Kangana made ‘false, harmful, misleading’ remarks on Dalit, tribal women: NCWL

Members of the National Council of Women Leaders (NCWL), a national platform claiming to give visibility and voices to women leaders from marginalized communities across India, have said that thy are “shocked by the controversial and shocking statements given by Kangana Ranaut, Lok Sabha MP in the recent interview with Lallantop channel.”

Seeking public apology and retraction of “misleading statements” from her, NCWL said, she trivialized the “brutal and systemic violence that Dalit women have historically endured and continue to face across both rural and urban India.”

We, the members of the National Council of Women Leaders (NCWL), are deeply disturbed by the recent remarks made by Ms. Kangana Ranaut, MP, during an interview on the media channel ‘Lallantop,’ aired on August 30, 2024. In this interview, Ms. Ranaut made deeply troubling statements concerning violence against Dalit women in India. Her words not only objectified and misrepresented the agency of Dalit women but also perpetuated harmful and factually incorrect narratives, particularly in the context of the farmers’ protests.

Ms. Ranaut’s statements are not just misleading—they are socially toxic and structurally violent. They trivialize the brutal and systemic violence that Dalit women have historically endured and continue to face across both rural and urban India. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, in 2021 alone, there were 3,893 reported cases of rape against women, of which 1,285 involved Dalit minor girls. These figures represent not mere statistics but the lived realities of countless women whose lives have been shattered by caste-based violence.

It is alarming that celebrities like Ms. Ranaut, who hold significant political influence, can speak so casually about caste atrocities, reflecting a mindset that aligns more closely with that of perpetrators than with those who advocate for justice and empathy. For her, the violence faced by Dalit women seems to be an ordinary, invisible reality—one she is wilfully blind to and content to overlook or, worse, perpetuate false information about comfortably.

For Ms. Ranaut’s enlightenment, we would like to point out the rising caste atrocities in her state, Himachal Pradesh—one of the states with a 25.22 percent Scheduled Caste population as per the 2011 National Census, deeply entrenched in the toxicity of caste, with over 1,600 atrocity cases reported in 2022 alone. Her fragile and eccentric worldview, demonstrated by her opposition to the caste-based census, shows that Ms. Ranaut is devoid of the basic human empathy needed to understand or connect with survivors of caste-based violence. Her remarks are not just an attack on the dignity of Dalit women—they are an insult to our dignity, our struggles, and our fight for justice.

We, the Dalit and Tribal women of NCWL, unequivocally condemn her statements and demand that she refrain from making further false, harmful, and misleading remarks against Dalit and Tribal women.

    “Kangana Ranaut is devoid of the basic human empathy needed to understand or connect with survivors of caste-based violence”

Let it be clear: our dignity is our prime responsibility, and we will not allow anyone—be it media figures or public personalities—to damage it. History has shown that we, Dalit women, have survived and thrived even in the face of exclusion, misrepresentation, and attempts to erase our voices from the mainstream feminist discourse in India. Unlike the “eternal poverty of conscience” that some individuals possess, our resolve remains unshaken.

Unlike Ms. Ranaut and her comfortable dominant caste social status, we have borne witness to the horrors of caste-based violence—most notably in incidents like Hathras, where even after the death, our dignity was denied. Our students, doctors, and workers have been found dead due to caste atrocities, only to have their deaths labelled as ‘suicides’ by those in power. Our minor girls have been assaulted, raped, and murdered for simply trying to access education, livelihood or water. These are not isolated incidents; they are part of a larger pattern of structural violence that continues to plague our society.

We demand that Ms. Kangana Ranaut not only apologize publicly but confess that she has inadequate knowledge about Dalit women’s issues and the violence faced by them. She must inform herself and develop some empathy by reading about our histories, our everyday struggles, and the violence that we face as Dalit women. We invite her to visit our histories and learn about the darkness and horrors that define our existence. Only then can she understand the gravity of her words and the damage they inflict.

We also call upon media outlets and platforms to exercise greater responsibility when discussing issues related to Dalit women. Rather than amplifying the voices of those who perpetuate harmful stereotypes, the media must create space for our representatives, voices, and stories. Only then can true social justice be achieved for our communities—the true Ambedkarite Indians who continue to fight for the equality and dignity envisioned by Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar. We hope you are getting our point clear and loud…Jai Bhim! Jai Savitri!

Courtesy: Counterview 

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