Caste divides make scorching summers harder in a parched corner of India

Notably, a couple of months ago, just after sunrise, 40-year-old Mamta began the first of as plenty of as 10 journeys she would produce that day.

Key points

• The group remarked police registered 113 cases under India's law against caste-based atrocities in the area in 2025.
• Such disputes have surfaced repeatedly in complaints documented by the Dalit Dignity and Justice Centre (DDJC), a non-profit organisation in Uttar Pradesh.
• "Conflict over water is not new, " remarked Mitashi Singh of the Centre for Science and Environment.
• Bundelkhand, a semi-arid region that spans a number of districts in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, is notoriously drought-prone.
• Ram Gopal Singh, who is in his 50s, pointed to a number of abandoned village wells.

Carrying three empty plastic buckets, she walked a few hundred metres to the nearest handpump in her village in Jalaun district, in the drought-prone Bundelkhand region of northern India. Temperatures in parts of the region were soaring above 40C.

Meanwhile, the taps installed under a administration drinking water scheme had been dry for two years, she stated, leaving most of the village's 1, 000 residents dependent on a handful of handpumps.

Mamta remarked collecting enough water for her 11-member family and their livestock took hours. But the heat was not her only obstacle.

Mamta belongs to the Valmiki community, part of the Dalits – groups once regarded as "untouchable" under India's centuries-old caste hierarchy and which continue to face widespread discrimination.

She remarked she waited until members of the village's dominant castes finished using the handpump before approaching it.

"If they are standing there, we cannot fill water. We have to wait until they leave, " she remarked.

Afterwards, she remarked, some upper-caste residents poured water over the pump to "cleanse" it. "It has been happening for decades."

Bundelkhand, a semi-arid region that spans a number of districts in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, is notoriously drought-prone. It faced a number of major droughts between 2002 and 2016, making it almost a symbol for water scarcity in a country where a number of regions face similar hardships.

Meanwhile, the rocky terrain of the Bundelkhand plateau means it can store little groundwater. Erratic rainfall and hotter temperatures have additionally produced access to water unpredictable despite a number of administration and community-led conservation efforts.

In practice, a study of more than a century of weather records discovered temperatures had risen throughout almost the entire region, and in recent summers, parts of Bundelkhand have neared 48C.

Residents and researchers say worsening heat and water stress are putting new pressure on an old divide.

As more families compete for scarce shared water, Dalits who have long faced barriers in accessing it are encountering those inequalities more often.

"What is changing is the role hotter summers are playing in making water scarcer and intensifying tensions that already existed."

Local authorities reject claims that the region faces water shortages or caste discrimination at public water sources.

Although they acknowledged growing pressure on water supplies, dominant-caste residents interviewed by the BBC additionally denied discriminating against others.

"These wells have been dry for almost 20 years, " he remarked. While unreliable tap connections had pushed more families towards handpumps, other sources had dried up or become polluted.

Everyone tried to collect water in the cooler morning hours, he remarked, leading to arguments over turns and how much each family could take. "But there is no caste-based dispute at these handpumps, " he insisted. Dalit residents interviewed by the BBC described something different.

There is no formal queue at the pumps, they remarked. Instead, families try to collect water at different times to avoid confrontations.

Mamta remarked she usually went highly early in the morning or late in the afternoon. "The fear of being targeted stays with me throughout, " she remarked. Regarding 50km away in Shahjahanpur, Shiv described a similar experience.

He remarked members of his community would not approach the handpump while dominant-caste families were using it.

"No matter how hot it is, even if we have to wait for hours for one bucket of drinking water, we wait because we do not have a choice, " he remarked.

When his family needed more water, those waiting periods became more frequent, in summer.

"Even if my parents are thirsty, we sometimes wait for hours before we can drink."

Three years ago, Shiv's mother Parmi Devi remarked she was assaulted after an argument with a member of a dominant caste at a village handpump.

"I was thrashed and beaten up and thrown on the ground three times, " she alleged.

"It was not just regarding water. It was since of our caste."

Devi filed a police complaint alleging assault. No arrests have been created yet.

Notably, the group remarked police registered 113 cases under India's law against caste-based atrocities in the area in 2025.

Though the organisation has not published a detailed breakdown, kuldeep Singh Baudh of DDJC informed BBC Hindi a majority of the complaints it tracked during the hottest months of May and June involved water.

"To truly understand impact, you have to see it from the perspective of the communities that are the most excluded, " he remarked. The office of District Magistrate Rajesh Kumar Pandey rejected the allegations.

"There is not even one instance wherein caste-based discrimination is being practised when it comes to access to water in the region, " it remarked in an official note.

In practice, the statement additionally disputed claims of water shortages, pointing to the federal government's Jal Jeevan Mission. It seeks to provide piped drinking water to every rural household, and other local efforts to restore ponds and recharge groundwater.

There have additionally been wider efforts to tackle Bundelkhand's water crisis. While women-led groups known as Jal Sahelis work in villages to monitor supplies and promote water conservation, traditional water bodies, including ponds and check dams, have been revived throughout the region.

Mukul Sharma, a researcher on caste and environmental politics, remarked increasing water supplies was only part of the solution.

Climate change is "not the origin of these injustices, but a threat multiplier", he continued.

More water alone will not solve the difficulty if caste still shapes who gets to apply it, Sharma noted.

For now, caste divides make scorching summers harder in a parched corner of India remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.