Water Exclusion: India Needs One More Mahad Satyagraha

— ✍️ Aaron Nair & Dr Karamala Areesh Kumar

It was in a small Konkan town of Maharashtra, 97 years back, on the 20^th of March, when Dr. BR Ambedkar led the Mahad Satyagraha in a revolutionary attempt to enable Dalits to access water from a public well despite strong resistance from upper caste groups. Since then, the image of Ambedkar squatting near the Chavdar Tank and drinking some water with his cupped hands remains a significant picture of Dalit struggles and the rise against social stratification.

A century later, Dalits are still the most excluded regarding water access. Adding to the essential resource scarcity in India, the prejudiced nature of caste hierarchy ensures marginalised communities of the country struggle to access resources for the fulfilment of basic needs. While the social concerns of such discriminatory practices are highlighted, the economic aspects are often ignored. The primary occupation of the Dalit community is agriculture (71% of the total population; 9% own lands), which is affected by the denial of water. India’s attempt at equitable resource distribution often reaches a dead-end, as policymakers and administrators have found no solid reform to enable a structural change in the status quo of casteism that has riddled the country for ages.

The Dalit community makes up 16.6% of the Indian population, and 20% of the Dalit population does not have access to clean drinking water owing to stigma and upper-caste brutality. This defies the subclause in Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which promises the Right to Live and access to pollution-free water and air.

The recent events of brutality faced by Dalits include a Dalit woman being assaulted for the crime of collecting water from a tube well in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda District. State machinery, like the police and other lawmakers, have long practised discrimination and oppression of the lower castes and continues to do so, as seen in the case of a Dalit youth in Andhra Pradesh, allegedly asked by the Sub-Inspector to drink his urine while he requested for some water to quench his thirst. The youth was beaten and tortured in the Police Station, but no action was taken against the offending officer, and the case was closed with the State declaring him voluntarily retired.

The persecution of the oppressed classes evolves to a more socio-economic level in urban India, wherein 20% of the slum dwellers come from Dalit backgrounds, barring other marginalised communities. Most of the water supplied in such slums is from pipes and tanks holding chlorinated water that is not purified, increasing health risks. Adding to the poor water provided, most Dalits are chosen for professions like manual scavenging, which is illegal in India through the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act of 1993. In the modern age, a compulsion for Dalits to remain in undignified occupations like sewage cleaners also brings to light the poor standards set by the country in its sanitation efforts. While attempts through Government initiatives like the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan intended to better sanitation in the country, instances of Dalits in rural India not being allowed to use toilets yet forced to clean them write down the deep-rooted consensus impurity among the elite classes.

Global Institutions like the United Nations have also highlighted disparities in societies like India through the caste system as being one of the biggest hindrances in achieving SDG-6, which canvasses for clean drinking water and sanitation. In compliance with such efforts, the Indian government has formulated schemes such as the Jal Jeevan and the National Water Mission. Through the former, about 76.2% of houses have received water regularly, but the problem of quality remains the same, with almost a 50% depreciation against the same coverage stat.

As Ambedkar believed, the Mahad Satyagraha was not an uprising to drink water from a particular tank. Still, it was an endeavour to end the old inhuman caste society and reconstruct the world based on freedom, liberty and equal status for all human beings. The Chavdar Tank and the Satyagraha played a significant role in asserting Dalit rights over essential resources such that the predicament of ranking human beings based on caste is offered a broader platform, leading to better discourse on improving the lives of the oppressed. Even with efforts of the size and scale of the Mahad Satyagraha (keeping in mind resistance from upper-caste groups), the conditions of Dalits and access to essential resources present a grim picture of ignorance and lack of understanding by consecutive federal governments.  

- Aaron Nair is a Research Assistant and Dr Karamala Areesh Kumar is Head of the Department of International Relations, Peace and Public Policy of St Joseph's University, Bengaluru.