Centre de Sciences Humaines- Delhi MATHIEU COUTTENIER†

Caste rules prohibit the sharing of water between castes as a contact made by an untouchable with water ritually taints the source. Despite untouchability practices being outlawed by the Constitution of India, they are still vigorous and violently enforced. This is what is investigated in this article. The aim is to evidence a relationship between the number of acts of violence against untouchables and the way water is distributed. Our results show that, the more individual the source, the less scope there is for potential ritual pollution and hence, the lower the number of violent acts against untouchables. This is the first analysis, to the best of our knowledge, that quantifies and evidences the enforcement of untouchability rules with regard to water distribution. This paper underlines that water improvement programs have the nice side effect of alleviating caste based violence on top of improving sanitation