Sharmila Rege

Sharmila Rege
Born(1964-10-07)7 October 1964
Pune, Maharashtra, India
Died13 July 2013(2013-07-13) (aged 48)
Pune, Maharashtra, India
OccupationsSociologist, writer, feminist

Sharmila Rege (7 October 1964 – 13 July 2013)[1] was an Indian sociologist, feminist scholar and author of Writing Caste, Writing Gender.[2] She led the Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women's Studies Centre at the University of Pune since 1991.[3][4][5] She received the Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for Distinguished Contributions to Development Studies from the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) in 2006.[6] She died of colon cancer on 13 July 2013.[1]

Work

Rege was one of the leading feminist scholars in India, whose work in developing a "Dalit feminist standpoint perspective"[7] was crucial in opening up feminist debates in India to questions of class, caste, religion and sexuality.[8][3] An obituary described her as a "Phule-Ambedkarite feminist welder" who brought the "structural violence of caste and its linkages with sexuality and labour into the feminist discourse."[3]

Rege worked within academia fighting for the rights of the Dalit students and was committed to critical educational reform in India.[9] Her concerns around the woman question in India contributed to new and alternative methods of historiography, exposing the blind spots of a Hindu nation towards Dalit perspectives, as with her emphasis on relocating B. R. Ambedkar as central in the shaping of the modern nation-state.[10] Her focus on alternative history brought local oral traditions of knowledge and cultural practice to public attention.[8]

One of Rege's major texts was the essay "Interrogating the Thesis of 'Irrational Deification'", on popular Ambedkarism in the 1990s. It was first published in Economic and Political Weekly[11] and reprinted in the volume The Hunger of the Republic: Our Present in Retrospect, published by Tulika Books.[12]

In her last published work, Against the Madness of Manu,[13] she sought to centralise Ambedkar's role in the women's movement by invoking his ideological fight against Brahminical patriarchy that engenders graded levels of violence against women.[14]

In 2002, she established a child care centre in the University of Pune's women's studies department.[15][1]

Publications

  • Caste and gender: the violence against women in India, European University Institute, 1996
  • Sociology of Gender: The Challenge of Feminist Sociological Thought, SAGE Publications India, 2003
  • Writing Caste, Writing Gender, Zubaan, 2006.
  • Savitribai Phule Second Memorial Lecture, NCERT, 2009
  • Against the Madness of Manu, Navayana, 2013.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Trivedi, Divya (13 July 2013). "Sociologist who studied intersection of gender, caste". The Hindu. Retrieved 14 July 2013.
  2. ↑ Rege, Sharmila (2 July 2006). Writing caste, writing gender: reading Dalit women's testimonios. Zubaan. ISBN 978-81-89013-01-1. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
  3. 1 2 3 Devika, J; John, Mary E; Kannabiran, Kalpana; Sen, Samita; Swaminathan, Padmini (August 2013). "Sharmila Rege (1964-2013): Tribute to a Phule-Ambedkarite Feminist Welder". Economic and Political Weekly. 48 (32). ISSN 0012-9976.
  4. ↑ Tambe, Anagha; Dyahadroy, Swati (19 July 2023). "Remembering Sharmila Rege". Nidān: International Journal for Indian Studies: 145–159 Pages. doi:10.58125/NIDAN.2023.1.22228.
  5. ↑ Venkatakrishnan, Ambika (26 November 2021). "Sharmila Rege". Woman is a Rational Animal. Retrieved 7 July 2026.
  6. ↑ Rege, Sharmila (22 November 2006). "Dalit studies must move across disciplines: Sharmila Rege". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 23 August 2007.
  7. ↑ Rege, Sharmila (31 October 1998). "Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of Difference and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position". Economic and Political Weekly. 33 (44).
  8. 1 2 Herzl, Namita (2024), "Sharmila Rege and the Marginalised Voices in Women Studies", in Jodhka, Surinder S.; Rehbein, Boike (eds.), Global Handbook of Inequality, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, pp. 161–171, doi:10.1007/978-3-031-32152-8_126, ISBN 978-3-031-32151-1, retrieved 7 July 2026
  9. ↑ Rege, Sharmila (5 June 2012). "Cartoon controversy – In conversation with Satyanarayana". KAFILA. Retrieved 7 July 2026.
  10. ↑ Dhanagare, D. N. (10 August 2013). "Sharmila Rege (1964-2013): Pursuing Knowledge for Social Transformation". Economic and Political Weekly. 48 (32).
  11. ↑ Rege, Sharmila (16 February 2008). "Interrogating the Thesis of 'Irrational Deification'". Economic and Political Weekly. 43 (7).
  12. ↑ Siegel, Benjamin (March 2023). "THE HUNGER OF THE REPUBLIC: Our Present in Retrospect. India Since the 90s | Edited by Ashish Rajadhyaksha". Pacific Affairs. 96 (1).
  13. ↑ "Against the Madness of Manu". Navayana Publishing. Retrieved 7 July 2026.
  14. ↑ Singh, Stuti Paul (16 February 2023). "Book Review: Against The Madness Of Manu-B.R Ambedkar's Writings On Brahmanical Patriarchy By Sharmila Rege". Feminism in India. Retrieved 7 July 2026.
  15. ↑ "Day Care Centre". Department of Women Studies Center, University of Pune. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
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