Caste, Class and The power of Water
Geography and You|Issue 142 - 143, 2020
The Socio-Political Ecology of Drinking Water in Rural India
Sonali Bhatia
Caste, Class and The power of Water

The narrative of a village in sonbhadra, uttar Pradesh finds that caste and class hierarchies effectively influence the decision making on water allocation, use, and control over drinking water. In the village, it is found that manipulating the given unequal ecology of water, the spatial arrangement of hand pumps and technology is used to control the distribution and allocation of available drinking water—thus making it accessible to some at the cost of others.

In India, caste represents a very peculiar form of social groupings that is hierarchical and fundamentally determines the social life, lifestyles, livelihoods, access to economic and social opportunities, habitation and cultural patterns of the people. It is a crucial and dominant part of the social structure of villages. The ideology of the caste system is based on the notion of purity and pollution which creates a gigantic hierarchical pyramid where Brahmins are at the apex, a small stratum of ‘pure’ elite; while the mass of ‘polluted’ untouchables occupies the base (Desai 1994). This ideology, where one needs to maintain social and physical distance, is the basis for internalisation of the logic of the caste system and thus, its survival.

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