In the hustle-bustle melee of 14th April, 2018 at Parliament Street, where Dalits and other marginalised people had turned up in large numbers to pay homage to their leader B.R. Ambedkar on his 127th birth anniversary, one of the fiery, spirited, indomitable activists, Dalit feminist Rajni Tilak (Rajni di, we called her) was missing. I, along with many of my friends and fellow travellers, was searching for Tilak, whose soul, if it exists, would have been fluttering from one stall to the another. Had she been alive, she would have been interacting with different activists offering critique on their work and issues, selling her latest books and so on. We missed her, and so did the National Confederation of Dalit Organisations (NACDOR)/ Rashtriya Dalit Mahila Andolan (RDMA) pavilion.
Tilak held a unique position of being both a leader and a ground-level activist. She was the founder-member and national level leader of Centre for Alternative Dalit Media, NACDOR, RDMA etc. At the same time, her ground-level work of organising Dalit students, activists, feminists and others was remarkable. Her commitment towards Dalit issues, particularly Dalit women, was unwavering. Her grievances against the Left for not addressing the caste question and her admiration for Ambedkarism as a path for emancipation of Dalits and the marginalised remained rooted in her till the end.
In spite of this strong ideological preferences she never hesitated to work with all streams of political activists as and the when the need arose. Even while working with them, she continued to maintain her own political understanding which resulted in many debates and discussions, that were friendly at times and bitter at other times. She would often raise the caste question, especially Dalit women’s issues in the women’s movement and with the same consistency question the patriarchy in the Dalit movement.
The first time I met Tilak was in the year 1984 when about 40 Dalit women, under the banner of Mahila Jagrithi Parishad, met the then President Giani Zail Singh around Ambedkar Jayanti and submitted a memorandum on Dalit women’s issues. After that, we worked together as sahelis, in the Mandal–II agitation (2006), in Centenary Committee of Women (2008), and in Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) since 2009.
Over all these years, we worked closely on many issues; whether in organising protests or conducting fact findings in incidents of caste atrocities, organising meetings and seminars, notably the all India seminar on ‘Caste and Patriarchy’ in Delhi in 2015. The role she played as co-organiser for the “Chalo Nagpur” event on March 10, 2017, where thousands of women across the country were mobilised against Hindutva, is worth mentioning.
We had our bitter ideological differences, especially on issues of funding and Left politics, but we would brush them aside and come together. Many feminists may not agree with her principled stand on sex workers and bar dancers, a majority of whom were Dalits and from other marginalised sections of the society. In every forum, she maintained her position because of which, the topic still remains as an important area of debate between Dalit and non-Dalit feminists.
Tilak was born in the year 1958, two years after Baba Saheb passed away, in a very humble family in old Delhi. Being the eldest of seven siblings, she gave up her aspirations for higher education and took up a job at a young age to support and take care of her family. Her marriage didn’t work. She came out of it with a year-old baby and since then living had been living independently. She had to wage a prolonged legal battle for divorce and maintenance and at the same time, take care of her ailing mother, her sisters in addition to her own daughter. The personal struggle in her family haunted her till the end; she often talked of being a loner and how painful it was. However, her personal problems never deterred her will and determination to work among people. Whatever the reasons may be, in the end, we, as activists, friends and family, and ultimately the society as a whole were responsible for making her the loner she was. Each of us should introspect so that in the future, too many Tilaks don’t happen. Building a society with spaces where women like her can live life to the fullest is the task she left for us.
Her warmth, critique, her bitter fights and camaraderie will be missed. Though many young Dalit women trained by her are taking up challenges of the women’s movement, her foremost endeavour to bring Dalit women into the leadership of the women’s movement has a long way to go.
That’s my Rajni di, strongly opinionated, defiant, who will be missed by me and all other friends and rebel activists in the Dalit feminist lambi ladai.
Ajita Rao is a Dalit feminist also associated with WSS and the People’s Union for Democratic Rights.