Abstract
This Article utilizes Critical Dalit Feminism to uncover the intersectional impact of gender and caste hegemonies in cases of sexual violence in India. It challenges the conventional wisdom that doctrinal approaches that rely on punitive measures can solve the pervasive and imbricated issue of sexual violence. It also examines the sociolegal barriers influenced by a legacy of caste-based discrimination that hinder sexual violence survivors, particularly subaltern women from marginalized castes, from accessing carceral forms of justice. In doing so, this Article presents a radical understanding of justice which is decolonial and demasculine, and offers transformative pathways relying on restorative approaches to address sexual violence by extending the prison abolitionist framework developed in other national settings to the Indian context.
About the Author
J.S.D. Candidate, Columbia Law School (New York); Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellow, India. For their insightful comments and discussions, I am grateful to Susan Sturm, Kendall Thomas, Amber Baylor, Anupama Rao, Elizabeth Bernstein, Danielle Sered, Shilpa Shah, and Yaron Covo. I also thank participants at the International Access to Justice Forum, Columbia Law School Human Rights Symposium, South Asia Legal Studies Workshop, and Society for the Study of Social Problems for their engagement and generous feedback. For speaking to me about their work, documented further in Section III of the Article, I owe deep gratitude to Arti Mohan, Julian Ward, Swagata Raha, Dee, Arshiya Kochar, and Tamanna Basu. I am also appreciative of the UCLA Law Review Editorial Committee, particularly Nicholas Mohnatkin, Elizabeth Pring, and Jessica Tsukiji, for their careful reading of this piece and editorial support.
