Feminism in the Service of Caste: 
The Symbiosis of Savarna Feminism and 
Brahmanical Patriarchy in India

Author: Rashi A. Ulman

Affiliation: L.S. Raheja College of Arts & Commerce (Autonomous), Mumbai

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Abstract:​

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This paper critically interrogates the complicity of Savarna feminism in sustaining Brahmanical patriarchy, a system wherein caste and gender oppression are co-constitutive rather than discrete. Drawing from the anti-caste feminist thought of Dr. Ambedkar, Rege, and Paik, the paper examines how upper-caste (Savarna) women are simultaneously subjects of patriarchal control and agents of caste preservation. Through historical, cultural, and institutional analysis, it reveals how Savarna feminism homogenises gendered oppression while marginalising caste-oppressed women, thus replicating the very structures it claims to resist. From aestheticised portrayals of Savarna suffering in literature and cinema to the epistemic dispossession of Dalit feminist knowledge , the study maps a wide array of blind spots, from methodological and phenomenological to ontological, embedded within mainstream feminist praxis. It critiques the selective outrage of Savarna-led movements such as #MeToo, the symbolic co-optation of Ambedkarite language, and the erasure of caste-specific trauma within digital and academic spaces. This paper contends that without confronting its own caste privilege, Savarna feminism devolves into performative allyship that aestheticises inclusion without redistributing power. Concluding with a call for epistemic reversal, it argues that only a feminism led by Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Class (OBC) women, one that foregrounds lived experience and structural violence, can dismantle the recursive mechanisms of Brahmanical patriarchy. In doing so, this work contributes to the reimagination of Indian feminism as an inclusive, anti-caste, and radically transformative project.

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Keywords: anti-caste feminism, Brahmanical patriarchy, Savarna feminism​

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ISSN 3069-8200

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