Water and Dalit Women

Nirupam Hazra

Abstract
Being a woman in a patriarchal society is a strugglea struggle for equality, for liberty and
dignity. But being a Dalit woman, in a highly hierarchized and caste-conscious society like
ours, is not merely a struggle, it is a battle. The very identification of a Dalit woman as
someone from a lower caste, lower class and an inferior and weaker gender makes her triply
marginalized. Caste, class and genderall three ascribed identities, which are also regarded
as part of primary identity, reinforce the vulnerability of a Dalit woman. Therefore
marginalization is perpetuated through deliberate denial of rights and systematic subjugation.
But today, the suppression and subjugation of Dalit woman owes more to the desperate
attempt of the upper caste to continue the exploitation and exclusion of Dalits rather than
preserving the historically practised and scripturally sanctioned notion of purity and impurity.
In this paper, an attempt was made to present the kind of discrimination Dalit women are
subjected to in their daily course of life. The paper especially focussed on the issue of access
to water and caste-based discrimination of Dalit women. It also critically examines the
present condition of Dalit women in the context of gender-role, caste-identity and class
struggle and relates it to the macro reality of gender and caste politics.
Keywords: Dalit woman, caste, discrimination, violence, access to water, patriarchy,

For long, the discourse of women empowerment and emancipation has generally regarded
women as a homogenous, non-hierarchized group; irrespective of the obvious disparity in
their social status, economic position, political participation and caste affiliation. Such
construction of woman as a unified homogenous group or entity is based on male-female
gender binary which overlooks the multiple aspects and differences that govern the identity
of a woman. As an outcome of this, all the verve and vigour aimed to empower and
emancipate women focused on the plight of particular class, colour and caste.
The author is a scholar at Department of Social Work, University of Delhi and associated with National Confederation of
Dalit Organizations (NACDOR). Email: hazra.nirupam@gmail.com

The history of womens movement around the world shows that, at the beginning, the
movement for equal rights for women had been essentially a movement of a particular section
of the women, namely the white (European), educated, middle class women. But it failed
to realize the experience and address the concerns of other woman who existed beyond
narrow circle that represented as universal womanhood. Judith Butler (1990) argued that
women cannot be seen as a unified homogenous group, every woman is a unique individual.
Women are not a united group since there are great many differences between them
including, class, race and ethnicity. Caste, especially in Indian context, plays an important
role to shape the primary identity of a woman and determine her way of life.
In India movements for the rights of women were initially centred on the plights of upper
class Hindu women. The reform movements which highlighted and fought against gender-
based discriminatory prejudices and practices, raised issues that affected upper class, upper
caste Hindu women. For example, in colonial India, satithe practice of self-immolation of
Hindu widows became one of the major issues which drawn attention of western colonial
masters and western-educated colonized intellectuals. But what is noticeable was that unlike
western movements for women rights, Indian women, even those who belonged to so-called
higher caste and class, were conspicuous by their absence and silence. Gayatri Spivak
described this phenomenon as white men are saving brown women from brown men
(Spivak, 1994) while the real victim was never allowed to speak.
In independent India, movements for equal rights of women gradually became wider, diverse
and nuanced. Even women of so-called lower class and lower caste started to assert
themselves and articulate their aspiration. But unfortunately, the life of Dalit women did not
undergo any significant change. The discriminatory treatment of Dalit women continued
unabated as it received support in the form overt indifference and conspiratorial silence of
society in general. Incidents of rape and violent crimes against Dalit women draw scant
attention and minimal reaction from media and civil society. Many of the cases of violence
against Dalit woman go unreported and unnoticed. But murder, molestation, rape and other
forms of physical violence are not the only ways the Dalit women are subjected to. These are
only extreme and visible forms of caste-atrocity. In rural India, for a Dalit woman caste-based
discrimination becomes a part of life, a part of existence and nothing illustrates it more
clearly than the relation between Dalit woman and water.

Water, being one of the most essential and scarce natural resources, is the cause of many
contentions and conflicts, especially in rural India where women have to walk for kilometres
to fulfil daily water-needs of their family. It has become increasingly accepted that finding,
fetching and managing water is the responsibility of women. Though the contribution of the
women in managing water resources is highly appreciated, it is also acknowledged that
imposing the responsibility solely on a particular gender is a manifestation of gender
inequality. In India, rural women are made to spent hours and walk miles to collect water. It
severely affects the education, health and well-being of girls and women. What is more ironic
is that, in spite of being burdened with the responsibility of collecting and managing water,
women are largely excluded from giving shape to policy related to water and sanitation. Joshi
& Fawcett (2005, p. 51) attribute this to a tradition of female exclusion on the ground that
such decision making is public and socially identified as masculine, the domain of powerful
men
So, both the choice of responsibility and the power of decision-making are demarcated and
determined by traditions of patriarchal society; women, irrespective of castes and class,
willingly or unwillingly accept their specified gender-roles. But the condition of Dalit women
is far worse than their upper caste counterparts, as it involves multiple factors that go beyond
mere availability of resources and its access. In villages across the country, in has been a
common practice that the women of so-called lower caste would stand in a separate queue
while taking water from common source of water in the community. Dalit women are
allowed to take water, once upper caste women are done with their water needs. In places
where discrimination is more deeply entrenched, Dalit women are not even allowed to use
common water sources. Hence, they have to either rely on other sources of water which is
generally regarded as unclean or have to walk miles to bring safe drinking water.
Water sources, be it natural or government provisioned, are generally controlled by the
upper-castes. Even their locations are on the parts of the village dominated by upper castes.
So, the physical safety of a Dalit woman and the access to water depend on the mercy and
generosity of upper castes. Dalit women are routinely subjected to verbal and physical
abuses. Their buckets and utensils are thrown away and sometimes they are beaten
mercilessly if they dare to raise their voice against such injustice. All these atrocities are
carried out on the name of purity and impurity. Dalits are treated as impure and pollutant,
hence, their touch; even their presence threatens the sanctity of upper castes. But what is
noticeable is that, the consciousness of purity and impurity becomes more explicit on certain
occasions, especially where Dalits are entitled to equal rights and opportunities as upper
castes.
Another, interesting aspect of these kinds of caste-based discrimination and atrocities is the
role of patriarchal ideology and how it manipulates the caste-identity to pit one group of
women against another. The fight over access to water generally starts between upper caste
and Dalit women. But, for upper caste woman, it is one of those few occasions or
opportunities to assert herself, to show her superiority and strength within patriarchy. Upper
caste women are socialized to associate them more with their caste identity than any other
identities. They are taught to be a docile woman, but a domineering upper caste. So, what
starts as a mere bickering among women over water quickly takes the form of caste-
discrimination and culminates into rape and other forms of violence.
Violence against Dalit women, especially rapes which hardly trigger national outrage, is
routinely perpetrated in rural India to maintain the caste equilibrium. It reinforces the status
quo and relegates the Dalit woman and her entire community to their rightful place in the
hierarchized society. Violence becomes a tool to control and contain the Dalit community
from demanding their share of resources and Dalit women become the most vulnerable
victim of this caste-struggle as water is part of daily basic needs. The dominance of upper
caste largely depends on the exclusionary and discriminatory practises and prejudices rooted
in tradition and stigmatization is the first step towards it. But today, it took the form that is
explicitly exploitative. The concept of purity and impurity merely becomes an excuse to
maintain the dominance of upper caste as it allows upper caste men to rape a Dalit woman,
but does not allow a Dalit woman to use the common source of water. The main aim is to
perpetuate the oppression of the entire Dalit community and a Dalit woman is the archetypal
victim of this entire ceremony of subjugation where caste, class and gender put her in a
disadvantageous position.






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