Congratulations are due to editors Sunaina Arya and Aakash Singh Rathore on the publication of their book, dedicated to all Dalit women, including Bhanwari Devi, Delta Meghwal, Disha, and Payal Tadvi, the last three being women who lost their lives due to the casteist system.
As a self-taught academic, reviewing a book on theory was daunting for me, as I do not have the years of engagement with ideas that regular academics do. My own engagement is intermittent, with more time spent working on the ground, thinking, and talking with subjects in the field.
As I began writing this essay, the image of Pushpa came to mind. Pushpa is a mother of four, married to a drinking, philandering construction worker. She is not literate and migrated from her native state to another State capital. Pushpa has worked all her life as a domestic worker. Her two older daughters completed school—the eldest is a divorcee and a single mother of one, working as a receptionist, trying to rebuild her life. The second daughter is a mother of two toddlers, married to an auto driver who was injured in a road accident and works only infrequently, so she does domestic work to support the family, just like her mother. Pushpa’s third child is a boy who has completed high school but is reluctant to work due to the trauma of being dragged off by the police when some relatives tried to grab the house left to them by their grandmother. The fourth child is a daughter in the first year of college, who works part-time in an office. Her salary is used to repay some of the debts the family incurred during the lockdown.