TY  - JOUR
A1  - Shinde, Mrinalini
T1  - Troubled waters : reviewing legal pluralism at the interface of caste and the access to water in India
T2  - Frankfurt Law Review : Rechtswissenschaftliche Zeitschrift von Studierenden der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
N2  - This essay argues that access to water, and the right to water in India is subject to legal pluralism in India: the plurality of state law and the normative order of the caste system in India. While the Constitution of India prohibits discrimination against or exploitation of the Scheduled Castes, society is also subject to a parallel set of social rules set forth by caste hierarchies. The Dalit community has been historically subject to exploitation and limited access to resources, with the use of religious and social sanction, this essay focuses particularly on the right to water, which is an essential part of the constitutional right to the environment is subject to plural legal systems, of state law and caste-based normative orders. Ethnographic social science research, particularly in anthropology and sociology has produced extensive findings on how the caste system limits access to natural resources and particularly water, owing to ideas of purity and impurity associated with water use, and the status of water as a common public good. This essay explores how lawyers must consider legal pluralities when understanding access and management of natural resources. The essay analyses John Griffiths’ idea of legal pluralism which describes a scenario in which not all law is administered by the State or its institutions, and there exists de facto law, beyond the boundaries of the State. This paper expands Griffiths’ model of pluralism to explain how the right to water is subject to both caste order and state law and how the lived reality of Dalits when accessing water is subject to a constant pluralism.
KW  - legal pluralism
KW  - India
KW  - caste system
KW  - Constitution of India
KW  - Dalit community
KW  - exploitation
KW  - right to water
KW  - constitutional right to environment
KW  - environmental rights
KW  - natural resources
Y1  - 2023
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/72197
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-721975
SN  - 2940-7109
VL  - 1
IS  - 1
SP  - 1
EP  - 9
PB  - Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M.
CY  - Frankfurt am Main
ER  -