Structural Violence and Retaliation by Women in India

Structural Violence and Retaliation by Women in India: Through the lens of

Troilokyo Tarini and Phoolan Devi

ABSTRACT:

Women in Indian History have not only been subjected to gender-based violence but also violence meted out to them by oppressive caste structures allowing them to exist along the fringes. Due to the structural positioning of patriarchy and caste, women have often found themselves surrendering to the subjugating forces at play. However, there have also been examples in history, where women have not only resisted the violence, they were subjected to but also have retaliated by reclaiming their social and political agencies.

This paper delves into the lives of two such women who were able to decapitate the existing

patriarchal and caste hegemony in the Indian social fabric and prove against women being the ‘weaker’ sex. What became important in their case was that they appropriated the violence they were met with to reclaim their position and resist their exploitation to rise up the social ladder. Troilkyo Tarini was a woman who was consistently abandoned by the men in her life. Her first husband died and her second lover sold her off to Sonagachi – the notorious brothel of Calcutta. It was here in the underbelly of the city that she found the means to retaliate against the epistemic ostracism, disenfranchisement, and violence meted out to her. Soon she was able to use her body as well as her brain to reclaim her social standing. She spent the rest of her life as an auteur who would con the traditional upper-caste Bengali “Bhadralok” men into promises of marriage and orgies and later steal their riches. She would disenfranchise the kind of men of their capital who initially exploited her.

On the other hand, born into a rural lower caste family in Uttar Pradesh, Phoolan Devi endured

extreme poverty and an abusive marriage where she was raped multiple times by her then-

husband. It was then she turned to violence and joined a gang of bandits, being the only woman there. Owing to caste disparities, when her lover from the gang was killed and she was raped by several ‘thakurs’ in turn for several days, she resorted to violence and used her position in the gang to exact revenge on her perpetrators by shooting them till death. Later she was imprisoned but after being released, she ran for election as a member of parliament for the Samajwadi Party and was twice elected to the Lok Sabha.

Thus, in our paper, we plan to plot the lives of these women and establish how structural caste and gender violence instigated in these women, a rescue and reclamation in the form of retaliation.

Our research explores the ulterior themes of disenfranchisement and consequential violence

against women and their reactions. Through our paper, we have also focussed on how women like them have broken the medieval stereotype of women surrendering themselves to the patriarchal frameworks and have created a space for their social and political agency.

Author: Rishav Chatterjee, Deep Acharya

Full Paper: Structural Violence and Retaliation by Women in India: Through the lens of

Troilokyo Tarini and Phoolan Devi