Gail Omvedt (2 August 1941 – 25 August 2021) was an American-born Indian sociologist and human rights activist. She was a prolific writer and published numerous books on the anti-caste movement, Dalit politics, and women's struggles in India. Omvedt was involved in Dalit and anti-caste movements, environmental, farmers' and women's movements, especially with rural women.
Omvedt's dissertation was titled Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahman Movement in Western India, 1873-1930.
Omvedt's academic writing includes numerous books and articles on class, caste and gender issues. Besides undertaking many research projects, she was a consultant for FAO, UNDP and NOVIB and served as a Dr Ambedkar Chair Professor at NISWASS in Orissa, a professor of sociology at the University of Pune and an Asian guest professor at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen. She was a senior fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and research director of the Krantivir Babuji Patankar Sanstha.
Biography
Gail Omvedt was born in Minneapolis, and studied at Carleton College and at UC Berkeley where she earned her PhD in sociology in 1973. When she went to India for the first time in 1963~64, she was an English tutor on a Fulbright Fellowship. Omveldt again came to India for research in the 1970s. At that time she met her future husband, Bharat Patankar, and his social activist mother, Indumati Patankar. After marrying Bharat, she lived with her husband and his extended family in a village called Kasegaon in Indian state of Maharashtra. She became an Indian citizen in 1983.
In the years before her death she was working as a consulting sociologist on gender, environment and rural development, for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Oxfam Novib (NOVIB) and other institutions. She was a consultant for UN agencies and NGOs, served as a Dr. Ambedkar Chair Professor at NISWASS in Orissa, a professor of sociology at the University of Pune, as Asian guest professor at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen and as a senior fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. She was a visiting professor and coordinator, school of social justice, University of Pune, and a fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. Gail Omvedt was a former chair professor for the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Chair of Social Change and Development at IGNOU. Omvedt died on 25 August 2021 in Maharashtra at the age of 80.
Activism
Omvedt worked with social movements in India, including the Dalit and anti-caste movements, environmental movements, farmers' movements and especially with rural women. She was active in Shramik Mukti Dal, Stri Mukti Sangarsh Chalval which works on issues of abandoned women in Sangli and Satara districts of southern Maharashtra, and the Shetkari Mahila Aghadi, which works on issues of women's land rights and political power.
Views
Gail Omvedt was an Ambedkarite scholar who contributed immensely to the anti-caste movement. Omvedt was critical of the religious scriptures of Hinduism (or what she specifically regarded as "brahminism") for what she argued is their promotion of a caste-based society.
In addition to her criticism of their purported advocacy for the caste-system, Omvedt also dismissed the Hindu tradition of venerating the Vedas as holy. In a 2000 open letter published in The Hindu addressed to then-BJP President Bangaru Laxman, she gave her perspective on the Rigveda:
Omvedt posits that Hindutva groups foster an ethnic definition of Hinduism based on geography, ancestry and heritage in order to create a solidarity amongst various castes, despite the prevalence of caste-based discrimination.
Omvedt endorsed the stand taken by Dalit activists at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism that caste discrimination is similar to racism in regarding discriminated groups as "biologically inferior and socially dangerous".
She called the United States a "racist country" and has advocated for affirmative action; however, she compared American positive-discrimination policies favorably to those of India, stating:
and, with respect to perceptions of "group performance", in the United States and India, Omvedt wrote:
She on occasion supported big-dam projects and GMO crops.