The term ‘water crisis’ has become very much a part of our everyday language as we read about the looming drought in western India, watch images of floods in the east, think about the harm that the impure drinking water we are forced to drink could cause to our health, debate over privatization versus decentralized community-managed alternatives or try to understand the extent to which the new paradigm of integrated water resource management is indeed ‘integrated’ in the context of increasing poverty and the challenge of globalisation. The discourse on water is truly multi-dimensional, with a wide range of social actors each with their own perceptions of how water should be managed, by whom and for whom. As we search for optimal solutions between different competing interests, what is clearly endorsed by all is the unequal impact of water scarcity (or plenty, if we consider annual flood prone areas) on women, girls and the elderly in rural and urban poor India. Despite the many policy statements at national and international forums calling for the participation of women and men in water management and decision-making, the intersection of gender identities with other arenas of social stratification and power such as caste, means that participation is more often than not merely rhetorical rather than substantial.