Dalit students’ anti-caste and gender struggles against the dominance of the caste Hindus at the university have been examined extensively. However, while studying acts of resistance in higher education, dalit girls’ subjectivities are often overlooked or merged with dalit men’s narratives. Additionally, research on dalit women tends to focus on their conflicts concerning caste Hindu males or more generally. Their specific experiences and agency deserve more scholarly attention. This article draws on semi-structured interview data from a study of dalit women pursuing higher education at a university in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Through the narratives of 30 women in higher education, it explores how they support and empower each other to survive and succeed and questions their invisibility in everyday interactions with peers and teachers at the university.
AltbachP. (1992). Higher education, democracy and development: Implications for newly industrialised countries. Interchange, 23(1–2), 143–163.
2.
AnandhiS. (2017). Gendered negotiations of caste identity: Dalit women’s activism in rural Tamil Nadu. In AnandhiS. & KapadiaKarin (Eds), Dalit women vanguard of an alternative politics in India (pp. 97–130). Routledge.
3.
ChandD. (2025). (Re)-production of caste in the classroom: A Dalit perspective. Higher Education, 89, 825–847. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01249-3
4.
CiottiM. (2017). For another difference: Agency, representation and dalit women in contemporary India. In AnandhiS. & KapadiaKarin (Eds), Dalit women vanguard of an alternative politics in India (pp. 75–94). Routledge.
5.
DavidsonM.delG. (2017). Black women, agency and the new black feminism. Routledge.
6.
EricksonF. (1986). Qualitative methods in research on teaching. In WittrockM. C. (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 119–161). MacMillan.
7.
FergusonA. A. (2007). Making a name for yourself: Transgressive acts and gender performance. In KimmelM. & MessnerM. (Eds), Men’s lives (pp. 154–166). Allyn and Beacon.
8.
GaralytėK. (2015). Subaltern autonomy: Dalit students’ identity politics in India. Straipsniai, 49–76.
9.
GovindaR. (2009). In the name of ‘poor and marginalised’? Politics of NGO activism with dalit women in rural North India. Journal of South Asian Development, 4(1), 45–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/097317410900400104
10.
GovindaR. (2013). Didi, are you Hindu?’ Politics of secularism in women’s activism in India: Case study of a grassroots women’s organization in rural Uttar Pradesh. Modern Asian Studies, 47(2), 612–651. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X12000832
11.
GuruG. (1995). Dalit women talk differently. EPW, 30(41/42), 2548–2550.
12.
Guérin & Kumar. (2017). Microcredit self-help groups and Dalit women: Overcoming or essentializing caste differences. In AnandhiS. & KapadiaKarin (Eds), Dalit women vanguard of an alternative politics in India (pp. 158–186). Routledge.
13.
GundemedaS. (2009). Democratisation of the public sphere: The beef stall case in Hyderabad’s Sukoon Festival. South Asia Research, 29(2), 127–149.
14.
JacksonC. (2012). Speech, gender and power: Beyond testimony. Development and Change, 43, 999–1023.
15.
JeffreyC. (2010). Timepass: Youth, class, and the politics of waiting in India. Stanford University Press.
16.
KrishnanS. (2015). Making ladies of girls: Middle-class women and pleasure in urban India [Doctoral dissertation, University of Oxford]. Oxford University Research Archive.
17.
LochanV. (2019). Embodied forms of politics and identity in South Asian protest movements: Pinjra Tod and Delhi. Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, 25(1), 132–147. https://doi.org/10.1080/12259276.2019.1577032
18.
MalishC. M., & IlavarasanP. V. (2016). Higher education and scheduled castes: Exploring institutional habitus of professional engineering colleges in Kerala. Higher Education, 72, 602–617. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-015-9966-7
19.
MastkarS. (2025). Outsiders within the academy: Life narratives of Dalit (SCs) women in higher education space. International Journal of Law Management & Humanities, 8(5), 1445–1458.
20.
NaudetJ. (2008). Paying back to society: Upward social mobility among dalits. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 42(3), 413–441. https://doi.org/10.1177/006996670804200304
21.
NiveditaN. (2023). Educational mobility among women from stigmatized caste groups: A study of high-achieving middle-class dalit women. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 54(3), 404–421. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2023.2170171
22.
OvicheganS. K. (2015). Faces of discrimination in higher education in India: Quota policy, social justice and the dalits. Routledge.
23.
PalG. C., & ArjunB. B. K. (2013). Caste discrimination in the premier institutes of higher education in India: A study of dalit students’ suicide (Report). Indian Institute of Dalit Studies.
24.
PappuR., & SatyanarayanaK. (2018). Gender and caste in Indian Universities: Some reflections. In RaoA. (Ed.), Gender, caste and the imagination of equality, Women Unlimited.
25.
PatelT. (2017). Stigma goes backstage: Reservation in jobs and education. Sociological Bulletin, 57(1), 97–114. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038022920080106
26.
PathaniaG. J. (2016). Food politics and counter-hegemonic assertion in India university campuses. South Asia Research, 36(2), 261–277. https://doi.org/10.1177/0262728016638732
27.
PathaniaJ. G. (2018). The University as a site of resistance: Identity and student politics. Oxford University Press.
28.
RaoS. (2013). Structural exclusion in everyday institutional life: Labelling of stigmatised groups in an IIT. In NambissanG. B. & RaoS. (Eds), Sociology of education in India: Changing contours and emerging concerns (pp. 199–223). Oxford University Press.
29.
RathodB. (2019). Caste conflicts on campuses: Examining diversity research to transform Indian universities into inclusive learning spaces. Journal of Social Inclusion Studies, 5(2), 129–146. https://doi.org/10.1177/2394481119900838
30.
RenukuntlaA., & GundemedaN. (2023). Educational endeavours and unheeded tales: Mapping trajectories of dalit women in a university. Sociological Bulletin, 72(4), 434–445. https://doi.org/10.1177/00380229231196718
31.
RuudA. E. (2010). To create a crowd: Student leaders in Dhaka. In PriceP. & EngelsenA. R. (Eds), Power and influence in India: Bosses, lords and captains (pp. 70–95). Routledge.
32.
SahayG. R. (2015). Dominance of jats is unabated: Caste and dominance in the villages of western Uttar Pradesh. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 49(2), 216–249.
33.
SinghR. (2022). Female friendship and care in a North Indian university. Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, 28(4), 478–494. https://doi.org/10.1080/12259276.2022.2137286
34.
SukumarN. (2008). Living a concept: Semiotics of everyday exclusion. Economic & Political Weekly, 43(46), 14–17.
35.
SukumarN. (2013). Quota’s children: The perils of getting educated. In DeshpandeS. & ZachariasU. (Eds), Beyond inclusion: The practice of equal access in Indian higher education (pp. 205–221). Routledge.
36.
SukumarN. (2023). Caste discrimination and exclusion in Indian universities: A critical reflection. Routledge.
37.
Suresh BabuS. (2020). Education for confidence: Political education for recasting bahujan student selves. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 43(4), 741–757. https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2020.1777692
38.
Vandana. (2020). Dalit girls and sexual harassment in the university. Indian Journal of Gender Studies27(1), 33–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/0971521519891478
39.
VelaskarP., & WankhedeG. G. (1996). From old stigma to new: Exploring the changing identity of urban educated Dalits. Indian Journal of Social Work, 57(1), 115–134.
