By Nidhi Agrawal
This is the second part in the 2-part post by Nidhi Agrawal.
The Utilitarian Paradox: Essentialism and The Woman Question
It’s pertinent to note that these tools of governmentality, such as the Foucauldian exercise of Biopower and Necropower are essentially concerned with the welfare of the populace. This has been lately drawn on by the notion of utilitarianism, concerned with the greatest welfare for the most. Foucault noted how “the limit of a government’s jurisdiction will be defined by the utility of such government intervention. […] Utilitarianism is a technology of government”. In fact, as Anne Brunon-Erst notes, Foucauldian and Benthamite traditions converged on the point of ‘frugal government’ in the sense that the government intervention must be limited to only those areas where the intervention would lead to the maximum benefit for the most.
However, this model of utilitarianism as a technology of governance can adversely affect the position of Dalit women vis-a-vis the state and society. When we consider essentialism, it involves generalizing the identity of the dominant or the majority trait throughout a category which has varying traits like a dimension. In the case of Dalit women, it would involve generalizing the traits and circumstances of either upper-caste women or Dalit men since they form the dominant groups within that category, in effect ignoring the intersectionality between them. Utilitarianism would necessarily involve appeasement to essential or dominant groups within that category, aside from exceptional circumstances. This becomes insidious when we consider the idea that the interests of Dalit women may not necessarily align with those of Dalit men, or upper-caste women. In that case, the logic of utilitarianism would dictate following those of the larger, more dominant group i.e., upper-class women or Dalit men. An example of this is the Maharashtra Dance Bar case. The government of Maharashtra passed legislation prohibiting the dance of women in public restaurants, beer bars etc. This provoked many protests from a mainstream feminist movement which opposed the ban as patriarchal and limiting. However, the Dalit feminist movement took the opposite position and welcomed the law. While they did not support the moral-paternal rationale behind the law, they felt it was a useful tool to prevent lower-caste women from falling into prostitution. Therefore, when essentialism and utilitarianism intersect, Dalit women’s identities merge with that of their dominant counterparts. This is fallacious because when a legal instrument is developed for these dominant groups on the basis of utilitarian ideologies, Dalit women are shown to be considered but left out.
This example pinpoints the fatal flaw in essentialism, i.e., that the Dalit feminist movement cannot, and should not be subsumed as merely a fragment of the larger feminist or caste movements. This is because Dalit feminism has its own historical-political basis, such as the historic issue of Devadasis or prostitution houses for Dalit women, which led to this particular response in the Maharashtra dance bar case. Just as Dalit feminism couldn’t be located in the broader feminist movement, it cannot be situated within the broader caste movement without losing some of the concerns specific to Dalit women. The Liberation Panther Party, the largest Dalit party in Tamil Nadu in 1999 was created in the hopes that it could adequately represent the concerns of Dalits. However, as Gorrienge notes in Dalit Women: Vanguard of an Alternative Politics in India, since its very foundation is the caste framework and not the intersection of gender and caste, it too fell into the trap of essentialism, ensconcing Dalit women to the archetypal ‘mother’ or ‘victim’. Even prominent Dalit authors like Kancha Ilaiah have been unable to fully reconcile Dalit feminism within the larger Dalit emancipation movement, with tokenistic responses to Dalit feminism such as “though the institution of patriarchy has its sway over dalitwaadas, a certain degree of freedom is guaranteed.” Perhaps inadvertently, he legitimizes patriarchy in Dalit societies by claiming it is at the very least more democratic than upper castes. This conveniently ignores the woman question and focuses solely on the caste question, highlighting the fallacy of essentialism.
Both these examples highlight how essentialism dovetailed with a utilitarian technology of governance would lead to an inadequate treatment of Dalit feminism. I argue that a better tool can be located in the Rawlsian principles when substantiated through Ambedkarite conception of social justice in light of Rodrigues’ argument. Rawls criticized utilitarianism by pointing out the lack of individuation within utilitarianism. It does not account for individual justifications for treatment, merely treating them as instrumentalities for aggregate good or aggregate bad. In simple words, it fails to account for what each person ‘deserves’, considering only the greater good of the many. These principles are undoubtedly better than that of Utilitarianism of Mill or Bentham in sustaining Dalit feminism, but they are not without shortcomings if seen without an anti-majoritarian Ambedkarite understanding of equality of opportunity.
This is because, based on the Equality and Difference principle of Rawls, inequality was only justified to the extent that it was borne with equality of opportunity, i.e., his idea of fairness was solely institutional fairness. If seen in a parochial sense, one could argue that Dalit women have equal opportunity to contest for public posts, examinations and even affirmative action to support their equality of opportunity. However, as Ambedkar noted this must be seen in the context of the centuries of oppression which cannot be rectified merely through negative liberty, the Rawlsian equality of opportunity must be substituted with ‘basic capability opportunity’. Therefore, Rawlsian institutional mechanisms may end up perpetuating inequalities due to different starting positions.
The intersection of utilitarianism and essentialism in the case of Dalit women forces the failure of this ideology. This is because, in the ‘original position’ behind the veil, one would not consider the layered forms of discrimination that Dalit women face. This would lead to equalization of their struggles with their dominant counterparts i.e., Dalit men or mainstream ideas of “Women”. This does not provide them with an equal opportunity to move forward. To invoke imagery, Dalit women are not only at different starting positions, they also have to carry boulders throughout the race to even stand a chance to win. This is effectively addressed by the Ambedkarite vision, which requires positive liberty, which accounts for differences not only between groups but also intra-groups. This requires an active state intervention and focus on empowering the ‘individual’ over the community, in sharp contrast to the Benthamite-Foucauldian logic of governance.
The Ambedkarite ideology also highlights the lacunae in the Rawlsian vision in two more ways. Firstly, Rawls assumed the family to be the unit of decision making and fairness, which implicitly legitimized the patriarchal family structure. Moreover, this gets exacerbated with Dalit women who are often the targets of not merely external, but domestic violence as well. Secondly, Rawls presupposes a constituted self, capable of judging what is right and wrong from the ‘original position’. This idea of Rawls would have justified the restriction of the state on negative liberty without any conception of positive liberty especially for Dalit women. This would lead to the perpetuation of the status quo as Dalit women would constantly fall within the clutches of essentialism.
Conclusion
In that context, the Ambedkarite idea of the constitution of self through social relations acts as justification for the intervention of the state by enabling positive liberty for Dalit women. These enabling provisions must keep in mind the perspective of not the dominant position (which would perhaps tend towards negative liberty) but the subaltern, which could utilize the enabling provisions to attempt to attain basic capability opportunity. This lack of equality calls to question the very foundations of the social contract which Rawlsian ideology implicitly affirms. This ties into my initial argument on how the oppression of Dalit women can come to be legitimized through a social contract due to the intersection of the ‘original position’ theory and essentialism. Therefore, the repression of Dalit women must be seen through a melee of essentialism, state sanctioned violence through the state of exception and a distinctly utilitarian technology of governance. Any attempts at Dalit women’s reform must at the very least incorporate two elements. First, any legal or policy structural reform must be rooted in an acknowledgement of the unique identity created through the intersection of caste and gender identities rather than looking at either in a sandbox. Secondly, the state must move from a Benthamite utilitarian technology of governance to one founded on Ambedkarite social justice.
The author, Nidhi Agrawal, is an undergraduate law student at National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore.
Anne Brunon-Erst, Use of Social Norms in the Production of Legal Norms: A Genealogical and Critical Approach to Nudges, 59 Les Cahiers de droit 117, 2018.
Supra note 12.
State of Maharashtra v. Indian Hotel & Restaurants Assn., (2013) 8 SCC 519.
Supra note 18, 33-35.
Sharmila Rege, Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of ‘Difference’ and towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position, 33 EPW 39 42, 1998.
Hugo Gorringe, Liberation Panthers and Pantheresses? Gender and Dalit Party Politics in South India, in Dalit Women: Vanguard of Alternative Politics in India(2019).
Kancha Ilaiah, Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy(1996).
V. Rodrigues, Justice as the Lens: Interrogating Rawls through Sen and Ambedkar, 5 Indian Journal of Human Development 153 (2011).
Christopher MacLeod, John Stuart Mill, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2020 available at (Last visited on May 29, 2022).
Julia Driver, The History of Utilitarianism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2014 available at (Last visited on May 30, 2022).
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971).
Anupama Roy, Representing Dalit Selfhood, India Seminar, 2006 available at (Last visited on May 5, 2022).
This is the second part in the 2-part post by Nidhi Agrawal.
The Utilitarian Paradox: Essentialism and The Woman Question
It’s pertinent to note that these tools of governmentality, such as the Foucauldian exercise of Biopower and Necropower are essentially concerned with the welfare of the populace. This has been lately drawn on by the notion of utilitarianism, concerned with the greatest welfare for the most. Foucault noted how “the limit of a government’s jurisdiction will be defined by the utility of such government intervention. […] Utilitarianism is a technology of government”. In fact, as Anne Brunon-Erst notes, Foucauldian and Benthamite traditions converged on the point of ‘frugal government’ in the sense that the government intervention must be limited to only those areas where the intervention would lead to the maximum benefit for the most.
However, this model of utilitarianism as a technology of governance can adversely affect the position of Dalit women vis-a-vis the state and society. When we consider essentialism, it involves generalizing the identity of the dominant or the majority trait throughout a category which has varying traits like a dimension. In the case of Dalit women, it would involve generalizing the traits and circumstances of either upper-caste women or Dalit men since they form the dominant groups within that category, in effect ignoring the intersectionality between them. Utilitarianism would necessarily involve appeasement to essential or dominant groups within that category, aside from exceptional circumstances. This becomes insidious when we consider the idea that the interests of Dalit women may not necessarily align with those of Dalit men, or upper-caste women. In that case, the logic of utilitarianism would dictate following those of the larger, more dominant group i.e., upper-class women or Dalit men. An example of this is the Maharashtra Dance Bar case. The government of Maharashtra passed legislation prohibiting the dance of women in public restaurants, beer bars etc. This provoked many protests from a mainstream feminist movement which opposed the ban as patriarchal and limiting. However, the Dalit feminist movement took the opposite position and welcomed the law. While they did not support the moral-paternal rationale behind the law, they felt it was a useful tool to prevent lower-caste women from falling into prostitution. Therefore, when essentialism and utilitarianism intersect, Dalit women’s identities merge with that of their dominant counterparts. This is fallacious because when a legal instrument is developed for these dominant groups on the basis of utilitarian ideologies, Dalit women are shown to be considered but left out.
This example pinpoints the fatal flaw in essentialism, i.e., that the Dalit feminist movement cannot, and should not be subsumed as merely a fragment of the larger feminist or caste movements. This is because Dalit feminism has its own historical-political basis, such as the historic issue of Devadasis or prostitution houses for Dalit women, which led to this particular response in the Maharashtra dance bar case. Just as Dalit feminism couldn’t be located in the broader feminist movement, it cannot be situated within the broader caste movement without losing some of the concerns specific to Dalit women. The Liberation Panther Party, the largest Dalit party in Tamil Nadu in 1999 was created in the hopes that it could adequately represent the concerns of Dalits. However, as Gorrienge notes in Dalit Women: Vanguard of an Alternative Politics in India, since its very foundation is the caste framework and not the intersection of gender and caste, it too fell into the trap of essentialism, ensconcing Dalit women to the archetypal ‘mother’ or ‘victim’. Even prominent Dalit authors like Kancha Ilaiah have been unable to fully reconcile Dalit feminism within the larger Dalit emancipation movement, with tokenistic responses to Dalit feminism such as “though the institution of patriarchy has its sway over dalitwaadas, a certain degree of freedom is guaranteed.” Perhaps inadvertently, he legitimizes patriarchy in Dalit societies by claiming it is at the very least more democratic than upper castes. This conveniently ignores the woman question and focuses solely on the caste question, highlighting the fallacy of essentialism.
Both these examples highlight how essentialism dovetailed with a utilitarian technology of governance would lead to an inadequate treatment of Dalit feminism. I argue that a better tool can be located in the Rawlsian principles when substantiated through Ambedkarite conception of social justice in light of Rodrigues’ argument. Rawls criticized utilitarianism by pointing out the lack of individuation within utilitarianism. It does not account for individual justifications for treatment, merely treating them as instrumentalities for aggregate good or aggregate bad. In simple words, it fails to account for what each person ‘deserves’, considering only the greater good of the many. These principles are undoubtedly better than that of Utilitarianism of Mill or Bentham in sustaining Dalit feminism, but they are not without shortcomings if seen without an anti-majoritarian Ambedkarite understanding of equality of opportunity.
This is because, based on the Equality and Difference principle of Rawls, inequality was only justified to the extent that it was borne with equality of opportunity, i.e., his idea of fairness was solely institutional fairness. If seen in a parochial sense, one could argue that Dalit women have equal opportunity to contest for public posts, examinations and even affirmative action to support their equality of opportunity. However, as Ambedkar noted this must be seen in the context of the centuries of oppression which cannot be rectified merely through negative liberty, the Rawlsian equality of opportunity must be substituted with ‘basic capability opportunity’. Therefore, Rawlsian institutional mechanisms may end up perpetuating inequalities due to different starting positions.
The intersection of utilitarianism and essentialism in the case of Dalit women forces the failure of this ideology. This is because, in the ‘original position’ behind the veil, one would not consider the layered forms of discrimination that Dalit women face. This would lead to equalization of their struggles with their dominant counterparts i.e., Dalit men or mainstream ideas of “Women”. This does not provide them with an equal opportunity to move forward. To invoke imagery, Dalit women are not only at different starting positions, they also have to carry boulders throughout the race to even stand a chance to win. This is effectively addressed by the Ambedkarite vision, which requires positive liberty, which accounts for differences not only between groups but also intra-groups. This requires an active state intervention and focus on empowering the ‘individual’ over the community, in sharp contrast to the Benthamite-Foucauldian logic of governance.
The Ambedkarite ideology also highlights the lacunae in the Rawlsian vision in two more ways. Firstly, Rawls assumed the family to be the unit of decision making and fairness, which implicitly legitimized the patriarchal family structure. Moreover, this gets exacerbated with Dalit women who are often the targets of not merely external, but domestic violence as well. Secondly, Rawls presupposes a constituted self, capable of judging what is right and wrong from the ‘original position’. This idea of Rawls would have justified the restriction of the state on negative liberty without any conception of positive liberty especially for Dalit women. This would lead to the perpetuation of the status quo as Dalit women would constantly fall within the clutches of essentialism.
Conclusion
In that context, the Ambedkarite idea of the constitution of self through social relations acts as justification for the intervention of the state by enabling positive liberty for Dalit women. These enabling provisions must keep in mind the perspective of not the dominant position (which would perhaps tend towards negative liberty) but the subaltern, which could utilize the enabling provisions to attempt to attain basic capability opportunity. This lack of equality calls to question the very foundations of the social contract which Rawlsian ideology implicitly affirms. This ties into my initial argument on how the oppression of Dalit women can come to be legitimized through a social contract due to the intersection of the ‘original position’ theory and essentialism. Therefore, the repression of Dalit women must be seen through a melee of essentialism, state sanctioned violence through the state of exception and a distinctly utilitarian technology of governance. Any attempts at Dalit women’s reform must at the very least incorporate two elements. First, any legal or policy structural reform must be rooted in an acknowledgement of the unique identity created through the intersection of caste and gender identities rather than looking at either in a sandbox. Secondly, the state must move from a Benthamite utilitarian technology of governance to one founded on Ambedkarite social justice.
The author, Nidhi Agrawal, is an undergraduate law student at National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore.
Anne Brunon-Erst, Use of Social Norms in the Production of Legal Norms: A Genealogical and Critical Approach to Nudges, 59 Les Cahiers de droit 117, 2018.
Supra note 12.
State of Maharashtra v. Indian Hotel & Restaurants Assn., (2013) 8 SCC 519.
Supra note 18, 33-35.
Sharmila Rege, Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of ‘Difference’ and towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position, 33 EPW 39 42, 1998.
Hugo Gorringe, Liberation Panthers and Pantheresses? Gender and Dalit Party Politics in South India, in Dalit Women: Vanguard of Alternative Politics in India(2019).
Kancha Ilaiah, Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy(1996).
V. Rodrigues, Justice as the Lens: Interrogating Rawls through Sen and Ambedkar, 5 Indian Journal of Human Development 153 (2011).
Christopher MacLeod, John Stuart Mill, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2020 available at (Last visited on May 29, 2022).
Julia Driver, The History of Utilitarianism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2014 available at (Last visited on May 30, 2022).
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971).
Anupama Roy, Representing Dalit Selfhood, India Seminar, 2006 available at (Last visited on May 5, 2022).