Dalits and the Caste Struggle for Water

Abstract

The environmental struggle of the Dalits in India has a rich historical significance that has often been disregarded in the annals of environmental history. The Mahad Satyagraha led by Dr BR Ambedkar in 1927 was the biggest movement for environmental justice — where the Dalits were demanding a right to drink water from the Mahad Chowdar tank. But our mainstream environmentalists do not mention it. The narrative of Veer Meghmaya, an early Dalit activist in Gujarat, serves as a poignant example of the overlooked contributions and sacrifices made by Dalits in the fight for their community's rights over water resources. In order to analyse the ecological vulnerability of Dalits, this paper attempts to read water as an important manifestation of Dalit identity and experience. Through the analyses of Challapalli Swaroopa Rani's Water (2003) and Gautam Vegda's Hydrophobia (2023) alongside real-life incidents, the study sheds light on the systemic mechanisms of ‘structural violence’, ‘ecoprecarity’ and ‘wrong kind of strength’ that influence the relationship between Dalit identity and ecology. Within the tapestry of Hindu beliefs and practices, there emerges a spatial delineation of purity and pollution, etched into the collective consciousness of India by the upper castes, perpetuating inequality and reinforcing cultural bias against Dalits. The paper concludes by addressing the need to develop an awareness of caste and Dalit consciousness within the context of ecology to conceptualise waterscapes as liberated and egalitarian spaces and hence shift the approach of ecology from the ‘I-them’ to the ‘I-we’.