Water, Water Lords, and Caste: A Village Study from Gujarat, India

In India, social status regulates access to water. Although the country has sizeable water reserves, large cultivable land areas struggle to access water. Consequently, informal groundwater markets have developed generating an inequitable societal order benefiting some and marginalizing others. This paper draws upon writings on political ecology which treat scarcity as stemming from resource appropriation. Using the example of Mathnaa (pseudonym) village in Gujarat, India I argue that through control of land, upper caste farmers have created a monopoly over water, a finite, public resource. Furthermore, these ‘water lords’, all of whom belong to the upper castes, use caste norms as a form of exclusion in informal markets