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Title Pages

Environmental Politics
Mukul Sharma
Print publication date: 2017

Print ISBN-13: 9780199477562
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199477562.001.0001
Title Pages
Mukul Sharma
(p.i) Caste and Nature (p.ii)
(p.iii) Caste and Nature
(p.iv)
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Page 2 of 2
Dedication

Mukul Sharma

Print ISBN-13: 9780199477562
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199477562.001.0001
Dedication
Mukul Sharma
(p.v) To my friends and their organizations:
Vijay Pratap, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam
Ashok Bharti, National Confederation of Dalit Organisations
Deepak Bharti, Lok Shakti Sangathan (p.vi)
Page 1 of 1
Acknowledgements

Mukul Sharma

Print ISBN-13: 9780199477562
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199477562.001.0001
(p.ix) Acknowledgements
Mukul Sharma
In early 2000, I came in close contact with several Dalit organizations, activists,
intellectuals, and writers from India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, mainly
through my involvement in the World Social Forum. I met Paul Divakar of the
National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) in Hyderabad and New
Delhi, India, in 2002–3, and we planned a joint programme at the Asia Social
Forum, Hyderabad, in January 2003. In some of our discussions on democracy,
development, exclusion, and human rights, we had exchanges on Indian
environmental movements. Other than Paul, another prominent activist of
NCDHR, Vincent Manoharan, was always engaging and thoughtful, and it was
with him that I shared my preliminary thoughts on the complex relationship
between Dalits and environment for the first time. Later, on my request, Vincent
also elaborated his ideas in a small note, which further spurred my thinking. I
lost his note, but I remember him and his thoughts, and extend my warm thanks
to him.
From 2001 to 2010, I worked very closely with the National Confederation of
Dalit Organisations (NACDOR), New Delhi, India, and the World Dignity Forum,
India. Dalit leader Ashok Bharti, an engineer by profession, a tireless activist by
choice, and the founder of NACDOR, became a key person in my life, and in
many ways has driven me to work on this subject. We travelled, discussed,
planned, and organized many things and events together for many years, and I
think all my Dalit-related research, including this one, has some of its roots
there. Ashok and NACDOR became a major school for me to learn about, reflect,
and write on the Dalit cause and the socio-political issues around the rallying cry
of ‘dignity’. With, and through, them, I met and interacted with a large number
of Dalit organizations, activists, and thinkers across (p.x) the length and
breadth of the country, who enriched my thinking on the subject. I particularly
Page 1 of 3
Acknowledgements
wish to acknowledge the contribution of Bhagwan Das, A. Padmanaban,

Ramanath Nayak, Rakesh Bahadur, Durga, Harbhajan Lal, Nitin Chowdhary,
Mansukh Rathod, Rajni Tilak, Pushpa Vivek, Rahul Manav, Pushpa Bharti,
Tabassum, Achhutan, and Arshad Kureshi.
In the World Dignity Forum, we aligned with a large number of organizations

and individuals. In particular, Ashok Chowdhary and his National Forum of
Forest People and Forest Workers, Ali Anwar Ansari and his All India Pasmanda
Muslim Mahaz, and Deepak Bharti and his Lok Shakti Sanghatan immensely
enriched my knowledge and understanding of Dalit perspectives on livelihood,
forest, food, water, space, and environment.
In the academic world, Pradip Kumar Datta (PK) has been thought provoking
and very generous in providing much-needed direction and depth to my research
through his comments and suggestions on each chapter, as well as an overall
feedback on the entire work. I remember and thank him with great respect and
admiration—for being a wonderful human being, a supportive teacher, and a
serious intellectual and historian. Ujjwal Kumar Singh has been encouraging and
forthcoming since the beginning of my research work and has played an integral
supportive role in the fruition of this book. Mahesh Rangarajan, Deepak Kumar,
and Aditya Nigam gave thoughtful comments that further improved my
arguments. S. Anand of Navayana Publishing House and Rohan D’Souza of
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, were the first ones to comment
critically but positively on my article and research proposal. Ramachandra Guha
provided some pertinent references to begin this work, and later on too he had
some wise words. Gopal Guru read some chapters closely, and I am grateful for
his feedback.
This research has been enriched through several interactions, workshops,

seminars and conferences. I am thankful to E. Somanathan, Indian Statistical
Institute, Kolkata, India; Gunnel Cederlöf, Uppsala University, Sweden; Bengt G.
Karlsson, Stockholm University, Sweden; Professor Prasenjit Duara, Duke
Kunshan University, China; and Professor Navnita C. Behera, Delhi University,
India, for the same.
Fieldwork in different parts of the country was made possible by several people.
Ashok Kumar Anj, Tushar Vyas, Chandresh, and Subhash Gatade offered their
time, contacts, and every possible resource at short (p.xi) notice. Language,
literature, and translation have their own challenges, and I requested support
from Nivedita Menon, Sohail Hashmi, Sana Das, and Sheeba Mathew in this
regard. They took time out to find and connect me with some people who could
help with translations. Hima S., Kapilash, Mehul Mangubahen, and Madhu Dar
carried out meticulous translations from Malayalam, Odiya, Gujarati, and Hindi.
Page 2 of 3
Acknowledgements
I have also gained a lot—knowledge, reflection, facilitation, encouragement,

material, and improvement in research—from Jeremy Seabrook, Anand
Teltumbde, Ishaan Sharma, Assem Shrivastava, Ashish Kothari, Gangesh Gunjan,
Itishree Kanungo, Madhushree B.N., Sanjay Kumar, Anand Pradhan, Vidhya
Raveendranathan, and Aseem Prakash. To merely say thanks to them is not
enough; still I mention them here with a lot of warmth.
My friend Anand V. Swamy has had an overarching presence and contribution in

my life for several decades. More so in the pursuit of this research, as I heavily
relied on his resources to access crucial books and research papers from
overseas. He never got tired of meeting my constant requests for relevant
materials. Anand’s unconditional affection and belief in me has always taken me
forward, and it is very true here as well.
Charu Gupta is, in fact, the initiator of this research, as in the case of most of my
other serious works. Her role has been manifold—objectively intellectual and
deeply personal, reader and commentator, discussant and critic, and much more
—and it cannot be recognized in plain words. Her recent work, The Gender of
Caste, also coincided with the development of my research and I was lucky and
privileged to have access to her fresh knowledge and thoughts on Dalits. Her
love and support seems lifelong, and is embedded in every page of this research.
(p.xii)
Page 3 of 3
Introduction

Mukul Sharma

Print ISBN-13: 9780199477562
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199477562.001.0001
(p.xiii) Introduction
Mukul Sharma
O black girl
You reap the paddy field
You reap everything with your sickle
Come along! O come along with the wrath of Kali!
O black cubs
You shade the black soil
You cubs of lions and panthers
Take the staff of the Vela
And the rope of the Kaala
Come along striding like demons!
You became the manure in the soil

The colour of the river
You were pushed down alive
Under the mud as slush
As many Pulaya heads were chopped
And the blood drained into the fields and farmlands.
—K.K.S. Das, a Malayali Dalit writer1
My eyes opened and I saw a broken piece of sky, agitated, caught in

the square of the window. A big, inky black cloud had grabbed the
feeble sun and squeezed it, breaking the sun’s legs.
—Ajay Navaria, a Hindi Dalit writer2
Brahmanas recited ved mantras and poured offerings

And, then, arrived the time for the final sacrifice
And, then, Maya’s head was served and offered
Page 1 of 22
Introduction
Blood splurged, so did the water in the well

Was it just water? (p.xiv)
No, it was the blessing of gods.

It was the salvation of untouchables
Whose blood had turned into water
In that water bathed shavati, bathed the Brahmins,
Bathed the ruler, bathed the subjects
He, who saved the people from misery,
Was declared the saint of twelfth century
Maha Saptami invoked
But never was he honoured.3
—A Gujarati Dalit folk song, ‘Mayavel’, describing the sacrifice of Maya, a

Dalit, for bringing water in a cursed, dry pond
Caste and nature are intimately and inextricably interwoven in India; and yet
their interconnectedness has rarely been a subject of examination. However,
Dalit experiences and narratives constantly underline their everyday ecological
burdens in a marked hierarchal order. Images of land animate caste anxieties
around labour, blood, and bondage. In dry regions, Dalits must often sacrifice
their lives to recharge ponds and water resources. From village to city and
temple to school, caste metaphors of pollution, impurity, and dirt dominate
places and spaces through imaginaries of dangers posed by the presence of
Dalits. Forests can be heaven or hell for Dalits. A river is some place to dispose
of your body. Nature, entwined with fear and violence, horror and hardship,
bloodbath and war, makes environmental experiences of Dalits distinctive and
different. Dalit landless agricultural labourers in Kerala have, for example, such
memories of forest, animal, wood, and weather in their songs:
Collecting wood in the forest

Wild animals accost us
The weather is against us!4
At the same time, Dalit eco-experiences have their own vibrancy and dynamism.
Living with nature, they are constantly negotiating with, and challenging, caste
domination, while simultaneously articulating their environmental imagination.
Dalit thinkers and contemporary excavations of Dalit memory create varied and
alternative spatial and social metaphors around environment. This book traces
Dalits’ quest for their place in nature by taking in different voices—songs and
narratives of early bonded labourers; writings by leading Dalit ideologues,
leaders, and (p.xv) writers; myths, memories, and metaphors of Dalits around
nature; their movements, labour, and footsteps—which together highlight Dalits’
attempts at defining themselves in casteized nature through heterogeneous
means. The book deploys the term ‘Dalit’ in a wider, inclusive, encompassing
sense—sometimes including boatmen and fisherfolk—as the ecological caste-
and-nature paradox creates a larger pattern, which impacts the body, self,
Page 2 of 22
Introduction
presence, and position of the oppressed.5 This intertwining of caste and nature
presents a critical challenge to Indian environmentalism, which has hitherto
marginalized such linkages. On the one hand, this work attempts to fill this
lacuna by highlighting what environmentalists have largely missed and on the
other it demonstrates how by studying Dalits’ complex relationship with nature
we can bring forth new dimensions of both environment and Dalits. The work
hinges on three broad themes through which I attempt to see Dalit and caste
conceptions of environment. The first is the apologist and recuperative
Brahminism and a stream of environmentalism in modern India. The second is
Dalit environmental thought—mythological, anecdotal, theoretical, and rational.
The third is Dalit activism, with its certain embedded conceptions such as the
new commons. These are interconnected windows through which I look at
different aspects of Dalit environmentalism as a comprehensive terrain of
ecological contestation and appropriation, and conceptualization and activism.
They represent how Dalit meanings of environment have counterposed
themselves to ideas and practices of neo-Brahmanism and to certain
mainstreams of environmental thought. They underline that with all its
ambiguities and mulitiplicities, Dalit thought represents an attempt to produce a
new conception of environment as spatial equity and build a case of
environmentalism free from burdens of caste. Rather than looking for a single
united Dalit thread and a coherent understanding of ecology, the study explores
diverse and rich Dalit intellectual resources that give nature a social, political,
and cultural underpinning.
Nature and Caste

Nature and caste are rarely seen together in academic and environmental
discourses. Nature is considered as natural, common, and inherent; caste is
understood as a constructed and distinct historical and social entity unique to
India, and based on a system of stratification and (p.xvi) division of Hindu
society. However, the two are deeply intertwined in the country. Hierarchical
social structures—and similarly nature—are often believed by many caste
Hindus to be organic, intrinsic, and natural, originating together with and at the
same moment of the creation of the universe by and out of a sacrifice of the body
of Purusha, the ‘Cosmic Man’. However, scholars have pointed out that not only
caste, but even land, forest, and water are complex historical and social
products. Actions of humans and non-humans have been constantly inscribed
upon most of the so-called natural world.6 Vast forms of nature—land use,
vegetation, rivers, mountains, even climate—bear the marks of human influence,
including caste exclusion. From the times of the Rig Veda7—‘naturalizing’ an
unequal social order—to the recent intellectual debates on caste, dimensions
and determinants of human behaviours and nature have often met through
diverse paths, times, and spheres. The interrelationship between caste and
nature affirms and reaffirms particular kinds of cultural representations;
legitimizes and delegitimizes spaces, places, and people; creates and reproduces
Page 3 of 22
Introduction
social hierarchies; ignites conflicts and violence; and offers creative arenas for
challenging domination. There is a specificity of casteized nature, different from
the universal question of accessing nature in relationship to nature. Village,
occupation, agriculture, food, water, land, and irrigation have been important
sites for imposition of hierarchies of caste, and caste economy thrives on the use
and abuse of natural resources. We need to ask how caste hierarchies are
reproduced by uses of nature. What is the role of purity and pollution? What are
the structuring principles of access and exclusion? Is it a question of touchability
or hierarchy in general? Are other principles of caste hierarchy, besides
touchability, also in operation here? What is the caste of water? How do caste
relations structure irrigation networks in a village? Why should Dalits feel and
work for conservation and promotion of traditional water bodies and water-
harvesting systems when these leave aside issues of ownership and when they
are not even allowed to take water from these ponds, tanks, and wells?8 Why
and how do caste and its culture determine pure and impure food, what we eat,
and what we prefer to eat? How is the use of animals declared legitimate or
illegitimate through caste? Why should Dalits fight for restoration of traditional
community-based occupations when it is precisely these that support their
ghettoization and do not empower them or improve (p.xvii) their situation in
civil society and the market? How does a specific environmental and
occupational set-up play a role in the making and unmaking of the collective
entry or exit of a caste in environmental politics? How do certain other
environmental arenas, for example, the tank irrigation technologies and
practices in south India, explicate caste and Dalit intersections at the site of
environment? How do physical and social environments, characterized by
ghettos (known by different names like Chamar tola in the north, Cheri and
Hulgeri in the south, and Wadas in the west of India) and untouchability
(pollution, filth, stigma, and isolation), act as a material context for Dalit
environment subject formation?
History underlines the intertwining of casteism and naturalism. Different ages

and times have scripted the characters of this coupling. According to the Rig
Veda, pervading earth and all its creatures, eternal life, air, and animals filled up
with the sacrifice of Purusha. The world was formed and the Brahman was
Purusha’s head and the Kshatriya his arms. The thighs became the Vaishya, and
the Shudra was produced from his feet. The universe—moon and sun, sky and
ocean, people, and their existence—naturalized the varnashrama or
chaturvarnya system, in which people were believed to be born with natural
characteristics and inclinations towards a particular occupation. Later, some
environmental discourses provided a defence of the caste system. Aligned with
Brahmanical thinking, these discourses shared a passion for caste and developed
a vocabulary of nature that eclipsed Dalits and their everyday environmental
lives.9 More recently, ‘casteized’ nature has become a contested space, where
caste domination of natural resources has led to several cultural representations
Page 4 of 22
Introduction
and conflicts, emphasizing ecological exclusions of Dalits. Thus, from the

description of nature to designing it, caste has appeared and reappeared in
different historical moments and offered diverse political visions.
The diversity, multiplicity, durability, and elasticity in meaning of nature and

environment and the historicity, complexity, peculiarity, and disparity in theory
and practice of caste in India are also bound together by the power and
authority they have had in shaping human destiny. Power, traditional and
modern, often works through nature. Caste becomes an important constitutive
element in creating and consolidating the ‘natural’ and social power structure.
Human history of valuing the natural world is long and intricate and has several
threads, (p.xviii) including ethical, moral, romantic, and spiritual. The natural
world has often provided a rich, colourful, permanent, and universal compass to
inform and inspire human actions, as well as to forge environmental and national
identities. Nature is also an exercise in power in the hands of the powerful, and
is entangled in the politics of belonging and alienation, exclusion and inclusion.
From an environmental ‘othering’ through taboos of social pollution to the
creation of a social ecology by making dirt and filth an existential companion of
certain communities; from flowing water to common spaces, nature can become
a medium and message of the expression of power. Here power flows through an
overlapping of caste and nature. It creates, appropriates, dominates, and
subjugates spaces, places, and identities in different ways across the length and
breadth of the country. Power acquired on the basis of nature and caste is
exceedingly repressive. At the same time, it creates a ground from where
questions against power are also raised. In the process, power is often revisited
and reconstructed in the sphere of nature, caste, and culture. Here, studies on
power relations and contestations between gender and caste, and gender and
nature can provide us some rich material to understand the same in the context
of Dalits.10
There are new avatars of caste in the march of modernity. Quite different from
framing caste as a contemporary question in the domain of democracy and
politics, a number of scholars have appreciated caste as a driver of development,
a form of social capital, deeply embedded in our culture and acumen.11
This ‘new casteism’12 has two strands mainly: (a) championing the glory of
caste-based occupations and its conservation, and (b) using and appropriating
caste and its network for the benefit of capital and market.13 ‘New casteism’
often rests on ‘neo-naturalism’, where nature is used and abused to provide a
body of knowledge and bonds, location and landscapes for naturalizing social
identities and relationships in a new political and economic environment. At the
same time, the natural milieu is an object to be used, governed, and
transformed, not only for economic development, but also for ‘broken’,
‘backward’, and poor people. Thus, ‘neo-naturalism’ also provides a normative
and regulative system by which nature and natives have to be controlled and
Page 5 of 22
Introduction
managed for the nation. They both have to be represented and ruled by higher
expert and knowledgeable bodies. They both have to be sanitized and changed
by erasing their traces and memories. Even when the (p.xix) interlocking of
caste and nature changes its colour and complexion across regions and cultures
in Indian society, it continues to be a close companion of the modernity project.
Ecology of Caste
India’s environmental history has vividly described how colonial circuits entered
natural resources and people’s lives, and established a centralized, bureaucratic,
scientific, and modern system of management, which also created a current for
various discontents and struggles. Political ecologists have amply emphasized
vital issues of ownership, access, and availability of natural resources and the
role of state, market, and community. Environmental academicians and activists
have focused on increasing alienation and displacement of the poor from their
resources and the unequal burdens imposed on them for the development and
modernization of the country. Feminists and anthropologists have raised critical
questions about ‘naturalness’ of the natural order, and pointed out how layers of
power work within gender, caste, and nature.14 However, nature and its social
history have rarely been seen from a caste angle. The politics of caste in India in
the realm of nature, and its implications and meanings for Dalits, have been a
blind spot.
However, the interrelationship between environment and caste—what I call ‘eco-

casteism’—has a long trajectory in India, which is closely connected to the
nature and history of Brahmanical Hinduism. The history of caste has shaped the
history of environment in India in some prominent ways. First, caste created a
concept of natural and social order where people, place, occupation, and
knowledge are characterized by pollution and ritual cleanliness; where bodies,
behaviours, situations, and actions are isolated, ‘out of place’, and ‘untouched’,
because of deep-down hierarchical boundaries. Says Gopal Guru:
Social ecology makes dirt and filth an existential companion of Dalits who
are at the receiving end of condescending descriptions of the former
across time and space…. In the social construction of ecology Dalits
become dirt and dirt is them.15
Second, caste shaped environmental attitudes and values of both Brahmins and
non-Brahmins. Third, caste made it possible for Brahmins to appropriate and
exploit natural resources by segregating and subordinating certain sections of
the population. Fourth, low (p.xx) castes, especially ‘untouchables’, developed
their own understandings of environment and its resources, which were
cohabitations of love and sorrow, pain and joy, and alienation and attachment.
D.R. Nagaraj remarked:
Page 6 of 22
Introduction
Deconstructing the self-definitions of Hindu conservatism and Brahmanism

is quite central to the task of building the historical identities of Dalit-
Bahujans.16
The research in this volume thus tries to map some of the terrain of this eco-
casteism. Contemporary eco-casteism represents a distinctive form of Indian
environmentalism, which is often grounded in a justification of the caste system
and a simultaneous opposition to modernity and enlightenment. Under an
overarching, broad rubric of ‘social-ecological’ system, caste, division of labour,
and traditional occupation are sometimes seen as ‘progenitor[s] of the concept
of sustainable development’. It has thus been argued by some that caste system
signified ‘conservation from below’, a ‘remarkable system of ecological
adaptation’, and ‘high level of specialization’, where caste groups ‘in a web of
mutually supportive relationships’ helped resource conservation.17
Besides a functional justification of the caste system, eco-casteists have offered

some fragmented and messy ecological arguments to explain the relationship
between nature and caste culture. In some such arguments, natural environment
determines the structure of society, and skill, knowledge, and culture are
decided more by nature than by evolution, history, social institutions, and
individual endeavours. As a result of centuries of complex development of
nature, and the corresponding interaction with humans and environment, the
caste system became more nuanced, multilayered, and stable in Indian society. It
is thus concluded that the varna structure is ‘essentially ecological in its logic’.18
There are other versions of eco-casteism. For example, it has been claimed that
agro-climate zones such as the Gangetic plains because of their rich natural
resources could mould the eco-system, life, and ways of living and working,
which in turn gave shape to certain sections of labour as repositories of
traditional knowledge systems.19 Some, including the leading Marxist E.M.S.
Namboodiripad, argued in a reverse swing that the relationship between people
and land led to certain castes acquiring knowledge, creativity, and rich culture,
and thus the creation of ‘high culture’ was a contribution of the division of
labour: (p.xxi)
If these two arrangements [caste and the landlord system] had not existed,
the Nambudiris would have been unable to engage in cultural activities
and develop the science and literature and the Nairs could not have
improved agricultural practices and developed their martial and physical
prowess.20
Such meanings of caste, accompanied by views on relationships between

humans and nature, intersect with other sub-themes, which I call ‘eco-
organicism’ and ‘eco-naturalism’, and have critical bearings on eco-casteism.
Eco-organicism is an ‘Indian’ approach to nature, where environment is
understood as divine, cosmic, and intrinsic, conforming to the laws of nature.
Page 7 of 22
Introduction
Society is viewed as natural, based on ‘natural principles’, whereas modernity,

industry, science, and technology are described as Western, materialist, and
consumerist, and thus ‘unnatural’ and ‘uncultured’. In such understandings,
Indian environment is believed to be under threat from outside forces.
Therefore, protection of environment is synonymous with protection of Indian
culture, tradition, and nation. Indian culture here consists comprehensively of
our family, rites, customs, faiths, rituals, ceremonies, social systems, values, and
ethics. It is crucial to recognize the richness of Indian life, and its manifestations
in nature, for an understanding of the overall organic Indian entity. The binary of
‘Indian’ and ‘Western’ offers a wealth of environmental literature in which
Indianism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism are enmeshed to offer straightforward
solutions:
The global ecological crisis is due to the quest for superfluous worldly
goods. It is the result of a materialist worldview.… If technological and
material development overlooks the needs of the spirit, is this really
advancement? ... It is unfortunate that we have traded a good life for a
goods life. It is foolish to think that merely by multiplying one’s wants, one
is achieving happiness. The more our desires are satisfied, the greater our
desires grow. The Manusmrti (4.2) declares: ‘Happiness is rooted in
contentment; its opposite is rooted in misery’.21
Eco-naturalism is the coupling of environmental protection with the protection

of life in its natural order. According to this view, humans have wrongly
considered themselves as above nature, whereas they should be viewed as in
nature, which is rich, permanent, and cultural, and often provides national
values to guide human actions. There can be several versions of eco-naturalism:
nature is above all, and to which humans must submit; nature and its teachings
provide a model to govern politics and economy; an ecological society is run by
(p.xxii) nature’s rule and cycle; there are ecological communities and societies
based on certain traditions, cultures, religions, and nationalities; and we must
return to nature. Eco-naturalism uses nature to affirm the supremacy of ‘natural
order’ in major spheres of life—food, animal, livelihood—which is many a time
synonymous with a conservative Hindu Brahmanical belief. For example, here
food is a part of the ultimate reality, Brahman. It is culturally ‘given’, along with
the designated social–ritual phases (varnashrama dharma), according to which
multiple schemes of food classification establish rules about appropriate eating
and feeding.22 Within this framework:
The bull represents dharma, moral principles, and the cow represents the
earth…. It is a tragedy that modern society does not appreciate the
significance of caring for cows and bulls, and prefers instead to kill them
and eat them…. However, Manu Smriti, the basic law-book of Hinduism,
considers the animal killer to be a murderer. It says that all involved in the
Page 8 of 22
Introduction
act—the slaughterer, the butcher, the cook and the one who eats the meat
—are liable to nature’s punishment.23
Purity and pollution of our body, touch, taste, space, place, and people are key
markers of caste, creating essential qualities and differences within and outside
the naturescapes. Nature itself cannot determine the identity of a place, but
caste creates a natural essence and ambiance to establish power relations and
social order. Thus, we have vast landscapes of purity and pollution in India that
maintain strict lines for caste identity, dominance, and exclusion. From sacred
groves to natural water bodies, from village to city, these demarcations between
cultured and uncultured, holy and unholy, natural and unnatural are alive and
active through natural and social dispositions. The caste of a place is naturalized
in different ways—boundaries of village are indentified with caste; areas of
ponds, wells, and rivers are marked by caste; and landfill sites have caste. There
is thus a ‘spatial delineation of issues of power, hierarchy and inequality’.24 The
fear of pollution is not only about the outer nature, but also about the inner
nature, experienced with body and minds. However, in a caste society, purity and
pollution can give negative as well as positive stimulus to bind or separate, unite
or divide people spatially. Thus, spaces are also created on the basis of caste
solidarity, and at times, such space demarcations or transgressions are political
acts, enacted by design or by force. ‘Pure’ and ‘polluted’ spaces have thus
become sites of struggle in the country. It has been remarked: (p.xxiii)
Nature objects cannot speak of their own accord: they require a mediator
—a proxy, a speaker, and an active subject—to draw them into
articulation.25
Eco-casteism is a representation, and more specifically an upper-caste

Brahmanical representation, of nature and environment. Caste frameworks
simultaneously dominate and delete sounds and narratives of Dalit
environmentalism. Environment historians and intellectuals, civil society
organizations, and social movements and struggles have been consciously–
unconsciously complacent and complicit in this homogenous and dominant
politics of eco-casteism. Examples of domination and deletion abound where
Dalit perspectives have been elided and upper-caste religious perspectives
highlighted. A cursory glance at Indian environment literature—academic,
scientific, political, poetic, economic, emotive, mythical, moral, and ethical—
reveals that religious texts like the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Vedas, Dharma
Shastras and Smritis; Hindu gods and heroes such as Ram, Krishna, and Arjuna;
rivers such as Ganga and Yamuna; festivals such as Durga Puja and Devi puja;
and symbols from India’s invented past, tradition, and culture have been its
dominant and typical motifs. Simultaneously, there are anxieties regarding the
West, materialism, and modernity, as they are perceived as contaminating Indian
Page 9 of 22
Introduction
environment and culture. Increasing environmental destruction has led to

greater emphasis on preservation of Brahmanical traditions:
The Hindu and Buddhist traditions can help us to see that our life is
inextricably bound up with the natural world and the life of animals.
Whether we believe in reincarnation or not, it illustrates an attitude which
is important.26
As I will demonstrate in the next section, frequent references to Hindu

traditions, often Brahmanical in nature, as an essence of environmentalism are
based on exclusion and inferiorization of Dalits and lower castes. Eco-casteism
may not always be violent in nature. Rather, it is most effective at meta-social
and political levels, influencing our beliefs, norms, and discourses around Indian
environmental culture.
Environment and Dalits

Dalit intellectual thought has historically been a touchstone for Indian politics
and civil rights. However, as my research reveals, it also has much (p.xxiv) to
say on our relationship with nature. The entanglements between Dalits and
nature have never been fixed; they have shifted over space and time, and in the
context of natural and social conditions. Moreover, the category of Dalit itself
does not mean a singular identity, or a united-homogenous voice and practice.
Dalits and their several sub-castes have had multiple, varied, complex, and
creative narratives of nature and ecological argumentations. However, in spite of
the fragmented thought and action on nature and natural resources, embedded
in different Dalit communities, we find some overlapping common threads
running among them. My case studies from north, central, and west India
suggest that Dalits’ relationship with nature and natural resources do produce a
common Dalit identity. Further, in the contested terrain of nature and resources,
struggles between Brahmins and Shudras, between upper castes and Dalits, and
between Shudras and ‘untouchables’ are not always necessarily neatly divided.
Ecology, nature, and communities carry amidst them complex and contradictory
loads, evolved through different and diverse ways of working and struggling.
My research does not wish to claim in a linear fashion that Dalit attitudes to
environment are somehow ‘better’, nor does it seek to valorize the Dalit
standpoint. Rather, I wish to see environment through a Dalit lens, and in the
process hope to provide a vignette for both environment and Dalit studies. Some
Dalit intellectuals have argued that since Dalits have been closer to nature, they
have more cultural and ecological vitality and creativity. Dalits’ ‘original’
environmental, technological, scientific, and productive knowledge has been
invoked to claim their role and contribution in all spheres of life in a ‘post-Hindu
India’,27 and to make sense of their relationship to nature in an increasingly
hyper era of national progress and development. However, Dalit naturalism or
romanticism can also be associated with a kind of eco-casteism and caste-
Page 10 of 22
Introduction
essentialism. It is not surprising that Dalits themselves at times take pride in

caste consciousness and their identity by claiming to be natural and/or close to
nature. Stretching the boundaries of environment history and capturing the
depth and breadth of Dalit encounters with nature should not be taken as an
exercise in creating a ‘myth of the golden Dalit past’,28 where either as the ruler
or the ruled they were living in perfect harmony with nature.
The interrelationship between Dalit and environment is complex and conflict-

ridden. Anthropocentric or biocentric views of (p.xxv) environment are
primarily based on human experiences. However, the experiences of an
‘untouchable’ or an outcaste or a bonded labourer—often considered as less
than a human being—are not compatible with binaries of human/nature. They
challenge us to understand the meanings and implications of nature for those
living on the margins of human existence. Further, for the past few decades,
‘varieties of environmentalism’29 have successfully portrayed a collective
identity of the poor in environmental movements of the north and the south. Yet,
it is also being recognized time and again that these movements have long
excluded ‘untouchables’ and Dalits, and have either ignored their
disproportionate environmental losses and risks, or have included them in the
broad rubric of the poor. Environmental thinking and activism in India has tried
to address the underlying elitism of environmentalism by addressing concerns,
values, and expressions of people on the margins. However, there is a language
of commonality and universality, which has continued to capture the eco-scene.
More importantly, in the realm of civil society and activism, we have witnessed
‘the mutated upper caste modern Indian Self, in perpetual denial of caste’.30
Dalit thinkers have criticized even the brightest environmental movements, for
example the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), terming it as Patidar Land Bachao
Andolan (PLBA), which are concerned mainly about the landowners and often
glorify the ‘cruel past’ and ‘oppressive local institutions’ in rural areas.31 Some
rare fieldwork and research by academicians have also pointed out how NBA
occluded and erased issues of Dalits and caste domination in the anti-dam
struggle.32
Dalits have a rich and diverse environmental history and sensibility. Their
relationship to the environment manifests through regular collaboration and
conflict with Brahmin-dominated eco-space, as well as in creation of their
autonomous space. They have a distinct environmental memory and language. It
is also true that Dalits have generally articulated this under the rubric of ‘social’,
as opposed to explicitly ‘environmental’. It may at times be expressed more from
the margin than the mainstream, from the local than the national, and be raw
rather than refined. For example, when Chamars of north India launched the
nara-maveshi movement in the mid-1950s to shed polluting caste-based
occupations,33 they had concerns of labour, livelihood, animal, and environment.
The emergence of land issues in the 1960s and 1970s was aimed at revisiting its
origin, access, distribution, (p.xxvi) conservation, continuity, and memory. Such
Page 11 of 22
Introduction
sensibility and knowledge has been evident historically in anti-caste thinking and
activism. One of the key principles of B.R. Ambedkar, Jotirao Phule, and Periyar
E.V. Ramasamy was how to deal with village, land, agriculture, water, and forest.
Dalit voices enlarge and enrich our environmental imagination. There is a wealth
of Dalit eco-literature—poems, paintings, stories, music, and folklore—coming
from diverse regions and communities. Dalit myths and legends of Mayabel and
Jasma, Deena and Bhadri underline their dreams and desires for ecological
belongings, against their suffering, sacrifice, and alienation. They have their
gods and goddesses, pujas, and festivals—for example, Kattamaisamma
(discoverer of the tank system and goddess of water), Potaraju (protector of soil
and fields), Yandi (marvel of technological knowledge), Nuakhai, Dalkhai, Duma,
and Maati Devi—to celebrate and highlight their ecological capacity and
connectivity to natural elements against all odds. Dalits are active ecological
agents in their own right, and their understandings of nature and ethics, and
planning and management of resources, labour, and environment are
intertwined with narratives of social justice.
My research attempts to uncover Dalit environment traditions by exploring their

thoughts and practices in different regions. I draw on Dalit narratives and
writings, and theoretical works produced by advocates of caste annihilation and
equality. My aim is to understand how Dalits experience and express human
relationships with the natural world, which flow out of their social, economic,
political, and ecological contexts. My work combines snapshots and vignettes
from different historical periods and geographical regions with Dalit ecological
insights, in which the themes of labour, land, water, agriculture, place, myth,
music, and social justice come out prominently. Attempts at universalization of
space in historical, mythical, and contemporary terms represent a major trend in
Dalit activism and thought on environment. The notion of the new commons and
its representation as an accessible universal spatiality is crucial for Dalits in
nature. For example, spatial relations in the politics of environment and the
environment of politics provide a ground to search for new commons by the
mythical Mayabel, by the Ganga Mukti Andolan (GMA)—a mass movement of
fisherfolk—and by the contemporary individual Manjhi. However, uses and
meanings of new commons are not limited to its accessible spatial quality. They
have social, political, economic, and symbolic (p.xxvii) value, promoting
collective reimaginings of environment, people, and society. Revisualizing and
reworking of mountains, rivers, and ponds by Dalits, through a criss-cross of
social confrontation and divergent political vision, can become important realms
for the production and articulation of an egalitarian environmental thought,
culture, and society. These arenas serve as lighthouses to locate diverse aspects
of the relationship between caste, nature, and Dalit.
Page 12 of 22
Introduction
Themes and Chapters

The chapters that follow examine in detail what has just been highlighted. The
first chapter, ‘Eco-casteism’, examines the main themes and features of caste-
ecology. It explains in greater detail what I mean by eco-casteism and its related
concepts of eco-organicism and eco-naturalism, underlining the recuperative
Brahmanism of modern India. It particularly focuses on social discourses,
sanitation, and development programmes of a prominent organization to show
how environmentalism often has strains of Brahmanism, which while deploying a
language of sympathy for ‘untouchables’, often reinvents Hinduism’s past,
tradition, and culture, combining it with technological applications. Sulabh
International’s long-standing work on scavengers, sanitation, environmental
pollution, non-conventional energy, health, hygiene, rural development,
innovation, and promotion of inexpensive and affordable indigenous technology
implicitly captures the key points underlying such environmentalism and its
perspectives on untouchability, dirt, and pollution. Manual scavenging and
scavengers are a stark reality in Indian society. Their condition is entrenched in
the caste system and any solutions are difficult to achieve. For many, including
Sulabh and its leading light, Bindeshwar Pathak, Hinduism, and more
particularly Brahmanism, has had significant defining features and ‘positive’
sides in the past, which have shaped the labour and loyalty of people. However,
Westernization, modernity, and development have led to pollution, both external
and internal, and have diverted us from the natural and rooted order. Since the
caste system is a curse for scavengers, and has lost its traditional relevance in
contemporary society, the challenge is how to offer technological solutions to
scavengers by emphasizing the necessity of law, policy, implementation, and
social action, which in turn can be integrated with a zealous pursuit (p.xxviii)
of reform and return to basic Hindu values. For Sulabh, Hinduism is all-
embracing, and the term ‘Dalit’ an anathema. ‘Caste-neutral’ is the catchword,
as even while engaging with scavengers, caste questions are virtually
prohibited. For all its concern for scavengers, such embracing of Hinduism and
Brahaminism flows from a belief that our society is intrinsically natural rather
than one constructed of caste-driven individuals or communities. The ‘natural’
has a given right to determine social, cultural, and religious values in a unified
and closed ecosystem. The liberation of scavengers is understood as happening
primarily within the ecosystem/religion/caste, not without it. Cleanliness of
natural and social environment is dependent upon restoring the natural
ecological balance, which encompasses the preservation of pure and unique
characteristics of the Hindu system. The liberated scavengers in the schemes of
Sulabh must understand and imbibe the values and rituals of ‘true’ and old
Hindu scriptures, such as the Manusmriti, and ceremonies, which include
Chhath, Mahashivratri, and Kumbh snan.34 In this scheme of things, the eco-
regime is not only casteist, but also shapes the norms and behaviours of
‘untouchables’.
Page 13 of 22
Introduction
My next chapter, ‘Dalit Environmental Visions’, focuses on various

environmental traditions and their expressions in the everyday lives of Dalits. I
draw from a rich corpus of Dalit literature, folklore, mythology, music, songs,
festivals, and celebrations. Dalit narratives may not be explicitly environmental
per se, but they are filled with ecological symbols of water, river, sea, and forest.
They deal with nature in creative, heterogeneous ways, which can enrich and
enlarge environment literature. However, Indian nature writing has hardly taken
note of these expressions. Through their historical, social, and cultural journeys,
Dalits tell us that earth, land, water, agriculture, and forest are not just spaces
or places; they are also bound by structures of inclusion and exclusion based on
touch, feel, and food. Dalit narratives do not offer any single or simple answer
about their relationship to environment as it is a source of misery and joy, and
victimhood and celebration. For some, the earth is alive and powerful, imbibing
the origin and meaning of life; for others, it is an ancient god who has nurtured
them for ages; but for many, it is a wretched place that reminds them of slavery,
bondage, and loss of life. After offering a broad survey of the works of several
Dalit intellectuals and writers of diverse backgrounds, I concentrate in this
chapter on three relatively lesser-known Dalit writers and (p.xxix) artists—C.J.
Kuttappan from Kerala, Basudev Sunani from Odisha, and Dalpatbhai Shrimali
from Gujarat. In different and creative ways they explore the multi-textured
relationship between land and labour, water and wounds, and place and culture.
Dalit labour is ingrained in land, water, cultivation, and agriculture, and nature
is worked and reworked in their narratives through this relationship. While
labour is their own, it is marked by powers of caste and nature. Nature and
social order have diversely sculptured their body and work as ‘hard’, ‘strong’,
‘toiling’, ‘inferior’, and ‘slow’. In some Dalit narratives, cultivation becomes a
metaphor for celebration, as even if there is no land, there is an element of pride
in crops. Agriculture becomes a treasure representing a living nature. Soil, seed,
cultivation, plant, grain, water, rain, animal, and spirit take on multiple cultural,
social, and moral meanings, sowed along with caste histories. I draw attention in
this section on how Dalit labour celebrates nature, while building inner and
outer capacities to carry on with caste and cross its boundaries. Dalits further
characterize animals, wildlife, food, and taste in their distinct way, and establish
environmental links with their ancestors. This chapter also draws attention to
some of the writings of leading anti-caste ideologues, namely Jotirao Phule and
Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, who have left an environmental legacy, interwoven with
critiques of slavery and exclusion. They engage with questions of control over
natural resources and agrarian reforms, imbibing them with distinct ‘human
features’, which help us make better sense of our environment.
Chapter 3, ‘Ambedkar and Environmental Thought’, concentrates on Ambedkar,

one of India’s most important thinkers and political leaders. Ambedkar’s political
ideas and accomplishments have attracted wide attention. However, he has been
neglected in the environment field, even though he has written and spoken
Page 14 of 22
Introduction
extensively on nature, village, land, agriculture, water, community, industry,

technology, science, development, and modernization. One would have expected
that Ambedkar’s rise to importance in the political and academic community
would have been accompanied by some delineation of his work from an
environmental perspective. However, one is disappointed on this account. While
Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and even Indira Gandhi have drawn the
attention of environment historians and academicians, Ambedkar has been
marginalized. Ambedkar had a comprehensive critique of Indian society, and his
(p.xxx) case for a new republic was made by espousing social, political,
historical, economic, and moral visions that were more fundamentally also an
exploration of aspects of nature. Thus, he wrote on naturalism and Hindu social
order, external, universal, and social nature, living nature and its socialization,
development and nature, and village and community. When woven together,
these can help construct Ambedkar’s agrarian vision. It represented deep-rooted
aspirations of Dalits for land ownership and land reforms; similar independence
and equality as enjoyed by high-caste farmers; freeing water from the clutches
of masters’ control; and establishing Dalits’ control over the ‘natural’ world from
a position of individual independence and political and social equality.
Ambedkar’s thoughtful interventions and efforts to abolish the oppressive
Watandar Mahar system in Maharashtra, challenging the land tenure system of
khoti,35 his ideas on land consolidation and conservation, proposals for forest
land, Mahad satyagraha and the burning of Manusmriti, and prominent role in
the planning of water resources and irrigation post-Independence reveal that
values of ecology, economics, polity, culture, justice, and morality were deeply
intertwined in his vision. Ambedkar’s views on modernity and development have
to be placed in a broader historical, social, and political context as well, which
scripted his texts. The immediate context was provided by the independence
movement, and the march towards freedom, democracy, and development. His
modernist imaginations included two interconnected trends: a positive one,
linked with scientific and technological possibilities of satisfying people’s
material and spiritual needs, and a negative one, whose realization led to
intensification in the exploitation of nature. Ambedkar could not foresee the
shaping of these two trends together while conceptualizing the relationship
between society and nature. Subsequent economic and social development not
only witnessed a deepening of ecological crisis, but also growing antagonism
between Dalits and the environment.
My next chapter, ‘Dalit Memories and Water Rights’, sheds light on how Dalits
see and experience water, often in stark contrast to high castes. Not only do
Dalits face caste barriers in accessing water, which the high castes take for
granted, they also have different memories, myths, and methods of remembering
and claiming water. Water has been a source of several conflicts in India. It has
also been deeply (p.xxxi) coloured with caste, resulting in a tense relationship
between water, dominant Hindu discourses, and Dalits. Environmental
Page 15 of 22
Introduction
celebrations of traditional knowledge of water management have completely

overlooked the embedded inequality and injustice in such systems. As the voices
of women and Dalits have gained momentum, along with linkages of water to
usage, ownership, equitable share of benefits, livelihoods, and social
movements, a ‘water box’ (a variety of issues contained in closed storages) has
literally opened up. Environmentalists have taken note of the intricate
connections between gender and water, leading to a widening and deepening of
their vision. Alongside gender, some of the academic work in the recent past has
also taken cognizance of ecological narratives of caste and Dalits in relation to
water. Many Dalit autobiographies have gruelling and painful accounts on this. A
social world of water is revealed where dual experiences of cultural
conceptualization and societal exploitation pin down the lower castes and Dalits.
Besides this, water experiences of Dalits have laid the foundations for their own
eco-initiatives. The chapter takes up two case studies from two different regions
of Bihar, where Dalits have used water to represent their own ecological vision
in a collective manner, drawing from a rich repertoire of their religious–cultural
and social resources. Cultural symbols and myths of Deena-Bhadri and Ekalavya
are ingeniously assembled by Dalits as a community toolbox to demand river and
fishing rights and to attach themselves to pasts, places, and resources. Dalit
myths and symbols are also forms of ecological imaginations and promises,
which not only unearth their pasts, but also provide critiques of caste practices
and dominant Hindu mythologies. They are simultaneously negative and positive
idioms, with both destructive and constructive functions. It seems that water
memories and myths have the potential to initiate much more environmental
agency in Dalit lives than anything else. Here mythical figures and ancestors are
transformed from obedience to defiance, enslavement to ecological agency. They
are beholden to, and in love with, their people and resources, so much so that
they sacrifice their lives. They greatly contribute in building a collective
narrative of Dalit resource rights.
Finally, the last chapter, ‘The Dalit Mountain Man and New Commons’, looks at
the ‘commons’ through the persona and labour of the indomitable Dashrath
Manjhi, the exceptional ‘mountain man’ of Bihar, who independently and single-
handedly brought down a (p.xxxii) 360-foot long, 25-foot high hill, and created
a 16-foot wide pass in place of an almost impenetrable common, natural, hilly
space. Manjhi was an environmental delight, though always outside the ambit of
mainstream ‘environmentalism’. Living in self-made tarpaulin shelters,
frequently wearing repurposed tractor tyres as footwear, jackets made of
recycled jute bags, collecting leaf lamps, and using local herbs as medicines, he
often expressed himself through ecological idioms of water, sea, mountain, bird,
and rain as he felt intricately bound with them. However, more than his unique
personal traits, Manjhi, alienated from the village ‘commons’ and faced with
hostile environments, successfully created an alternative spatial metaphor to
develop a new positive symbol of ‘commons’ for his personal and social identity.
Page 16 of 22
Introduction
A wide pass, a road in the heart of the mountain, became not a symbol of
development but an image of transformation of a space. Passage into this new
space is not only a few steps forward to the city, market, and work, but also a
search, discovery, and achievement of the Dalit self, society, and environment. In
the discourse of much of our environmentalism, commons are to be conserved
and cherished for their ecological distinctiveness. As long as the commons are
caste-dominated and do not also belong to Dalits, their connection to a ‘common’
identity is uncertain. In the realm of Dalits and commons, universal
environmentalism—our sense of belonging—loses its appeal. The sovereignty of
the commons makes sense only if it is also derived from Dalit sovereignty.
Located on the edges of environmental, social, and political concerns, I explore
how the idea of commons in leading environmental discourses intersects with
dominant caste ideas in society and economy. I juxtapose this to Dalits’ ways of
seeing and defining the commons, and how these have different environmental
and social meanings. The chapter also draws its inspiration from some of the
radical African-American environmental writings on common and public spaces,
to highlight the connections between caste, commons, and environment.
Nature is life-essential, but naturalism of several kinds is questionable. Nature

and caste are both historical and social creations. By locating a dialectical
relationship between caste, Dalits, and environment, one can revisit nature on
the basis of caste and cultural carriers. Even while being part of nature, the
effect that humans have on nature is huge. As nature is constructed in India, it
can equally be cast in caste. Caste has historically been naturalized through
nature. Rather than (p.xxxiii) adopting caste-blind visions, a consciousness
about caste in nature can help create a new political space for environment
struggles. When we make an effort to look at Indian environmental politics
through the eyes and actions of Dalits and their various movements in different
parts of the country, we may also be able to glean a new ecological universe, a
visible Dalit environmental public space, which is often outside the dominant
discursive frame but is nonetheless embedded in Dalit ecological
understandings. Dalit environmentalism is not a finished or a refined project.
However, its relative invisibility is also a sign of the upper-caste habitués
operating in the sphere of secular modernity and citizenship. By exploring
differential subject formations in relation to environment, as well as by opening
the public secrets of secular environment-hood, we can bring the readings and
understandings of caste, Dalits, and environmentalism together. At different
times and locations, explorations of interrelationships between gender and
nature, race and nature, ethnicity and culture, gender and caste, and class and
power have opened up new political possibilities. This research is a small
attempt to contribute to such efforts.
Page 17 of 22
Introduction
Notes
Notes:
(1.) K.K.S. Das, Karumaadi Nritham (The Black Dance), trans. Ajay Sekher, in M.
Dasan, V. Pratibha, Pradeepan Pampirikunn, and C.S. Chandrika, eds, The Oxford
India Anthology of Malayalam Dalit Writing (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2012), pp. 15–16.
(2.) Ajay Navaria, ‘Upmahadvip’, trans. Laura R. Brueck, in Laura R. Brueck,

Writing Resistance: The Rhetorical Imagination of Hindi Dalit Literature (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2014), p. 134.
(3.) ‘Mayavel’, trans. Mehul Mangubahen (Gujarati to Hindi) and Madhu Dar
(Hindi to English). The folk song is included in Dalpatbhai Shrimali, Harijan Sant
and Lok Sahitya: Legend to Record—A Research-Work about Saint and Folk-
literature of Backward Class (Ahmedabad: Gujarat Granthratna Karyala, 1988),
pp. 22–38.
(4.) The songs of Dalit Pulaya agricultural labourers widely express such
experiences. For details, see Dona Baby and Kalyani Suresh, ‘Voices of the
“People of the Field”: Reflections about Oppression in the Pulaya Agrarian Folk
Songs of Kerala, India’, Communicator 48, no. 1 (January–December 2013): 39.
(5.) While Dalits and adivasis are two political subjectivities that centrally mark
our twentieth-century history—and there are overlaps regarding their concerns
on environment—they do not signify an easy pairing. There are (p.xxxiv)
analytical differences and distinctions between them. This research explicitly
focuses on Dalits and caste politics in relation to ecology.
(6.) Kathleen D. Morrison’s work on northern Karnataka explores ways in which

humans have helped shape the land. See Kathleen D. Morrison, ‘The Human
Face of the Land: Why the Past Matters for India’s Environmental Future’, public
lecture at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), New Delhi, 11
February 2013.
(7.) For English translations of Vedic hymns in the Rig Veda, see Ralph T.H.
Griffith, The Complete Rig Veda, Classic Century Works (New York: Barnes and
Noble, 2012).
(8.) Mukul Sharma, ‘Where Are Dalits in Indian Environmentalism?’, National

Seminar on Dalit Studies and Higher Education: Exploring Content Material for
a New Discipline, New Delhi, 28 February 2004.
(9.) For example, Kailash Malhotra, quoted in The State of India’s Environment
1984–85: The Second Citizen’s Report (New Delhi: Centre for Science and
Environment, 1985), p. 162.
Page 18 of 22
Introduction
(10.) There is rich literature on gender and caste and gender and nature. Some
are Anupama Rao, ed., Gender and Caste (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2003);
Sharmila Rege, Writing Caste/Writing Gender: Reading Dalit Women’s
Testimonies (New Delhi: Zubaan, 2006); Uma Chakravarti, Gendering Caste:
Through a Feminist Lens (Calcutta: Stree, 2003); Charu Gupta, The Gender of
Caste: Representing Dalits in Print (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2016); Bina
Agarwal, A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Bina Agarwal, Gender and
Green Governance: The Political Economy of Women’s Presence within and
beyond Community Forestry (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010);
Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India (New Delhi:
Kali for Women, 1988).
(11.) There are a number of writers and intellectuals like S. Gurumurthy,

Gurcharan Das, R. Vaidyanathan, and Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, who
have looked at caste as a safety net or a shock absorber, as a source of
knowledge and capital, as a social glue enabling cohesive communities to pull
together, and as having a positive role in development. See Gurcharan Das, India
Unbound: From Independence to the Global Transformation Age (New Delhi:
Penguin Books, 2002), p. 150; Swaminathan A. Aiyar, ‘Harness the Caste
System’, The Times of India, 4 June 2000, available at http://swaminomics.org/
harness-the-caste-system/, accessed on 12 October 2015; R. Vaidyanathan, ‘India
Growth: The Untold Story Caste as Social Capital’, India Behind the Lens (IBTL),
19 October 2012, available at http://www.ibtl.in/column/1309/india-growth-the-
untold-story-caste-as-social-capital/, accessed on 13 October 2015.
(12.) The term ‘new casteism’ was used in 1992 by T.M. Yesudasan, a Dalit
author and editor from Kerala. According to him, this term refers to the
(p.xxxv) phenomenon or tendency of denying or delaying justice to the
traditionally oppressed social groups by adopting measures and positions which
are ostensibly radical and progressive. An example is the land reforms in Kerala,
which gave farming land only to tenants, all of whom were upper castes. See
T.M. Yesudasan, ‘Towards a Prologue to Dalit Studies’, in K. Satyanarayana and
Susie Tharu, eds, No Alphabet in Sight: New Dalit Writing from South India
(New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2011), pp. 615–17.
(13.) Several studies reveal that the ideology of the market has done little to
break down India’s caste-based social order and in some ways has even
reinforced it. See Barbara Harriss-White, with Elisabetta Basile, Anita Dixit,
Pinaki Joddar, Aseem Prakash, and Kaushal Vidyarthee, Dalits and Adivasis in
India’s Business Economy: Three Essays and an Atlas (Gurgaon: Three Essays
Collective, 2014); Aseem Prakash, Dalit Capital: State, Markets and Civil Society
in Urban India (New Delhi: Routledge India, 2015); Ashwini Deshpande, The
Page 19 of 22
Introduction
Grammar of Caste: Economic Discrimination in Contemporary India (New Delhi:

Oxford University Press, 2011).
(14.) Some such studies are David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha, eds, Nature,
Culture, Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996); Gunnel Cederlof and K.
Sivaramakrishnan, eds, Ecological Nationalisms: Nature, Livelihoods, and
Identities in South Asia (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005); Vasant Saberwal
and Mahesh Rangarajan, eds, Battles over Nature: Science and the Politics of
Conservation (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003); Madhav Gadgil and
Ramachandra Guha, Ecology and Equity: The Use and Abuse of Nature in
Contemporary India (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1995).
(15.) Gopal Guru, ‘Freedom of Expression and the Life of the Dalit Mind’,
Economic and Political Weekly 48, no. 10 (9 March 2003): 41.
(16.) D.R. Nagaraj, The Flaming Feet and Other Essays: The Dalit Movement in
India (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2010), pp. 176–7.
(17.) Madhav Gadgil and Ramchandra Guha, This Fissured Land: An Ecological
History of India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 91–110.
(18.) Purnendu S. Kavoori, ‘The Varna Trophic System: An Ecological Theory of

Caste Formation’, Economic and Political Weekly 37, no. 12 (23–9 March 2002):
1156–64.
(19.) Ashok Das Gupta, ‘Is Caste System a Kind of Indigenous Knowledge
System?’, Antrocom Online Journal of Anthrology 8, no. 1 (2012): 63.
(20.) E.M.S. Namboodiripad, Keralam Malayalikalude Mathrubhumi (‘Kerala, the

Motherland of the Malayalis’) (Trichur: Deshabhimani Publications, 1965), p.
105, quoted in Dilip M. Menon, The Blindness of Insight: Essays on Caste in
Modern India (Pondicherry: Navayana, 2006): 59.
(21.) K.L. Seshagiri Rao, ‘The Five Great Elements (Pancamahabhuta): An

Ecological Perspective’, in Christopher Key Chapple and Mary Evelyn Tucker,
(p.xxxvi) eds, Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 36.
(22.) R.S. Khare, ed., The Eternal Food: Gastronomic Ideas and Experiences of
Hindus and Buddhists (New York: State University of New York Press, 1992).
(23.) Ranchor Prime, Vedic Ecology: Practical Wisdom for Surviving the 21st
Century (California: Mandala Publishing, 2002), p. 139.
(24.) Menon, Blindness of Insight, p. 59.
Page 20 of 22
Introduction
(25.) D.S. Moore, J. Kosek and A. Pandian, eds, Race, Nature and the Politics of
Difference (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 38.
(26.) ‘Foreword’, in David L. Gosling, Religion and Ecology in India and

Southeast Asia (London: Routledge, 2001), p. xi.
(27.) Kancha Ilaiah, Post-Hindu India: A Discourse on Dalit-Bahujan, Socio-

Spiritual and Scientific Revolution (New Delhi: SAGE, 2009).
(28.) Malayali Dalit writer K.K. Kochu has explained how various kinds of
stereotypes prevail in Dalit history writing of Kerala. See K.K. Kochu, ‘Writing
the History of Kerala: Seeking a Dalit Space’, trans. Jenny Rowena, in
Satyanarayana and Tharu, No Alphabet in Sight, pp. 493–505.
(29.) This is characterized as environmentalism of the poor by subordinated

social groups, like peasants and fisherfolk, regarding conflicts centreed on
access to and control over natural resources. See Ramachandra Guha and Juan
Martinez-Alier, Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1997).
(30.) Aditya Nigam underlines the unspeakability of caste in the domain of civil
society and secular modern institutions, and the problematic features of secular-
nationalism vis-à-vis caste: Aditya Nigam, The Insurrection of Little Selves: The
Crisis of Secular-Nationalism in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2006).
(31.) Dalit intellectual Chandra Bhan Prasad has commented widely on such
environmental movements: Available at http://www.ambedkar.org/chandrabhan/
interview.htm, accessed on 28 April 2011.
(32.) Alf Gunvald Nilsen, Dispossession and Resistance in India: The River and
the Rage (Delhi: Aakar Books, 2013).
(33.) Badri Narayan, The Making of the Dalit Public in North India: Uttar
Pradesh, 1950—Present (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 35–58.
(34.) Chhath is a Hindu festival on the sixth day of the lunar fortnight;
Mahashivratri is the festival in honour of the Hindu god Shiva, with a fast during
day and religious observations during the night; Kumbh snan is the mass Hindu
pilgrimage in order to bathe in the holy and sacred River Ganga.
(35.) The tenants under the khoti system were called ‘inferior’ landholders. They
were subjected to all kind of exactions and the government employed the
services of a khot, an official, for purposes of collecting revenue.
Page 21 of 22
Introduction
Page 22 of 22
Eco-casteism

Mukul Sharma

Print ISBN-13: 9780199477562
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199477562.001.0001
Eco-casteism
Sulabh and the Denial of Dalit Existence
Mukul Sharma
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199477562.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords

This chapter examines some of the significant lines of environmental
conceptions in India since the 1980s. It pays critical attention to caste and its
expression or marginalization in environmental discourses. It attempts to show
how Brahmanical religious traditions and their arguments have had a powerful
resonance in India’s dominant environmental leanings. It intermeshes these with
some of the recent criticisms made by Dalit scholars regarding India’s
environmental thought. Through the particular case study of Sulabh
International (founded by Bindeshwar Pathak), a prominent organization
working on sanitation and rural development, the chapter further shows how a
noteworthy, well-intentioned, and much celebrated environmental initiative for
the abolition of scavenging (which is deeply related to the Hindu caste system)
in India assumes a Hindu religious ecology.
Keywords: Dalits, Sulabh International, Bindeshwar Pathak, Brahmanical religious tradition,

scavenging, sanitation and rural development
The overwhelming caste blindness of much environmental thought in India,

especially regarding Dalits’ voices and visions, has various characteristics.1 It
can be conscious–unconscious, overt–covert, crude–ambiguous, or blunt–unclear,
but it frequently deploys caste and Dalits to reform and reinvent Brahmanical
Hinduism with a ‘human face’. This chapter examines some of the significant
lines of environmental conceptions in India since the 1980s. It pays critical
attention to caste, and its expression or marginalization, in environmental
Page 1 of 53
Eco-casteism
discourses. It attempts to show how Brahmanical religious traditions and their

arguments have had a powerful resonance in India’s dominant environmental
leanings. It intermeshes these with some of the recent criticisms made by Dalit
scholars regarding India’s environmental thought. Through a particular case
study of Sulabh International, a prominent organization working on sanitation
and rural development, the chapter further shows how a noteworthy, well-
intentioned, and much celebrated environmental initiative for the abolition of
scavenging (which is deeply related to the Hindu caste system) in India assumes
a Hindu religious ecology. The liberation of scavengers, their social
transformation, prevention of environmental pollution, creation of non-
conventional sources of energy, training people for voluntary action, and
diffusion of innovations for promoting inexpensive and affordable indigenous
technology in sanitation, health, hygiene, and rural development are often
mediated through, and are locked in, a caste-bound Hindu religion, community,
culture, and everyday practice. It is further evident that the role of technology in
Sulabh society (p.2) is implicated in the stubbornness of casteism and
traditions of exclusion. These underline the limitations of technology to
overcome social biases. The premises of this kind of environmentalism not only
attempt to absorb Dalits within a dominant Hindu fold, but also naturalize the
process through ecological determinants.
Ecology, as understood today, as a comprehensive ideology and discipline and as

an essential element of vital activities of modern civilization gained prominence
in the political and social world during the 1970s. Since then, it has continued to
agitate peoples’ hearts and minds. A thorough analysis of development from an
ecological lens has been regarded as imperative in the present context.
Deterioration in human beings’ natural environment due to industrialization,
destruction of nature because of excessive pollution and growing economic
activities, exhaustion of natural resources due to constant increase in
demographic pressures, and elimination of several species of animals and plants
have prompted people to question the very conception of rationality vis-à-vis
nature. Some environmentalists have urged for a philosophical comprehension
of nature and culture, and have reinvented caste, community, religion, and
tradition in India to overcome the alarming signs of an ecological crisis. They
have come to regard Hindu religious and caste system as a key to the solution of
economic problems. Other environmentalists have consistently camouflaged the
implications of caste and religion for the environment. Whether traditionally or
functionally, internally or externally, this justification of caste on the one hand
and its discounting on the other for environmental sustainability—both of which
I would term eco-casteism—are not entirely new, and have been a part of the
Indian social life.
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Eco-casteism
Our Backyard: Dalits’ Point–Counterpoint on Environment

Indian environmental politics has been vividly and variously defined as
‘environmentalism of the poor’, ‘indigenous environmentalism’, ‘middle-class
environmentalism’, ‘elite environmentalism’, ‘eco-feminism’, ‘red and green’,
‘green and saffron’, and much more, revealing its diversity and dynamics.
Scholarship on environmental issues and movements, and debates on
development have particularly focused on voices and visions of women and
tribals. However, while Dalits have (p.3) often participated in significant
numbers in various environmental movements, they have been largely missing in
most studies as a category, as they are usually merged in the general definitions
of poor, marginal, vulnerable, displaced, environmental refugees, and migrants.2
There appears to be an environmental blindness on questions of caste, or an
understanding of a specifically Dalit position on ecological politics, which, if
taken into account, can complicate our understanding of environment, bringing
to light voices of dissent and difference.
Dalit perspectives take Indian environmentalists to task not only for the seeming
invisibility of Dalit issues in mainstream Indian environmentalism, but also for
their construction of an exclusive and partial environmental politics, which is
often Brahmanical, Hindu, and conservative, and is couched in a language of
‘new caste’ and ‘new traditionalism’.3 Of late, a few Dalits and anti-caste
intellectuals have begun questioning ecological and political trajectories of
contemporary environmentalism in India. A small but significant piece by Gail
Omvedt, titled ‘Why Dalits Dislike Environmentalists’, pointed to the alienation
between two of the most powerful social movements in India—the anti-caste
movement and the environment movement.4 Chandrabhan Prasad, in another
newspaper article, ‘The New Life Movement versus Narmada Bachao Andolan’,
invoked Ambedkar’s notion of a New Life Movement, his ideas on modernization,
and his critique of Gandhian traditionalism as arguments for a rejection of the
‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ in general and of Medha Patkar in particular.5
Kancha Ilaiah refers to environmentalism as exclusive, devoid of any concerns
and relationship with the builders of environment on earth. He argues that this
so-called secular environmentalism is not bothered about the nationalist and
hegemonic social structure that Brahmanism has built.6
Caste and Dominant Environmental Discourses and Movements

Indian environmental politics is varied and heterogeneous with oppositions,
protest groups, movements, alliances, individuals, and alternative civil society
organizations. Environmental themes and concerns further appear across a
diverse spectrum of mass-based organizations affiliated with political parties. At
the same time, examples from (p.4) several environment movements bring out
their caste blindness, or more importantly, their implicit pro-caste and anti-Dalit
bias. Movements such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the Chilka Bachao
Andolan deployed a creative redefinition of human rights by closely linking their
movements with rights to life and livelihood, but issues of Dalits and caste
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Eco-casteism
discrimination were neglected. An examination of the NBA revealed that the

movement’s areas and villages were still characterized by higher-caste
domination, caste discrimination was an everyday reality, Dalit participation in
the movement was limited, Dalits had not been part of the decision-making
processes, they were lacking in confidence to participate in the movement, and
no organization existed for them and the landless labourers. It has been
remarked that ‘caste domination and class divisions seem to have subsisted to a
greater extent and clearly create a local core–periphery structure in the
campaign, with the rich farmers located at the core and the Dalits and landless
labourers at the periphery’.7 Here, through two detailed examples of prominent
environmental initiatives, I will try to show the caste prejudices embedded in
their thinking and articulation. Let me first, as a case study, take up the
Vrindavan Forest Revival Project, also known as the Vrindavan Conservation
Project, which was launched in the 1990s by a prominent non-governmental
organization (NGO), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), India.8 Vrindavan
has for long been constructed in folklore as the birthplace of Krishna and, after
what Hindutva terms the ‘Ram Janmabhoomi liberation campaign’ and the
destruction of the Babri mosque, the ‘liberation of Krishna Janmabhoomi’ has
become an ongoing part of Hindutva’s agenda. The project, explicitly aimed at
the ecological restoration of Vrindavan, planned the planting of trees along the
11-kilometre parikrama marg, a pilgrim route, which encircled the town.9 In the
process, it vividly used the imagery of Krishna as a symbol of environmental
purity and beauty in order to actively involve Hindus in the conservation
project.10 The project grew in its scope and included not only planting of trees
but also nature clubs, community awareness, education, citizen’s action, river
watch, protection of sacred groves, environmental rallies, raslilas (dance drama
usually dealing with Krishna and female herders), environmental dramas, art
exhibitions, video shows, and prayer lectures.11 (p.5)
However, the movement had intrinsic caste preconceptions. For example, while
attacking the present inadequate sewage system of Vrindavan, it offered a
defence of traditional methods of waste disposal. Before 1970, the traditional
latrine method was in vogue there, by which the waste was supposedly recycled
into the fields as fertilizer. It goes without saying that to make this possible
Dalits had to carry ‘night soil’ (human excreta) on their heads and perform other
related cleaning jobs. The modern sewage system, which was designed after
1970, had various defects and was also never adequately completed. However,
when critiquing this system, Ranchor Prime, who was one of the main initiators
of the Vrindavan project and also a member of International Society for Krishna
Consciousness (ISKCON), argued that the traditional method of waste disposal
should return. In his support he invoked the Manusmriti as offering venerable
injunctions on ancient and time-tested technologies of waste disposal.12 Prime
also identified meat eating as a serious ecological problem and asked for its
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Eco-casteism
prohibition: meat eaters for him were murderers who had to reap bad karmic
consequences.13
Vrindavan has a sizeable Dalit population, including sub-castes such as Chamar,

Balmiki, Kori, Khatik, and Dhobi, in the areas covered by the WWF project. At
the heart of the town lies the Kishorepura Valmiki Basti (a basti is a makeshift
settlement [of the poor]). Chowdhary Bhagwan Das Balmiki’s family has been
living here for three generations, and according to him the famous Banke Bihari
Mandir was built by the labour of his ancestors. Bhagwan Das was part of the
cleanliness and conservation drive of Friends of Vrindavan, a partner
organization of the WWF. He narrates his experience:
I was part of the cleanliness drive launched by the project, especially

around the Banke Bihari Mandir. However, the priests and the Krishna
bhakts [devotees] associated with the project bitterly objected to our
presence even 100 metres away, as according to them we Bhangis [a
Scheduled Caste, mostly scavenger] were polluting the people, their ways,
and the mandir [temple]. The drive was stopped after their objections.14 In
this environment, we do not want to live with Krishna, never mind the
conservation in His name. Our condition is pathetic here.15
Charandas Jatav claims to be an asli brajwasi (authentic resident of Braj) as his

family’s seventh generation is at present in Vrindavan. However, he too is bitter
about the conservation project: (p.6)
Brajbhoomi is for Brahmins. Neither forest destruction nor pollution, but

the three Bs—Brahmins, Babajees (saints) and Bandars (monkeys)—are the
real culprits for the problems of Vrindavan…. With the WWF project,
plantation came here, but soon the plants dried up as there was nobody to
water them. We were never a part of the Vrindavan Conservation
Programme, as we were never considered a part of Krishna.16
As a second example, I want to explore the watershed management programme

in Ralegan Siddhi, launched under the leadership of Anna Hazare. In my earlier
work, I had stressed the moral authoritarianism of this movement, which
includes not only persuasion but also coercion. I had also shown its linkages to
Hindu culture, tradition, and religion.17 This movement too reveals certain
prejudices vis-à-vis Dalits. Even while trying to incorporate them in the
movement, its language is often couched in paternalistic, reformist, Gandhian,
or Brahmanical frameworks. Anna Hazare is a strong advocate of vegetarianism,
and in this context, he has the following to say regarding Dalits:
We used to go to their area sometimes and sat in front of one house. People
used to gather there, wondering how this high-caste person has come to
their place. This way, a faith relationship came into being. We continued
going there off and on. Sometimes we asked from them water to drink and
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Eco-casteism
had food together. Based on this relationship, we started telling them why
people kept them at a distance and what were the reasons behind it. We
said that the society condemns you because your living is dirty, your food
habits are dirty, and your thinking is dirty. Therefore, you have to change.
With such constant hammering, the whole village turned vegetarian. The
Dalits were also made vegetarian.18
Ralegan Siddhi is overwhelmingly dominated by Marathas, but there are a few

Mahar, Chamar, and Matang families.19 Anna Hazare has been an ardent
advocate of the removal of untouchability, and there have been several efforts on
his part to do away with the ban on their temple entry and to allow them to take
water from the same well. Popularly still referred to as Harijans here, Dalits are
now present in almost all village functions and festivals, and are associated with
several committees formed to run the village affairs.20 However, Dalits here
often express their dissatisfaction with the movement. Kailash Pote is a landless
Chamar, who pursues his traditional occupation and does farm labour. For him,
the meaning of village, family, and Hindu religion is different: (p.7)
We do not call Ralegan Siddhi a village. We call it a family in which

Annajee is the headman and we are the people who provide service to the
family. Here Hindus mean Marathas only. We Chamars and Mahars are
never called Hindus. How can we claim that everybody is equal here?
People who have land or jobs in the military have a different level of
development. There is a lot of difference between others and me.21
Lakshman Dondiwa is another Dalit. In the course of an agitation for electricity

in the village many years ago, he was injured in police firing. He still remembers
how Anna took care of him like a mother. He and other members of his caste are
now free from the clutches of moneylenders and this has turned him into a
devotee of Anna. However, he goes on to remark:
We have food, clothing and houses now. However, that is all. There is
nothing more to it than that. Shoes are for the feet and will always be
placed there. We are like the shoes. We will never be able to go ahead
beyond this point. The village ethos is like this.’22
Twenty-five-year-old Kailash is landless. He knows driving and has a licence for

it, but must survive on wage labour. He says:
I was poor before and am poor now. We were starving in the past and the
situation has not changed for me. I cannot even afford to educate my
children. I cannot even open my mouth. Whatever is said in this village, it
has to be followed.’23
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Eco-casteism
Dalits thus continue to be placed in Ralegan Siddhi in limited frameworks. They

are still largely tied to their traditionally ascribed status and occupation.
Simultaneously, unequal possession of land and utilization of water, exploitative
labour relations, and low wages, besides other forms of power, do exist and
continue to work against Dalits. The notion of Dalits being ‘dirty’ still prevails.
And the village republic works in such a way that broader values, codes and
rules, and places and performances assigned within it are never challenged. The
Dalits’ own perceptions are clearly formed as much from the authoritarian
discourse as from their own contesting experiences. The idea of integration of
Dalits into an ideal village has two components in Ralegan Siddhi. The first is the
assumption that they were always there to perform some duties and necessary
services and second that it is this usefulness that justifies their existence today.
As Anna expresses it: (p.8)
It was Mahatma Gandhi’s vision that every village should have one
Chamar, one Sunar, one Kumhar and so on. They should all do their work
according to their role and occupation, and in this way, a village will be
self-dependent. This is what we are practising in Ralegan Siddhi.24
Both the components are hegemonic in nature, designed to get Dalits into the
Brahminical fold. It is not only manifested in the way food or dress habits are
propagated but is also prevalent in several other direct and indirect forms. It is
significant that the Organiser, the RSS mouthpiece, carried a series of articles
on Anna Hazare and Ralegan Siddhi, in which the writer expressed his deep
admiration for the model being followed.25 Regarding the incorporation of Dalits
by Anna, the author remarked:
Anna-saheb Hajare imprinted on the minds of the villagers that, as children

of the same God, any discrimination on the basis of one’s birth would be
reprehensible to Him.... To start with, the young workers called a meeting
of the Harijans in the village. Together they decided to bury the bitter
memories of the past and start a fresh page of social equality and harmony.
On their part, the Harijans decided to give up carrying of dead animals,
eating their flesh and also vices like ganja [hemp], gambling, etc. The
meeting was followed by efforts for cleanliness and sanitation in their
houses and their neighbourhood and imparting of healthy samskaras
[various essential sanctifying or purificatory Hindu rites] to their
children.26
Anna’s concern for Dalits works at many levels. One is the ritual, organized for
Dalits in particular, to integrate them into a whole. Here the ritual centrality of
the dominant caste is significant. In these rituals—Vedic Hindu weddings in the
village temple, temple puja with devotional hymns, and satvic (pure) food in co-
dining amidst Vedic mantras—comes through his totalizing discourse on purity
and pollution, in which is embraced political and economic power. Here we can
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also see the importance of the practices of gift giving for the cultural
construction of dominance.27 In his ethnographic history of the Satnamis of
Chhattisgarh, an untouchable community, Saurabh Dube shows how a complex
interplay and overlap of discourses constituted caste relations in the context of
power. He remarks:
The ritual hierarchy of purity and pollution and the ritual centrality of
kingship and dominant caste(s) were both symbolic schemes that
elaborated modes of domination and power. Defined by meanings and (p.
9) practices that articulated and were articulated by relations of authority,
they worked together to secure the subordination of the Satnamis and
other untouchable communities in Chhattisgarh.28
In Ralegan Siddhi, the position of Dalits is grounded not only in rituals or in a

language of integration, but also in the concept of a united family, cemented by
the continuous reference to religion, the centrality of the dominant caste, and
the authority of an environmental leader.
With these two examples drawn from my earlier works, I move on to certain
significant features that mark the relationship between caste and environmental
movements in India. What links the various expressions of such caste-blind,
Dalit-challenged ecological world view is their exclusivist and particularistic
Hindu Indian-ism, which is also based on a rejection of certain values of
enlightenment modernity. Within this framework, religion, culture, caste,
tradition, food, and language are considered organic and ecologically self-
contained, just like any other ecosystem. Environmentalism here denotes
conservation of a composite system of humans, plants, animals, culture, and
religion specific to a particular nation or geographical region. The integrity of
this particular ecosystem is understood in terms of defending the human and
non-human world from foreign species and from the forces of globalization.
Accordingly, Dalits are considered naturally rooted in their village, tradition, and
homeland and are just another piece of the natural system. Paradoxically and
simultaneously, neo-Hinduism has renewed caste traditions and cultural
practices through the market. In the recent period thus, proponents of free
market and Hindu right-wing ideologies have viewed caste as a ‘driver of
development’ and as a form of ‘social capital’.29 These views of ‘natural’
belonging and ‘unnatural’ entity vis-à-vis untouchables and Dalits can be
understood, according to me, through three major strands: eco-casteism, eco-
organicism, and eco-naturalism, which I will now explicate.
Some of the prominent environment discourses in India today see ecological

degradation essentially as a result of the imposition of a Western colonial
civilization over a rooted, indigenous, Indian culture. The past is read here as a
time when ecology was balanced and (p.10) harmonious, and practised by self-
contained communities of women, forest dwellers, and peasants, who were
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primarily the keepers of a special conservationist ethic.30 Some of the critiques

of globalization and neo-liberal economic reforms are anchored in upholding a
green village, a non-urban natural community, which becomes the repository of
an immutable national identity. In the specific context of Dalits, such discourses
fall into a trap of valorization and romanticization of tradition, without realizing
how these have been responsible for making Dalits ‘untouchables’. With a few
exceptions, Indian environment studies are ‘caste blind’. Even while
emphasizing certain concrete identities like community, gender and ethnicity,
they obscure the element of caste, without which the environmental canvas is
incomplete.
More importantly, some of the environment discourses provide a defence of the

caste system. Thus comes the explanation by Kailash Malhotra, an
anthropologist, ‘The caste system … was actually based on an ancient concept of
sustainable development which disciplined the society by partitioning the use of
natural resources according to specific occupations (or castes); and “created”
the right social milieu in which sustainable patterns of resource use were
encouraged to “emerge”.’31 Alternatively, says another, ‘the Hindu caste system
can be seen as a progenitor of the concept of sustainable development’.32 Even
the otherwise insightful ecological history of India by Madhav Gadgil and
Ramachandra Guha provides in effect a functionalist justification of caste as a
system of ecological adaptation. According to them, caste groups, bound with
each other in supportive relationships, had hereditary and specialized
occupational functioning. Based on these groups, caste society had also
developed a system of diversified resource use that greatly reduced inter-caste
competition. Local belief systems, key Hindu gods, and social conventions
facilitated resource conservation and helped evolve a path of cooperation and
coexistence.33 They thus state:
It is therefore appropriate to talk of the ecological niches of these various

caste groups in terms of the habitats they occupy, the natural resources
they utilize, and the relationship they bear to the other caste groups with
whom they interact.34
Gadgil and Guha further delineate:
As opposed to the exclusivist approach favoured by monotheistic religions

such as Islam and Christianity, Hinduism has (at least until (p.11)
recently) relied more heavily on an inclusive framework that tries to
incorporate rather than reject or convert apparently hostile sects and
worldviews. The institutional mechanism for this process of incorporation
is, of course, the caste system.35
The evolution of caste has sometimes been defined on the basis of the
ecosystem, and the varna structure has often been called ‘essentially ecological
Page 9 of 53
Eco-casteism
in its logic’. In an article titled ‘The Varna Trophic System: An Ecological Theory
of Caste Formation’, the author Purnendu Kavoori argues that the evolution of
varnas followed trophic lines and principles of natural selection.36 The trophic
system is described here as ‘the relationship between different forms of life
according to their system metabolism’, which ‘is derived from the way different
classes of organisms convert energy into biomass’.37 According to the author,
the first trophic level is autotrophic—populations of organisms, mainly plants,
which are self-nourishing and directly convert solar energy to biomass. This, he
states, equals the Shudras or the ekajati varna who are engaged in primary
production. The second level is represented by the heterotrophic components
that predate the autorophic level, which can be equated with the three twice-
born or dvijiya varnas. The third in the chain is the stratum comprising the
detritivore component of the system—a class of decomposer populations
processing the egested and waste material produced by the other two strata,
which is represented in the caste hierarchy by the panchama varna, or the
‘never born’. On the above basis he argues:
The maintenance of the varna structure is therefore the key element in the
performance of dharma. Given the criticality of this concept to the
Brahminic system, it is interesting that this equilibrium structure appears
to be derived from ecological foundations. Foundations that are readily
revealed if we look at the varna equations as a trophic system.38
To strengthen the hypothesis that the varna structure is essentially ecological in

its logic, the author goes on to show that as the ecosystem became much more
mature and developed—due to increasing number of trophic levels, mounting
species diversity, greater expansion of detritus chain, and development of longer
and more complex chains of material and energy flow—the varna structure too
evolved and became much more complex. In a sense, populations segregated as
untouchables—butchers, disposers of dead bodies, scavengers—became (p.12)
markers of ecologically driven processes. The quintessential remark that the
author makes is: ‘From an ecosystem point of view it is evident that the laws of
Manu, howsoever offensive they may be from a contemporary perspective,
express in fact the concerns of a species’ rich, complex and rigorously
differentiated social–ecological system.’39 Untouchables and untouchability are
compared here with antibiosis—a survival and competing strategy by certain
sections of populations in an ecosystem. It is explained that the development of
antibiosis is a strategy that species develop to inhibit competition through the
development of antibiotic properties. The strategy takes the form of a species
population developing certain toxic secretions which ensure that other species
populations stay away from them. Other species cannot tolerate this toxic
material and thus have to maintain a distance from the toxic species. This
analogy goes for the untouchables as they are compared with the toxic,
Page 10 of 53
Eco-casteism
segregating them and making them unfit for intermixture with other
populations. This ensures a ‘trophic segregation’. Purnendu Kavoori asserts:
It is deeply provocative but nonetheless logical to hold that the evolution of

untouchability was in an ecological sense something of the masterstroke
which enhanced the competitive advantage of those populations that
adopted it (i.e., on whom discrimination was imposed). Thus would have
developed specialised population of decomposers, parasites, scavengers
and so on. This in our view is the ecological rationale for the adaptive
success of untouchability, the latent principle in the varna system.40
Others too have equated caste with ‘traditional’ or ‘indigenous’ knowledge,

which can very well combine nature, human, and super-nature. It can take the
shape of a traditional knowledge system, providing public services at large.
Anthropologist and research scholar Ashok Das Gupta in his article ‘Is Caste
System a Kind of Indigenous Knowledge System?’ asserts that ‘caste system, a
kind of division of labour, is an important IKS (indigenous knowledge system) for
Indian subcontinent’.41 The author traces a history of different kinds of division
of labour existing in the Gangetic plains of north India, especially in relation to
different ecosystems. For him, castes were service groups, functioning through
their service exchange system and surviving through religious and cultural
emblems. These groups were found worshipping nature, agricultural deities,
fertility cults, (p.13) and Mother goddesses. They were rural communities,
long-residing people of the region, who knew about natural resources and the
most appreciable and nature-friendly ways to exploit these resources. They knew
how to structure society on the basis of division of labour, and religious–cultural
ways to stabilize a specific nature–human relationship. Thus, each of these
divisions of labour, composed of several castes, is a repository of traditional
knowledge systems. According to the author, the caste system and various
castes survived in the Gangetic plains because of its wide usefulness and
relevance. Even in a stratified, hierarchical caste system, the author argues,
‘traditional nature-oriented less-polluting folk life are devoid of so many things’;
they are at the same time capable of providing many information traits unknown
or forgotten in the modern age. Ashok Das Gupta thus considers the caste
system as the most viable indigenous knowledge system regarding division of
labour in the agrarian rural structures of the Gangetic plains and Indian
subcontinent. He contends that this multifarious system
can provide us various types of public services, proper utilization of natural

resources and environment management, conventional communication
systems and transmission of messages, [informs us] how strong is the
social structure and division of labour/social institutions, what is going on
in peoples’ minds, how to manage human resources, what would be the
Page 11 of 53
Eco-casteism
best politico-economic approach, outline of sustainable development, and

so forth.42
Some environmentalists also deploy Hindu religious texts, which, they argue,
contain insights into nature and environmental sustainability that might be
usefully translated into an environmental rhetoric for present-day India. They
quote the Vedas and the Dharmasastras to demonstrate that Bharat and the
Hindu religion uphold conservation as central to life systems and processes.
Several articles and books advance this Hindu religion-based approach as a way
of addressing India’s ecological problems. Passages from the Vedas, Puranas,
Ramayana, and Mahabharata are cited, as are Vedic hymns celebrating earth
and water. The Purusha Sukta, one of the best-known hymns of the Rig Veda—
which narrates that the Brahmin originated from the mouth of the Purusha, the
Kshatriya from the arms, the Vaishya from the thighs, and the Shudra from the
feet—is cited to claim a continuity between humans and the cosmos, suggesting
that the (p.14) gods, the heavens, and the earth itself arose from the Purusha.
Such an assertion carries a message of interconnectedness that can be used to
advocate respect for nature and its elements. Many of the later books of the
Brahminical tradition do in fact stipulate that trees must be protected and that
water must not be defiled.43 The common sense of these texts is elevated to an
environmental ethic, emanating from the mouth of Hindu deities. The Vedic
approach to the environment is, moreover, seen as coherent, consistent, holistic,
and best suited to Indian conditions. Ranchor Prime, author of several books on
Hindu religion and environment and co-founder and director of Friends of
Vrindavan, sees in Vedic religion a great tradition combined with practical
lessons and conclusions essential for our survival on earth. He suggests that
Vedic scriptures can effectively guide us in solving the environmental crisis in
the industrialized world of today: ‘The Vedic scriptures advise that knowledge of
matter, namely science, must be cultivated alongside knowledge of spirit if it is
to benefit humanity.’44 A long article titled ‘Environment and Vedic Heritage’
starts with an exploration of a central idea in Vedic religion, namely that of unity,
in numerous forms.45 Diversities are resolved and reconciled through the
supervening philosophy and doctrine of Vedic monotheism:
The symbolism of Fire, Light and Dawn, in the same way as the symbolism
of different gods of the Vedic pantheon including Surya, Savitri, Varuna,
Mitra and many others, represents and reflects the larger cosmic truth of
concordance between inner and outer space and a bridge between the
spiritual and the ecological.46
The author further asserts that the Vedic hymn of the earth is unquestionably
the oldest environmental invocation in world history, the most sublime and
evocative. The earth is a ‘sacred space’; the Vedic vision of the world is filled
with the purity of a spiritual environment as well as the sanctity of
environmental morality. All varieties of faith communities in India have through
Page 12 of 53
Eco-casteism
the ages, it is concluded, shared the Vedic value system. To seek logic in this
sequence of arguments is off the mark, as it is considered an aspect of divine
revelation. In a revisionist use of dharma, whereby it is conflated with Brahman
as the principle that upholds the cosmic order, Sanatan Dharma is called the
greatest Vedic tradition and the best way of thinking and living to protect the
environment. Thus, explains Ranchor Prime, (p.15)
If Hinduism can be given a legitimate name it is ‘Sanatan Dharma’, which

is used by many Hindus today. Roughly translated, this means ‘the eternal
essence of life’. This essence is not limited only to humans. It is the
essential quality that unites all beings—human, animal or plant—with the
universe that surrounds them and ultimately with the original source of
their existence, the Godhead.47
In such renderings, ‘an alternative society’ is searched for by eulogizing and

justifying such thinkers and systems that propagate the caste division in its
worst forms. There is an inherent belief here that Brahmins are for knowledge
and untouchables are for traditional services of society:
Prabhupada’s alternative vision for human society could be summed up in

the twin concept of protecting Brahmins and cows. Brahmins are the
spiritual teachers of society. They must be supported so that they can give
spiritual guidance.48
Ruling dynasties, whose politics was based on Vedic texts, are seen to represent
an ideal political order, partly because the works of ancient poets and writers of
that era reverberate with environmental consciousness. The age of Kalidasa,
who flourished in the Gupta era, is upheld as a golden age, as its intellectuals
had proclaimed their affluent world as a prototype of heaven. This found
expression in art and architecture, in people’s relationship with nature, and in
social and religious systems.49 Rituals and traditions, it is stated, came into
being to ensure the right balance, making the Vedic texts the basis for desirable
social prescription. Every Hindu came to perform certain rituals, which could be
in the form of worship, daily or occasionally.50 Other than great religious epics
and texts like Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Vedas, references from other Hindu
sacred texts like Puranas, Aranyakas, Smritis, Samhitas, Brahmanas, and Gita
are frequently given for agricultural and environmental wisdom. Related
assumptions of caste—the varna system, hierarchy, restriction, segregation,
occupation—are invoked for the welfare of labour and agriculture:
This fear of Dharma dynamics is exclusively helpful in constant supply of

labour into traditional Indian agrarian rural structure through the caste
system. Whereas Nishkama Karma literally means work without any
expectation: so doing your duty in a proper way, but without any such
expectation for the next life.51 (p.16)
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Eco-casteism
It is further asserted:
Certain caste service are highly appreciated especially that of the priests
enjoying hegemony in rural set up. Only they can bring blessings of the
nature by appeasing the Super Nature necessary for a good crop yield.52
Some environmentalists attempt to renew ideas of traditional caste-based

occupations to make them newly applicable to contemporary needs and
occasions. Modern toilets, sanitation, and sewage are condemned as Western
systems, inappropriate for India. This is combined with a suggestion that an
ideal village should have ‘perfect sanitation of the traditional kind’ for disposing
human waste. ‘Ecological societies’ are those where toilets are dry, where waste
is removed daily and composted. The lesson is:
Traditional systems that have worked for thousands of years should not be
interfered with—there’s usually a good reason why they have worked so
long. A further lesson is that the Western system of sanitation, developed
in a part of the world where water is plentiful, is inappropriate for India,
where water is scarce and so valuable that it is considered sacred.53
Eco-casteism, an ecological determinant of caste, provides a rationalization and

justification of caste system through nature. Caste identity becomes a key
organizing framework for environmental thought and action. Dominant castes
can validate their power through such a conception, and can even become
harbingers of new eco-movements. Eco-casteism, as propagated and practised
presently, does not restrict itself to fixed ideas of hierarchy and division of
labour; it calls for a recovery of the traditional, the natural, and the indigenous.
Equally, as we will see later in the chapter, eco-casteism moulds itself to neo-
Hinduism, whereby idioms of technology, sustainable development, benevolent
paternalism, and reform from above ‘naturalize’ Dalits within a home,
community, and nation.
Eco-organicism
Organicism is defined as a ‘social theory that conceptualises societies in terms of
a living organism and treats individuals within society less as free-standing
individuals than as functional parts of an overarching entity such as the nation
or the Volk’.54 Eco-organicism understands (p.17) society as a natural, given
community, based on an ecological model of nature. As a natural ecosystem,
society is identical with nature at the collective level. There is diversity and unity
in nature. Nature, culture, people, and practices are diverse and should be
preserved in their entirety. However, this diversity is part and parcel of an
existing, unified ecosystem that should be kept intact. The Indian approach to
nature and environment is understood as something divine, cosmic, and
intrinsic, conforming to the laws of nature. The conception of society, too, is
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Eco-casteism
therefore based on ‘natural principles’. Banwari, a well-known proponent of this

approach, writes:
We can see that our ancestors essentially followed natural principles.

Whether they were developing the science of architecture, or founding
villages, towns and cities, or developing farming, or weaving methods, or
developing techniques for making steel, or developing Ayurveda, the
science of medicine, or were formulating customs, rituals, and festivals,
they never allowed themselves to be far removed from nature, or the laws
of nature.55
He goes on to conclude that since our present-day philosophy, methods, and

techniques catering to our material progress do not reflect any such
commitment, we need to seriously mould our activities in accordance with the
‘laws of nature’. This entails a comprehensive and closed ecosystem, which has
to be applied and accepted in our day-to-day life in whatever we do, whether it is
the development of modes of production of goods, or the establishment of social
and political systems, or the growth of systems of knowledge.56 Under the broad
contours of eco-organicism, ‘nation’, ‘culture’, ‘Western influence’, ‘decline of
Indian thought, life style, health and well-being’, ‘pollution of mind, body,
society’, ‘materialism’, and ‘consumer culture’ are regular themes. Protection of
the environment is seen as synonymous with the protection of Indian culture,
tradition, and nation. Environmental crisis is rooted in such an understanding as
a crisis of Indian civilization and the loss of our national, cultural, or ancient
identity. According to Banwari:
In building modern civilisation, ecological balance was disturbed, societies

were plundered, cultures were destroyed, and a turmoil was created in
civilisational systems. Had we been more conscientious in building our
civilisation, and realised our limits, our achievements would have been
more significant and we would not have disturbed the ecological balance.57
(p.18)
Banwari further shows how changes in our lifestyle, thinking, and tradition are
leading us to the destruction of our natural environment and how our
relationship with nature is becoming weak, not only at the physical level but also
at the mental level. The main culprits, he articulates, are the knowledge and
influence of modern science, modern industrial civilization, and our enterprise to
achieve material progress. The prominent Indian environmental thinker and
author Anil Agarwal explained that numerous ecologically sound tenets of
Hinduism were ‘rapidly breaking down under the onslaught of Western-style
technological modernization and social concepts of secularism’.58 In his
understanding, the onslaught of modern-day secularism brought about the worst
type of individualism, and rather than seeing people within the context of a
lifestyle that had been developed over hundreds or thousands of years, the
Page 15 of 53
Eco-casteism
modern world sought to rush them into a money economy, driven not by need
but by greed. The crisis in Indian culture and tradition is identified here with
increasing prosperity and consumerism of people, who are getting selfish,
individualistic, money-minded, and competitive. Environmental pollution and
cultural destruction are seen as happening simultaneously, polluting the very
core of our thinking and existence. States Govind Chatak, a well-known
environmental writer and author:
The material culture has swallowed our civilization—it is totally devoid of

an inner expression, spiritual progress and creative ability of humankind….
In fact today we are flying in the air of Western luxurious life and its every
particle is filled with our selfishness, individualism, lust for money and cut
throat competition…. First and foremost here is the pollution of our mind
and heart. Heart and mind are the centre of our knowledge and action.
When our heart is dirtied, it pollutes our actions, ideas and emotions.
Human beings leave their humanness, they break their relationship with
nature and environment, and the ideals of our society are shaken.59
Another writer refers to the environment’s cultural components resonating with

pure and pristine values. He expresses that our piousness originates from a
particular cultural environment consisting of our family, rites, customs, faiths,
rituals, ceremonies, social systems, values, and ethics. Along with this, heredity
also plays a crucial role in the making of man and his environment. He
recommends that we initiate a ‘cultural evaluation of our environment’ and how
it can be rejuvenated (p.19) for a healthy natural environment.60 Accordingly, it
is argued that the Indian environment is rooted in its spirituality and faith, and a
true Indian is one who believes in the realization of the supreme without any lust
and desire. There is a realization now about the endless needs of humankind
that can never be fulfilled by modern development. We should thus try to
achieve the eternal and the infinite in spirituality, which has been the basis of
Indian tradition and civilization. In this logic, the most important threat to
environment is Western, material, physical, and commercial development, and
the most cherished goal is the restoration of Indian traditional, religious, non-
Western culture. Here, the decline in our values is traced in the West, in an
outsider, and in the construction of the ‘other’. A prominent environmental
activist and writer Shubhu Patwa argues in his book:
The conquest on nature is a Western paradigm. In the Indian perspective,

man is not the master, but the son of nature. Our relationship between man
and nature can be called ‘forest culture’. ‘Forest culture’ is our Indian
culture. However, we are seriously at fault today in our understanding of
nature.61
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Eco-casteism
In the same breath he asserts the underlying peace, harmony, unity, and
fellowship historically existing in our society. However, this social life is crushed
today, he states, under a development model based on machine and science. He
also refers to the Vedas, Up-veda, Vedang, and the overall Vedic literature,
including Vedic mathematics, as great reference points for the spiritual and
ecological revival of our country.
Eco-organicism believes that the ecosystem is unique, specific, natural, and

given. In continuation, it is often argued that our uniqueness is severely
hampered by the influx of alien and inferior people, cultures, and values. A core
message is that the pollution of our minds is not ours; it is constructed because
of ‘others’. There are many imports harmful to the Indian social and cultural
body. There are various pollutants dangerous to the purity of our nature and
ecosystem. The influence of ‘alien cultures and values’ can be elastic enough to
include groups, countries, people, plants, and species. This hostility comes out in
O.P. Dwivedi, a seasoned author on environmental policy:
Hindu ethical beliefs and religious values do influence people’s behaviour

toward others, including our relationship with all creatures and plant life.
If, for some reason, those noble values become displaced by (p.20) other
beliefs that are either thrust upon the society or transplanted from another
culture through invasion, then the faith of the masses in the earlier
cultural tradition is shaken.62
Thus, the destruction of our traditional beliefs, values, and cultures are the main
causes of the destruction of nature. The ‘others’ and their dirty influences are
the threat to the environment. The environmental ‘others’ should be addressed,
both environmentally and culturally.
Eco-naturalism
The tendency to naturalize social phenomena—to describe society in the
language of nature—has a long history. Its modern ecological variants can be
traced to the relatively new insight that all human actions have serious
environmental consequences. Environmentalists of every hue have argued that
the failure to recognize these consequences lies in the misguided view of
humans as being somehow above nature. Human beings must instead be viewed
as being in nature, as biological beings subject to the same kinds of processes as
other biological beings. The thesis that humans are a part of nature and that
environmental concerns must guide politics can be highly ambiguous. It can be
understood in a normative political sense in two ways: one, as a regulative ideal,
and two, as a comprehensive world view. The first interpretation suggests that
politics should take the findings of ecological science as a tool for bringing
ecological concerns to bear on the ideology and practice of politics without,
however, basing politics on any of the supposed teachings of ecology. The second
interpretation, by contrast, suggests that ecological science provides a new
Page 17 of 53
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
nojatuolissa, ja hänellä oli kirja polvillaan, mutta hän luki vähän.
Hänen silmänsä vaelsivat laiskasti Suuren joen leveää, sileätä

pintaa, ne seurasivat vasemmalla olevan Ngombin metsän tummia
ääriviivoja ja oikealla olevan Isisin alavaa maata. Siellä täällä näkyi
kylistä kohoavia savuja. Pienet kalastajainkanootit, jotka olivat
ankkuroidut sopiviin paikkoihin, papukaijojen käheät huudot, pienten
marakattien tirkistelevät naamat, joita hän näki laivan tullessa
rannemmaksi syvään veteen, kaikki nämä huvittivat häntä enemmän
kuin olivat tehneet — oh, pitkään, pitkään aikaan.
Kun hän sivuutti kylän, niin hän veti höyrypillin nuoraa, ja pikku
laiva huusi tervehdyksen rannalla viittoville olennoille.
Lasi kädessään, lukematon kirja polvillaan hän tuijotti

hajamielisesti ja huvittuneena maisemaa.
Ruorimies Bogindi, joka seisoi katoksen alla käsi ruorirattaassa,

mainitsi hänen nimensä.
— Herra, edessäpäin on kanootissa mies, joka haluaa puhua

kanssasi.
Sanders varjosti silmiään. Aivan laivan tiellä oli kanootti poikittain,

ja siinä seisoi mies, jonka ojennetut kädet puhuivat halusta tärkeään
palaveriin.
Vain suuret asiat, kapinat ja sellaiset, oikeuttavat kuninkaan laivan

seisauttamiseen.
Sanders nojautui tuolissaan eteenpäin ja käänsi merkinantajan

ensin osoittamaan: »Seis» ja sitten: »Hiljaa taaksepäin.»
Hän nousi ja katsoi miestä kiikarilla.
— Tämä on nuori mies, Abibu, sanoi hän, — ja luullakseni

isisiläisiä; varmastikaan hän ei ole päällikkö pysäyttääkseen minut.
»Zaire» laski hitaasti kanootin luo, ja siinä oleva tuli laivan viereen
käyttäen tarmokkaasti melaansa ja nousi laivaan.
— Kuka sinä olet, kysyi Abibu, — ja mikä suuri asia sinulla on

pysäyttääksesi herramme hänen loistavalla matkallaan?
— Olen Isisin Kobolo, Togobonobon kylästä, sanoi nuori mies, —

ja rakastan päällikön tytärtä.
— Lähettäköön Jumala sinut vesien pohjaan, kirosi äkäinen Abibu,

— että tuot saastaisen ruumiisi tälle laivalle ja häiritset herraamme
hänen korkeissa mietiskelyissään. Tule, kafferi, ja sillaikaa kun sinä
puhut Sandin kanssa, minä menen etsimään ruoskaa, jota hän
varmasti sinulle määrää.
Niin Kobolo tuli Sandersin eteen, ja Abibu esitteli hänet sanoin,

jotka eivät olleet mairittelevia.
— Tämä on outo palaver, sanoi Sanders melkein ystävällisesti, —

sillä ei ole tavallista, että nuoret miehet pysäyttävät kuninkaan
komissaarin laivan sen vuoksi, että rakastavat tyttöjä.
Nuori mies oli pitkä, suoraryhtinen ja leveäolkainen, eikä hän

näyttänyt ensinkään katuvan outoa tekoaan. Pikemminkin hän näytti
olevan hyvin vakavissaan.
— Herra, sanoi hän, — rakastan Niminiä, joka on päällikköni tytär,

Togobonobon kylän päällikön. Ja kun hän on kaunis tanssija, miehet
tulevat katsomaan häntä kaukaa, ja hänen isänsä vaatii hänestä
kaksituhatta matakoa, ja minä olen köyhä.
— »Isä on aina oikeassa», siteerasi Sanders, — sillä sanotaanhan

Joella: »Esine on hintansa arvoinen, ja se, mitä annat pois, ei ole
minkään arvoinen.»
— Tämä nainen rakastaa minua, sanoi nuorukainen, — ja hänen

vuoksensa olen säästänyt tuhat matakoa, joka, niin kuin sinun
ylhäisyytesi tietää, on suuri omaisuus.
— Mitä minä voin tehdä? kysyi Sanders hymyillen harvinaisuuden

vuoksi.
— Herra, sinä olet voimakas, sanoi kiihtynyt nuorukainen, — ja jos

sanot hänen isälleen…
Sanders pudisti päätään.
— Ei käy, sanoi hän.
Kevätilmassa oli jotakin, hänen veressään oli jotakin, joka pani

hänet toimimaan niin kuin teki, sillä hetken kuluttua hän kääntyi
Abibuun.
— Ota tämä mies, sanoi hän, — ja anna hänelle…
— Herra, minulla on ruoska valmiina, sanoi Abibu

ymmärtäväisenä. —
Sillä tiesin tämän hupsun loukkaavan sinua.
— Anna hänelle varastosta tuhat matakoa, jotta hän voi ostaa

toiveittensa naisen.
Abibu hämmästyi hieman ja meni hitaasti täyttämään isäntänsä
käskyä.
— Herra, sanoi Kobolo polvistuen komissaarin eteen, — olet kuin

isäni ja äitini, ja minä maksan sinulle hyvillä sanoilla ja ajatuksilla.
— Maksa matakoilla, sanoi käytännöllinen Sanders. — Mene, ota

tyttö ja
Jumala sinua auttakoon!
Mutta hän ei silti ollut kyynillisellä tuulella. Pikemminkin hänen

sävynsä oli lempeä, kauan kateissa olleen tunteen ailahtelua,
omituista sydämen lempeyttä, joka sopi puiden tuoreuteen ja hänen
ympärillään heräävään keväiseen elämään.
Hän seisoi katsellen alkuasukasta, kun tämä meloi rantaan laulaen

matalaäänistä laulua, jossa ei ollut muuta säveltä kuin siinä
vallitseva ilon sointu. Huvittuneena Sanders katseli. Tämä mies, joka
oli vain hiukan eläintä korkeammalla tasolla, kuunteli niitä elämän
kirjoittamattomia lakeja, joita Sanders sivistyneisyydessään uhmasi,
ja kiiruhti putkineen onnelliseen elämään, majaan ja vaimon luo,
kasvattamaan lapsistaan miehiä — kohtalonsa vaaroihin ja
vastuksiin, mutta korkeimman tarkoituksensa täyttämiseen.
Komissaari katseli, kunnes näki kanootin tapaavan rantaan,

miehen hyppäävän siitä ja kiinnittävän sen.
Sanders pudisti päätään ja käänsi merkinantajan osoittamaan

täyttä vauhtia.
Hän ei yrittänytkään lukea; hänen mielenkiintonsa oli muualla. Hän

nousi ja meni hyttiinsä. Hän veti verhon oven eteen, jottei kukaan
olisi päässyt todistamaan hänen hupsutteluaan; sitten hän otti
taskustaan avaimen, avasi seinään vuoteensa pääpuolelle tehdyn
varmuuslokeron ja otti esille pienen ruskean kirjan.
Sen hän laski pöydälle ja käänteli lehtiä.
Se oli Coxin rannikkoasiamiehen talletuskirja, jonka talletussumma

kohosi viisinumeroiseen määrään puntia, sillä Sanders oli ollut
huolellinen mies ja oli ostanut maata Lagosista silloin, kun puvun
hinnalla vielä sai hyvän tonttimaan.
Hän sulki kirjan, asetti sen paikalleen ja palasi kannelle.
Seuraavana päivänä hän saapui päämajaan.
Myöhään iltapäivällä »Zaire» hitaasti peräytyi pieneen satama-

altaaseen, jonka Sanders suurella vaivalla oli rakennuttanut. Se oli
pieni kuivatelakka, hänen ylpeytensä, sillä siinä oli betoniseinät ja
jykevä portti, jotka oli tehty silloin, kun »Zairea» korjattiin. Sanders ei
koskaan silmäillyt laitosta tuntematta sisäistä tyydytystä. Se oli
»lapsi», joka odotti hänen paluutaan, hänen mielensä ylpeys, kun
hän sen tullessaan tapasi. Ja satama-altaalta asuntoon vei asfalttitie
— sen hän oli rakennuttanut. Kummallakin puolen oli isisiläispalmuja
— ne olivat hänen istuttamiaan.
Asuntoaan hän katseli ilottomana.
Se oli pienellä kummulla, aaltopeltikatosta kivijalkaan asti

sievyyden ja järjestyksen perikuva.
— Jumala siunatkoon paikkaa! sanoi Sanders katkerasti.

Sen vanha viehätys oli kadonnut, ennen miellyttävä oli tullut
vaivaavaksi ja viheliäiseksi toimitukseksi. Ja talo oli yksinäinen ja
tarvitsi jotakin.
Se tarvitsi kättä, jota hänellä ei ollut.
Hän käveli kyllästyneenä läpi huoneiston, sytytti piipun, kopautti

sen jälkeen tyhjäksi ja meni hitaasti hausain asunnoille päin.
Valkopukuinen kapteeni Hamilton nojautui kuistinsa kaiteeseen.
— Kotona taas? sanoi hän keskustelun aluksi.
— En, sanoi Sanders kieltävästi, — olen Joen latvamailla kärpäsiä

pyytämässä.
Hamilton pani pois piippunsa.
— Olet lukenut jonkin amerikkalaisen lehden sunnuntailiitettä,

sanoi hän tyynesti, — mikä on joko luonteen voimattomuuden tai
heränneen huumorintarpeen merkki.
Hän kutsui palvelijaansa.
— Ali, sanoi hän juhlallisesti, — valmista herra Sandille kuppi

sellaista teetä, jota ihanat immet paratiisissa valmistavat kaliifille
suurena päivänä.
— Mitä roskaa sinä puhut, Hamilton! sanoi Sanders ärtyisenä

miehen mentyä. — Tiedäthän, ettei kaliifi juo muuta kuin joskus
turkkilaista kahvia.
— Kuka tietää? virkahti filosofinen Hamilton. — No, miten sinun

hyvä kansasi jaksaa?
— Mainiosti, sanoi Sanders istuutuen suureen tuoliin.
— Tavallisia murhia, konnuuksia ja tihutöitä, sanoi Hamilton

irvistäen. — Hyvä Bosambo istuu Ochorin metsissä kiilloittaen
sädekehäänsä ja laulaen huvittavia lauluja!
— Bosambo — oh, hän on nykyisin alakuloinen! sanoi Sanders

tuijottaen miehen tuomaa teetä. — Hän on paras päällikkö tällä
joella, Hamilton, ja jos minulla olisi valta, jos olisin Englannin hallitus,
niin tekisin hänet näiden seutujen päälliköksi.
— Silloin olisi sota kymmenessä minuutissa, naurahti kapteeni, —

mutta hän on hyvä mies. Alakuloinen, vai mitä sanoit?
— Tavattomasti — en ole koskaan nähnyt häntä niin huolissaan, ja

kunpa tietäisin edes, miksi!
Hamilton hymyili.
— Se osoittaa, että kurja sotilas parka, joka ei ole perehtynyt Joen

oloihin, voi olla viisaampi kuin joku patenttileimalla varustettu
komissaari, sanoi hän. — Bosambo on hyvin ylpeä kanovaimostaan.
— Tiedän sen, poikani, sanoi Sanders, — ja hyvä vaimo puoliksi

tekee miehen. Niin, mitä on mies ilman…
Hän näki toisen omituisesti nauravien silmien tähyilevän itseään,

ja päivetyksen alla hänen kasvonsa punehtuivat.
— Olet kovin innokas, Sandi Labolo, sanoi hän käyttäen

komissaarin alkuasukasnimeä, — et ajattele…
— Mitä Bosambon vaimosta? keskeytti Sanders äänekkäästi.

Hausa katseli häntä epäluuloisesti.
— Bosambon vaimosta, kertasi hän, — oh — hän menee

naisväen tietä!
Bosambo toivoo ja pelkää — miesten tavoin. Hänellä ei ole lasta.
— Ahaa — en tietänytkään. Kuka on kertonut?
— Mieheni, he laulavat siitä pikku laulua — minun täytyy esittää

sinut rykmentin runoilijalle.
Tämän jälkeen tuli hiljaisuus; kumpikin mies istui mietteissään.

Sitten
Hamilton kysyi:
— Tietysti kävit Kosumkusussa?
— Kävin — kyllä, Sanders näytti vastahakoiselta jatkamaan.
— Entä neiti Glandynne?
— Hän — oh, hän oli viehättävä.
Hamilton hymyili.
— Lähetin hänelle kimpun kirjeitä, jotka saapuivat viime postissa,

sanoi hän. — Luultavasti sivuutit kanootin paluumatkallasi?
Sanders nyökkäsi, minkä jälkeen syntyi toinen hiljaisuus
— Hän on melko sievä, eikö olekin? kysyi Hamilton.
— Hyvin, vastasi Sanders tarpeettoman innokkaasti.

— Todellakin sievä tyttö, jatkoi Hamilton hajamielisesti.
Sanders ei vastannut pitkään aikaan — sanoi sitten:
— Hän on viehättävä nainen, Liankin hyvä…
Hän pidättäytyi.
— Hyvä…? uteli Hamilton.
— Hyvä — hyvä tällaiseen elämään, sammalsi Sanders

lämpimänä ylt'yleensä.
Hän nousi äkkiä.
— Minun on kirjoitettava muutamia kirjeitä, virkahti hän ja lähti

nopeasti.
Ja Hamilton, joka katseli asuntoonsa kiirehtivää valkeata miestä,

pudisti päätään surullisesti.
Sanders ei kirjoittanut kirjeitä. Hän aloitti monta, repi ne ja pani

palaset taskuunsa. Hän istui ajatellen, kunnes palvelija tuli tuomaan
valoa huoneisiin. Hän tuskin maistoi päivällistä, ja lopun iltaa hän
vietti kuistilla tuijottaen pimeyteen, mietiskellen toivon ja
hämmennyksen vaiheilla. Läheisessä kylässä olivat vihkiäismenot
käynnissä, ja sieltä kuuluva rummun ääni soveltui hänen
ajatuksiinsa.
Ei seuraavakaan päivä vienyt häntä lähemmäksi ratkaisua, eikä

seuraava eikä sitäkään seuraava.
Tyttö oli liian hyvä hänelle — hän ei voisi pyytää tyttöä elämään
kanssaan maassa, jossa kukaan ei tietänyt, mitä päivä toi mukanaan
— maassa, joka oli täynnä tropiikin tauteja ja ihmissyöjiä, joiden
suhde häneen saattoi muuttua minä päivänä tahansa. Sitä ei olisi
sovelias kysyä — ja kuitenkin oli tyttö sanonut rakastavansa maata;
hän rupesi jo ymmärtämään kansaa. Ja kesän kuumina kuukausina
hän voisi matkustaa kotiin; Sanders ottaisi lomaa siksi ajaksi.
Miehen tulisi olla naimisissa; ja hänelle karttui vuosia — lähes

neljäkymmentä.
Hän pelästyi.
Ehkä hän oli liian vanha? Se oli kauhea olettamus. Hän havaitsi,
ettei tietänyt omaa ikäänsä, ja etsiskeli kaksi päivää ahkerasti
henkilötodistuksiaan saadakseen tarkan tiedon. Ja niin meni kolme
viikkoa, ennen kuin hän kirjoitti lopullisen kirjeensä.
Koko sinä aikana hän näki vain vilaukselta hausain kapteenia. Hän
ajatteli jo kerran kertoa hänelle suunnitelmansa, mutta luopui
ajatuksestaan viime hetkessä.
Hän tuli eräänä iltana Hamiltonin asuntoon.
— Huomenna lähden Yläjoelle, sanoi hän väkinäisesti.
— Lähden niin pian postilaivan tulon jälkeen kuin mahdollista —

odotan kirjettä kuvernööriltä.
Hamilton nyökkäsi.
— Mutta mistä tämä luottamuksen osoitus? kysyi hän.
— Sinä et usein kerro suunnitelmistasi.

— No niin, alkoi Sanders, — aioin kertoa jotakin muuta, mutta
jääköön se tällä kertaa.
Hän vietti lopun iltaa pelaamalla pikettiä ja hävisi huomattavasti.
Hän oli jalkeilla päivän koitteessa valvomassa »Zairen»

matkavalmistelua, ja kun kaikki oli valmista, hän odotti
kärsimättömästi postilaivan tuloa. Kun siitä näkyi vain heikko
savujuova taivaanrannalla, hän meni rannalle, vaikka tiesi, että sen
tuloon vielä kuluisi ainakin tunti.
Hän seisoi hietikolla kädet hermostuneesti tyhjää hypistellen selän

takana, kun Abibu juoksi hänen luokseen.
— Herra, sanoi käskyläinen, — jumalanainen tulee.
Sandersin sydän sykähti, ja sitten hän tunsi kylmevänsä.
— Jumalanainen? kysyi hän. — Mikä, kuka jumalanainen?
— Herra, se, jonka jätimme viime kuussa Kosumkusuun.
Sanders juoksi rannalta suoraan hausaparakkien ohi joenrantaan.

Kun hän tuli telakkansa portille, hän näki tytön kanootin kääntyvän
joen mutkasta.
Hän meni tervehtimään tyttöä ja auttoi hänet maihin. Hän oli

Sandersin mielestä maailman rakastettavin ilmestys. Lumivalkea
päästä jalkoihin; vakavat harmaat silmät hymyillen hatun leveän
laidan alta.
— Tuon teille tyydyttäviä uutisia, sanoi tyttö, — mutta sanokaa

ensin, onko postilaiva mennyt.
Sanders sai puhekykynsä.
— Jos se olisi mennyt, sanoi hän, — niin minä en olisi täällä.
Sitten hänen kurkkunsa tuli kuivaksi, sillä tässä olisi tilaisuus, jos
vain rohkeus ei pettäisi; mutta rohkeutta hänellä ei ollut.
Hänen aivonsa olivat sekaisin. Hän ei pystynyt muodostamaan

kahta järkevää ajatusta. Hän sanoi jotakin jokapäiväistä ja häntä
itseään tympäisevää.
— Tulkaa aamiaiselle, saattoi hän vihdoin sanoa, — ja kertokaa —

sanoitte minun tulevan tyytyväiseksi eräästä uutisesta.
Tyttö hymyili, eikä Sanders ollut nähnyt hänen milloinkaan

hymyilevän sillä lailla — vallatonta, onnellista, inhimillistä hymyä.
Niin, sen hän näki ensi kerran: inhimillisen naisen edessään.
— Menen kotiin, sanoi tyttö.
Sanders oli menossa asuntoonsa, ja tyttö käveli hänen rinnallaan.

Sanders pysähtyi.
— Kotiin? sanoi hän.
— Menen kotiin.
Hänen silmissään oli läikähdyksiä ja väriä, jota Sanders ei ollut

ennen nähnyt.
— Ettekö ole iloinen? Olen ollut sellainen hoidettava teille — ja

pelkään olleeni pettymys lähetyssaarnaajana.
Se ei näyttänyt tyttöä kuitenkaan surettavan, sillä hän oli
onnellinen.
— Kotiin? kertasi Sanders hölmistyneenä.
Tyttö nyökkäsi.
— Uskon teille salaisuuden, sanoi hän, — sillä olette ollut niin

hyvä ystävä, että teidän pitää saada tietää — aion mennä naimisiin.
— Naimisiin? toisti Sanders.
Hänen sormensa hypisteiivät kirjettä, jonka hän oli kirjoittanut ja

joka oli hänen taskussaan. Hän oli aikonut lähettää sen kanootilla
lähetysasemalle ja saapua itse päivää jälkeenpäin.
— Aiotte mennä naimisiin, sanoi hän jälleen.
— Niin, sanoi tyttö, — olin… olin hyvin hupakko, hra Sanders.

Minun ei olisi pitänyt tulla tänne — riitelin — tiedättehän, että
sellaista sattuu.
— Tiedän, sanoi Sanders.
Tyttö ei voinut odottaa aamiaista. Postihöyry tuli satamaan ja

lähetti purtensa rantaan. Sanders valvoi hänen matkatavarainsa
lastaamista, otti postin toiselta perämieheltä ja tuli sitten sanomaan
hyvästejä tytölle.
— Ette ole toivottanut minulle — onnea, sanoi tyttö.
Hänen silmiensä sisimmässä näkyi rauhaton omatunto, sillä hän

oli nainen ja oli ollut Sandersin seurassa lähes tunnin, ja naiset
näkevät asian tunnissa.
— Toivotan teille parhainta onnea, sanoi Sanders sydämmellisesti
ja puristi tytön kättä niin, että tämä vavahti.
Tyttö oli astumassa purteen, kun kääntyi Sandersiin.
— Olen usein ihmetellyt…, aloitti hän, mutta vaikeni.
— Niin?
— Se on tunkeilevaista, sanoi tyttö nopeasti, — mutta olen joskus

ihmetellyt ja ihmettelen nyt sitä enemmän, kun oma onneni antaa
siihen enemmän aihetta — miksi ette ole mennyt naimisiin?
Sanders hymyili omaa vaisua hymyään.
— Kerran melkein kosin, sanoi hän. — Hyvästi ja hyvää onnea.
Hän läksi samana aamuna Yläjoelle, vaikka hänen käyntinsä aihe

olikin mennyt laivalla, joka vei tyttöä onneaan kohti, läntisen
taivaanrannan taa.
Päivän toisensa jälkeen »Zaire» höyrysi pohjoista kohti, ja sen

päällikön sydämessä oli kivistävä tyhjyys, joka ei helpottanut
päivässä eikä tunnissa.
Eräänä päivänä he tulivat kylään ja aikoivat sivuuttaa sen, mutta

hänen vieressään seisova Abibu sanoi:
— Herra, tämä on Togobonobo, ja täällä on mies, jolle sinun

ylhäisyytesi antoi tuhat matakoa.
Sanders näytti hampaitaan.

— Katsotaanpa tätä onnellista miestä, sanoi hän arabiaksi, — sillä
Profeetta on sanonut: »Ystäväni ilo puhdistaa sydämeni surusta.»
Kun »Zaire» tuli rantaan, olisi Sanders lähettänyt hakemaan

nuorta aviomiestä, mutta tämä mies oli jo odottamassa häntä,
onneton olento, joka tuli komentosillalle kasvot surullisina.
— Huomaan, sanoi Sanders, — että tytön isä vaati enemmän kuin

voit maksaa.
— Herra, sanoi nuorukainen, — toivon, että hän olisi vaatinut, sillä,

herra, olen surullinen mies.
— Onko nainen kuollut?
— Herra, sanoi nuori mies, — jos paholainen olisi vienyt hänet,

niin olisin onnellinen: sillä tämä nainen, vaikka hän on vielä tyttö, on
lujatahtoinen ja tekee mitä haluaa eikä ota minua lainkaan
huomioon. Ja kun puhun hänelle, niin hänellä on kirpeä kieli, ja
herra, tänä aamuna hän antoi minulle raakaa kalaa ja haukkui minua
rumilla nimillä, kun oikaisin häntä. Ja, herra, sanoi nuorukainen
järkyttyneellä äänellä, — padallakin hän heitti minua koko kylän
nähden.
— Se on paha palaver, sanoi Sanders, — mutta sinun pitää antaa

hänelle myötä, Tobolo, sillä hän on sinun vaimosi, enkä voi sallia…
— Herra, sanoi nuori mies tarttuen hänen käteensä, — olen

velallisesi, ja velkani on tuhat matakoa — jos herramme nyt erottaa
meidät, niin maksan mielelläni.
— Mene rauhassa, sanoi Sanders, ja kun nuorukainen näytti

vastahakoiselta lähtemään, niin Abibu heitti hänet veteen.
Tapaus antoi Sandersille miettimisen aihetta — ja muutakin oli.
Kaksi päivää jokea kuljettuaan hän tuli Ochoriin ja tapasi

Bosambon kansan surullisena.
Päällikkö odotti herransa tuloa majansa pimeydessä, ja Sanders

meni katsomaan häntä.
— Bosambo, sanoi hän vakavasti, — tämä kuulostaa pahalta.
— Herra, valitti päällikkö, — toivoisin, että olisin kuollut — kuollut

kuin esikoiseni, joka makaa vaimoni majassa.
Hän vääntelehti tuskissaan sinne tänne, sillä Bosambolla oli

lapsen sydän, ja hänen pieni poikansa, joka oli elänyt vain
muutaman päivän, oli koko hänen elämänilonsa keskipiste.
— Jumala olkoon kanssasi, Bosambo veljeni, sanoi Sanders hiljaa

ja laski kätensä mustan miehen kumartuneille hartioille, — nämä
asiat ovat määrätyt aikojen alusta.
— Niin on kirjoitettu, sanoi Bosambo nyyhkytystensä lomassa ja

tarttui herransa käteen.
*****
Sanders kääntyi myötävirtaan, ja sinä iltana, kun hän laittautui

makuulle, päällikön suru oli tuoreena hänen mielessään.
Ennen vuoteeseen menoaan hän otti taskustaan kirjeen, repi sen

sataan palaan ja heitti ne hytin ovesta jokeen.
Sitten hän meni vuoteeseensa ja sammutti valot.

Hän ajatteli Isisin nuorta miestä, ja hän ajatteli Bosamboa.
— Jumalan kiitos, etten ole naimisissa, sanoi hän ja nukahti.

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