Tracing Hydrofeminism and Hydromentality in select Bengali Dalit Women’s Short Stories

The politics of water is never neutral; it flows through layered structures of power, shaping and reflecting embodied experiences of inequality, exclusion, and resistance. This essay explores the complex intersections of caste, gender, and environment through the lens of selected Bengali Dalit women's short stories. It aims to examine how water and waterscapes are not merely natural elements but function as charged socio-political terrains in the lived experiences of marginalized women. The primary texts under study include Ranu Biswas’ short story “Dhopadanga Beel” (1994), translated by Smita Basu; Kalyani Thakur Charal’s “How Many Scores Make a Thousand?” (2000), translated by Smita Basu; and three short stories by Manju Bala-“The Household Special” (2000), translated by Sanghita Sanyal; “Conflict” (2005), translated by Laboni Chatterjee; and “Discrimination” (2005), translated collaboratively by Rittika Dasgupta, Shailee Bhattacharya, Arunima Aditya, and Suchorita Chattopadhyay. These stories foreground the embodied experiences of Dalit women in relation to water bodies, revealing how access, control, and symbolism of water are shaped by caste and gender hierarchies. In Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology(2017), Astrida Neimanis resists the romanticized view of water as a universal, healing force and challenges the notion that ‘we are all the same water.’ Instead, she emphasizes that living ecologically demands a deeper engagement with difference—an engagement marked by caste, gender, cultural specificities, and ecological conditions. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of hydromentality and hydrofeminism, this essay aligns with Neimanis’ call for critical attention to difference, and seeks to analyse how these narratives articulate forms of resistance, exclusion, and survival. By situating these literary representations within their socio-historical contexts, the essay aims to center the textual paradigm while engaging with the theoretical implications of waterscapes in Dalit feminist discourse.