Beyond the Pipe: Hydro politics, Gendered Scarcity, and Water Justice in South Asia Edited by Debapriya Ganguly and Rajni Singh Indian Institute of Technology, Dhanbad The hydro-political landscape of South Asia is arguably a defining site for examining the nexus of resource scarcity, human security, and regional conflict. While concerns over resource depletion are globally prevalent, this book aims to critique the fundamental premise of scarcity itself, asserting that in contexts like the Indo-Gangetic basin, it is rarely a natural condition. Instead, it is a socially and politically generated phenomenon—a “scare of scarcity”—instrumentalized by powerful groups to consolidate control and justify spatial domination. The region's severe water deficits, projected for nations like India and China by 2030, often serve as the pretext for enacting exclusionary, top-down policies that disproportionately impact vulnerable populations, particularly women. The prevailing academic and policy approach to transboundary water has historically been dominated by a state-centric, technically focused, and inherently masculine paradigm— termed the hydrological mission. This perspective prioritizes large-scale hydro-engineering, adheres rigidly to state security models, and frames water governance in terms of conflict and confrontation. Critically, the political economy of water involves global and local conjunctures that merge into one another, creating similar yet distinct analytical challenges. This book aims to highlight how the implementation of equitable practices is hindered by the deeply ingrained masculine institutional culture within water management and hydropower development organizations, which actively promotes hierarchy and technical expertise over acknowledging vulnerability. A comprehensive understanding of these challenges must be achieved through the intellectual apparatus of gender as an intersectional category, which is central to water justice within the region. It is crucial to understand that the gendered subjectivities are simultaneously (re)produced by societal, spatial, and natural/ecological factors alongside the materialities of the body and heterogeneous waterscapes. In South Asia, the everyday lived experiences of women, exacerbated by unequal access to key resources like groundwater and threatened by inadequate sanitation, leading to heightened risk of gender-based violence, are not merely social footnotes but are fundamentally political issues. The resulting vulnerabilities redefine the nexus between water and security. This nexus must encompass human security—the security of individuals from environmental extremes and social instability. Furthermore, in rapidly urbanizing environments, we examine the hydroterritorial apparatus of cities, where 'pipe politics,' 'water time,' and 'hydraulic citizenship' induce hydrosocial precarity, profoundly shaping urban identity and exclusion along gender and class lines. This volume explicitly rejects the "modern water" paradigm, which treats water as an objective abstraction. Instead, we aim to engage with the exponential material meaning of water, examining where embodiment meets water, and asserting that the urgent question of worldly survival, amidst anthropogenically exacerbated water crises, demands recognizing that embodiment is neither autonomous nor autochthonous, and it is fundamentally tied to the health of the surrounding waterscape. This critical focus on lived experience provides a necessary counterpoint to the prevailing policy approach. By integrating the critique of constructed scarcity, the analysis of masculine hydro diplomacy, and the intersectional reality of gendered vulnerability, this volume aims to provide a comprehensive framework for understanding water issues in South Asia. We invite scholarly contributions that critically examine the restructuring of power dynamics through the commodification of water, the intersection of global climate discourses with local struggles for water justice, and the articulation of resistance and survival in caste- and gender stratified societies. Thematic Areas for Submission We invite original, empirically grounded, and theoretically ambitious papers that address, but are not limited to, the following themes within the South Asian context: • Intersectionality in Water Access and Justice: Research exploring how the lived experiences of water insecurity and access are defined by the intersection of gender with caste, class, religion, and regional identity. • Embodiment, Materiality, and Gendered Subjectivity: Analyses of how gendered subjectivities are (re)produced by societal, spatial, and ecological factors, focusing on the materialities of the body and the urgency of survival amid water crises. • Groundwater, Sanitation, and Gender-Based Violence: Investigations into the politics and consequences of groundwater dependency, and the specific security threats (including gender-based violence) arising from inadequate sanitation and water supplies. • Water and Human Security Nexus: Papers expanding the security debate beyond national interest to include the human security of individuals from environmental extremes and social instability. • Masculinity and Institutional Culture: Studies examining the culture of masculinity, technical pride, and hierarchy within water management, hydro-engineering, or transboundary diplomacy organizations, and its impact on equitable practice. • Critiques of Water Governance Interventions: In-depth evaluations of the effectiveness and limitations of gender mainstreaming policies, “gender toolkits,” and participatory governance models in the water sector. • Urban Hydropolitics and Hydrosocial Precarity: Research into the socio-spatial dynamics of urban water control, including 'pipe politics,' 'water time,' and 'hydraulic citizenship,' and their role in identity formation and inducing precarity. • The Political Construction of Scarcity: Critical analyses of how the discourse of water scarcity is generated, maintained, and deployed as a tool for governance and control by state and corporate actors. • The Politics of Water Commodification: Papers investigating the consequences of water privatization and commodification for marginalized communities and the resulting shifts in existing power dynamics. • Global-Local Conjunctures and Climate Justice: Research on how global climate discourses and adaptation strategies intersect with local struggles for water justice, and how the global and local dissolve in the political economy of water. Submission Guidelines Interested authors should submit an abstract of 250-300 words, clearly outlining the research question, theoretical framework, methodology, and a brief bio note. Submission Date: 31st January 2026