) after accepting Manu’s laws that women of all castes and ages must remain under male ownership and protection, give her away at will to another man, as proof of being truly emancipated?
It took a female social scientist, Leela Dubey, to penetrate the myths that cover the caste system and reveal the exploitative relationship between caste hierarchies and gender that inform administration and law. She identified three characteristics of caste: jati (birth status group, where rules of marriage and contact are encoded), hierarchy (where order and rank according to status are decided) and interdependence (division of labour based on hierarchy and segregation).
by Mrinal Pande
30/11/2025