The right to equality regardless of gender or caste is fundamental in India. Yet even the Indian government has acknowledged that the institutional forces arrayed against this right are powerful—and, what’s more, that they shape people’s mindsets in a way that encourages them to accept pervasive gender and caste inequality. This is nowhere more apparent than within the cast-segregated localities where Dalit women live.

This volume presents an analytical overview of the complexities of the systemic violence that Dalit women face, through analysis of five hundred narratives by Dalit women from four states. The book joins analysis to excerpts of these narratives, which are then used to illustrate wider trends and patterns, with the goal of bringing attention, and understanding, to the plight of these women.