[27] ECOLOGY OF CASTE AND THIRST: HEGEMONY, IDENTITY, AND DALIT RESISTANCE IN MAHASWETA DEVI’S WATER

How to Cite the Article: Mahendra Singh Ahirwar (2026). Ecology of Caste and Thirst: Hegemony, Identity, and Dalit Resistance in Mahasweta Devi’s Water. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research & Reviews, 5(5),333-341. https://doi.org/10.56815/ijmrr.v5i5.2026.333-341

Abstract

This research paper examines the ways in which Water (Jal) is an effective critique of entrenched caste hierarchies and resource monopolisation in rural India in the play written by Mahasweta Devi. In this paper, water access is theorised as a weapon through the political ecology lens, that is, as an “ecology of thirst”, and used as a main tool for upper-caste structural violence and hegemony. The study unpacks the ecological deprivation of the marginalised Dome community and of the central protagonist, Maghai, and how socio political disenfranchisement is inextricably linked with ecological deprivation. Moreover, the paper explores the nature of Dalit identity and subaltern resistance in the text, and how the local fight for a basic natural resource emerges not just as a struggle for survival but as a radical claim to human dignity and political agency. In conclusion, this research would suggest that Devi's work is anticipating the contemporary ecocritical discourse because environmental justice is basically impossible unless the whole system of caste oppression is removed.