Gangubai Chavan must plead for a share of drinking water. “Sarkar! Watchman sahib! Please give us water to drink. I am a resident here, sir.”
But merely pleading is not enough. She has to assure them, “I won’t touch your vessels.”
Gangubai (name changed) depends on water from private taps, tea stalls, and marriage halls. She implores watchmen of buildings like the hotel opposite her ‘home’ on the footpath in Gokulnagar area of Nanded city. And she does this every day, every time she needs water.
Finding water is a daily task, and her search is compounded by the stigma she faces everyday as a member of the Phanse Pardhi tribe, once notified as ‘criminal tribes’. A colonial era nomenclature, it was repealed by the Indian government in 1952. Yet, 70 years later, people like Gangubai fight for basic rights; she has to convince others that she is not a thief and only then can she get a drum full of water.
“It is only when we say, ‘we have never touched any of the things you have kept here’, that they give us some water,” says Gangubai. Once permitted, she collects as much water as possible in small containers, plastic drums and water bottles. If one hotel refuses, she tries at the next one, brushing aside the rude owners; she often has to ask at four-five places before someone relents and she gets water to drink, cook and run her home.















