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Volume 92 – No. 3

CASTE AND NATURE: Dalits and Indian Environmental Politics | By Mukul Sharma

New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017. xxxvi, 295 pp. US$53.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-19-947756-2.


The book under review is an important contribution to the existing literature on environmental studies. It attempts a fresh perspective by interrogating the interface between caste and ecology. It undertakes a detailed study of how caste-based Brahaminical Hindu discourse was central to the way environmental discourse became structured in India. It also closely examines the response of Dalits to the dominant narrative and foregrounds an alternative vision from the viewpoint of Dalits who have remained at the margins of both ecological discourses and practices in India. It argues that Dalits have a distinct experience of ecological practices “which impacts the body, self, presence, and position of the oppressed” (xv). The book makes a case for a new environmentalism free from burdens of caste.

Caste-based structuring of the environmental discourse and practices is identified at three distinct but inter-related levels. The author identifies these as eco-casteism, eco-organicism, and eco-naturalism. According to the author, “eco-casteism, an ecological determinant of caste, provides a rationalization and justification of caste system through nature” (16). Dominant castes justify their superior caste as well as cultural and economic position through such framing. “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 and society,’ ‘materialism,’ and ‘consumer culture’ are regular themes (17). Such “contaminated” practices disrupt “laws of nature” resulting in environmental crisis, and thereby are linked to the crisis of Indian civilization and the “loss of our national, cultural, or ancient identity” (17). Eco-naturalism refers to the phenomenon of naturalizing social phenomenon. Under such a perspective the social order must be derived from the natural order, and humans must submit because nature is based on natural principles of justice and order. Eco-naturalism extends its arguments to identify its eco-enemy that includes immigrants, migrants, minorities, and Dalits. Through these three discursive strategies the author explores the link between environmental practices and current Hindu nationalist politics. For instance, Hindu nationalists link the alleged exponential growth in the Muslim population as an unfair depletion of natural resources leading to ecological imbalances. Such narratives find their space in social policies, such as the Swatch Bharat Abhiyan that strives for a “clean India,” which has a “hidden transcript” of cleaning India of Muslims. Similarly, within the social sector and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Sulabh International’s social services, which the book looks at in detail, there is a constant reference to neo-Hinduism that aims to achieve pan-Hindu unity. It strips the problems of scavengers from the broader socio-historical exploitation based on practices of untouchability linked to purity-pollution, filth, and degradation of dignity. This was reflected recently in a series of physical attacks on Dalits and serious attempts to de-mobilize them from having Prime Minster Narendra Modi publicly wash the feet of scavengers as a form of compensation.

In its following chapters, the book explores alternative visions of environmentalism based on “Dalit environmental visions” that strive to disengage ecology and nature from caste and exploitation. In order to understand Dalit ecology, the author explores “poems, songs, and stories composed by Dalits, anti-caste intellectuals’ ecological expressions, and a collective Dalit milieu of gods, goddesses, animals, and food that reveal meaningful attachments to nature and outdoors” (62). Though Sharma cautions that we need not take essentialized positions on nature in such practices, and is critical of Dalit-Bahujan scholars such as Kancha Ilaiah and his work, the author himself approaches the Dalit visions in a more celebratory mode rather than through a critical lens. It is not clear how his approach is different from those Dalit perspectives that he distances himself from in the introduction. Here the author also takes a close look at the writings of Jtothirao Phule, E.V. Ramaswamy Periyar, and Ambedkar.

The author makes a valid critique that much environmental discourse is ascribed to Gandhi, ignoring the contributions of Ambedkar. He is critical of leading environmental scholars such as Madhav Gadgil, Ramachandra Guha, Vandana Shiva, and Ashis Kothari among others, who have contributed to a romantic vision of community-based ecological perspectives. It takes cudgels with postcolonial scholars such as Ranajit Guha, Partha Chatterjee and others for foregrounding the idea of community without unpacking the power dynamics internal to it. Unlike them, Ambedkar, “offered a critical perspective on community, its condition, and meaning in a caste society, and what it should look like for untouchables in a democratic society” (126). Instead of community, Ambedkar suggested we approach the collectives as a “collection of castes.” For instance, Ambedkar foregrounded issues of access to water and land. “The Mahad satyagraha and the burning of Manusmriti are emblematic of Dalits and Ambedkar’s struggles with water” (135). By contrast, the current Hindu nationalism signifies rivers such as Narmada and Ganga along with Hindu symbolism, and their sacredness is linked to the brahminical ideas of purity-pollution. The current political regime in India has adopted programs such Namame Gange that promise to clean the river Ganga in order to reestablish the ancient pride of Hindu civilization. According to the author, as an alternative to community-based approaches, Ambedkar offers a “modernist development” that “incarnates and transcends machine and modernity, combining the aspirations and promises of development with moral and spiritual charisma” (138). This helps us to reformulate a fresh “egalitarian environmental philosophy.”

The book concludes on a familiar note of resolving the current ecological crisis by moving towards a commons, a space that is “open, inclusive and accessible to all” (214). Sharma’s book makes an important contribution by moving away from notions of ecology as beyond the reach of the social, and re-locates it within structures of power and the struggles that resist it.


Ajay Gudavarthy

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India                                               


Last Revised: November 28, 2019
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