International Journal of Rural Management

http://irm.sagepub.com Explanations in Resource Inequality: Exploring Scheduled Caste Position in Water Access Structure
Rakesh Tiwary International Journal of Rural Management 2006; 2; 85 DOI: 10.1177/097300520500200105 The online version of this article can be found at: http://irm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/1/85

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Scheduled Caste Position in Water Access Structure

International Journal of Rural Management, 2(1), 2006 Sage Publications l New Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London DOI: 10.1177/097300520500200105

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EXPLANATIONS IN RESOURCE INEQUALITY: EXPLORING SCHEDULED CASTE POSITION IN WATER ACCESS STRUCTURE
Rakesh Tiwary
Caste represents a unique form of inequality. Scholars successfully explained ritual inequality involved in caste, however, views on resource inequality were few and limited in their approach. While resource inequality was of partial interest to sociologists, economists views were inadequate to explain its persistence and rigidity in the Indian social context. One reason may be the prolonged emphasis on landownership and control structures. Inadequate efforts have been made by different streams to identify and explain inequalities in access to other critical resources. The article aims to find inadequacies in traditional explanations and argue for alternative explanations of resource inequities. In this effort, the author proposes to systematically explore water resource access structure, to particularly highlight the cumulative inequality that scheduled caste groups face in rural India. The article is based on secondary data on select indicators regarding water access for agriculture and domestic use of water. The arguments can be carried forward by identifying other direct and indirect indicators as well as gathering evidence from primary studies over interfaces of caste groups as social categories and water as a natural resource, with an aim to study inequalities in access and their implications.

INTRODUCTION
Social inequality is a pan human phenomenon, but it differs in the degrees of rigidity and legitimacy. One of the salient features of inequality is revealed in the caste based rural agrarian society of India which accords differential privileges and deprivation to social groups. Caste has been the basic institution around which the agrarian social framework has been erected. It differs significantly from both tribal and industrial societies. Tribal societies are on the whole undifDownloaded from http://irm.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA October 17, 2009 ferentiated and inequalities in industrial societies doonnot have the same rigidity

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or persistence as visible in caste based agrarian societies (Bteille 1974). Thus, caste as a system of inequality is more a situation of hierarchy rather than an institution of stratification. The uniqueness of the caste system lies not only in its convergence of status, economic and political elements, creating a strong ideological basis for the recognition of social inequality as natural order, but also in its persistence.

Domains of inequality
To elaborate upon hierarchy, we discuss two major domains of caste around which inequality has been weaved: values and material or economic resources. The domain of values deals with the application of morals/values (often religious)/ standards in placing particular castes as high or low. It creates a hierarchical system of the pan Indian varna order with regional jati variants under it. Various explanations have been offered for this domain of inequality(a) origin of divine, creation of varna theory mentioned in ancient Indological texts like Rig Veda; (b) Bougle and later Dumont argued for the theory of binary opposition between pure and impure, where the sacred needs to be separated from profane occupations; (c) Marriott stressed the interactional theory of caste ranking based on ritualized interactions (giving and receiving food and services). These theories based on ritual aspects of caste emphasize attributes of purity and pollution. They broadly identify two categories at extremes and accord privileges and disabilities, respectively. Dalits or untouchables or scheduled castes are put at the bottombearing disabilities like low status, contact pollution, untouchability, etc. Though the emphasis is on the religious domain, they draw up a picture where material and political factors are encompassed by moral values. However, this is far from the truth. Explaining the religious domain has been relatively easy. However, capturing the resource dimension of caste has been more atomistic, may be because of the multidisciplinary nature (social, economic and political) of the enquiry itself. It has been argued that sociologists and anthropologists of South Asia have been preoccupied with the subject of ritual hierarchy in Hindu social system. Though they propose ritual and economic linkages between caste hierarchy, they have not gone beyond characterization. For F.G. Bailey Caste is a system of ranks which is related to differential control of resources (1957: 26667). Each person in the caste system performs economic, political and ritual roles and except for certain anomalies, there is a high degree of coincidence between ritual rank and economic rank. The anomalies are mainly apparent at the uppermost and lowermost ranks of the ritual system. In the case of the caste groups between these two extremes the ritual rank tends to follow their economic rank in the village community (ibid.). Beidelman argued that the Jajaman-kamin relationship, far from being a cultural rule of mutual interdependence, represents an unequal and exploitative Downloaded system. He asserted that the superiority of is derived from http://irm.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 17,Jajamans 2009

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from control over land and numerical superiority (1959). M.N. Srinivas stipulated ownership of land as one of criteria to identify the dominant caste at the regional level. Kathleen Gough puts up a strong argument to move beyond the religious domain to explain the caste hierarchy (1959). Explaining the caste system in central Kerala, she comments that whether in the past or the present, ritual ranking of castes cannot be understood without reference to the economic and political systems in which they were/are embedded. In the erstwhile kingdoms of central Kerala, lower castes were bound to economically and politically superior castes in relationships of servitude. So there was enough awareness about role of material resources in shaping inequality in Indias rural agrarian social structure.

STUDYING RESOURCE INEQUALITY: PURPOSE

We can afford to make a slight detour to discuss the rationale of understanding economic or resource inequalitythere can be two reasons for studying economic inequality. First, there are ethical and philosophical reasons to disapprove of inequality. Universalists will argue that all human beings should be treated equally when it comes to access to lifetime economic resources, since economic disparity is the ultimate disparity which enables certain individuals/social groups to make certain choices while denying the same very choices to others (to emphasize Amartya Sens proposition). Economic inequality explains major components of disparity among groups, if not all. However, this philosophical approach holds the threat of geting dissolved into endless semantic debates. Even if we ignore the intrinsic aspect of inequality, we need to worry about it because of the dysfunctions (to borrow Mertons term) it inflicts upon social group(s) and society as a whole. First, inequality in resources and income somehow reduces the possibility of overall growth. There is an inbuilt tendency of inefficiency in inequality, as it does not permit people at the lower end of the resource access to fully exploit their capabilities. Second, inequality has a tendency of replicating itself as have-nots are excluded from some high income generating exercises. Third, inequality does not have the inherent tendency to rectify itself in the long run. Thus, in history dependent situations, inequality will perpetuate itself unless government policy (redistribution, positive discrimination, etc.,) intervenes on a sustained basis. For exactly these reasons, the situations in India, wherein historic economic inequality still draws reinforcements from ritual, status and power inequality, aggregate productivity theory (rise in aggregate productivity will automatically take care of inequality) should not be overemphasized. There is a need for sustained efforts in the direction of productivity equity trade off, basically to reconcile the claims of advocates of efficiency on the grounds of economic growth and those of needs on grounds of distributional equity. Downloaded from http://irm.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 17, 2009

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ATTEMPTS

TO

EXPLAIN ECONOMIC INEQUALITY

Thinkers and scholars from various streams attempted to explain the economic bases of the caste system. Marx emphasized the differential ownership of property as the fundamental basis of inequality in human society (Bteille 1972: 4). Marx focused more on the distributive aspect of the institution of caste as he traced the primacy of caste based inequality in the unequal distribution of and access to land resources. The resource access structure of the society is considered to be the foundation for all the institutions. In the Marxian framework, the economic structure of the society is the real basis upon which the legal, political, social and religious superstructure is erected. Major proportion of the population in rural India is dependent on land for its livelihood and where land is scarce, the Marxian logic of inequality argues that landowners are privileged not only because land is a valued commodity but also because it can be used as an instrument for controlling the landless. Two scholars, D.N. Dhanagre and A.R. Desai, explained rural inequality in India in the Marxian tradition and linked regional variations in the agrarian structure with land control structures (Sharma 1995: 103). Early government reports that were available in the post-Independence period provided raw material to sociologists to attempt explanations of inequality.1 Sulekh Chandra Gupta (1978) writes... The first and foremost basis of differentiation among the peasants is ownership of land. Last few years various reports have thrown huge amount of data in pattern of land ownership.2 All these surveys reveal a high degree of differentiation among households in respect of landownership in India (quoted in Desai 1978: 239). Andr Bteille, the most renowned sociologist in India to study inequality, also emphasized landownership as the basis of inequality. According to him there are large disparities of wealth and property in Indian society, and these are of great importance in the agrarian system where landownership and landless are the two poles between which inequalities are structured (1974). Daniel Thorner3 tried to explain economic inequality in terms of the capacities of landowning groups to hire labour. A limited number of other economic studies have attempted a theoretical construct of the Indian caste system in the mainstream neoclassical theoretical framework, like Akerlof (1976), Romer (1984) and Scoville (1991). All of them assume that under the prevailing form of caste system occupations (or economic activities) are hereditary, compulsory and endogenous. These distinguishing features of the caste system cause immobility of labour across caste. In this situation, since the marginal product of a worker depends on the assigned job, the result is an income distribution skewed along the caste line (Thorat and Deshpande 2001). Critics argue that beyond this recognition, their approaches do not enter into a deeper analysis of the institutions governing resource access and thus
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they ignore the analysis of the caste system in terms of equity. Economists intermittently recognized the need to analyse the problem of resource inequality which is a salient feature of the caste system. They tried to explain the phenomenon in terms of intergroup differences in assets. However, much remains to be explained about the rigidity of the caste system, economic logic of its persistence and the vicious trap. May be they left this job for the sociologists. But they remained largely preoccupied with the issues of ritual hierarchy, status and power relations, modernization, village studies, continuity and change, etc. It seems that the sociologists overemphasized the ritual aspects and largely ignored the economic logic while the economists underestimated the unique, history dependent social context of India.

The limited view on land

The discussion so far gives an impression that the analyses of resource inequalities in the caste system, first, have not been adequate and comprehensive and, second, most of them have relied upon describing the relations centering around one natural resource, that is, land. Even while describing land relations the studies have centred on the ownership and control of land. Though the most commonly used way of stratifying the agrarian population is that followed in the surveys of forming classes around size of landholdings, the method usually ends up being a dry statistical exercise and thus fails in quenching our thirst for internal details of social categories and terms of interaction among social groups. Different data sources reveal that landownership (area) and land operated (area) under small size category, shows no significant change over the decades. The shares of the areas owned by various segments of holdings in rural India (national average) show that the share of the bottom 40 per cent was 1.15 per cent in 197172 (NSS Report 197172) and 0.87 per cent in 199192 (ibid. 199192). The data for the bottom 50 per cent stands at 3.86 and 3.33 per cent, respectively. The share of area operated in the bottom 40 per cent category of landholdings has been 6 per cent (197172) and 4 per cent (199192). If we consider data for the bottom 50 per cent, then the data for the two time periods is about 11 per cent and 9 per cent respectively. It is unlikely that such landownership data will explain the persistence of social inequality. Landownership, as the dominant mode of explanation for rural inequality was carried too far, so much so, that other modes of resource access/inaccess were ignored. Large amount of data that is available now needs to be looked into to identify, analyse and explain other economic or material resource inequalities. They can help in enhancing our knowledge in understanding persistent rural inequality and undertaking policy initiatives.
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One major lacunae of the landownership based explanations is that the policy recommendations stop at putting onus on widespread landlessness and need for redistribution. After the initial enthusiasm that was shown in few quarters of the country, the land redistribution hullabaloo has subsided in the last few decades. It has lost political mileage in the post-reform period. Another side effect was that under the larger issues of landlessness and land redistribution, the needs of very small land owners got largely ignored. There is need to extend the arguments of explaining the inequalities in rural India from ownership of land to land use. There is a significant amount of rural population at the bottom which owns land. We need to know and analyse what these social categories do with the land they own, as it has wide implications for income, livelihood and most importantly, capacities to break the poverty trap of the bulk that constitute the bottom. Exactly here lies the importance of analysing inequality in terms of access to another critical resource, that is, water.

Water: Critical yet neglected resource of analysing inequality

No discussion of economic inequality in contemporary rural India can ignore the issue of access to timely, assured and adequate water. Water is a critical resource for adoption of modern agriculturewhich in turn determines the pattern of disparities in rural India. Access to water decides (a) Who will grow multiple crops? (b) Who will be compelled for current or seasonal fallowing? (c) Who will grow cash crops or who will grow less water demanding, coarse, subsistence crops? (d ) Who will grow market oriented crops? (e) Who will lease in land and who will lease out?4 Availability of water is critical in climatic conditions such as in India, where rainfall is concentrated in a few months of the summer season, that too with uncertainties like late arrival, early withdrawal, spells of drought, etc. In such situations, the availability of water may have the effect of a catalyst (or its absence the effect of a retardant), in harnessing the benefits of the landowned. The major constraint which handicaps the small farmer in adopting modern agriculture is the lack of water, for, the optimum utilization of new inputs depends on the availability of adequate irrigation. Thus, even though SCs own little amount of land, it becomes ineffective in the absence of timely and adequate amount of water. In this article, the author makes an attempt to estimate and capture caste based inequity in access to water. As discussed earlier, most of the resource access studies till now have calculated distribution of land among social groups. Access to water has largely been ignored. Different variables or indicators have been selected depending upon their critical nature as well as availability of data. Besides discussing water access in terms of irrigation, the argument has also
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been extended to inequality in access to water for domestic use which has a direct bearing upon health and sanitation status. Various indicators will be examined with a view to understanding caste as economic inequality. These indices of inequality converge and reinforce one another creating a situation of cumulative or overriding inequality. This proposition can further be extended by identifying and explaining other large numbers of relevant direct or indirect indicators. Till very recently, the Indian Census Reports (Population and Agricultural Census) and National Sample Survey Reports gave information regarding three social groups, namely, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and All. The group All included SCs, STs and General. Data per se did not reveal the inequality fully, since the data on disadvantaged groups used to pull down the All value. To study inequality, we need to create a category of Non SCs-STs (Non SCsSTs=All-[SCs+STs]). Basically, studies of inequality in rural agrarian frameworks will be interested in differences in SCs and non SCs-STs structure.

Water access structure: Interface with land

Agriculture is the prime resource of livelihood and income in rural India. Any study that intends to reveal the pattern of access of an agrarian society and its different groups to water resources, cannot miss looking into the land distribution system. We will have a broad overview of the landownership pattern but with a different aim: to get an idea of criticality of dependence on better land utilization and access to water and to understand the pattern of irrigation demands in two different social groups, etc. Scheduled caste population constitutes about 17.91 per cent (1992), its share in land is 10.34 per cent (1992); the non SCs-STs form 72.08 per cent of the total rural population, but their share in land is 77.94 per cent (Table 1). In states like Punjab and Haryana (with high percentage of land under irrigation), the figure reaches beyond 94 per cent.
Table 1 Percentage Share of Scheduled Castes and Non SCs-STs in Total Rural Population and Land (1992) Category Scheduled Castes Non SCs-STs Population [%] 17.91 72.08 Land[%] 10.34 77.94

In states like West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan, the SCs share in rural land is higher than the national average(10.34 per cent). On the other hand, in states like Bihar, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka and Kerala, SCs relative share in rural land is considerably low (Table 2). Similarly, if we see the incidence of landlessness among SC households, the national average is
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little more than 13 per cent (Table 3). The incidence of landlessness among SCs has increased. This can be explained by the growth of population as well as land alienation (with underlying causes). The growth of the incidence of landlessness among Non SCs-STs is lower than that for SCs-STs. States like Bihar, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh have much higher incidence of landlessness than the national average, while in states like Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the incidence of landlessness is lower than the national average. In states like Gujarat, Bihar, Karnataka, Rajasthan and West Bengal, the incidence of landlessness among SC households has declined from the 1981 figures.
Table 2 Percentage Share of SCs in Total Rural Population and Land: Major States (1992) States Population Land Low Concentration Assam Gujarat Jammu & Kashmir Maharashtra Medium Concentration Andhra Pradesh Bihar Haryana Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Orissa Rajasthan Tamil Nadu Uttar Pradesh 07.21 07.03 11.51 Percentage Share of Non SC-ST Tribes in Total Rural Population and Land (1992) States Population Land 56.28 58.77 63.28 53.78

Low Concentration 07.38 Madhya Pradesh 05.30 Orissa 16.49 08.45 Medium Concentration Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Karnataka Maharashtra Punjab Rajasthan Tamil Nadu Uttar Pradesh West Bengal

18.04 15.25 21.80 18.24 11.01 14.87 16.78 18.03 23.02 23.18

08.62 05.01 05.93 09.82 02.94 12.94 10.10 12.14 12.98 11.81

73.97 78.78 76.54 72.00 78.20 69.14 76.58 75.21 67.85 66.54 75.60 76.58 65.12 87.54 72.08

81.48 76.89 77.61 84.50 94.07 83.17 82.33 80.18 94.94 78.50 85.87 86.83 67.48 82.50 96.12 77.94

High Concentration Himachal Pradesh Punjab West Bengal All India

26.30 32.15 27.56 17.91

High Concentration 14.76 Jammu & Kashmir 05.06 Kerala 23.84 10.34 All India

Source: NSS Report Nos 330 and 339.

The distribution of holdings and area owned between two groups in rural India reveals that majority of the SC landholdings fall marginal category Downloaded from http://irm.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA oninto Octoberthe 17, 2009

Scheduled Caste Position in Water Access Structure

Table 3 Incidence of Landlessness among Households, 19821992: Major States States Low Concentration Assam Gujarat Jammu & Kashmir Maharashtra Medium Concentration Andhra Pradesh Bihar Haryana Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Orissa Rajasthan Tamil Nadu Uttar Pradesh Scheduled Caste 1982 1991 05.02 23.86 00.67 26.39 13.58 35.58 10.07 14.52 16.56 18.11 07.22 12.91 14.50 07.18 05.52 18.09 04.00 24.31 12.49 19.73 08.95 10.69 14.53 20.53 11.19 07.76 19.21 06.15 Low Concentration Madhya Pradesh Orissa

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Non SCs-STs 1982 1991 13.59 12.57 06.80 16.41

Medium Concentration Andhra Pradesh Assam Bihar Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Karnataka Maharashtra Punjab Rajasthan Tamil Nadu Uttar Pradesh West Bengal High Concentration Jammu & Kashmir Kerala All India

11.00 07.34 02.46 13.13 04.95 08.73 12.72 19.45 06.61 06.59 20.82 04.01 11.73

13.08 15.40 06.05 17.52 01.81 11.65 10.45 06.16 05.07 06.20 17.61 04.41 09.80

High Concentration Himachal Pradesh Punjab West Bengal All India

06.06 06.01 19.13 12.62

07.09 06.70 12.02 13.34

07.31 02.36 12.04 07.67 10.18

Source: NSS Report Nos 330 and 399.

(less than 1 ha) (Table 4). This category constitutes 72.92 per cent of the SC landownership. Of the total area owned by SCs, about 30 per cent falls under this category. Only about 2 per cent SC households fall under the large category. Among the non SCs-STs, 43 per cent of these with total area owned fall in the large category. For SCs, this category only accounts for 27 per cent. The land distribution pattern among SCs reveals that there is a significant amount of ownership of land in rural India, though there is vast inequality as compared to the non SCs-STs. The SCs dependence on land, however small in holding and area, is absolute. Second, there is a different nature of challenge of water access among SCs as they largely fall into marginal, sub-marginal and medium categories and superimposed widespread poverty. Assured, timely and adequate amount of irrigation is critical for them to fully utilize the land resource and raise income. Let us now discuss the state of inequality in access to irrigation in the two social groups. Downloaded from http://irm.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 17, 2009

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Table 4 Distribution of Ownership Holdings and Area Owned among Scheduled Castes and Non Scheduled Castes and Tribes

Social Marginal Small Medium Large Groups Year Landless (Up to 1 Ha) (01.012.00 Ha) (02.014.00 Ha) (Above 04.00 Ha) Hs Ar. Hs Ar. Hs Ar. Hs Ar. SCs 1982 12.62 72.40 26.69 1992 13.34 72.92 30.16 08.40 07.85 16.09 14.51 22.71 22.18 15.62 17.50 04.52 24.17 03.85 20.42 12.05 22.59 10.66 24.66 02.06 02.04 09.48 06.66 26.83 27.24 50.91 42.93

Non SCsSTs 1982 10.18 52.20 10.88 1992 10.54 57.63 14.91

Source: NSS Report Nos 330 and 339. Note: HsHoldings, Ar.Area.

Dalits poor access to irrigation water

The Agriculture Census 1991 gives huge amount of information on the status of irrigation availability in rural India. It divides land holdings and area according to the availability of irrigation across size categories and size classes of social groups SCs, STs and All, into: (a) wholly irrigated area; (b) wholly unirrigated area; (c) land receiving partial irrigation and (d ) land receiving any kind of irrigation. To compare social inequality we create the category of non SCs-STs. Here, we discuss the category wholly irrigated land which reveals widespread inequality in access to water for agricultural purposes. If we compare wholly irrigated land area with respect to total land area between the two social groups, we find that non SC-ST percentage is higher in all size classes (Figure 1). The national average (for all size classes) is about 20 per cent for non SC-ST and about 6 per cent for SCs. The stark inequality appears in size classes of 0.0200.5, 00.51.0, 01.002.0, 02.003.0 and 03.004.0 ha categories. In the 00.200.5 ha category the difference is very large, that is, 34 per cent for non SCs-STs and about 5 per cent for SCs. We need to recall that large number of SC households (72 per cent of the holdings and about 26 per cent area) fall in the category of landownership of size below 1 ha. If, on an average, only about 5 to 7 per cent of land falls in the wholly irrigated land under below 1 ha category, where majority of SC landowners are concentrated, it shows their vast dependence on rainfall but also reveals disabilities with regard to modern agriculture. In modern agriculture, assured, adequate and timely irrigation is the most critical input on which other inputs of the package depend. It also gives an idea of what kind of crops the vast number of SC households would think about raising.
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Figure 1 Wholly Irrigated Land to Total Land Area (1991)

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Similar analysis can be carried out across size categories between two social groups. Here also, the national average (across all size categories) is higher for non SCs-STs (about 20 per cent) as compared to SCs (16 per cent). Major inequality lies in the semi-medium, medium and large categories. Among large landholders (4 ha and above) the gap widens to 10 per cent (non SCs-STs) and 3 per cent (SCs). This gives an impression that large landownership does not automatically assure access to irrigation. It can be related to access to irrigation assets, land quality, location of land etc. If we choose to analyse another category, that is, percentage of land totally unirrigated between the two social groups, it further reveals a high level of inequality. About 50 per cent of land under all size categories of SCs falls under the totally unirrigated category. At the national average level, this figure is about 36 per cent for non SCs-STs. Larger inequality is found in size categories of 00.0200.5 ha, 00.501.0 ha and 03.004.0 ha. Similar analysis for different size categories between the two groups gives similar results (Figure 2). The national average for SCs is about 49 per cent while for non SCs-STs, it is about 40 per cent. There is a very stark difference in medium, semi-medium and large farmers of the two social groups. If any social group has about 50 per cent of its land area in the wholly unirrigated category, it will seriously affect its land use options. If land under cultivable wasteland is excluded, the percentage under wholly unirrigated area out of the net sown area will increase further. This suggests
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Figure 2 Wholly Irrigated Land to Total Land Area (1991)

that there is a high dependence on rainfed farming. This dependence compels SC households to grow less water demanding crops even in the kharif season. There are also high chances of rabi fallowing or raising low water demanding crops. In this manner, vast number of SC households with land fail to generate high incomes from the land they own. This has serious implications for improvement in livelihoods and breaking the poverty trap.

Access to irrigation wells

Access to a self-owned well is a major indicator of assured availability of irrigation. The farmer can make a choice of the crops to be raised and it can enhance land use options as well as income levels. Minor Irrigation Report (1994) provides statewise data for wells owned by different social groups. The data on wells entails dug wells, shallow tubewells and deep tubewells. Different states have different relative importance of the well types discussed, based on their agroclimatic conditions. If we consider data about the number of holdings owned by the different social groups in these states, as provided by the Agriculture Census 1991, we get a picture of the relative access of percentage of holdings among SCs and non SCs-STs to wells of their own. (The calculated data is presented here in different tables). The national average for percentage of holdings with access to dug wells is almost same for SCs and non SCs-STs3 and 5 per cent, respectively (Figure 3). We need to remember that about 52 per cent of holdings of non SCs-STs falls under the marginal category while the figure for SCs is 72 per cent. Inequality emerges in sub-humid, arid and semi-arid states.
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There is not much difference in the relative access to dug wells in Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa. However, inequality can easily be identified in states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. The inequality peaks in Himachal Pradesh.
Figure 3 Holdings with Access to Own Dug Wells (1994)

Further, if we analyse the pattern of distribution of shallow wells, an almost similar picture emerges (Figure 4). The degree of access of holdings of SCs and
Figure 4 Holding with Access to Own Shallow Tubewells (1994)

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non SCs-STs to own deep tubewells shows an even higher disparity among the major states of India (Table 5). The deep tubewells access structure is surely a reflection of the needs of middle and large landholders as well as investment capacities of cultivators of these two social groups.
Table 5 Holding with Access to Own Deep Tubewells No. of holdings (per 1,000) Non SCsStates STs SCs Andhra Pradesh 7,468 1,183 Assam 2,076 121 Bihar 10,316 1,625 Haryana 1,484 46 Himachal Pradesh 612 187 Kerala 4,830 522 Madhya Pradesh 5,268 1,056 Orissa 2,358 541 Punjab 1,063 54 Rajasthan 3,573 750 Uttar Pradesh 16,731 3,289 West Bengal 4,452 1,461 India 78,830 13,422 Own Deep Tubewell Non SCsSTs SCs 1,908 266 0 0 99 34 3,953 66 15 0 20 4 4,367 395 12 0 1,217 25 6,305 545 296 18 1 0 18,412 1,358 Own Deep Tubewell per 1,000 Holdings (%) Non SCsSTs SCs 25.54901 22.48521 0 0 00.959674 02.092308 266.3747 143.4783 02.45098 0 00.414079 00.766284 82.89674 37.40530 00.508906 0 114.4873 46.29630 176.4624 72.66667 01.769171 00.547279 00.022462 0 23.35659 10.11772

If we calculate the distribution of all kinds of wells, the inequality situation clearly comes to the fore. About 11 per cent of the holdings have access to own wells among non SCs-STs, while the figure for the SC group is about 6 per cent at the national level (Figure 5).
Figure 5 Holdings with Access to Own Wells (All Types) (1994)

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For all states, the relative access shows an unequal picture, though with varying intensity. Relatively wet states like Bihar, Orissa, Assam, Kerala and West Bengal indicate less inequality. States like Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, show higher levels of inequality. This data shows that inequality in access to assured irrigation is higher in water scarce states. In these states poor access to irrigation seriously affects the land use and crop choices of SC landowners and there is a higher dependence on rented irrigation (if they can afford it).

Current fallowing among SCs

One method of identifying access of SCs to irrigation water can be analyzing patterns of land utilization across social groups. Majority of landowners among the Dalits fall into the category of marginal farmers and thus, there is a very high dependence over the land possessed. One can assume that only under severe compulsions would dalit households practice fallowing. There are two categories of fallowing based on the length of the period for which the land remains unused: (a) Current fallowland unused for less than a year and (b) Long-term fallow Land unused for one to five years. Figure 6 shows that in almost all major states, the percentage of land under current fallow of total cultivated area is higher for SCs than for non SCs-STs. The difference is higher not only in semi-arid states like Gujarat but also in wet humid regions like West Bengal. The reasons for keeping land under long term fallow may be one or more of the following: degraded land, unremunerative nature of farming, very poor soil fertility, constrains such as salinity, alkalinity, water logging, etc. However, the major reasons for keeping land under current fallow can belong spell of poor rainfall and inadequate supply of irrigation. The inadequate supply of irrigation can be due to
Figure 6 Current Fallowing (CF) among SCs & Non SCs-STs (1991)

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poverty (lack of ownership of own source or lack of capacity to buy water, the parcel may not connected to water source, etc.). More detailed analysis can be carried out if we can reveal patterns of seasonal fallowing, particularly in the Rabi season.

Intensity of cropping
Comparing the intensity of cropping between SCs and non SCs-STs can be another method of analysing the pattern of irrigation access. In monsoonal countries like India, double or multiple cropping will primarily depend upon access to irrigation (own or rented). The Agriculture Census Data (1991) reveals that there is considerable difference in the cropping intensity between the two groups, particularly in small, medium and large categories of farmers (Figure 7). The cropping intensity among marginal farmers is almost the same for the two categories. To go to the next level of analysis, we also need to look at the types of crops grown by the two groups, that is, which group grows water demanding crops or less water demanding crops. It can tell us whether SCs raise coarse grain crops in the Rabi or summer season (if any) and languish in the trap of subsistence agriculture.
Figure 7 Intensity of Cropping among SCs & Non SCs-STs (1991)

On the basis of the basic proposition of the article, various other indicators can be identified and analysed to assess differential access of water to SC and Non SCs-STs groups in rural India. These indicators could bearea on which cash crops are grown, differential allocation of land for crops like sugarcane to SCs Downloaded from http://irm.sagepub.com and non SCs-STs in a given state, etc. by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 17, 2009

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Access to water for domestic use

The phenomenon of resource inequality can also be examined in case of access to water for domestic purposes. Although domestic water use doesnt have a direct economic role, it is critical for heath and well being. In rural India, access to water for such uses also shows differential patterns across different social groups where poverty, physical separation of hamlets, poor access to government welfare programme, discrimination in access to public water bodies and structures play a critical role. At many places socio-cultural rules play much greater roles than the natural availability of water. Access to water is one of the most basic and essential services but still out of reach of many in India. Households access to water from taps, hand pumps, tubewells and wells continue to depend on natural resources like lakes, tanks, etc. Many continue to walk kilometres, wait for municipal tankers, and even those who have access to water within their homes, receive inadequate, infrequent and poor quality water. It is commonly accepted that 40 litres per capita per day (lpcd)roughly equivalent to three buckets of wateris the very minimum that is required to maintain basic minimum requirements for consumption and hygiene. However, households typically require much more water and it is generally accepted that 150 lpcd would also cover other household requirements such as flushing, etc. Currently, the Government of India guidelines aim to provide at least a minimum of 40 lpcd to all rural households and from 70150 lpcd to urban households and that water should be available when needed. However, most households do not receive water 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Instead, water supply for a few hours is very common across rural India. Inadequate quantity, lack of timeliness and poor quality affect the poor more. The economically better off have the option of storing water if the water is infrequent or untimely; if it is inadequate it can be managed/bought, if it is of poor quality it can be filtered and so on. The poor, however, cannot afford such additional costs. Generally, the poor and socially underprivileged, that is, the SCs tend to have lower access to quality water supply.

Rural drinking water: Exclusiveness of source

Rural households access water from multiple water sources. These include sources such as taps, hand pumps, tubewells and natural resources such as lakes, tanks, etc. Unlike urban areas, where coverage of piped water is widespread, about one-fourth of all rural households have access to piped or tapped water supply. Hand pumps are the most prevalent source of water in the rural areas. Caste identities strongly affect daily interactions in India, as they have significant impact on how the socially marginalized access basic services. Access to these services tends to be lower for the poor and the underprivileged sections such as Dalits. Downloaded from http://irm.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 17, 2009

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NSSO 58th Round provides data on the relative access to water for different social groups. It reveals that 75 per cent of SC households in rural areas depend on community sources, while this figure is about 54 per cent for non SCs-STs (Table 6). Such households rarely have the facility of exclusive use and have to depend upon community sources, that too multiple in nature. If there is dependence on common sources, not only is there a greater likelihood of poor service with respect to the adequacy and quality of water received, they are also subjected to greater vulnerabilities towards discrimination (such as, separate queues, extra waiting time, others filling the buckets, etc.) and different forms of practice of untouchability.
Table 6 Access to Water: Percentage Distribution of Rural Households Caste Dalits (SCs) OBCs Others (Forward Class) Missing All Exclusive Use Community Use 18 27 36 26 25 75 64 54 57 66 Common use of Household Buildings 7 10 10 17 9 Total 100 100 100 100 100

Source: NSSO, 58th Round, 2002.

Distance to water source

Distance from the water source is one of the most important characteristics of access to water as well as quality of water supply. Water needs to be available as and when required and those who have to travel few 100 m are likely to get less of it; which in turn influences consumption patterns and hygiene practices. Various arms of the government consider that at least 40 lpcd of water should be available at less than 1.6 km of every household. This roughly translates into maximum 30 minutes of walking time, carrying three buckets one way (Bajpai 2005). Of course, most households have to travel much less. But even households that have access to water sources within a distance of 500 m have to spend time collecting it, which many can ill afford. Collecting water (a household activity usually conducted by women in India) requires them to walk to the source, wait in the queue, collect the water and then carry it back. If the household has five members, this would require them to transport 200 l or 200 kg of water every day. This affects their other household activities. Moreover, the poorest women are also likely to be working as wage labourers. (Among Dalits, womens participation is higher than other categories [see Table 7].) The type of drinking water source is treated within the premise if the source used is located within the house or its premises.
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Only 13 per cent of SC households have sources of drinking water within their dwelling units. For non SCs-STs, this figure is double than that for SCs. This shows stark inequalities in access to drinking water. About 61 per cent of SC households need to travel up to 200 m to collect drinking water. Around 9 per cent of rural SC households need to travel up to 200500 m, while only 1 per cent of non SC-ST households have to face this hardship to collect drinking water. Generally, the poorer and the less privileged sections like Dalits are less likely to have sole access and hence are more likely to travel greater distances for their basic drinking water needs. When public services are unable to cover the whole population, the economically and socially better off have a larger probability of managing through their economic capacities and networks. They are more likely to circumvent the lack of public services, but not underprivileged groups like SCs.
Table 7 Percentage Distribution of Rural Households by Social Groups and Distance from Source of Drinking Water Distance in Metres Greater Within Outside Dwelling Less than than Social Group Dwelling but (within premises) 200 200500 5001000 1000 Total STs SCs OBC Others (Forward Castes) All 06.1 13.9 18.5 25.3 18.0 14.5 15.1 20.6 22.5 19.2 56.5 60.4 50.4 41.7 50.9 19.1 08.7 07.6 01.6 09.0 03.2 01.5 01.6 01.7 01.8 00.5 00.3 00.8 00.8 00.7 100 100 100 100 100

Source: NSSO 58th Round.

Data shows that SC groups face deprivation over water access for domestic consumption also. The direct or indirect indicators of water access for different social groups that have been discussed so far are based on secondary data sources collected from different government reports. There are large number of primary studies on regional levels which explore differential water access structures. Information can also be gathered from these sources to explain water access structure, inequalities involved and their implications.5

CONCLUSION
The foregoing discussion shows that SC groups are still experiencing a situation where there is cumulative inequality in access to water resources in rural India.
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There remain vast gaps in water access structures (for agriculture as well domestic use of water) among social groups, particularly at the two ends of the social hierarchy. The major aim is to highlight limitations of traditional methods based on landownership and control structures to explain resource inequalities in the caste based society of rural India. We need to identify new approaches of analysis which can reveal multiple layers and forms of inequality embedded in rural life. Studying water access structure of rural society can provide us an alternative framework to discuss inequality. In certain areas, it can reinforce land resource inequality while in other contexts, it can be the most important basis of inequality. This approach can be carried forward by identifying more indicators which directly or indirectly reveal inequality in water access structures. Besides, General Census, Agriculture Census, Irrigation Reports, Employment Reports, NSSO Reports, Primary Surveys and Regional Qualitative Studies can be used to support the argument. The water access structure analysis can be very useful for policy recommendations regarding land use diversification, improving land use efficiency at the lower ends of rural society, better targeting of water related welfare programmes, identifying cultural barriers to development, increased participation in access to common property resources, etc. These measures can improve livelihood choices and well being, particularly of underprivileged groups like SCs, which in turn can enable them in overcoming the trap of persistent inequality. Rakesh Tiwary is at the International Water Management Institute, Anand, Gujarat, India.

Notes
1. Inequality of cultivators can be seen in terms of differences in landownership of various sizes and categories across different regions. Agriculture Labour Enquiry Report on Rural Occupation and Manpower Structure. 1954: 2433. 2. He was referring to (a) NSS Reports 1954, 1955, (b) Agriculture Labour Inquiry Vol. 1954, (c) First Report of Landholdings, Rural Sector, Vol. 1954. 3. Daniel Thorner, in his seminal writing The Agrarian Prospect in India (1977), identified three categories: Malik, Majdur and Kisan, according to their ability to hire labour. 4. Although Andr Bteille emphasized landownership as the primary basis of rural inequality, inherent contradiction appears in his own writings (which reveals limitations of the criterion). In various parts of the country, landless tenants may actually be in an economically superior position than small owner cultivators. While describing tenancy practices of Tanjore district, he gives examples from eastern parts of Tanjore where a Vellala Kuttahaidar (kuttahai is a form of tenancy where the tenant pays a particular amount earlier fixed upon as rent), who leases in about few acres of irrigated Downloaded from http://irm.sagepub.com by RAVI BABU BUNGA on October 17, 2009

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land, may be economically far superior to a marginal landowner who performs agricultural labour for his livelihood (1974: 14851). 5. One example is David Mosses study of the tank system in Tamil Nadu. David Mosse, who studied a village in the drought-prone Ramnad district of southern Tamil Nadu in the early 1980s, gives a vivid account of the institution of Kudimaramat (tank repairs by villagers). Kudimaramat is a well established village institution in pre-colonial south India. It may not have been egalitarian, as it reflected severe inequities and disabilities that Dalits had for centuries been subjected to. Mosse describes how the Dalits are confronting inequity with respect to the upper caste Mudaliars on a number of counts like membership of the Water Users Association Executive, water distribution benefits and labour obligations. Confrontations have appeared about their role as mere labour service providers. The Dalits are demanding a greater water share wages and equal participation in the water institution. In these instances, they speak not only as landless labourers or marginal farmers at the tail-end of the irrigation distributary, but also as members of the Dalit community (Mosse 2003).

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