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B. R. Ambedkar, the scholar, activist, and chief architect of the Indian constitution, in his early twentieth century works, referred to the untouchable quarters in India as ghettos. He recognized that untouchability was manifested through combining social separation with spatial segregation. Ambedkar’s theorization of untouchability can be applied along with feminist and Dalit scholars’ theories of the relationship between dynamic spatial experiences and the reworking of caste hierarchies to understand how securing control over productive assets, such as land, has altered social and spatial segregation in rural Bihar. Combined with narratives of the past and present, maps drawn by Bhuiyan Dalit women depicting the physical spaces they occupy in their village (i.e. housing, community center), the locations of sources of water and electricity, and the quality of the resources to which they have access demonstrate that gaining control over land following the Bodhgaya Land Movement (BGLM) of the late 1970s helped end the most overt and readily discernible forms of caste-based discrimination. Nevertheless, resource discrimination and spatial and social segregation continue, albeit more covertly. The logic of untouchability still undergirds social interactions in rural Bihar, preventing Dalits from fully realizing their rights as guaranteed by law.

The caste system has implications for the environmental experiences of Dalits (formerly “untouchables”). Dalits are disproportionately impacted by natural disasters and climate change because of their high dependence on natural resources and manual labor, including agriculture. Dalit viewpoints and ecological expertise nevertheless remain missing from the environmental literature and mainstream activism. Aligning with Black ecologies as a challenge to eco-racism, I use the term “Dalit ecologies” to conceptualize Dalit articulations with their environment and experiences of eco-casteism involving inequities such as their exclusions from natural resources and high vulnerability to pollution and waste. My analysis of scholarly literature finds that nature is caste-ized through the ideology of Hindu Brahminism that animates mainstream environmental activism in India. Dalit subjectivities and agency nevertheless remain evident in their literary and oral narratives and ongoing struggles for access to land, water, and other environmental resources.

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