an interview with hannah
On self-care
So I follow you on Instagram, where you've been so prolific in the way you engage with various political issues. Does that take a toll on you emotionally? How do you balance engaging with these complicated and often intense subjects (that might draw a lot of vitriol), with self-care, in the middle of a turbulent pandemic?
I have honestly not stopped to think about this up until this moment. But even as a child, reading has been my way to relax. I learnt early on to distance myself from it emotionally, however the calling out of the comedians has been particularly exhausting. And I briefly talked about this on Anurag’s podcast, too. It is the tone policing that I have to do for the criticism to be considered valuable that exhausts me the most. So, I fall back on reading works and thoughts of people doing this for years and learn how to do it better, engage better for a better community online. Also, I have spent years building a resilient support system that cares for me more than I can ask for.
On Dalit Feminism and Allyship
Per my understanding of the literature on the subject, Dalit Feminism is essentially a response to Brahminical Patriarchy. Core to incorporating anti-caste narratives into our feminism is realizing the inevitability of Indian patriarchy being Brahminical, and the overall terribleness and cupidity in everything Brahminical. Increasingly, I am realising the ways in which the simone de beauvoir style feminism glosses over specific experiences of Dalit women's subjugation, strength, labour, resilience, and most importantly their anger. I'd love to hear your journey with Dalit Feminism, starting from your moment of consciousness to its evolution up to today. I'd also like to know how you use it as a lens to gauge relationships, content, and politics.
Wow, there’s a lot in that question.
About Dalit Feminism, in my opinion, it is not as much a response to Brahmanical patriarchy as much as it is a counter narrative to Savarna Feminism. It essentially exposes Brahmanical patriarchy in its framework, but it develops as a reaction to the exclusionary nature of Savarna Feminism that collapses caste into class. So while dominant caste women suffer under brahmanical patriarchy that devalues their humanity, Dalit, Bahujan and Advisai women and gender diverse folks suffer under dominant caste men and women. The best way to put this is that, we are not just dehumanised because of our caste location but also because of our gender, and for queer folks it is because of their sexuality. The way I like explaining this is that Brahmanical patriarchy is a project with the aim of maintaining caste supremacy of the Brahmins and that is done by dehumanising anyone who does not participate in that project. So if you do not serve in that, because of your caste, sexuality, gender, the system will alienate you and dehumanise you. This is something that Savarna Feminism fails to capture that they are of value only because of their caste location, and if they were not they would have no value to the system.
My politics I think comes from where I studied. Sophia College is my alma mater and it gave me the vocabulary, the courage and the politics I hold dear to myself even today. I think it was several “suggested” readings for a particular short story by Waman Govind Hoval that was an introduction to Dalit writings. However, Meena Kandasamy has influenced my politics the most and her poems are my go-to for self care too. It has evolved over the past few years, but I am also deeply influenced by abolitionist politics from the Black community in America and the work they are doing. I can, at this point, proudly (and awkwardly) say that I have excavated everything Savarna and White out of my politics.
About gauging relationships and friendships through a political lens, I think it begins with who are those I call friends and loved ones. I have very low tolerance for people who can gaslight me about my oppression, anymore. And that is communicated at every point that I can. In my relationships particularly, it shows up in the fact that they are rooted more because of our agreement on political stances than the emotional connection we share. In simple things like asking for emotional consent before sharing something that is heavy. There’s a lot of vocabulary questioning that happens. With friends and loved ones, we keep examining the words we use and how we communicate with each other. But it has been a long trial and error journey to arrive at this place where my folks reflect my values. And it requires patience and a lot of courage to keep forgiving yourself.
There is no questioning the fact that savarna feminism has failed DBA women. Not only did we not incorporate a caste component in our learning, we now demand to be educated from the very community fighting for their own rights. Because any intersectional liberation movement that really gets the job done must think about, and consult the women on the margins, my question to you is- what does a context devoid of savarna feminism look like? Maybe you can describe the spaces you're in (with members of the savarna community), where the conversation on feminism doesn't revolve around savarna talking points.
That’s a conversation we are still not ready to have to be very honest. A context devoid of Savarna feminism is a context where those who have climbed up the capitalist ladder are not our leaders. But it is the likes of Soni Sori and Hidme Markam, the ones working in Bastar, Chhattisgarh fighting for the rights of Adivasis who have been unfairly incarcerated. Those who have corner cabins and a view of the BKC wasteland don’t get to be our poster childs of feminism. It is my friend in Assam working to help trans women get access to ration and food during the lockdown who to me should be on a poster. It is the friend who is writing critical pieces questioning the way Brahmanism hurts all of us who is more important to the movement than the likes of Kavita Krishnan. These are not women we “consult”, these are women who lead from the very front.
I honestly avoid spaces with Savarna women because of the gaslighting that we receive and the excessive emotional labour expected out of us. But I am honestly hopeful for them to distance themselves from the supremacy that Brahmanism awards them. I am hopeful for a day when they begin to see that all of our womanhood is held with love and compassion in the hands of a Dalit / Adivasi / Muslim trans person’s hands better than in our own. And in their voice, we all have a hope for liberation.
On Womanhood and Religion
You also engage on a range of liberal issues, and often put forth a hypothesis of Dalit feminism on learned narratives of sexuality, beauty, gender, and womanhood. How did you conceive of these themes? What did you see was missing, and how do the subjects of MeToo, intimate partner violence, etc expand when you view them from a caste framework?
I am a nerd, for me if anyone talks about something, I will immediately begin to look for a book on the topic or an essay. And so that need to have a more elaborate answer has probably been the driving factor. But also, I think the answer to understanding all of these issues is listening to marginalised trans voices. Whether it is about sexuality, gender or beauty, their perspective resists everything that governs our society. And in their resistance lies answers to questions of how we can be a community that is committed to celebrating our shared humanity above everything that we may differ on because of our identities. Listening to Dalit and trans voices is where most of my perspectives come from.
And that is what is missing in Savarna feminism, right? For example, Kamala Bhasin. There would be hardly any criticism against her today had she centered Savitrima and Fatima Sheikh in her understanding of feminism. #MeToo was structured in a way that those calling out their abusers were in places of institutional power in some way or another and therefore it got attention and amplification. But would we ever be able to hold space for a #MeToo-like event, if it came from those incarcerated and been violated by the state and police? We would not. Because we have a Brahmanical definition of which woman’s honour matters. Yes, even with that systemic privilege, they failed to get justice, so one can imagine the exponential distancing of those from the margins to justice.
Speaking of Hinduism, the realisation that caste is inextricably interwoven with Hinduism- and that everything from the literature we read to the traditions and occasions we celebrate to death, marriage, and child-rearing are hinged on the marginalization of the DBA community- has made me want to denounce Hinduism. Would you like to speak about your relationship with religion?
I am a third generation Christian, my mom’s parents were the first generation. However, my parents eventually went to a church that preached Indian Christian Theology and it has been a growing realization that Christianity has not only been politically and historically an oppressive religion, it has also been practiced to be exclusionary. Christianity is inherently abusive because it bases its tenants on the idea that if one does not believe in Jesus, they would go to hell. And that for me, is where manipulation begins. While I do not hold to Christianity as a faith, Jesus, the historical figure, shapes my politics greatly. For me, he is an important political thinker at a time of fascist rule, he was murdered for speaking truth to power.
However, I will make a mention of Dalit Christianity that inverts Christianity to say that the deity does not get full authority over the religion, but the context and poeple who practice get to shape it. The Dalit Christian view of liberation theology has been one of the most empowering pieces of literature I have read.
Platforms, Social Media, and 'mic-passing'
I think the AnuragMinusVerma podcast where you discussed casteism in stand-up comedy was brilliant. There was a discussion about the arrogance with which savarnas, and I'm guilty of this myself, prophesize passing the mic to the DBA community without questioning the assumption that the mic was primarily and foremost theirs to have. To me, it underscored the assertion that the community isn't voiceless but the voice is quelled with people like me - taking space. You also spoke about self-tone-policing on the podcast, and in a recent Instagram story, stated that merely tasking oneself with the duty of dismantling a system of oppression doesn't make one a saviour. There are also other undertones of unproductive savarna guilt, accountability that centers innocence instead of harm, distortions of dialogue with anger or abuse. I'd love to know where you stand on all of these undertones, and if this multiplicity itself complicates or creates nuance in the discussion. Which of these conversations feel helpful and add nuance, and which ones don't?
I think this is the problem with allyship today. The need to label oneself an ally merely to rid themselves of their complicity to the oppressive system they belong to. Being an ally cannot be a thing we scream from roof-tops, it is an everyday humble duty one takes on. Being accountable is very important, holding space for those who are suffering, their rage, their pain and grief is what we mean when we say “listen”. We don’t mean attending our lectures to get educated, we mean that our grief and pain being centered is intrinsically tied to the liberation of the ruling caste, so listen. Practice ]empathy by showing up with time, energy and wealth. I don’t say “money” for a reason. Nuance comes from practicing active listening and learning in silence, without screaming on roof-tops about one’s allyship.
Your newsletter
You're also beginning your own newsletter titled 'in-the-in betweens' which aims to build 'a community reconstructing its foundations and a family committed to healing'. When did you decide it was time to do this?
I think it comes from a place of fearing the kind of call-outs I do. The best analogy I can think of is how Hannah Gadsby explains a joke and says, “Jokes… only need two parts. A beginning and a middle.’ Call-outs similarly needed only two things, because it is very rare that we will get closure or an end, we move on to the next. Call-outs also like jokes, have tension and tension is carried by the community that suffers. I want to take responsibility for the call-outs as much as I hope those who are called out take responsibility. I want to find ways in which we create spaces to heal from these traumatic calling-outs.
When I call someone out, and leave that information out in the open without taking responsibility for how much reliving and hurt it is first going to cause to mine, I am refusing to reflect like the oppressors. It is not a reflection I owe the oppressor, but I do to my own people. And I kept finding myself struggling with the answer of how do we do that. The world we live in is not built to hold our grief and rage. Through the newsletter that will hold the framework of community healing at its centre I want to create space for that.
Hannah's newsletter can be found at https://hannecdotess.substack.com
Hannah is a writer running from pillar to post in an attempt to make sense of culture and conversation. She is often found convincing people to watch Nanette by her namesake or reading in a dark room.