On 21st October, Penguin published Marcellus’ latest book, ‘Behold the Leviathan: The Unusual Rise of Modern India’. One of the central pillars of the book is the rise of Indian women. More specifically, we highlight in the book that women from the most oppressed sections of Indian society are climbing the educational ladder faster than anybody else in India – not just faster than men but also faster than women from the more privileged castes. Just as our book was about to be published, we read an article in The Wire which seemed to exemplify what our book is saying. Soumashree Sarkar wrote for The Wire: “Two weeks ago, one of the world’s foremost scholars on caste and gender, Shailaja Paik, was named a recipient of the prestigious ‘genius’ grant given by the MacArthur Foundation. Paik is known for centring Dalit perspectives in her work and for paying close and ruthless attention to the ways in which oppression of caste and gender overlap. This is something that the Foundation too has noted in its citation for her.
Paik’s first book, Dalit Women’s Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination, published in 2014 is an exploration of agency in colonial and contemporary Maharashtra. Her seminal work The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India takes on notions of what is vulgar and what such a categorisation of Dalit women-led artistic performances seeks to achieve. Paik’s field interviews come alive in her writing across books, essays and opinion pieces – where she takes apart aspects of societal behaviour to reveal the casteism, misogyny, Brahminism and patriarchy hidden in them.“
The BBC then ran a piece highlighting Ms Paik’s remarkable rise from the tenements near Yervada Jail in Pune to professor of history at the University of Cincinnati to this ‘genius grant’. Quoting from the article published by the BBC: “Spending her childhood in a 20x20ft room in Pune’s Yerwada slums, Paik remembered standing in long queues every day to fetch water from the public tap for cooking and cleaning.
“On all levels – social, educational, emotional and mental – all this definitely had a profound effect on me,” she said.
Her younger sister Rohini Waghmare said it was their parents who emphasised the importance of education and ensured all their children studied in English.
“Usually when there are daughters, the mentality is that girls should get married soon,” she said.
Paik was an excellent student throughout school and college.
Her mother Sarita Paik credited her hard work for her success. “I’m less educated but her father and I always felt that girls should learn a lot.”
But studying was a challenge, Paik said. “I remember wrapping myself up in a quilt and telling my family members to speak softly and not make any noise,” she recounted.
“I would go to sleep around 7:30pm until around 3am, then get up to study until 6-7am, before leaving for school.””
Paik’s rise is also the story of how modern India – inspite of all its well understood limitations – is able to provide higher education to the mases. It is notable that Paik completed the bulk of her education in India’s university system which produces 10mn graduates a year: “Paik developed a love for history while pursuing her undergraduate degree at the city’s Nowrosjee Wadia College, and masters at Savitribai Phule Pune University.
“Textbooks then provided merely an overview of different time periods of India, US, Japan or China without any in-depth knowledge about the society or culture.”
As Paik delved more into the subject, she noticed not much work had been done on the education of Dalit women.
“Dalits constitute 17% of India’s total population,” Paik said. “There are statistics but there was no qualitative research. No one had written the history of caste through the vantage point of Dalit women, so I decided that I wanted to do this work.””
As scholars from hitherto oppressed sections of India rise, they are bound to challenge the upper caste interpretation of Indian history. We eagerly await the arrival of India’s Howard Zinn whose celebrated “A People’s History of the United States” completely inverts the WASP’s interpretation of American history.
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Note: The above material is neither investment research, nor financial advice. Marcellus does not seek payment for or business from this publication in any shape or form. The information provided is intended for educational purposes only. Marcellus Investment Managers is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and is also an FME (Non-Retail) with the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) as a provider of Portfolio Management Services. Additionally, Marcellus is also registered with US Securities and Exchange Commission (“US SEC”) as an Investment Advisor.
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