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SHADES OF BLUEa symposium on

emerging conflicts and

challenges around water

THE PROBLEMPosed by Sunjoy Joshi, Director and Distinguished Fellow,Observer Research Foundation, DelhiSAFEGUARDING SOUTH ASIA’S WATER SECURITYMichael Kugelman, Programme Associate for South Asia,Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.LESSONS FROM THE 2010 FLOODS IN PAKISTANMuhammad Azeem Ali Shah, Senior Researcher, University ofManagement Sciences, LahoreHYDRO-POLITICS, THE INDUS WATERTREATY AND CLIMATE CHANGERohan D’Souza, Assistant Professor, Jawaharlal NehruUniversity, DelhiRESOLVING INTER-STATE WATER SHARING DISPUTESN. Shantha Mohan, Professor, School of Social Sciences,National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore andSailen Routray, Faculty Fellow, Azim Premji University, BangaloreSECURING WATER COMMONS IN SCHEDULED AREASShawahiq Siddiqui, Advocate, Supreme Court of India;Managing Partner, Indian Environment Law Offices, DelhiECOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OFTHE GREEN REVOLUTIONInderjeet Singh, Professor of Economics, Punjabi University, PatialaWATER CRISIS IN DELHIRumi Aijaz, Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, DelhiWATER AS A PUBLIC GOOD VS.WATER PRIVATIZATIONUwe Hoering, author and freelance journalist, BonnDECIPHERING ENVIRONMENTAL FLOWSJayanta Bandyopadhyay, researcher in environmentand development; Professor, IIM CalcuttaCONTESTED CONSTRUCTIONS OF WATERShailaja Fennell, Lecturer in Development Studies, University ofCambridge; and Fellow of Jesus College, CambridgeFURTHER READINGA select and relevant bibliographycompiled by ORF Library Services, DelhiCOMMENTThe Not-So-Discreet Burdens of Indian CommunismSantosh George, researcher in building sustainable localeconomies, Tiruvalla‘India’ Against CorruptionAshutosh Kumar, Professor of Political Science,Panjab University, ChandigarhState Response to MovementsC.P. Bhambhri, Professor Emeritus of Political Science,Jawaharlal Nehru University, DelhiBOOKSReviewed by Surinder S. Jodhka, Sachidananda Mohanty,Anna Sujatha Mathai and Shrimoyee Nandini GhoshBACKPAGECOVERDesigned by www.seshdesign.com

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The problem‘When the well is dry we know the worth of water.’

– Benjamin Franklin

WATER is perhaps the most compelling narrative ofthe times we live in today. Mankind’s dependence onwater has shaped the establishment and growth ofcivilizations, and continues to influence every aspectof our lives – even the lives of the few lucky oneswho may yet have the luxury of taking it for granted.Rapid population growth following industrializationhas today created the conditions for intense contestsover water. Its (water) availability has come underincreasing stress, giving rise to potential internationaland intra-national conflicts. Simultaneously, at thelocal level, discord over entitlements, access and pric-ing are poised to exacerbate.

Cataloguing and understanding the diversenature of these conflicts and contests over water iscrucial to a better understanding of the very idea of the‘management’ of water as a resource. For, any attemptto ‘manage’ such a vital resource becomes by its verynature a political act, whether at the individual, local,regional or international level. It becomes political asthe associated interventions serve to either reinforceor challenge the existing distribution of power andpower relationships that determine issues of rights,access and use.

Therefore, for a wider perspective, it may beinstructive to imagine the various narratives aroundwater as four different shades of the same blue. Thefirst shade of blue confers on water political overtones,treating it as a geophysical property with issues relat-ing to sovereignty and ownership; a second shade con-fers on it the status of a commodity that can be priced

and traded; the third shade reflects the governance andpolicy framework that lies at heart of any debate on thepolitical economy of water. However, what is often lostin all these shades is perhaps the deepest and yet themost transparent shade of blue – the people, their livesand livelihood, the traditions and practices associatedwith cultures – the myriad amorphous things of theeveryday that it takes to live a life of dignity. Above allit refers to the larger ecology of water and water sys-tems that goes to nourish far more than human lives.

For centuries water by its very nature has fulfilleda dual geopolitical role. On the one hand, as a naturallyoccurring barrier it has served to delimit geopoliticalboundaries, defining frontiers between tribes andstates. Simultaneously, it has refused to be itselflimited by the very spaces it may have helped define.The result is that all forms of community – whetherfamily, village, state or nation – have had to share itacross political, international, interstate, regional andlocal spaces. With time the character of these commu-nities and their priorities change. Population growth,the shifting patterns of agriculture or industry, migra-tion, human intervention, and environmental degrada-tion associated with these activities may then formthe core of many of the intensely political conflictsabout sharing of waters. The political dimension ofwater thus encapsulates the complex inter-relationshipsbetween various social, economic and environmentalaspects.

The temporal and spatial distribution of waterresources today remains one of the main challenges forsustainable water management. The problem is that,say in South Asia, such management is sought to bedone independently in segregated local regions withinthe Ganga, Mahakali, and Indus river basins. Watersharing and management agreements have been for-mulated and continue to be negotiated between India-Pakistan, India-Bangladesh and India-Nepal. To these

* We acknowledge the contribution of the Observer Research Foun-dation (ORF), and its partners – the Department for InternationalDevelopment (DFID) and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RLS) inputting together this issue.

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add the many interstate water sharing conflicts suchas the Cauvery river dispute, Ravi-Beas water disputeetc. They are enough to remind us that formal disputesettlement mechanisms are all too often perceivedas ambiguous and ineffective, leading to repeateddependence on legal action for enforcement. Interstatewater disputes tend to get entangled with moregeneral centre-state conflicts and political matters thatoften defy resolution. Recently differences over thequantum of Teesta waters to be shared between WestBengal and Bangladesh even threatened to derail theoverarching settlement that India and Bangladeshwere hoping to enter into.

The conflicts themselves may be either the symp-toms or the consequence of ineffective institutionalmechanisms that ultimately threaten lives and liveli-hoods. Whatever their nature, politically managedinformation asymmetries tend to spill over into mani-festations of hardened identities dealing with intenselypolitical definitions of who constitutes the ‘them’ and‘us’. Managing the political complexities surroundingwater therefore necessitate the building of a commonvocabulary and information system for a better under-standing for the sharing of this resource.

A growing consumerism has given rise to differ-ing narratives around whether it pays in the long runto commoditize the commons. These are reflected inthe contrary positions taken by various transnationalactors and institutions. The commons versus commod-ity debates have proliferated even more followingattempts at urban water supply privatization since the1990s. One side sees pricing as the key to conserva-tion and regulation of a scarce resource; the other tendsto treat it as restricting what is essentially a public andhuman right.

The debate in its present shape has been largelya consequence of the water-as-a-commodity modelfailing to meet its professed social and economic

objectives. Privatization campaigns have done pre-cious little to improve drinking water supply to lowerincome groups in most instances. The political eco-nomy of privatization tends to abandon non-paying andcommercially unattractive supplies to ill-run publicsector utilities while high income enclaves are trans-ferred to the private sector. In specific cases, a combi-nation of rent seeking and maladministration, endemicto public water supply projects, has only left thedeprived sections far worse off than before.

The ‘cost coverage’ or ‘cost plus’ approachesthat laid the foundation of private sector participationare now considered as untenable for both the privatesector and public utilities. Today, even erstwhile cham-pions of water privatization such as the World Bankhave become far less enthusiastic about private sectorparticipation. Given the current dynamics, the privatesector may play only a marginal role in financingwater infrastructure in the future.

Many of the current debates over commodi-tization versus commons veer toward a Malthusiandiscourse of increasing scarcity based on the gloomyarithmetic of rising population and declining wateravailability. However, the problem more often is notso much of availability as it is of access and entitle-ment. People remain excluded because of poverty,limited legal rights or public policies that inadequatelyand inequitously regulate rights of access to water andwater infrastructure. Scarcity itself is the consequenceof power relationships and the institutions that framethese relationships do so in ways that ultimately dis-advantage the poor. The final and most frequented out-come being that the poor get less, pay more and bearthe brunt of costs in terms of human development.Hence, the significance of the third shade of blue thatrelates to the governance and policy framework.

In the real world the act of policy-making itselfis seldom the rational objective exercise its proponents

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make it out to be. More often it is the negotiated out-come of keen contests over shared spaces betweenseveral stakeholders. Policy then becomes the expres-sion of shifting power relationships, the manifestationof which may have significant and often unintendedconsequences on water, its pricing, usage, managementand consumption.

Access to water is an integral part of the right tolivelihoods. It means ensuring affordable physicalaccess to each and every individual as the cornerstoneof the right to life itself. All across South Asia, withthese economies transforming themselves into eco-nomic powerhouses, there is an increasing demandfrom competing large scale users in industry and agri-culture. The future is bound to see conflicts betweenindustry and local populations regarding access towater as well as its quality. As it is South Asia suffersfrom arsenic, fluoride and metal contamination puttinglarge sections of the population at risk. As populationsincrease and industry grows the cost of water pollu-tion is likely to rise exponentially, leading to newdynamics that would need urgent resolution.

At the other end of the spectrum, in areas whereinstitutional structures for regulating and distributingwater are poor or non-existent, the key to sustainablegovernance systems lies in whether they enable localcommunities to plan autonomously for the long-termmanagement of their resources or do they reduce themto becoming mere recipients of the outcome of some-one else’s projects and ambitions. The latter invariablyresults in unsustainable practices giving rise to futureconflicts. The need in such cases may be to create agovernance framework that helps organize and mobi-lize agricultural communities to identify their ownpriorities and take over the responsibility as well asmanagement of local resources.

For instance, policies promising subsidizedpower, along with minimum support prices for selectedcrops, today threaten to undermine the wider ecologyof agriculture in certain regions. They have worked intandem to skew cropping patterns in favour of cropswith assured prices even though such crops may behighly water intensive. Even as the groundwater tablestands depleted by the overuse of inefficient waterextracting pumps that waste both water and power,unsustainable farm practices lead to progressive deg-radation of the soil. A better recourse may be to craftpolicies that support farming communities to evolvethe best suited farming strategies instead of uninten-tionally serving to shape practices and produce at thefarm-end.

The problem is not confined to any single region.At the heart of the water challenge faced by most ofSouth Asia, a challenge that spills over into disputesbetween countries and states within these countries,is the issue of governance. The rigid and very clinicalgeopolitical division of river systems and therefore ofthe rights and responsibilities of riparian states hasresulted in indivisible river systems being mismanagedin untenable and arbitrary geographical compartments.Given the rate of urbanization and industrialization inSouth Asia, many policy challenges, essential to theconservation of the resource and to build the physicalinfrastructure and social awareness necessary for itsfair use and distribution, remain to be addressed. Assuch, water policies in most of the nations in SouthAsia fail to protect life’s most vital natural resource.

Finally, the interconnected and interacting natureof wetland ecologies integrates aquifers, lakes,marshes and the combined actions of innumerabletributary streams into a ‘living system’. Thus merelyviewing water through the prism of entitlements, prop-erty, commodity or sovereignty neglects the far deeperwater-life and water-livelihood linkages. The domi-nant debate on water has tended to detract attentionfrom the more important issue of how water is accessedand used, in combination with other assets, to sustainnot just livelihoods but living systems. The politics andpolicy discourse on water transforms complex riversystems into a quantitative notion, failing to recognizethe ecosystems, the local traditions and cultural prac-tices around water. These form the critical missinglink in the politics and policy of water.

Yes, it is increasingly apparent that over the nexttwo decades water will become a growth inhibitor ifattention is not paid to the various aspects of wateruse, access, ownership, control and management. Soildegradation, poverty, food security, water quality andwater flow depletion stand in the way of achievingsustainable development. Environmental stability maybe a millennium development goal to be achieved by2050, but it would be impossible to attain withoutintegrated policies and systems for the managementof land and water for inclusive growth. Yet, beyond allthese water remains a resource that is essential for andshared by the far larger community of all living things.

This issue of Seminar seeks to outline the theo-retical and evidence based discussions that describethe water saga in South Asia, in the hope that it willhelp advance the level of the ongoing discourse.

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strategies are neither efficient nor sus-tainable. One of Pakistan’s top waterexperts, Simi Kamal, has calculatedthat the quantity of water projected tobe generated by the nation’s under-construction Diamer-Basha dam palesin comparison to the amount thatwould be freed up simply by repairingand maintaining Pakistan’s leakycanal system.21 Additionally, Paki-stan’s dams, like India’s, are rapidlylosing storage capacity.

Such considerations give way toanother unsettling reality: So long asinternal water management remainspoor, the benefits accruing fromdeeper regional water cooperationwill be strictly political; from a waterresources standpoint, little willimprove. Take the case of Pakistan.Assume, for a moment, that increasedcooperation enables Pakistan to suc-ceed in getting India to release morewater downstream. What would be theresult? Many Pakistanis would arguethat their water problems would besolved: parched farmland saved, chil-dren’s thirst quenched, and lost waterlivelihoods restored.

In reality, however, none of thiswould happen. Instead, more waterwould mean more inefficiency: Morewater lost to leaky canals and pipes,wasted in irrigation, showered on wa-ter-guzzling crops, and contaminatedby urban waste. Indeed, if nothing isdone to improve internal water gov-ernance, allowing more water to gushinto Pakistan would simply intensifythe country’s water crisis.22

South Asian nations need tofocus more on demand-side solutions

to domestic water problems. Theseinclude water conserving technolo-gies, crop diversification, betterinvestments in infrastructure mainte-nance and wastewater treatment, anda stronger embrace of rainwater har-vesting (a conservation method thathas already caught on quite stronglyin parts of the region). Such policiesare less expensive, and potentiallymore efficient, than traditionalsupply-side water engineering pro-jects like large dams. Some encourag-ing signs are emerging from India,where there has been some debateabout the merits of emphasizing sugar-bean cultivation over that of sugarcane,which is notoriously water wasting.There has also been discussion aboutembracing water saving mechanismssuch as the direct seeding of rice.

If such demand-side managementpolicies are implemented success-fully, South Asian nations wouldbecome more judicious in their use ofexisting water resources, and there-fore less threatened in the short-term by the spectre of scarcity. Upperriparians would, presumably, be lesslikely to initiate new hydro-generationprojects that upset their downstreamneighbours. Lower riparians, mean-while, would have less incentive (andfewer grounds) to stoke tensions withtheir upstream neighbours by accus-ing them of water theft. As a result,trans-national water arrangementswould be threatened less, and thecalmer political climate would enableriparians to make more substantiveprogress on the data sharing and trans-parency essential for better SouthAsian water security. None of this, itshould be noted, would necessitate

drawing up new treaties or otherwater agreements.

To be sure, new demographicand environmental realities may wellcall into question the continued rele-vance of decades-old trans-nationalwater arrangements. Still, these mecha-nisms need not stop functioning sim-ply because of the presence of factorsnot at play fifty years ago. One studyof the Baglihar dam case observes thatthe issue was ‘addressed bearingin mind the technical standards forhydropower plants as they have devel-oped in the first decade of the 21st cen-tury, and not as perceived and thoughtof in the 1950s when the [IWT] wasnegotiated.’23 A precedent has effec-tively been set for new conditions tobe taken into account when interpret-ing the existing treaty, without need-ing to incorporate such conditions intoan altogether new or revised treaty.

This is just one more reason for SouthAsian nations to redouble their effortsto ameliorate internal water manage-ment. Trans-national water arrange-ments can also stand to improve, yetthey are not in desperate need ofreform and revision. Rather, it is thewater governance of the region’sindividual countries that so urgentlyneeds to be fixed. In effect, SouthAsian water policies must adopt anew approach – one that, in the wordsof noted water expert RamaswamyR. Iyer, embraces the ‘responsible,harmonious, just, and wise use ofwater.’24 With population growthand climate change continuing apace,the stakes have never been higher,and the costs of inaction never starker.

21. Simi Kamal, ‘Pakistan’s Water Challenges:Entitlement, Access, Efficiency, and Equity’,in Michael Kugelman and Robert M.Hathaway (eds.), Running on Empty: Paki-stan’s Water Crisis. Woodrow Wilson Centre,Washington, DC, 2009, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/ASIA_090422_Running%20on%20Empty_web.pdf

22. Michael Kugelman, ‘Water Shortage: TheReal Culprit’, Dawn, 26 July 2010, http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/edito-rial/water-shortage-the-real-culprit-670

23. Salman M.A. Salman, ‘The Baglihar Dif-ference and its Resolution Process – A Triumphfor the Indus Waters Treaty?’ Water Policy 10,2008, p. 115.24. Ramaswamy R. Iyer, ‘Approach to a NewNational Water Policy’, The Hindu, 29 Octo-ber 2010, http://www.hindu.com/2010/10/29/stories/2010102963801400.htm

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Lessons from the 2010floods in PakistanM U H A M M A D A Z E E M A L I S H A H

THERE is no doubt that climate changehas much to do with the 2010 floodsthat displaced more than 14 millionpeople in Pakistan, creating in itswake a humanitarian crisis larger thanthe combined effects of the three mostserious natural disasters to strike in thepast decade. The culprit river, Indus,one of the world’s greats, can onlyhold so much water. While floods arenothing new to it – in fact, its floodplains have been home to one of theearliest civilizations that we know of –the monsoons that contributed to itsflow were unprecedented in humanmemory. In August 2010, more thanhalf of the normal monsoon rains,typically spread over three months,fell in only one week. This resultedin a flow which exceeded the normallevels several fold.

It is also no secret that climatechange is largely a result of rampantconsumerism which, though reducingnature to resources meant for our con-sumption, is nevertheless necessaryfor generating ever higher profits forsustaining economic growth in capi-talist economies. So, in the largerscheme of things, it is our relentlessdrive for economic growth that isto blame for these changing weatherpatterns.

However, the 2010 floods inPakistan demonstrate much more thansimply what might be expected fromunsustainable development. The devas-tation caused by the floods was also amanifestation of the particular typeof development path that Pakistanhas followed over the years, its socio-political structure, and massive inequa-lities in resource distribution.

Contrary to the claims of thePakistan government (or those madeby Richard Holbrook for that matter,who described it as an ‘equal oppor-tunity disaster’), the devastationcaused by the floods was neither equi-tous nor inevitable. There is no directcorrelation between the intensity ofthe floods and the destruction itunleashed. Instead, this relationshipis heavily mediated by Pakistan’sunequal social structure and develop-mental experience.

Take for instance, the intensityof the floods. In the northwest ofPakistan, where the flood originated,devastating scenes of destructionwere witnessed. Bridges, houses,and other man-made structures wereswept away by the sheer force of thetorrent as if they were made of paper.This intensity was in part a result ofthe deforestation that has gradually

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spread through Pakistan. The speed offlowing water increases manifold whenthere are no trees to hinder the passageof water. Similarly, with trees no longerholding down top soil, landslidesbecome far more frequent. Deforesta-tion represents a rather typical case ofthe Pakistan government allowingvarious interests (in this case, the ‘tim-ber mafia’, which in turn suppliesother businesses) to get away with pil-laging the country’s resources (in thiscase forests) and government officialsmaking a quick buck at the expense oflong-term sustainability.

The state has continuously followeda policy of pillaging the environmentand ‘modernizing’ ‘primitive’ com-munities with scant regard for the eco-logical disasters that are resulting inthe wake of this laissez-faire policy.That deforestation could magnify theeffect of a flood and cause landslidesdoes not appear to be a major concernof the Environment Protection Agency,a body propped up to pay lip serviceto sustainable development and theenvironmental movement. Despitehaving been around for over a decadeand having ‘qualified’ people on board,it has only been running standardenvironmental awareness campaigns,or implementing National Environ-mental Quality Standards (which havebeen superseded by ISO standards),unsurprisingly, with little effect. Con-necting forests or flood plains to com-munities’ livelihoods appears to bebeyond its comprehension or mandate.

In fact, the entire governmentmachinery is configured in a way thatmakes coordination or the attainmentof a bigger social goal difficult. For-ests fall under the forest department,and environment under the EPA.Floods are the concern of the meteoro-logical department, irrigation depart-ment and the newly created disastermanagement authorities. Different

barrages are operated by differententities. Even within these organiza-tions, coordination is absent, render-ing their existence a mere ritual ofgovernance.

Take the meteorological depart-ment (Met) for instance. Just prior tothe flood, the different divisions of theMet, e.g., FFD (flood forecastingdivision), NWFC (national weatherforecasting centre) and R&D (researchand development), had their own fore-casts which presented a fragmentedand sometimes conflicting picture ofthe magnitude and nature of weathersystem developing at that point intime. For instance, the NWFC startedissuing forecasts from mid-July thatthere was an unusual weather systemdeveloping in the Bay of Bengal. TheFFD, however, issued no forecastabout its consequences until 27 July2010. It was only once real time datawas available that they issued theirfirst qualitative forecast. This too didnot mention the possibility of superfloods.

Meanwhile, the R&D depart-ment, for its part, did not issue even asingle annual report about its researchon climate change, global warmingand this pattern of changing monsoonsystem, confining itself instead to thepublication of an academic journalwith articles by its employees.

What happened at the barrages pre-sents further evidence of the ritualisticnature of state institutions. Barragesare the most important man-madestructures that the torrents encoun-tered on their way to the Arabian sea.Barrages raise the water level in riv-ers so that irrigation canals can be fed.In making barrages, the natural courseof the river is diverted. Because of thepressure the river exerts on the sideswhen its course is being changed, bar-rages are preceded by training works,guide bunds and marginal bunds.

These structures must be able to with-stand the water pressure if neighbour-ing communities are to be protected.

Because of their critical impor-tance, standard operating proceduredictates that all maintenance and deve-lopment works on these structures becompleted before the flood seasonstarts in mid-June every year. This wasopenly violated in the case of Jinnahbarrage located at Kalabagh. An emer-gency repair work, incidentally startedover a year earlier, on the downstreamapron of the Jinnah barrage, was stillin progress when the flood hit thebarrage in late July. Due to this work,around 10 gates out of a total of 56gates of the barrage were closed, leav-ing the remaining 46 gates to takeall the pressure. This resulted inincreased pressure on the barrage andits allied structures as the closed gatescreated an obstruction to the flow ofwater. Even as the irrigation depart-ment tried to open these gates, a swirl-ing action of waves resulted in aparallel flow alongside the left guidebund of the barrage which collapsed,exposing the neighbouring communi-ties to the brunt of the water flow.

Further downstream, similar panicwas witnessed at the recently rehabi-litated Taunsa barrage. With WorldBank funding, this barrage was recentlyequipped with a state of the art con-trol system to operate the gates. Yet,when the floods hit this newly con-structed structure, its control roomwas not operational. The reason isreflective of the complete mismatchbetween the plans of modernizationand the capacity and preparedness ofthe concerned department, a pheno-menon all too common in Pakistan.The entire project was funded (to thetune of Rs 600 million) and installedby foreign agencies using technologythat was too advanced for the irriga-tion department. As a result, there

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were no trained technicians availableto operate it, rendering the entire con-trol room useless.

This state of unpreparednesswas similarly reflected in the disastermanagement authorities that werecreated following the 2005 earth-quake in Kashmir. Political rivalrybetween the Centre (dominated by thePakistan People’s Party) and Punjab(ruled by the Pakistan Muslim League– Nawaz) meant that unlike otherprovinces and the Centre, there wasno provincial disaster managementauthority in Punjab, Pakistan’s mostdensely populated province. At theCentre too, things had stopped mov-ing after the creation of a NationalDisaster Management Authority. Fouryears after its creation, the NDMA hadno national disaster management planready. The district level disaster man-agement authorities that were to becreated as part of the original plan,never came into existence.

Readiness for disasters such as thisaside, the dynamics that transpiredduring the floods also reveals muchabout the Pakistani state. As themighty Indus flows through Pakistan,it not only irrigates vast swathes ofland in Punjab and Sindh, but alsoshapes the political structure of thistraditionally agrarian country. Unsur-prisingly, most of the land on bothsides of the river is owned by promi-nent political figures of the country,who have a vested interest in protect-ing their area of cultivated land fromany kind of eventualities/calamities.

These interests came to the foreas the Indus threatened to flood areasseveral miles to its left or right. Stateresources were indiscriminately usedto build bunds (embankments) andbreach canals. The result was invari-ably the same: exposing those mostvulnerable to the floods while protect-ing those who were much better off.

While the practice was universallyapplied, the poor people of Sindh,perhaps Pakistan’s most feudal pro-vince with the least land reforms, suf-fered most. Inhabitants of cities suchas Kherpur, Karampur or Jampur paidwith their lives to save the propertiesof their feudal masters.

All of the state’s resources wereeffectively placed at the disposal of thelanded elite. If the poor wanted to savethemselves or access these resources,they could only do so through thefeudals in their district. The system inPakistan at the best of times is basedon political patronage. During thefloods, it became the only way out forthe poor, reinforcing their subordina-tion to the landed elite.

The dependency relationship bet-ween the peasants and the feudal elitewas not the only one that was strength-ened during the floods. The samedynamics were apparent at the statelevel, as the country used the floodsto extract more loans out of countriesthat it otherwise regularly accusedof not respecting its sovereignty. Therelief and rehabilitation work thatensued with the pledged $1.7 billionand the millions that were collected incharity was completely uncoordi-nated. Months after the floods peoplewere still living in camps while wait-ing for support from the government.Meanwhile, the government used thisopportunity to introduce new infla-tionary taxes earlier agreed to withthe IMF but had not implemented forfear of a backlash.

The post-flood debate in thecountry’s political set-up largelyfocused on introducing flood taxesand reforming general sales taxes,leaving most people wondering that ifthe reformed GST was such an impor-tant issue, then why did the govern-ment have to wait for the floods toimplement it? Naomi Klein would

term this disaster capitalism, and shewas not far off the mark. The poli-ticians used the relief funds in ablatantly partisan manner to obligetheir constituencies. The industrialistsclaimed corporate social responsibi-lity brownie points. The army used itto redeem its much tarnished image,and the Americans to further their‘hearts and minds’ campaign, withlittle impact, it has to be said.

In sum, as the Indus retreated, itrendered visible the desperate plightof a people, their chronic dependenceon their feudal masters, and the con-tours of a society premised on inequa-lity and oppression. Nothing hasreally changed in Pakistan. The 2010flood will soon be forgotten, and withit the displaced families who, havinglost their livestock and abodes, arestill struggling to survive. It is doubt-ful if the state will discard its moder-nizing impulse fuelled by borrowedmoney in favour of a more community-based, eco-friendly model of deve-lopment. It is also unlikely that thenext flood will bring any less misery.The way things are developing inPakistan, the vulnerability of peoplewill only have increased by then.

Even if the meteorologicaldepartment is able to get its act together,and the irrigation department fortifiesall the barrages, poverty will stillensure that millions will be inhabi-ting riverbanks and living in shacks,entirely at the mercy of their feudallords. Forests meanwhile will con-tinue to disappear, and unplannedconstruction will continue to litter theflood plains, preparing traps for floodwaters. And whichever government isin power will probably still be wait-ing to pass on new taxes to the haplesspublic. As tragic as the floods are, inthe case of Pakistan they appear tobe a smaller disaster than the one thepeople experience daily.

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Hydro-politics, the Indus watertreaty and climate changeR O H A N D ’ S O U Z A

DISCUSSIONS on the Indus rivershave become overwhelmingly strate-gic. Flows are matters of politicalcontest, vested interests and, aboveall else, national security. Ironicallyenough, such strident noises overthe division of waters have mostlyavoided meaningful attempts to recallthe region/watershed’s often-timestroubled histories. It is as if the IndusWater Treaty (IWT) of 1960 could bealmost nonchalantly deployed to snipvast flowing courses into neat divis-ible segments and with equal ease‘rationally’ allocate immense volumesbetween nations. That is, a mere bluntknife approach can comprehensivelysever and move about a complexhydrology without so much as anafterthought about disturbing deli-cately poised fluvial ecologies orthe implications of coarsely stirringwhole river-based communities.

The IWT with this structured‘forgetting’ of the Indus basin’s manypasts and varied environments, is notunexpectedly, often seen by experts

to be a ‘successful’ legal-technicalarrangement that has suffered fromfrequent and exceptional political‘misperceptions’.1 It can, however, bemore convincingly argued the otherway. The IWT was an unsteady poli-tical project to begin with and is nowfatally failing as a legal-technicalarrangement. But reversing the ana-lytical vantage requires a sharp per-ceptual shift as well. A type of taprootunderstanding of the IWT is urgentlycalled for, by which new facts, so tospeak, must be dug up, sunned anddifferently seasoned in order to haveone go beyond the limited simplifica-tions of hydraulic data, official statis-tics, engineering opinion and statistimperative.

Between the 16th and 18th cen-turies, the Mughal empire held, in asingle firm embrace, vast territoriesof what today comprises India andPakistan. For the Mughal ruling elites,

1. Ramaswamy Iyer, arguably, is the mostsophisticated voice that debates the workingsof the Indus Water Treaty as being principallydogged by problems of ‘political mispercep-tions’. His writings on the subject are toonumerous to cite here. In all, however, Iyerprovides some of the most valuable andinformed insights on contemporary waterchallenges in South Asia.

* The author wishes to thank ObserverResearch Foundation and Lydia Powellin particular for enabling this essay. AlsoSushil Aaron, Rudra Chaudhuri and HarishDamodaran for their inputs and ideas.

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applying a regular squeeze over agri-cultural surpluses was the preferredroute to wealth and privilege. Typi-cally enough, given this essentiallyland based notion of power, theempire’s numerous and intricate net-work of rivers were, at best, used eitherfor navigation or as avenues to con-duct easy trade. These inestimableflows, in other words, became naturaloutliers to the imperial governments’otherwise more onerous quest toextract revenues from soil.

It would be unfair, however, toentirely dismiss all Mughal efforts atharnessing water. Several innovativestructures, for example, helped deftlysteer river currents into gardens,fountains, hunting grounds and evengiant reservoirs. On balance, never-theless, comprehensive fluvial man-agement was rarely ventured upon.It was only in the middle of the 19thcentury, following the steady consoli-dation of British colonial rule in thesubcontinent, that those big immod-est engineering interventions for totalhydraulic control were carried out. Inparticular, the vast semi-arid floodplains – sandwiched between theIndus and Gangetic river systems –became amongst the first sites theworld over for implementing large-scale modern irrigation schemes.

For the sprawling Indus basin,coursed through by the fluvial fingersof the Indus, Ravi, Chenab, Beas,Sutlej and Jehlum, colonial hydraulicinterventions were, in fact, both techni-cally and politically unprecedented.2For the first time in the region, perma-nent structures in the form of barragesand weirs were thrown across river-beds. These durable headworks wereequipped with a series of shuttersto regulate flows by impounding

water during lean seasons, to be thendiverted in calibrated quantities acrossmiles of canals. On the reverse, intimes when the rivers were swollen ortorrential, the shutters would beflipped open to hurriedly jettisondischarge. In effect, by alternatelyimpounding or quickening the dis-charge of flows, the river’s variable ormoody regime, it was held, could betransformed from a seasonal to a per-ennial irrigation possibility.3

Beginning with the Upper BariDoab Canal (1859) and the Sirhindsystem (1882), the drive climaxedwith the ‘most ambitious’ irrigationproject of the colonial period – theTriple Canal Project (1916). Theseperennial canal schemes, however,were assembled not merely as chan-nels commandeering river flows butin the words of David Gilmartin, werecrucially linked to ‘political impera-tives of state building.’4 The colonialdispensation, in effect, vigorously

pursued perennial irrigation and agri-cultural settlement as means essentialfor stabilizing its otherwise unsteadyauthority in the region. At heart, canalbuilding was the pressing attemptto yoke the then just disbandedSikh soldiery and a large number ofnon-cultivating ‘predatory’ herdsmento ‘permanent interests in landedproperty.’

The impacts of perennial irriga-tion, however, can also be historicizeddifferently. Indu Agnihotri in a semi-nal essay on the canal colonies inthe British Punjab, argued that irriga-tion did not, as is widely held, simplybring water and increase agriculturalproductivity into hitherto desolate‘wastes’. Rather, the colonial canalcolonies, of the late 19th and early20th centuries, overwhelmed and over-ran a pre-existing vibrant pastoraleconomy and people who, besidesherding, also seasonally cultivatedcrops through inundation canals. Thisprocess of marginalization, if not sub-stantial elimination, of the pastoralcommunities and their unique ways ofliving with the ecologies of the doabscontinues to find only rare mention.5

The point here is that the introductionof modern irrigation in the semi-aridflood plains of the Indus system wasenabled following intense strugglesover the creation of landed property,the elimination of pastoral liveli-hoods and accompanied by relentlesswide-ranging environmental transfor-mations. Raising agricultural produc-tivity through perennial irrigation,hence involved, by design or other-wise, a deafening silence about differ-ent pasts: the ignored but suffered

2. Rohan D’Souza, ‘Water in British India: TheMaking of a “Colonial Hydrology’”, HistoryCompass 4(4), May 2006, pp. 621-8.

3. Herbert M. Wilson, Irrigation in India. DayaPublishing House, Delhi, (first published1903), 1989, pp. 78-81; D.G. Harris, Irriga-tion in India, H. Milford, Oxford UniversityPress, London, 1923, pp. 5-7. For an introduc-tion to the modern hydraulic moment in Brit-ish India see Elizabeth Whitcombe, AgrarianConditions in Northern India: The UnitedProvinces Under British Rule, 1860-1900, vol.1. California University Press, Berkeley, 1972;Canal Irrigation in British India: Perspectiveson Technological Change in a PeasantEconomy. Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge, 1985; Imran Ali, The Punjab UnderImperialism, 1885-1947. Oxford UniversityPress, New Delhi, 1987; Rohan D’Souza,Drowned and Dammed: Colonial Capitalismand Flood Control in Eastern India. OxfordUniversity Press, New Delhi, 2006; and DavidHardiman, ‘Well Irrigation in Gujarat: Systemsof Use, Hierarchies of Control’, Economic andPolitical Weekly 33(25), 1998, pp. 1533-44.4. David Gilmartin,‘Scientific Empire andImperial Science: Colonialism and IrrigationTechnology in the Indus Basin’, The Journalof Asian Studies 53(4), 1994, p. 1132. Also seeDavid Gilmartin, ‘Water and Waste: Nature,Productivity and Colonialism in the IndusBasin’, Economic and Political Weekly38(48), 2003, pp. 5057-65.

5. Indu Agnihotri, ‘Ecology, Land Useand Colonization: The Canal Colonies ofPunjab’ in Mahesh Rangarajan and K. Siva-ramakrishnan (eds.), India’s EnvironmentalHistory: Colonialism, Modernity and theNation. Permanent Black, Ranikhet, 2012,pp. 37-63.

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consequences of waterlogging, soilsalinization, the violence of landedproperty, the defeat of nomadic peo-ples, instabilities brought on by mono-cultures and commercial agriculture,the attrition-ridden assembling ofcolonial social hierarchies and inevi-tably, the forced ‘training’ of oncevolatile free falling rivers into con-tained disciplined irrigation channels.

Profoundly intertwined with therelentless march of modern irrigationin the doabs was the life-world of thecolonial civil engineer. Though oftenless heralded, these energetic, restless,innovative and adventurous men ofempire were made steadfast with tech-nical training in modern river manage-ment and control. Through the lens of‘imperial science’, colonial environ-ments for these engineers were notmerely to be ‘catalogued, studied andobserved’ but actively pursued forlarge scale manipulation, all in thename of commerce, civilization andendless improvement. In the samestride, this resolute quest to controlnature was intimately tied to theequally severe project of dominatingcolonized populations. For the Britishcolonial enterprise, in other words,intensely extracting from nature andexploiting subject peoples seemedalmost logically to go hand in hand.

Attempting the dramatic trans-formation of complex and immenseriver systems through engineeringwas, however, no simple task. In aim-ing to physically shuffle, transfer,move or redirect vast volumes, engi-neers resorted to reductionist and spe-cialized mentalities. That is, colonialengineers planned and crafted modernriver control initiatives primarilythrough ideologies for abstractionsin the form of formulas, equations,model-making, and by repeatedlyfine-tuning an overwhelmingly quan-titative notion of hydrology. Irrigation

engineering preferred, in terms oftheir self image and professional train-ing, to be defined principally by the‘mathematical sciences’.6

Such a notion of handling water,in effect, assumed an unequivocaltrust in numbers, while simultane-ously aiming to wilfully ignore andshut out local knowledge or place-specific ecological idiosyncrasiesinvolved in harnessing flows. If any-thing, therefore, the ascendance ofcolonial hydrology meant the consoli-dation of the universal, expert-drivenand specialized practices for rivermanagement alongside the steadymarginalization of localized culturesand place-based knowledge for watermanagement. The mighty Indus basin,in effect, was disciplined with theelegance of numbers and rationalhydraulic model-building. The riversystems, hence, that otherwise stoodas messy miscible admixtures offlows, histories, cultures, localitiesand exceptional environments wereconceptually recast as straight con-tained channels. A once heterogene-ous collection of people and places,through imperial science, cement andquantitative hydrology could be turnedinto homogenous spaces.

Following the hydraulic rearrange-ments of the 19th century, the Indusbasin witnessed, in the mid-20thcentury, a second equally dramaticrupture – the division of waters fornation-making. In effect, scuffles overhydraulic access and rights that char-acterized the colonial period weretransformed into bitter disagreementsover clarifying issues of ownershipand control of the Indus rivers. Asthe Radcliffe Line etched a hard bor-der between India and Pakistan on

17 August 1947, flows had to bereconfigured as national rivers. Frompreviously watering an uninterruptedcontiguous political bloc, the Indusand its tributaries, in step with thislogic of partition, had to be hastilyinserted within new geographicalscales and imagined as part of decolo-nized national biographies.

Not unexpectedly, complicationsover the Indus erupted as intractablehydropolitics between India andPakistan. For a start, flows had to beinstantaneously sliced and diced atmultiple conceptual levels, in order toacknowledge the region’s changedgeopolitical realities. Stretches of thetributaries, hence, that fell withinIndia were classified overnight asupper riparian waters while Pakistan,on the other hand, inherited down-stream flows. Having been thus offi-cially instituted as cross-border flows,the various arms of the Indus systemcould now only be managed througha raft of international rules andprotocols. The first involved a band-aid approach, with the concluding ofan immediate pact appealingly termedthe Standstill Agreement, by whichall existing flow arrangements were tobe maintained till 31 March 1948.

Alarmingly enough, for Paki-stan, the Government of India ‘sus-pended’ supplies the very next daywhen the agreement officially lapsed.Though flows were eventually restoredafter 18 long days, the shock of beingdenied water not only ‘seared’ thePakistani sense of entitlement to therivers but the entire incident brutallymade known to both sides that watercould easily translate into severe prob-lems of politics and power.7 The sub-sequent Inter-Dominion Agreement,

6. Benjamin Weil, ‘The Rivers Comes: Colo-nial Flood Control and Knowledge Systems inthe Indus Basin, 1840-1930s,’ Environmentand History 12(1), 2006, pp. 3-29.

7. For an excellent discussion on the poli-tics over the Indus rivers between India andPakistan see Daanish Mustafa, ‘CriticalHydropolitics in the Indus basin’ in Terje

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as a stopgap arrangement, actuallyended up further amplifying the factthat sustaining a divided fluvial sys-tem, invariably, if not urgently, neededan enduring ‘final settlement’.

Following a period of staggerednegotiations, the IWT was finallyclinched in 1960, as a trilateral dealbetween Pakistan, India and the WorldBank. As noted by Daanish Mustafa,the IWT process substantially mirroredthe political landscape of its time. Acontext that was defined by extremesuspicion between the two countries,their respective location in larger geo-political strategies for the region andrelationships that were repeatedlymarred by political competition.

Rehearsing elements or featuresof the IWT, however, would not behelpful here, as they have been com-petently done elsewhere. What, never-theless, needs to be marked is the factthat the IWT was overwhelmingly alegal-technical document. A notionabout flows which, on the one hand,were firmly anchored in colonial lega-cies for water management in theregion while, on the other, wateragreements were crafted as legalprotocols for nation-making. That is,flows were appropriated not on thebasis of their ecological properties, butrather subdivided in order to enforcehard national borders.

The Indus system, in essence,was inserted into the geopolitical cal-culations of a troubled region andmade legible primarily as statisticallytabulated hydraulic data. The physi-cal constituency of the river regimewas, thus, starkly framed simply as anetwork of water channels, with theaspired ‘normal’ defined as a season-ally determined ‘average volume’.

Rivers as national resources, hence,became facts without stories andquantities without qualities. That is,flows were not understood as organi-cally interconnected and interactingelements of wetland ecologies, aqui-fers, lakes, marshes and the combinedactions of innumerable tributarystreams. Rather, as mere volumescontained in channels, rivers could beabstracted, diverted or interfered withto satisfy national priorities.

The belief that rivers are merely mov-ing masses of water crying out to beregulated and dammed has been dra-matically challenged since the 1980sby a fresh spirited theoretical turnamongst river ecologists. These ecolo-gists have been convincingly able todemonstrate that fluvial regimes arecomplex geomorphologic, chemicaland biological processes in motion.

By recasting, in fundamentalways, the manner in which fluvialprocesses are understood, river ecolo-gists are now suggesting that a freshparadigm is required for managingand interacting with such hydraulicendowments. Centrally, what is beingargued is that flows are embedded inecological contexts and thereforetransferring them through technologi-cal fixes can and often do have severalunintended environmental conse-quences. Simple steel and concreteapproaches aimed at water abstrac-tion, diversion and interference, inother words, must give way to anentirely new spectrum of knowledge,which will treat flows as being deter-mined by non-linear ecological quali-ties. Put differently, treating rivers asmere mute volumes is flawed both asa concept and as a water managementpractice.

Handling and harnessing vari-ability and stochastic flow regimes,consequently, have become criticalto shaping sustainable approaches

towards river management. The entireIndus basin, in effect, is a collectionof relationships between streams,floodplains, the head reaches, aqui-fers and inevitably the chaotic delta.Small wonder then that the so-called‘success’ of the IWT has resulted inthe relative ecological devastation ofthe Indus delta.

Historically, for the Indus basin,a rough calculation suggests thatbefore projects for siphoning flowsbegan in the 19th century, up to 150million acre-feet of fresh water prob-ably fell into the delta, along with thedeposition of close to 400 milliontons of nutrient rich fertilizing silt.These immense uninterrupted vol-umes nourished and sustained asprawling collection of mangroves,inlets, creeks, estuaries and otherwetland ecologies.

By suggesting that flow variabilityis central to fluvial health, river ecolo-gists have put forward a definitivechallenge to the cement-steel basedwater-control ideologies of the con-temporary civil engineer, whoseentire conceptual tool kit, as pointedout earlier, was mostly drawn up in thecolonial setting of the long 19th cen-tury in the subcontinent. In a similarvein, the hitherto untroubled pre-eminence of the expertise generatedby giant centralized water bureaucra-cies such as the Central Water Com-mission (India) and the Indus WatersCommission (Ministry of Water andPower, Government of Pakistan) needto, in the light of these new ecologi-cal facts, be carefully qualified andreconsidered as well.

These institutions, with theirtraining anchored in quantitativehydraulic data, have thus far beenoriented primarily towards strategi-zing for ‘average flows’. In other words,these are technical-bureaucratic insti-tutions that are committed to search-

Tvedt, Graham Chapman and Roar Hagen,Water, Geopolitics and the New World Order.A History of Water, Series II, Volume 3. I.B.Taurus, London, New York, 2011, pp. 374-94.

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ing for and premised entirely uponharnessing hydraulic predictability.Significantly enough, these central-ized water bureaucracies also play acrucial role in shaping national waterpolicies and informing political pro-cesses over the building of hydraulicinfrastructure in India and Pakistan,respectively. But with variability andstochasticity as the new norm forengaging with river systems, so tospeak, what becomes of these legal-technical institutions and theirinfrastructural technologies? Put dif-ferently, if climate change is about theintensification of hydraulic unpre-dictability in the region, will the IWTas a legal-technical institution be ableto respond to the new challenges.

Close to 1700 people or more per-ished and 1.8 million homes weredamaged or destroyed in the floodsthat occurred in 2010 in Pakistan. Inits wake, the floods also rummagedthrough 2.3 million hectares of stand-ing crops and brought about a loss ofUS$ 5 billion to the agriculture sectorand around US$ 2 billion each to thephysical and social infrastructure. Theflood-devastated realities of Pakistan,as Daanish Mustafa and DavidWrathall argue in a recent essay, pointto a far more striking conclusion: thatthe floods were aggravated and itsimpacts made even more ferociousbecause of vulnerability.8

Beginning with the dramatic hy-draulic transformations in the colonialperiod, an independent Pakistanpersevered in creating ‘a mismatchbetween the design assumptions of theinfrastructure, such as embankmentsand barrages and the dynamic realityof the channels’ carrying capacity.’9

That is, Pakistan’s hydraulic andsocial designs were geared to ‘ignorethe river system’s natural rhythms, inreturn for agricultural productivityand prosperity.’ Overcoming thepotential dangers in such a trade-off,for them, therefore, would require a‘better tactic’, which plainly statedwas to ‘adapt to the Indus basin’shydro-meteorological regime.’

Climate change and its perceivedimpacts, in effect, push for an activereconsideration of the IWT frame-work. Instead of an overt emphaseson technical and technology basedapproaches, run with the narrowexpertise of engineers and state nego-tiators, the new compact for rivermanagement/sustainability in theregion would require different socialconstituencies and their experienceswith the Indus waters. This wouldinvolve drawing upon and fosteringcooperative dialogues between river-front communities on both sides of theborder, such as fisherfolk, irrigationdependent farmers, river ecologists,water historians, sociologists andaquatic specialists (to name a few).10

These plural narratives can imbue theIWT with a much needed ecologicalsensitivity. The IWT or another com-pelling version has to be crafted tomeaningfully grasp the Indus and itstemperamental tributaries as qualitiesof flows rather than as blocs of discon-nected volumes. The current reign ofcement, steel and quantitative hydro-logy must, in other words, urgently giveway to viable dialogues over fluvialrelationships and ecological process.

8. Daanish Mustafa, and David Wrathall,‘Indus Basin Floods of 2010: Souring of aFaustian Bargain?’ Water Alternatives 4(1),2011, 72-85.9. Ibid., p. 7.10. I draw upon this useful notion of ariverfront community from Sarandha Jain’swonderfully compelling book on the Yamunariver titled In Search of Yamuna: Reflectionson a River Lost, New Delhi, Vitasta Publish-ing, 2011. The riverfront community, shesuggests, refers not only to people who live byand off the river but become a ‘bridge’ betweenland and water, river and society and as‘mediators between nature and culture.’

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Resolving inter-state watersharing disputesN . S H A N T H A M O H A N a n d S A I L E N R O U T R A Y

WATER does not respect any bound-ary. Most of the larger rivers in Indiameander through the administrativeboundaries of the Indian federal sys-tem. Sometimes a river itself is theboundary: the Indravati forms theboundary between Maharashtra andChhattisgarh for a part of its flow.Often rivers mark metaphorical boun-daries as well: the Ganga is the vehicleto the heavens whereas the Vaitaranimarks the crossing from this world ofmortals to an infernal one. Therefore,in a fundamental sense, all rivers aretransboundary.

But for our somewhat mundanediscussion, it’s the wayward riversthat do not obey the diktats of humancartographic exercises that end upbeing marked and categorized astransboundary. For our purpose, wefocus on rivers that arise in one pro-vince of India but end up in another.All of the longer and major rivers inIndia are transboundary rivers: theMahanadi originates in Amarkantakin Chhattisgarh and crosses over intoOrissa before finding its way to theBay of Bengal; the Chambal risesnear Mhow in Madhya Pradesh beforemeandering for more than 900 kilo-metres to the Yamuna in Uttar Pradesh,after having acquired the formidablereputation as a river of the badlands.

The Chambal is a telling exam-ple of a river, a large one with a lengthof around 960 km, that complicatesthe ways in which rivers in India areclubbed together and categorized. Itarises in the central highlands anddrains into the Yamuna which itselfdrains into the Ganga, thus formingpart of a larger Gangetic river system.But it is difficult to locate it within thefour-fold categorization of rivers ofIndia into Himalayan, peninsular,inland and small coastal rivers flow-ing into the Arabian Sea.

The Ganga, Yamuna, Son,Gandak, Brahamaputra, Lohit andTeesta are examples of Himalayanrivers. A large part of the water thatHimalayan rivers receive is from thesnowmelt during summer and there-fore perennial in nature. Most of thelarger rivers in peninsular India areeast flowing, apart from a few excep-tions such as the Narmada and Taptithat drain into the Arabian Sea. Theimportant east flowing rivers of penin-sular India are the Subernarekha,Mahanadi, Brahmani, Godavari, Kri-shna, Cauvery and Pennar.

The Western Ghats form animportant watershed for the southernpart of the country. Apart from manyof the east flowing rivers that rise here,many small and fast flowing rivers

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such as the Zuari, Mandovi, Netravatiand Periyar originate in the ghats andafter flowing fast over a short dis-tance, drain into the Arabian Sea.Most of the other rivers in India aretransboundary, be it a large river suchas the Ganges or a relatively smallerone as the Penner. Rivers such as theGhaggar and Luni do not find an out-let into the sea and lose their way inthe desert wastes of Rajasthan andGujarat.

The transboundary rivers have sig-nificant implications for water usageand policymaking, especially becausewhile India has around 16% of thepopulation and 2.45% of the land areaof the world, it has only 4% of itswater resources. In gross nationalterms the availability of water is com-fortable. But this situation can easilychange with increased demand dueto changing patterns of economicgrowth and urbanization. Further,there is a large variation in terms ofboth spatial and temporal aspects.Spatially speaking with respect towater, the northern and eastern partsof the country are better endowed ascompared to the western and south-ern. The less endowed regions withrespect to water are located in arid partsin the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat,Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pra-desh and Tamil Nadu that lie in onerain shadow region or the other.1

India has a monsoonal climateand the average annual rainfall is1,170 mm. It varies from less than 150mm/year in northwestern Rajasthan tomore than 10000 mm/year of rainfallin Meghalaya. A large part of the coun-try, however, receives rain for only100 hours in a year. More than half ofthe precipitation is received in rainfallof less than about 20 hours.2 There-

fore, the storing and subsequent usageof water is of utmost importance. It isthis imperative to store water thatcreates potential for conflicts overtransboundary rivers.

All rivers which flow across inter-national and inter-state boundaries area source of potential conflict. Fortu-nately, the experience around sharingof both international and inter-statetransboundary river waters is notall that grim. The Indus Water Treatybetween India and Pakistan thatemerged out of a process of mediationfacilitated by the World Bank is animportant example of a working and‘successful’ resolution of disputessurrounding an international trans-boundary river. The treaty whichawarded nearly 80% of the water ofthe river system to Pakistan and20% to India has survived three warsbetween the two countries. It can thusbe safely described as a good exam-ple of successful transboundarywater sharing in a politically volatileregion.

The dispute between India andBangladesh over the Ganges, espe-cially the one surrounding the Farakkabarrage, was addressed with the sign-ing of a 30 year water sharing treatyin 1996. This was an important steptowards figuring out mechanisms forsharing the waters of other transboun-dary rivers between the two countrieson a mutually acceptable basis.3 Andwhile tensions continue to episodi-cally flare up, they have never reachedthe level of conflict.

Examples of successful disputeresolution of river waters related toIndia can be cited not only in the case

of international rivers but with respectto inter-state transboundary rivers aswell. These include rivers such as theDamodar, Gandak and Subarnarekha.Especially important is the example ofa complex multi-basin and multipur-pose project such as Parambikulam-Aliyar, where a joint water regulationboard was established with membersfrom the riparian states. However, itmust be admitted that despite someexamples of successful and mutuallybeneficial water sharing, the potentialfor conflict remains.4 Rivers suchas the Yamuna, Krishna and Cauveryhave, for instance, been bitterly foughtover.

The Yamuna is the largest tributaryof the Ganga and an important sourceof water for irrigation and urban usein northern India. It drains the NorthIndian states of Uttar Pradesh, Hima-chal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan andDelhi. The total present claims on theriver add up to more than twice thetotal water available. In 1954, thewaters of the rivers were shared bet-ween the states of Uttar Pradesh andundivided Punjab. Uttar Pradesh con-trols the eastern Yamuna canal whereasHaryana, as a successor state of undi-vided Punjab, controls the westernYamuna canal.

With increasing demand fromthe growing and urbanizing state ofDelhi, this arrangement soon facedconflicts between Delhi, Haryana andUttar Pradesh on sharing the waters ofthe Yamuna, especially during the leansummer months. Matters have oftenlanded up in the courts, including theSupreme Court of India, through thepublic interest litigation route. Withwater demand continuing to grow inthe basin states, especially in Delhi,

1. Ramaswamy Iyer, Water: Perspectives,Issues, Concerns. Sage Publications, NewDelhi, Thousand Oaks and London, 2003.

2. Anil Agarwal, Sunita Narain and SrabaniSen (eds), The State of India’s Environment:The Citizen’s Fifth Report, Centre for Scienceand Environment, New Delhi, 1999.3. N. Shantha Mohan, ‘Locating Transboun-dary Water Sharing in India’, in N. ShanthaMohan, Sailen Routray and N. Shashikumar

(eds), River Water Sharing: TransboundaryConflict and Cooperation in India. Routledge,New Delhi, 2010, pp. 3-22.4. Ibid.

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the conflicts surrounding Yamunawaters see no signs of abating.5

In peninsular India, the Krishnahas seen disputes over its waters aswell. The second longest river inpeninsular India, the Krishna drainsthe states of Maharashtra, Karnatakaand Andhra Pradesh. After the reor-ganization of the states on a linguis-tic basis in the 1950s, the 25 yearagreement on the Krishna waterssigned in 1951 between Bombay,Hyderabad, Mysore and Madras statesbegan to be questioned. The KrishnaDispute Tribunal headed by JusticeBachawat gave its award in 1976 withthe states being asked to utilize theirrespective allocations by the year2000. This in turn fuelled a frantic arace for utilization of water of the riverbetween the various claimants.

A growing demand and attendantconflicts surrounding the river areexemplified in the problems betweenAndhra Pradesh and Karnataka overthe Almatti dam in Karnataka. Anyattempt by Karnataka to raise theheight of the dam from its originalheight of 519 metres to 524.25 metreswould have reduced the capacity ofthe Nagarjunasagar and Srisailam pro-jects in Andhra Pradesh pushing thetwo states on a path of confrontation.But when Maharashtra, the upper ripa-rian, tried to develop its water alloca-tion, both Karnataka and Andhra joinedhands to oppose such a move. We thuswitness a complicated process of coop-eration and confrontation dependingupon contingent self-interest of thedifferent parties. The concerned statesroutinely complain to the central gov-ernment regarding water usage by otherstates, setting the stage for centralmediation. With increasing intensity

of resource utilization, such conflictscan only escalate as the Krishna riverbasin is one of the most over-utilizedriver basins in peninsular India.6

The Cauvery in peninsular Indiatoo has been a site of cooperationand conflict over a period of time. Theregions of present day Tamil Naduwere the first movers in using thewater of the river. In the era beforethe growth of modern dam-buildingtechnologies, the Cauvery was notdammed and its waters were onlysparingly used in the upland areas ofpresent day Karnataka. Attempts inthe latter half of the 19th century bythe then Mysore princely state to damand use the waters of Cauvery river ledto protests by the Madras Presidencyand the beginning of negotiations bet-ween the two, eventually resulting ina treaty signed by the two relevantgovernments in 1892. This agreement,after placing on record the projectsalready taken up, stipulated that theGovernment of Mysore would notinitiate any new projects and maintainthe status quo.

So when Mysore proposed the con-struction of the Krishnaraja Sagardam on the Cauvery, the Madras gov-ernment challenged the decision ofthe arbitration committee, under theagreement of 1892. On receiving anadverse judgment from the commit-tee, the Government of Madras tookthe matter to the Secretary of Statein 1919 and managed a favourableresponse. Soon thereafter, negotiationsstarted between the two governmentsand a 50 year agreement was reachedin 1924, allowing for the constructionof the Krishnaraja Sagar dam in thethen Mysore state and the Mettur damin Madras Presidency. It also provideda framework for the development ofirrigation in the Cauvery basin.

This agreement was not renewedin 1974, at the end of its 50 yearperiod. This 50 year period saw theintensification of irrigation develop-ment in both Karnataka and TamilNadu, the successor states of theprincely state of Mysore and theMadras Presidency respectively.Increasing intensity of water use,especially for irrigation, led to con-flicts. Tamil Nadu, that had enjoyedthe first mover advantage with respectto irrigation development, now com-plained about the increasing use ofwater by Karnataka, the upper ripar-ian. Tamil Nadu demanded the settingup of a tribunal for resolution of thesedisputes and sharing Cauvery waters.The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunalwas established in 1990 and gave itsawards in 2007, unfortunately satisfy-ing neither side.7

The history of inter-state transboun-dary river water sharing in India isthus characterized by both coopera-tion and conflict. Water conflicts areof many types depending upon thenature of the contesting parties andcontestation involved. The issuespertaining to resolution of conflictssurrounding transboundary rivers aremade especially complex because ofa lack of adequate legal and institu-tional mechanisms. Take for instanceirrigation, which as a sector consumesmore than 80% of all available waterin the country; it is listed under thestate list in the Indian Constitution.

Entry 17 in the state list in theConstitution of India is important inthis regard. It is subject to the provi-sions of entry 56 of the Union listwhich enables the central governmentto legislate on inter-state transboun-

5. A. Swain, Struggle Against the State:Social Network and Protest Mobilization inIndia. Ashgate, Farnham and Burlington,2010.

7. S. Settar, ‘Kaveri in its Historical Setting’,in N. Shantha Mohan, Sailen Routray andN. Shashikumar (eds), River Water Sharing:Transboundary Conflict and Cooperation inIndia, Routledge, New Delhi, 2010, pp. 99-107.6. Ibid.

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dary rivers. But entry 56 of the Unionlist is much underused. Article 262 ofthe Constitution provides a role forthe Centre in adjudicating conflictssurrounding inter-state transboundaryrivers. The Inter-State Water Disputes(ISWD) Act 1956 has been promul-gated under article 262. This act pro-vides for the formation of tribunals forsettling such disputes.8

According to the provisions of theISWD Act, a state government canapproach the central government toset up a tribunal for adjudication ofthe dispute. The tribunal is headed bya chairperson with two other mem-bers, all three nominated by the ChiefJustice of India. At the time of nomi-nation, the chairperson and membershave to be judges of the SupremeCourt. The tribunal is empowered toappoint assessors to aid in investiga-tion and provide advice in the pro-ceedings. The act mandates that theaward of the tribunal is to be publishedand that its decision is final and bind-ing on the parties to the dispute.

The tribunals set up for settlingthe disputes surrounding the Krishna,Godavari and Narmada rivers areperceived to have been successful.Nevertheless, their efficacy to settleinter-state transboundary rivers isincreasingly coming under question.There have been substantial problemssurrounding the tribunals set up tosettle the disputes surrounding thewater of Ravi-Beas and Cauvery. Theawards of both the tribunals failed toresolve the disputes and have led togreater bouts of intense politickingeven though the tribunal’s awardnow has the status of a decree of theSupreme Court of India by virtue ofrecent amendments to the ISWD Act.

One problem is that the tribunalstake time to reach a final settlement.

Though the amended Act of 2002 man-dates a time limit of six years, it still isa long period of time. In this context,mention must be made of several non-official civil society efforts to addressthe issue of river water sharing. TheMadras Institute of DevelopmentStudies (MIDS), Chennai, initiated aprocess of creating a platform to facili-tate dialogue between the farmers ofKarnataka and Tamil Nadu in theCauvery basin. Through the processof dialogue, farmers are developing abetter understanding of each othersproblems and needs and thus reducingthe potential for conflict.9

We now list some ways to helpaddress issues of transboundary waterconflicts. The first path is of an insti-tutional nature. We suggest that acombination of existing institutions,such as the inter-state council, and thecreation of new institutions such asriver basin organizations, can go somedistance in resolving water conflicts.We also need to use some new toolsor old tools differently, to creativelydeal with conflicts. In this regard, welook at mediation and an alternativeapproach to scenario building as twopossible ways.

Article 263 of the Indian Consti-tution envisages establishing an Inter-State Council (ISC) with the mandateof enquiring into and advising upondisputes arising between the variousstates of India, to investigate subjectsof common interest amongst thestates, and to make recommendationsupon such subjects for the bettercoordination of policy and action. TheInter-State Council was finally estab-lished by presidential order on 28 May1990 as a recommendatory body tofulfil the already mentioned constitu-tional mandate.

The council comprises of theprime minister of India; chief minis-ters of all states; chief ministers of

union territories; administrators ofunion territories; six ministers of cabi-net rank in the union council of min-isters and permanent invitees. Anymatter in the Union list, Concurrentlist or the state list of the Constitutionof India in respect of which thereexists a common interest as referredto in clause (a) of paragraph iv of thesaid order or a need for better coordi-nation as referred to in clause (b) of theparagraph can be considered.

The council provides a forum fordiscussion on complex public policyand governance issues having a bear-ing on centre-state relations or with aninter-state dimensions. Because thecouncil is a constitutionally mandatedbody, and has now built a wealth ofexperience in dealing with mattersthat are of common interest to states,it can play a useful role in facilitatingdialogue and discussion towardsresolving conflicts.10

There is a need to look at arbitra-tion and negotiation as methods ofconflict resolution. One institutionalarrangement that can be used to faci-litate negotiation surrounding inter-state transboundary rivers is the RiverBasin Organization (RBO). RBOscan be set up under the River BoardsAct of 1956 (RBA), legislated underarticle 56 of the Union list. These areempowered to regulate and developinter-state rivers and their basins. Theboard must comprise of memberswith expertise in fields such as irriga-tion, water and soil conservation andfinance.

But so far river boards have notbeen established in the country underthe provisions of this act, in part

8. N. Shantha Mohan, 2010, op cit.

9. Ibid.10. Ramaswamy Iyer, ‘Inter-State WaterDisputes Act 1956 Difficulties and Solu-tions’, Economic and Political Weekly 37(28),2907-2910, 2002; and N. Shantha Mohan,2010, op cit.

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because state governments fear thatthey will intrude upon their authorityand power.11 However, given the eraof coalition politics, and an increasedself-confidence of the states, there isneed to take a fresh look at the possi-bility of setting up RBOs.

Till date seven tribunals havebeen established to deal with disputessurrounding the water of inter-statetransboundary rivers. But they havenot always helped resolve the disputesin a satisfactory manner. These tribu-nals depend upon the legal principleof arbitration. The awards of these tri-bunals, although supposedly final andbinding, have been challenged in thecourts. The judicial process is essen-tially an adversarial process and dam-ages the relationship between thedisputants.

In contrast, mediation is a processthat employs a neutral person or per-sons to facilitate negotiations betweenthe disputing parties so as to arriveat a mutually acceptable solution.Mediators should not have any directinterest in the conflict as they bothcontrol the process of mediation andits outcome. In actuality, it is the par-ties or disputants in whom the realpower is vested. Mediation is a flex-ible and informal process and drawsupon the multidisciplinary perspec-tives of the mediators.

In the South Asian context, theWorld Bank played the role of media-tor between India and Pakistan, whichresulted in a successful resolution ofthe conflicts surrounding the rivers ofthe Indus basin. In the Zambezi riverdispute involving eleven countries,the Vatican mediated an agreementto use and manage the river watersjointly.12 Thus, there is great merit inthe proposal to deploy mediation as a

tool for conflict resolution and partici-patory management.

The way scenario building in thewater sector usually takes place, it isreduced to a ‘technical’ tool for pre-diction. Scenario building, however,is not a tool for projection and neednot be used as one. It is essentially animaginative exercise involving politi-cal and social choices; as much a toolfor action as it is of thought. Whileundertaking an exercise in scenariobuilding, one needs to take intoaccount the physical qualities of wa-ter as a resource. Generally, in exer-cises of scenario building surroundingwater, the current patterns of con-sumption are taken as a given, basedon which various demand projectionsfor future points of time are generated.Thus, this exercise is a projection ofcurrent patterns of demands into thefuture.

We argue that there is a need tolook at scenario building completelydifferently. We need to hypotheticallyfreeze the total available water, or thequantum at current levels of total con-sumption, for a given region or unit ofanalysis and build scenarios of alter-native usage patterns. Instead of try-ing to predict the total quantum ofwater demand at a future date givencertain conditions, one must plan as ifwater and its characteristics as a life-giving resource matter. This will nec-essarily be a non-technocratic anddemocratic exercise, since the simu-

lation depends on the social choicesthat we might want to make if wateravailability and/or consumption wereto be frozen at some arbitrary point inthe present. Such an exercise will alsohelp unravel the assumptions wemake while making projections, asalso help us radically interrogate theo-ries of risk society by positing sce-narios as ‘designs’.13

Water is increasingly an importantsite of contestation between states inIndia because of the rapid pace of eco-nomic growth, growing populationsand increasing urbanization. The grow-ing importance of forging coalitiongovernments at the national level andthe related assertion of regional iden-tities add to the intractability of theproblems. More often than not, suchissues arise as a result of a focuson demand-side management. Manyscholars have argued that supply-sidemanagement might be one way ofdealing with such issues. While thereis merit in this argument, we need toundertake institutional innovations aswell.

The suggestion for setting upRBOs and providing a greater role forthe inter-state council in dealing withinter-state transboundary rivers needsto be seen in this regard. Given thechanging political dynamics in thecountry, it should not be difficult toconvince the states that the relation-ship between state governments andthe Centre need not be a zero-sumgame. An increasing role for centralinstitutions in dealing with issuesemerging out of sharing the waters oftransboundary rivers does not neces-sarily mean a whittling down of thepowers of the states. Second, oneneeds to creatively use existing tools(such as mediation and scenario build-ing exercises) for managing waterresources of inter-state rivers moreeffectively and democratically.

12. Geeta Devi, Legal Framework for Reso-lution of Water Disputes. Paper presentedat The National Consultation on Water Con-flicts in India: The State, the People andthe Future, 15-16 March 2010, NIAS,Bangalore.13. Sailen Routray, Water Conflicts andScenario Building in Orissa: An Alterna-tive Approach. Orissa Environmental Con-gress, 22-24 December 2010, RegionalMuseum of Natural History, Bhubaneswar,Orissa, India.

11. Ramaswamy Iyer, Towards Water Wisdom:Limits, Justice, Harmony. Sage Publications,New Delhi, 2007.

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Securing water commonsin scheduled areasS H A W A H I Q S I D D I Q U I

ACCESS to safe drinking water is afundamental right in India.1 The rightto clean and safe drinking water isconsidered as embodied in Article 21,known as the ‘right to life’, under theConstitution of India.2 This rightbecomes even more significant due tothe effects of climate change that arefelt at both levels – global and local.Studies suggest that climate change islikely to adversely impact water resou-rces in India resulting in an unpredict-able hydrological cycle, affecting theoverall water scenario.3 As a result,our ability to meet the requirements ofdifferent water-intensive sectors suchas agriculture, for drinking purposes,

sanitation and industrial use is likelyto face increased challenges. Commu-nity water resources such as villageponds, tanks, reservoirs, johads, andcommunity wells are also likely to beaffected due to changes in the hydro-logical cycle.

In such a scenario it is necessaryfor the government to take appropri-ate measures for securing commonproperty resources of the poor andvulnerable tribal communities whowill be disproportionately impactedby climate change. Community waterresources, or water commons, thusassume greater significance as theyare crucial to the climate vulnerableforest-dwelling and pastoral commu-nities who are heavily dependent onthem for their very survival. Thechanges in the hydrological cyclemay have varied and unpredictablyimpacted water resources in thepast, beyond the comprehension of tri-bal communities dependent on theseresources.

In India, a significant portionof the tribal population that is listedunder the Constitution as ‘Scheduled

1. Subhash Kumar vs State of Bihar, AIR 1991SC 420.2. A.P. Pollution Control Board II vProf. M.V. Naidu and Others (Civil AppealNos. 368-373 of 1999). Cited from John Lee‘Right to Healthy Environment’, ColumbiaJournal of Environmental. Law, Vol. 25, 2000;Also see Bandhua Mukti Morcha Vs Unionof India Case Judgment.3. See study by Ministry of Environment andForest, Impact of Climate Change on WaterResources in India, 2009 www.envirofor.nic.in

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Tribes’ live in areas classified asScheduled Areas. These areas aretreated differently under the Consti-tution for administrative purposes.4They are provided special protec-tion and governance because theirpopulation is perceived to be socially,educationally and economically back-ward, and hence easily distinguish-able from the mainstream population.They need special protection to pre-serve their culture, identity and com-munity resources.

The Constitution of India providesfor the allocation of subject mattersthat are to be regulated by the centraland state governments. Under thepresent constitutional scheme, wateris listed as a state subject, whereinthe states have control over waterresources, its supply and manage-ment. Notwithstanding this constitu-tional mandate, states have achievedprecious little regarding water supplyfor drinking purposes to both urbanand rural areas. Irrigation, being themost water consuming sector, has alsoremained unregulated, resulting in anexcessive withdrawal of groundwaterand consequently an exponential fallin the water table in many states.

States have also failed to formu-late and implement norms for indus-try. Moreover, little has been donefor the protection of common waterresources. While certain policiesregulating fisheries in common vil-lage ponds do exist, little progress has

been made in conserving communitywater resources.

Water law framework in India com-prises of a number of policy and legalinstrument, at both national and statelevels. The institutional framework toimplement water related policies andprogrammes is also complex and com-prises of multitude of agencies in thelocal, state and central government.Besides a multiplicity of agencies,there are overlapping and unclearmandates both at the central andstate level for management of waterresources for various purposes suchas drinking, irrigation, sanitationand industry. This complex networkof policy instruments, programmes,schemes and implementation agen-cies results in poor governance withoverlapping responsibilities.

Thus, for example, the CentralWater Commission (CWC) in theMinistry of Water Resources is taskedwith the responsibility for regulatingthe use of surface water for irrigation,industry and for drinking purposes.At the same time the Central Ground-water Board (CGWB) has an over-arching mandate for monitoringgroundwater levels and rates of deple-tion, as well as production of waterresource inventories and maps, andthe Central Pollution Control Board(CPCB) is responsible for control-ling basin-wide pollution controlstrategies.

Similarly, the Ministry of Agri-culture is involved in planning, formu-lation, monitoring and reviewingvarious watershed-based develop-mental project activities, the RajivGandhi National Drinking WaterMission under the Ministry of RuralDevelopment in the central govern-ment is charged with policy formula-tion and setting standards, funds andtechnical assistance to the states forrural water supply and sanitation, and

so on. Clearly, there is no streamlinedframework for a single coordinatedinstitutional arrangement. Moreover,the current institutional mechanismdoes not factor in the involvementof gram sabhas and village panchayatsin water management and supplyservices.

The regulation and use of ground-water in the country also faces anumber of challenges. One reason forexcessive withdrawal of groundwateris the extreme subsidizing of energyfor irrigation pump sets. Other reasonsthat directly affect water balanceinclude an alarming rate of deforesta-tion and loss of tree cover, loss of com-mon lands, and a complete disregardfor traditional management systems,such as tanks in South India. The cur-rent policy framework at the centralor state level does not factor in theseissues, which are important for effec-tive groundwater regulation in thecountry.

In the early seventies, free elec-tricity to farmers and heavy subsidieson water pumps resulted in an exces-sive withdrawal of groundwater, lead-ing to its rapid depletion nationwide.The Central Water Commission in theearly nineties suggested measures toregulate overuse of groundwater. Thestates were given the prime responsi-bility for drawing up new regulations,water being a state subject. However,few states in the country have so farformulated a robust regime of regula-tions, and groundwater depletion inthe country continues to be a seriousconcern, especially in the paddy grow-ing states such as Chhattisgarh.

In this complex scenario, withthe increasing risk of unpredictableeffects of climate change, it is neces-sary that community water resourcesare secured and managed by the com-munities themselves to mitigate theeffects of climate change. The legal

4. The Constitution defines scheduled areas asfalling under either Schedule V or ScheduleVI. The fifth schedule under article 244(1) ofthe Constitution defines ‘Scheduled Areas’ assuch areas as the President may by orderdeclare to be scheduled areas after consulta-tion with the Governor of that state. The sixthschedule under article 244(2) of the Constitu-tion relates to those areas in the North East,which are declared as ‘tribal areas’ and providefor district or regional autonomous councils.These councils have wide-ranging legislative,judicial and executive powers.

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and institutional regime for ensuringcommunity participation exists andneeds to be understood. An attempt tosummarize key elements of the exist-ing legal regime has been made below.

With the 73rd constitutional amend-ment, the panchayati raj system wasextended throughout the country andelected representatives from villagescould form part of the block panchayatsamitis. However, the amendmentwas not applicable to scheduled andtribal areas referred to in article 244of the Constitution. Nevertheless, theParliament had the discretion toextend the provisions of part IX toscheduled and tribal areas referred toin article 244, with such exceptionsand modifications as may be specifiedby law. Clearly, scheduled areas werekept out of the purview of the 73rdconstitutional amendment whose pro-visions were to be applied only withexceptions and modifications.

Following the spirit of the73rd constitutional amendment withrespect to scheduled areas, the Parlia-ment passed the Provisions of thePanchayat (Extension to ScheduledAreas) Act, 1996 (PESA Act, 1996).5The PESA empowers people in thevillages of the scheduled areas toaddress issues that affect their dailylives. It is a simple yet powerful lawthat provides for decentralized gov-ernance in the scheduled areas in thecountry to enable people to governthemselves. Such decentralizationrequires an institutional structure, aswell as an allocation of powers and

responsibilities. The PESA, therefore,recognizes the village community asa basic unit of governance and pre-scribes the creation of panchayati rajinstitutions at different levels.

One of the important featuresof this important legislation is that itprescribes the recognition of the gramsabha or the village assembly as a cen-tral unit of village governance andvests it with such powers and func-tions as may be necessary for govern-ance.6 The PESA, further, politicallyempowers the village community forplanning village development, man-aging natural resources and resolvingconflict in accordance with traditionalcustoms and practices. Such empow-erment is through the panchayati rajinstitutions mentioned above.

The PESA tries to empower pancha-yati raj institutions through six basicmethods. These are:1. By recognizing the central role ofcustomary laws, social and religiouspractices and traditional managementpractices of community resources inthe lives of the tribals and makingthem the founding principle of self-governance in scheduled areas. Fur-ther, PESA accepts the competence ofthe gram sabha in safeguarding andpreserving the traditions and customsof the people, their cultural identity,community resources, and customarymode of dispute resolution. Accord-ingly, the act dictates that all state leg-islation on panchayats must be inaccordance with customary laws,social and religious practices and tra-ditional practices for management ofcommunity resources.

2. By exclusively according somepowers to the gram sabha. These pow-ers include, among others, the powerto approve developmental plans, pro-grammes and projects for social andeconomic development, the powerof identifying and selecting benefi-ciaries for poverty alleviation andother programmes, and the power togrant certificates of utilization of fundsor plans, programmes and projectsimplemented by the gram panchayat.3. By giving the panchayat at appro-priate levels (PAL) the exclusivepower for planning and managingminor water bodies to secure commu-nity water resources such as villageponds, johads and ghats, with the activeinvolvement and participation of thegram sabha.4. By empowering the gram sabhaor PAL to hold consultations beforeland acquisition for development pro-jects and resettling or rehabilitatingpersons affected by such projects, andfor prior recommendation in grantinga prospecting license or mining leasesfor minor minerals, as well as for grantof concessions for the exploitation ofminor minerals by auction.5. By empowering the gram sabhaand PAL through powers that areperhaps the most important for thelives of tribal people. These powersmake the gram sabha a necessaryunit of empowerment, along with anyother level of panchayat and include:enforcing prohibition, regulation orrestriction on the sale or consump-tion of any intoxicants; ownershipof minor forest produce; preventionof alienation of land in scheduledareas and taking appropriate actionto restore unlawfully alienated landof a scheduled tribe; control overinstitutions and functionaries in allsocial sectors; management of vill-age market; control over moneylend-ing; and control over local plans andresources for such plans, includingtribal sub-plans.

5. The PESA Act seeks to extend the provisionsof part IX of the Constitution as referred to inclause (1) of article 244 and calls for the legis-lature of a state not to make any law under thatpart (i.e. part IX) which is inconsistent with anyof the features given under section 4 of the act,some of the important features of which are thatthe state legislation should be in tune with thecustomary law, social and religious practicesand traditional management practices of com-munity resources.

6. A gram sabha elects a gram panchayat, whichis the body of elected representatives of thegram sabha. At the block level, it mandatesthe creation of the panchayat samiti, and at thedistrict level the zilla parishad. The grampanchayat, the panchayat samiti and the zillaparishad are collectively called the panchayatat appropriate levels (hereafter PAL).

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6. By necessitating proportionalrepresentation and reservations forscheduled tribe members. Propor-tional representation means that if thescheduled tribe population in a villageis 80% of the total population, then asimilar percentage of members mustbe represented in the gram panchayat.Moreover, for facilitating local leader-ship from the tribal community, theposts of sarpanch and up-sarpanch inthe scheduled areas are reserved formembers of scheduled tribes.

Thus one finds that PanchayatExtension to Scheduled Areas Act,1996 provides enough legal space forthe protection of village commons,especially community water resourcesin scheduled areas. As per PESA,water commons in scheduled areas areto be managed by the panchayat at theappropriate level (PAL) and if the stategovernment so decides, the controland management of community waterresources can also be entrusted to thegram sabha. Thus, central PESA pro-vides that the state may exercise its dis-cretion in allocating this power to eithertier of the village governance system.

Consequently, different stateshave adopted different arrangementsin allocating this power to institutionsfor managing the water commons.Thus for example, in Madhya Pradeshand Orissa, the zilla parishad is taskedwith the management of water bodies.But this arrangement violates the basicspirit of PESA wherein village waterbodies and all common resourcesare to be managed by the gram sabhathrough consensus. Therefore, a pre-requisite for securing communitywater resources is the effective imple-mentation of PESA and its adaptationfor subject matters falling within thestates’ jurisdiction. In order to securethe resource base of communities, theirinvolvement is essential for whichcreative use of the legal mandate andconstitutional imperative of villageself-governance must be realized.

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Ecological implicationsof the green revolutionI N D E R J E E T S I N G H

EVER since the advent of the greenrevolution in the mid-sixties, agricul-ture in Punjab has experienced asignificant structural change, with tra-ditional agriculture progressively giv-ing way to modern and commercialagriculture. Since the 1960s, the mainfocus has been on increasing agricul-tural production, especially of food-grains. As a result, the production ofwheat and rice has increased manifold.

Apart from high yielding varie-ties of wheat and rice, what facilitatedthe process was the consolidation ofland holdings, expansion of irrigationfacilities, higher use of chemicals fer-tilizers and pesticides, farm mechani-zation, power and road infrastructure,and easy access to inputs and marketsupport mechanisms for output.

To meet the ever-growingdemand of the country, foodgrain pro-duction has been increased by enhanc-ing productivity through intensiveuse of water and inputs like fertilizers,insecticides and pesticides. The adop-tion of this strategy has raised manydevelopment related problems on eco-nomic, social and environmental fronts.

Punjab has about a 14500 kmlong canal network and close to100,000 km of watercourses, provid-ing irrigation to 1.15 million hectare,

which is 28.19% of total cultivablearea of the state (2006-07). However,the network of canals, which is morethan 150 years old, is unable to takeits full discharge since it requiresmajor repairs and rejuvenation. As aresult of the reduced carrying capac-ity of the system and decreased avail-ability of surface water, the net areairrigated by canals has gone down from55% in 1960-61 to 28% in 2006-07.

Consequently, ground water hasbecome a major source of irrigation inthe state. To relieve stress on groundwater, a greater emphasis is needed onbuilding an efficient conveyance anddistribution system for optimal utiliza-tion of available surface water. Simul-taneously, Punjab needs a greatershare in its river waters to reducestress on groundwater resources andpower consumption.

In the absence of any systematicpolicy to regulate the demand forwater, the unconstrained mining ofthis resource has resulted in its over-exploitation. A look at the temporaldimension of categorization of blocksshows that in year 1984, 44.92%blocks were the ‘over-exploited’ andabout 49% blocks were classified assemi-critical or safe. But by the year1992, 52% of the blocks fell into the

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category of ‘over-exploitation’ andthe share of semi-critical and safeblocks went down to 40%. Currently,as per the 2004 statistics, the numberof ‘over-exploited’ blocks has risento 75.18% and the number of ‘semi-critical’ and ‘safe’ blocks has shrunkto 21%. A combination of overexploi-tation of groundwater and reducedshare of canal water is drasticallydepleting the central resource of thePunjab economy.

On the whole, the area dependant ongroundwater of unfit quality is around7957 square kms, which accounts fornearly 16 per cent of Punjab state. Inaddition, the state has moved fromgrowing a previously healthy mix ofcrops such as wheat, maize, pulses andvegetables to now devoting nearly80% of its crop area to rice and wheat,two of the most water-intensivecrops. Overall, the central and statelevel agriculture policy – consisting ofminimum support prices, effectiveprocurement of selected crops, inputsubsidies benefiting farmers in elec-tricity, fertilizer, and irrigation and theincreased availability of credit facili-ties over the years – has been instru-mental in pushing farmers to focus onwheat and rice, at enormous detrimentto water resource sustainability in thecountry.

Since the scope to address thesupply side of water is limited, themajor focus has to be on managing thedemand side of water. Rice so far hasbeen the most remunerative crop, rela-tive to other kharif crops. It is also themost water intensive crop, using about24000 cubic metres of water per hec-tare, which is about six times morethan maize, nearly 20 times more thangroundnut and about 10 times morethan pulses.

A major reason for the deterio-rating water table is the state govern-ment’s long-standing policy of giving

free power to farmers. As power inPunjab is heavily subsidized, its 1.1million agricultural consumers feelfree to run their powerful submersiblemotors to draw groundwater. The sup-ply of free power to farmers is directlylinked with underground water, sinceit encourages over-exploitation of thisscarce natural resource. During theyears when electric supply was free inPunjab, the water table in some dis-tricts went down considerably. Unfor-tunately, farmers are still going deeperin search of water by installing deepsubmersible pumps using heavy-duty motors consuming more power.Political considerations should notoverlook the ground realities. A fewyears more of this honeymoon withfree/subsidized power will rendermany more areas in Punjab and else-where barren. People then may not getwater even for drinking, leave asidefor irrigation.

Despite the infrastructure of damsand large head works on all majorrivers and low dams on excessive dis-charging rivulets of the state, occa-sional excessive flood water, whichcannot be impounded upstream of thedams, has to be passed downstreamkeeping in view the regulation normsbased on the safety of dams. Some-times, water has to be released in theinterest of power generation, even

when there are no irrigation require-ments. The accompanying table isindicative of the damage caused bysuch floods in the immediate past.

The problem of floods, from a plan-ning perspective, calls for a mix ofshort-term, medium term and longterm measures that must be specificto the region. To counter floods, anumber of river taming works need tobe annually constructed on the river.The rivers, Ravi and Sutlej near theinternational border, need to be paidspecial attention to counter the floodsmenace resulting from protectiveworks constructed by the neighbour-ing country and the shifting courseof the rivers. There is a need to adopta coordinated management approachto minimize the floods in the state,by formulating suitable drainage policyfor annual maintenance of drains andensuring optimum utilization of hydro-power and irrigation potential.

Another important aspect iswater quality, which is impacted byuntreated or inadequately treatedindustrial effluents and sewage flow-ing into nallahs and rivers. The prob-lem is further compounded by themixing of storm water and sewage invarious municipal towns, as thesecarry solid waste, biomedical wasteand other hazardous waste from cityroads into the water bodies. The pol-

Effect of Floods During Rainy Season in Punjab in India

Year Villages/ towns Area affected Population Human lives Cattle headseffected (No.) (in sq. km.) affected (No.) lost (No.) lost (No.)

1980 1191 489 85724 44 1171990 755 471 90465 13 2752000 81 127 319 5 882003 43 47 25 3 02004 480 610 60157 15 5112005 93 31 125 11 482006 442 211 405933 10 232007 1033 1035 405911 7 32008 2001 5004 389116 34 104

Source: Statistical Abstract, Govt. of Punjab, various issues.

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lution and contamination of waterresources due to industrial waste, sew-age and excessive use of chemical/pesticides in agriculture has led tohigh pH, BoD, DO, faecal coliformand concentrations of arsenic etc. Atsome places, the water has becometoxic due to high concentration ofheavy metals, adversely affecting thehealth of the populace and causingdiseases like cancer. Toxic water mayeven enter the food chain, affectinggenotoxicity and possibly even theDNA, causing irreparable loss to bothhuman beings and wildlife. The che-mical quality of groundwater is alsodeteriorating due to natural release ofselenium and fluorides. As such, spe-cial attention needs to be given tothese aspects to provide safe water.

Despite the recently formulatedPunjab State Water Policy (2008), alot remains to be done. Althoughscarcity of water has been a seriousproblem for at least the last two dec-ades, the investment in research anddevelopment in water use efficiencyhas not yet picked up. Thus R&Dprogrammes on water use efficiencyneed to be given the highest priority.There is also an urgent need to developa long term policy for groundwateruse and recharge to help maintain anoptimum balance. The current nega-tive balance between annual availablewater supply and actual use needs tobe corrected through multiprongedstrategies like making maximum useof surface water, increasing rechargeaddressing the urban sector, andreducing demand for water.

The state government passedthe Preservation of Subsoil WaterOrdinance in 2008 to institutionalizedelayed sowing of paddy. If Punjab isto continue as the foodgrain capitalof India, modern agricultural practiceswill have to take into account thereality of the water situation and cre-ate a feasible long term plan for a sus-tainable future.

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Water crisis in DelhiR U M I A I J A Z

SOME urban settlements the worldover have grown phenomenally inpopulation size. A high concentrationof people within urban limits is not aunique phenomenon, but problemsoccur when urban governance institu-tions and mechanisms are unable tomanage urban growth, or fail to meetthe demands, aspirations and expec-tations of citizens from all sections ofthe society.

A failure in managing growthinvariably has an adverse impact onthe quality of life and living conditions.Such a situation is observed in mostcities of developing countries whichare experiencing a rapid growth ofslums and unauthorized settlements,traffic congestion, environmental pol-lution, severe infrastructure and ser-vice deficiencies, increase in rents andland values, threats to built and natu-ral heritage, crime, violence, corrup-tion, and so on. Many such problemsseverely affect the life of urban resi-dents, and have a negative impact oneconomic growth and productivity ofcities.

The nature and extent of prob-lems occurring due to urbanizationmay be further understood by examin-ing specific cases. Let us look at thesituation of water – a basic human

necessity and a fundamental right. InIndian towns and cities, the responsi-bility for providing water to the citi-zens falls on the local government(i.e., a municipality) or a subordinateagency of the state government (suchas the Delhi Jal Board). They areengaged in the planning, design andimplementation of water supplyschemes, and look after the operationand maintenance of water supply sys-tems. To discharge this duty, financialand technical assistance is receivedfrom the concerned central ministryand the state government department.

The water supply agency obtainsraw water mainly from surface sources(such as rivers, lakes or canals) andfrom under the ground (commonlyknown as groundwater). Rainwaterharvesting is an insignificant practice.The raw water procured is first treatedat treatment plants and thereafterconveyed to underground and/or over-head storage reservoirs for distribu-tion to different parts of the city bypipeline. A legislative act empowersthe water supply agency to recoverfrom the citizens the costs incurred inthe production and distribution ofwater by levying a water tax, or acharge. For the poor communities liv-ing in slums and unauthorized colo-

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nies, water is usually supplied freeof cost by public stand posts, handpumps and tankers.

An appraisal of the urban watersupply sector reveals that numerousproblems are being experienced inensuring a safe and regular supply ofwater to urban residents. This situa-tion is also observed in the case ofDelhi, which is home to 16.75 millionpersons. India’s capital city shouldideally demonstrate the best form ofgovernance. On the contrary, the situ-ation is alarming. The statistics main-tained by the service providingagency, namely the Delhi Jal Board(DJB), confirm that there is insuffi-cient raw water available for the peo-ple of Delhi, and due to a continuousaddition to the city’s population, thedeficit has been increasing over theyears. In early 2011 for instance, whilethe water produced by DJB was about830 million gallons per day (mgd),demand was estimated at 1,080 mgdand the deficit was 250 mgd.

Furthermore, many city-levelindicators pertaining to water supplycoverage and distribution – per capitasupply, quality, duration of supply,water pressure, groundwater levels,water infrastructure (including reser-voirs, treatment and recycling plants,pipelines, meters, etc.) – are laggingbehind established norms. For exam-ple, in early 2010, as against the 100%benchmark, only 72% of the popula-tion was covered by water supply andthe extent of water metering was evenlower at 55%. The average water sup-ply per day is between two and threehours.

Similarly, the capability of theservice providing agency is a matterof great concern, evident from thehuge water losses (about 40%) causedby leakages in transmission/distri-bution lines and in various stages oftreatment, frequent pipeline bursts,

significant proportion of non-revenue(52%) and unaccounted flow (42%)of water, insufficient capacity to treatwaste water, huge energy consump-tion in water conveyance, inefficientgrievance redressal mechanism, inap-propriate water pricing and low costrecovery (42%), large number of defec-tive meters as well as non-meteredconnections, lack of reliable data andinformation, lack of community andprivate sector involvement in waterplanning and distribution, and note-worthy intra-urban disparities.

A basic problem faced by the watersupply agency is the arrangement ofraw water from various sources in andaround Delhi. Groundwater levelsare depleting fast, falling by 80-100metres in some parts of Delhi, sinceextraction outpaces natural recharge.There is also evidence of ground-water contamination and high sali-nity levels. The civic agency thusrelies mostly (85%) on surface watersources, namely river Yamuna, Bhakrastorage and the upper Ganga canal.The water available in surface sourcesreaches (or is brought to) Delhi afterpassing the adjoining states of Haryanaand Uttar Pradesh (UP). Delhi is thusdependent on the neighbouring statesfor raw water supply.

The states located near or alongthe route of the three different sur-face sources have a policy of sharingwater according to an agreement. Forexample, Yamuna waters are sharedbetween Haryana, Uttar Pradesh,Rajasthan and Delhi. However, pastexperience shows that quite oftenthere is arbitrariness in receiving regu-lar supply from the adjoining states asper the allocated share. Sometimes,the ensured supply of water to thenational capital as per the water shar-ing policy between the North Indianstates is disrupted, affecting supplyof water to various parts of the city.

In the recent past, there has been sometension and politics over inter-statewater sharing, and distribution ofwater in various localities of Delhi.It would be useful to understand theunderlying problems in greater detail,as well as the reasons responsible forthe occurrence of such adversities.

In 2005, Delhi officials pub-licly announced that their raw waterdemands for a treatment plant wouldbe definitely met by UP. This state-ment was made without receivingany formal notification on release ofwater from the UP government.1 Suchpractices did not go down well withthe UP government functionaries,who took it as a serious offence andrefused any major water concessionsto Delhi at that point of time. Againin 2006, UP functionaries argued thatthe ‘water meant for farmers in west-ern UP will not be given to Delhi.’2

The Haryana government in 2007 didnot release Delhi’s share of waterallotted by the Bhakra-Beas Manage-ment Board for more than two months.While Haryana state functionariesargued that this happened becausethe water was not received from Pun-jab, the latter provided evidence ofrelease, implying stoppage of water inHaryana.3 Consequently, some watertreatment plants in Delhi functionedat half their capacity and many resi-dential localities were left unservedfor long periods.

The Delhi government has alsomade arrangements to obtain freshwater by developing new surfacesources in collaboration with adjoin-ing states. This is due to increasingpollution levels in the river Yamuna,

1. ‘Delhi Victim of Water Politics’, The Hindu,19 June 2005.2. ‘Water Politics May Leave Delhi Thirsty’,Business Standard, 27 February 2006.3. ‘Release City’s Share of Water, CWC TellsHaryana’, The Times of India, 12 August 2007.

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as well as inadequate availabilityof raw water. Sometimes, water pro-duction at treatment plants in Delhi iscurtailed by as much as 35% becauseammonia and chloride levels inraw waters of the Yamuna river goup substantially, which affects citysupplies.

The construction of a 102 km.long Munak canal is a joint effort withthe Haryana government to ensuresupply of fresh water to both Delhiand Haryana. The Delhi governmenthas contributed Rs 3.5 billion forcanal construction. Recent newsreports indicate that the water sharingdispute that arose between the twostate governments, possibly becauseof ambiguities in sharing of projectcosts, has been resolved through dia-logue and discussion between the twostate governments.4 There are, how-ever, concerns over receiving the fullshare of canal waters from Haryana infuture, as water levels in the Munakcanal sometimes show a fluctuatingtrend.5 This problem affects produc-tion of raw water at treatment plantsin Delhi. In this regard it is learnt thatcanal waters are often diverted to thepaddy fields in Haryana, especially attimes when the region experiencesscanty rainfall.

The quality of raw water in riverYamuna is another area of concern andconflict. It is alleged that the problemoccurs when Yamuna waters enterDelhi after which untreated or par-tially treated effluents are dischargedinto the river through the numerouscity drains. This practice contami-nates the raw water, and creates diffi-culties for the Haryana government,as water available for productiongets significantly reduced. Moreover,

extra efforts have to be made duringthe treatment stage before the watercan be supplied to various Haryanasettlements downstream.6

Yet another peculiar case of conflictmay be mentioned here. In one ins-tance, the water supply received fromthe upper Ganga canal was blocked bythe local population for a few hours inthe bordering state of Uttar Pradesh.Some groups were protesting for theinclusion of their community underthe OBC category, as it would ensurereservation of seats in jobs. The impactof this minor social movement in UPwas felt on the water availability forlocal residents living in several Eastand South Delhi colonies. They faceda severe water shortage crisis andhad no option but to call water tankeroperators who supplied water at exor-bitant rates. To prevent a similarsituation from occurring again, theGhaziabad district administration hadto deploy the Rapid Action Force atthe upper Ganga canal in Muradnagarso as to avoid disruption of water sup-ply to Delhi.

Hence, the manner in which thewater sharing situation as well as otherinter-state social and economic issuesare managed by various stakeholderscan severely affect city supplies.

Within the city too, there existsevere inequities in water availability.The data on water supply coverageshows that about a quarter of Delhi’spopulation does not get piped andtreated water. This is the situation inslums and unauthorized colonies ofDelhi where hand pumps and tankersare provided for water supply. Theurban poor have also been neglectedbecause many of the (unauthorized)colonies in which they live are yet tobe regularized, thereby depriving

them the right to gain access to basiccivic amenities. Thus, some areas inthe city get only 30 to 40 litres percapita per day (lpcd), while other partsare better off with as much as 500 lpcd.The duration of supply is another areaof concern, as the average supply perday is only about two to three hours.

Such inequities in basic civic ameni-ties often result in serious dissatis-faction among the masses as well ascivil unrest. For example, the resi-dents of Kondli, a locality in EastDelhi, raised slogans against theDelhi government and the Jal Board,blocked roads and damaged vehiclesdue to non-receipt of water supply forseveral days.7 A similar situationwas observed in the Khanpur localityin southeast Delhi,8 and in SangamVihar in South Delhi.9 A shortage ofdrinking water results in greater reli-ance on private suppliers, and affectsthe household budget. The residentshold the view that unless they engagein disruptive action, their complaintsgenerally go unheard. Occasionally,there have been arguments betweenworkers of different political partiesover inadequate water supply in someparts of the city.10

Sometimes, poor communitiesbenefit by way of improved access towater supply.11 Such a situation isobserved mainly before electionswhen influential candidates affiliatedto various political parties ensure thattheir voters receive sufficient suppliesof water, and other essential com-

4. ‘GoM to Solve Delhi, Haryana Water Row’,expressindia.com, 27 January 2011.5. ‘Haryana Withholding Delhi’s Share of Wa-ter’, The Hindu, 12 August 2011.

6. ‘Haryana Blames Delhi for PollutingYamuna Water’, The Times of India, 7 Febru-ary 2011.

7. ‘Protest Against Water Shortage TurnsViolent’, The Hindu, 7 July 2010.8. ‘Protests on Streets Over Water Shortage’,The Hindustan Times, 26 June 2009.9. ‘Protests Over Water Crisis in Delhi’,NDTV, 26 June 2009.10. ‘Cong., BJP Workers Clash’, The Timesof India, 27 April 2010.11. ‘DJB Flooded With Politics of Water’,indianexpress.com, 7 May 2009.

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modities. This shows how the politicsover water is a big election issue, andpolitics affects equitable distributionof supply in the city. In fact, such ‘poli-tics tend to influence and distortpolicies and decisions and renderrationality difficult’,12 often creatinga crisis in those parts of the city thatare under-served, since water meantfor them is diverted due to vestedinterests.

Public-private partnership in infra-structure and services is a popularapproach adopted by governments ofnumerous developing countries forachieving efficiency in providingservices to the citizens. This approachhas, however, met with varyingdegrees of success and the experiencediffers from place to place. The Delhigovernment too has given priority tojoint venture arrangements with pri-vate companies for the treatment anddistribution of water in the city. Butthere is resistance to privatization ofwater distribution.

In 2011, hundreds of activistsprotested against proposed privatiza-tion of water.13 In their view, corpo-rate houses and MNCs alone wouldbenefit, and there would be abolitionof subsidies and stoppage of freewater for the urban poor. Political par-ties in opposition also hold the viewthat the experience of such reforms inthe electricity sector of Delhi has notbeen very encouraging. A recent studyon this subject shows that across theglobe, the moves towards handingover urban water supply and manage-ment to private parties has increasedthe burden on the poorer sections.

In cases, such as in Bolivia, the ensu-ing unrest even resulted in regimechange.14

An evaluation of the urban watersupply scenario in Delhi reveals thatproblems have arisen mainly due tounplanned urbanization, slow imple-mentation of national and state waterpolicies, lack of institutional reforms,insufficient allocation of funds forthe development of urban water infra-structure and institutions, under-utilization of funds, weak mainte-nance, management and governanceof water supply systems and local andregional water resources, and inter-state issues. And if the same trend con-tinues, possible future threats couldbe lower quantities of water availa-ble, more time and money spent onaddressing daily consumption needs,increased local conflicts over sharingof water resources, and serious eco-nomic, environmental and healthconcerns.

ReferencesCentral Public Health and EnvironmentalEngineering Organization, Manual on WaterSupply and Treatment (third edition, revisedand updated), Ministry of Urban Develop-ment, New Delhi, 1999.Delhi Development Authority, Master Planfor Delhi – 2021.Government of National Capital Territory ofDelhi and IL&FS Ecosmart, City Develop-ment Plan for Delhi, Chapter 8 – ‘WaterSupply’, 2006.Government of National Capital Territory ofDelhi, The Delhi Water Board Act, 1998.Ministry of Water Resources, National WaterPolicy, 2002.National Sample Survey Organization, Drink-ing Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in India,NSS 54th Round (January to June 1998),Department of Statistics, Government ofIndia, New Delhi, 1999.Planning Commission, Eleventh Five YearPlan 2007-2012, Chapter 5 – ‘DrinkingWater, Sanitation, and Clean Living Condi-tions’, Government of India, New Delhi.WHO and UNICEF, Progress on Sanitationand Drinking Water, 2010 update, 2010.

12. Ramaswamy R. Iyer, ‘The Politicisationof Water’, InfoChange News and Features,October 2005.13. ‘Protest Against Water Privatisation inDelhi’, The Tribune, 6 July 2011.14. Kshithij Urs and Richard Whittell, Resist-ing Reform? Water Profits and Democracy.Sage Publications India, 2009.

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Water as a public good vs.water privatizationU W E H O E R I N G

THE re-municipalization of the watersupply system of Paris at the begin-ning of this year, until then one of thecrown jewels of the French globalplayers in the water sector, could beseen as a signal that the nearly twodecade old heated debate on ‘Privatevs. Public’ has turned full circle. Butthe process of reversing privatization– or to be more precise of PrivateSector Participation (PSP) – startedalready nearly a decade ago, whenglobal water corporations like Suez/Ondeo, Veolia/Vivendi and ThamesWater/RWE announced their inten-tion to reduce their engagement insouthern countries.

This forced institutions like theWorld Bank to re-evaluate its privatiza-tion strategy for the water sector, con-ceding that ‘under current conditionsthe private sector will play only a mar-ginal role in financing water infras-tructure’.1 And it opened up room foropportunities for non-governmental,civil organizations and public utilitiesto develop alternatives to privatiza-tion. But first a brief look back on howit began.

The investment requirements inthe water sector were the central argu-ment with which private sector par-ticipation has been promoted since theearly nineties. The expectation wasthat transnational private utilitieswould supply capital and modernmanagement. More market, morecompetition and the entrepreneurial

striving for profit would help removethe chronic problems many publicutilities are faced with, such as highwater loss and insufficient supply.This was the only way – so the mantrawent – to achieve the MillenniumDevelopment Goal, i.e. to cut by halfthe number of people who do not haveaccess to safe drinking water and appro-priate sanitary installations by 2015.

As a preliminary step, profoundinstitutional and political adjustmentprocesses were initiated to createpositive investment conditions forprivate utilities in developing coun-tries. The widespread habit of subsi-dizing was replaced by the concept of‘cost recovery’. Private investors wereencouraged with the help of various riskcoverage instruments and by offeringlow interest loans for Public-PrivatePartnerships (PPP).

Since then, experience has shownthat these projects contributed muchless than expected to an improvementof the drinking water supply for thelow-income population, and even lessso to an increase in the number ofsanitary installations. This was evenconfirmed by a World Bank report.2According to the report, even as pri-vatization results in an improvementin some cases, the basic problemsremain: marginalized areas are hardlycovered, corruption merely acquires anew shape, and accountability towardsthe public continues to remain weak.

1. Water Resources Sector Strategy: StrategicDirections for World Bank Engagement, Draftfor Discussion, 25 March 2002, p. 38.

2. Clive Harris, Private Participation in Infra-structure in Developing Countries, WorldBank Working Paper No. 5, Washington D.C.,April 2003.

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Frequently, privatization has a nega-tive effect on the poor, as in manycases prices have increased dramati-cally.

Nevertheless, despite theseincreases in water charges, corpora-tions have had to concede that theexpected easy profits in the water sec-tor are not to be made, the main reasonbeing that costs and returns in mostareas of the water sector tend to be dia-metrically opposed. No wonder thatJ.F. Talbot, CEO of SAUR Interna-tional, emphasized that the notion ofcost coverage, particularly with regardto low-income groups, is untenable.3

Private investments in many projectsremained much smaller than hopedfor or even agreed on during negotia-tions. One of the cases is Manila,where Suez/Ondeo has invested onlya quarter of the capital that was origi-nally promised. Instead of beingsupplemented by additional privateresources, the investments continue tobe financed by public means: by lowinterest multi- and bilateral develop-ment loans to governments that arethen passed on to private implement-ing agencies.

Thus the politics of privatizationcreates a dichotomy in the watersector: lucrative areas such as the sup-ply of drinking water for high incomegroups are transferred to privateenterprises; less attractive areas suchas squatter settlements, suburbs andrural regions remain with the publicsector. This dichotomy correspondswith the dichotomy of public funds forthe development of the water sector:on the one hand there is the promotionof the private sector and the minimi-zation of risk for global corporations,and on the other hand there are thealternatives that cannot be privatized,

and where increasingly the poor them-selves must become self-reliant to bal-ance the lack of funds provided by thepublic sector.

The multifaceted political, economicand financial problems, however,with which the involved companiesare confronted, turned out to be thebasic problem confronting the priva-tization strategy.* In many countries (Bolivia, SouthAfrica, Indonesia, and the Philip-pines) there was strong resistanceagainst the water corporations, which,as in Cochabamba, led to a cancella-tion of the contracts.* The financial crisis in Asia and theeconomic crisis in Argentina resultedin grave financial losses, especiallyfor the second ranked of the globalplayers, Suez/Ondeo. Thus the deva-luation of the Philippine Peso andserious management errors resultedin a cancellation of the contract forManila (West) which was at one timeone of the World Bank’s most prestig-ious projects.* All three market leaders (Suez,Vivendi and RWE) accumulated largedebts as a result of rapid expansion,which became a burden on the share-holder value; Veolia/Vivendi was upfor sale after the collapse of the group.

Furthermore, corporate repre-sentatives conceded that ‘low hangingfruit’, low-risk projects that requirelittle investment, have almost all been‘picked’.

Some corporations thus initi-ated a ‘consolidation phase’. A centralcomponent of this consolidation wasa retreat to – supposedly – secure mar-kets such as the U.S., European coun-tries with a low degree of privatizationlike Germany, the Eastern Europeanaccession countries, or China. Stillthey claim that they cannot raisethe investments necessary to achievethe Millennium Goals without consi-

derable state subsidies and low inter-est loans. Thus, they are demandinga stronger engagement by the deve-lopment banks – again with publicmoney.

The World Bank and other mul-tilateral and bilateral financial insti-tutions and donors also became morereserved in their prognoses concern-ing the participation of the private sec-tor in the countries of the South: ‘Wewere too optimistic concerning thewillingness to invest in these coun-tries,’ Nemat Safik, World Bank VicePresident for Infrastructure, con-ceded, ‘despite far-reaching reforms,many countries do not find investors.’

The experiences with privatiza-tion and the decreased interest ofwater corporations also left its markon a number of governments: ‘Priva-tization has not resolved the waterproblems for most of the population’,is how Olivio Dutra, responsible forurban planning in ‘Lula’da Silva’s firstBrazilian government, summed it up.

The most obvious conclusion wouldhave been to reorient towards animprovement of public utilities, whichhad been systematically placed ata disadvantage as opposed to PSPoptions. However, whenever reformsof public utilities were promoted withinthe scope of development coopera-tion, they usually served just as apreparation for privatization, not as ameans to improve the functioning ofpublic utilities to remain public. Thewithdrawal of the private global play-ers could have been an opportunityfor development cooperation to onceagain concentrate on public corpora-tions as the central pillar of water sup-ply and sanitation.

The picture has become muchmore diverse, mixed and differenti-ated than let’s say a decade ago. Evenas the drive for privatization contin-ues, the global players have set their

3. Speech at the World Bank in January 2002,www.worldbank.org/wbi/B-SPAN/docs/SAUR.pdf

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sights on a more appealing target:countries with dwindling water sup-plies and ageing infrastructure, butbetter economies than developingcountries. ‘These are the countriesthat can afford to pay,’ says JamesOlson, an US-attorney who special-izes in water rights. ‘They’ve got hugeinfrastructure needs, shrinking waterreserves, and money.’ Take China.Since 2000, when the country openedup its municipal services to foreigninvestments, the number of privatewater utilities has skyrocketed. But asprivate companies absorb water sys-tems throughout the country, the costof water has risen precipitously.

At the same time, there are manysmaller, regional companies fromemerging economies that are drivingprivatization moves. This is the casein many countries across LatinAmerica and Asia, less so in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In principle the World Bank has notrelinquished its privatization strategyas can be seen from several strategypapers like the Water Resources Sec-tor Strategy (WRSS) adopted in Feb-ruary 2003, or the Private SectorDevelopment Strategy (PSDS) fromearly 2002, which focuses on infra-structure and services.

All the papers have two mainideas in common: (i) a widening par-ticipation of the private sector in thecomplete water sector, and (ii) a redis-covery of large infrastructure proj-ects. Similar strategy papers andpolitical ideas also emanate from theAsian Development Bank, viz. theirAgricultural Sector Programmes. Bybroadening existing instruments(guarantees, loans, etc.) and by deve-loping new support measures (likeOutput Based Aid), the World Bankand other development banks are con-tinuing to lower hurdles for participa-tion by corporations in developing

countries and make the investmentconditions more attractive.

Nevertheless, the World Bankand other donors have become lessenthusiastic about private sector par-ticipation even though they continueto promote it. Simultaneously, theynow promote public water utilityreforms, consumer corporations, andother non-private forms of manage-ment and ownership.

Additionally, the focus has shiftedaway from urban water supply andsanitation towards high dams andirrigation, where an increasing pro-portion of investments of the WorldBank now go. Central to the newpolicy of the World Bank in the watersector is the development of a legalframework for water entitlements, theissuance of such entitlements, and theuse of market based mechanisms thatpermit voluntary adjustment by own-ers and users to meet temporary orpermanent changes in demand. Invest-ments in new or existing hydraulicinfrastructure and irrigation projectsare considered to provide a greaterchance to introduce the basic conceptsneeded for the issuance of such waterentitlements.

Thus, the focus shifts from theprivatization of infrastructure or man-agement towards privatization of thewater resource itself. And water pric-ing has become the new magic for-mula, which has been the base ofprivate sector participation in the1990s: a higher water price is consid-ered to bring about efficiency, invest-ments, and conservancy, which willalso benefit the poor without access towater and sanitation.

Paris water is not the only examplefor re-municipalization. There aremany other prominent cases like Stutt-gart and Berlin in Germany, Hamiltonin Canada, Buenos Aires in Argentina,Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, or the

move by the federal government ofMalaysia, which is in the process ofbuying all water and waste waterinfrastructure in the country todevelop them with public money.Instead of the so-called Public-PrivatePartnership there is a new modelemerging of Public-Public Partner-ship (PuPs), where successful andexperienced public utilities team upwith others to exchange informationand experiences on how to improvepublic service delivery.

Most people involved in thisprocess of reviving public utilitiesagree that merely a return to the con-ventional public provision utilities isno solution. Instead, there are severalpreconditions for success, drawn forexample from cases like Porto Alegreand its concept of participatory budg-eting. One of these is the participationof workers, employees and unions inthe process, extended to participationof users and the public. Another isshifting of resources towards the pub-lic sector and the provision of publicgoods in spite of the precarious finan-cial situation of many municipalities.Both preconditions point to the needand challenge for some fundamentalshifts in policy and financial resourcemanagement, which are not easy toachieve.

This is not to argue that private sec-tor and industry does not have a roleto play. Or that there is no scope tomake profit from investments in thewater sector. With the right incentives,they can develop and supply the tech-nology needed to make water deliverymore cost-effective and environmen-tally sound. Ultimately both publicand private entities will have to worktogether. The question is: who shallbe in the driver’s seat? The answerdepends on whether water is consi-dered to be a common good and watersupply a public responsibility, or not.

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Deciphering environmental flowsJ A Y A N T A B A N D Y O P A D H Y A Y

RIVERS, lakes and groundwateraquifers have been abstracted, driedand ecologically degraded worldwideby humans, especially during the lasttwo centuries. The scale of humaneconomic activity has grown exponen-tially and so has intervention into thenatural systems to gain access toincreasing volumes of water. Theavailability of reinforced cement tech-nology and powerful mechanicalpumps made such interventions pos-sible, offering a supply-side bonanza.It took a few years to understand thecumulative impacts on the ecologicalprocesses on which such a bonanzadepended, as in the case of the shrink-ing of the Aral Sea.

Such cumulative damages haveresulted in quantitative decline andconsequent inability of the watersystems to maintain the various eco-system services and supplies of wateron which the livelihoods of a large

number of people depend. This gaverise to a new type of water conflict –between the satisfaction of short-termeconomic demands of water and thelong-term sustainability of the diverseecosystem processes and services thatwater systems provide. The rapiddecline in the groundwater table inmany parts of India and the degrada-tion of flows in most rivers, in bothquality and quantity, is a result of look-ing at water systems within a tradi-tional engineering framework, as astock of resource to be abstracted asper the demands of the economy.

In the context of wide spatial andtemporal inequity in the monsoondominated precipitation over India,the macro-level picture comparingdemand and availability of water ishardly reflective of the realities insmaller parts of the country. Neverthe-less, official projections indicate thatthe total water requirement of India

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would outstrip the total availability ofabout 1100 billion cubic metres by themid-part of the present century. If thebusiness as usual practice continues,such a situation would create wide-spread conflicts of immense politicalsignificance. Addressing such emerg-ing conflicts, between the perspec-tives of water as a stock and as a flow,is thus an imperative.

With the quantity of abstrac-tions of water from the natural sourcesgrowing rapidly, their impacts on thefunctioning of the ecological pro-cesses involving water systems havebecome more and more conspicuous.If the initial signals of such ecologi-cal degradations are ignored by policymakers, the ecosystem services startto get restricted, making it increas-ingly difficult to both maintain liveli-hoods dependent on its sustainedavailability and to abstract water formeeting other economic demands.

A growing insecurity about thefuture availability of water has led tonew arrangements about its quantita-tive sharing, across boundaries andacross sectors. The numerous trans-boundary treaties and tribunal awardsover shared rivers like the Ganga,Cauvery, Krishna or Godavari, toname a few, exemplify how watersources are seen as a stock from anarrow quantitative viewpoint. Therecent disagreement between theGovernment of India and that of thestate of West Bengal on the questionof quantitative sharing of river Teestareflects the same mindset. Further,the website of India’s Ministry ofWater Resources clearly reveals thecommitment of water engineers tothe traditional perspective of supply-side solutions, guided by what is nowincreasingly being known as arith-metical hydrology.

The sources of water – in rivers,lakes and aquifers – have now been

degraded to such an extent that thewater future for India in both supplyterms and ecological sustainabilityappears uncertain. As a result, conflictsover water are growing, an expressionof the dichotomy between the eco-nomic perception of water as a stockand its ecological perceptions as a flowin the hydrological cycle. Addressingsuch conflicts demands ecologicalknowledge for the identification andarticulation of related ecosystem func-tions and services, which needs time.The need for regulating the abstrac-tion of water from rivers, lakes oraquifers is now widely accepted.

Many documents present the non-human requirements of water in therivers, lakes and aquifers in termssuch as ‘minimum flow’, ‘environ-mental water allocations’, etc. Theseare, however, ad hoc and not based onan ecological understanding of water;rather, they are at best a reluctantconcession of arithmetical hydrologyto silence the ecologically informedcritics. Nevertheless, such an under-standing is crucial for ensuring thesustainability of water systems, andhence, to the continued supply ofwater in the future days. The term‘environmental flows’, which hasnow come in circulation, is advancedas the golden solution to the alreadyemerged conflicts between economicuse and eco-systemic sustainabilityrelated to water systems.

As a starting point, it is impor-tant to decode the term environmen-tal flows and uncover its implicationsin management, policy and lawsrelated to water. In the absence of sucha clarity in the public understanding,the term itself may run the risk ofbeing misused. An early articulationof the term was advanced by the Inter-national Union for Conservationof Nature and Natural Resources.1

In this perception, environmental

flows relate exclusively to the flowsof managed water systems, wherehuman interventions have alreadybeen made or are likely to be made.This management may involve anaddition to the natural flow (as inthe case of the Farakka Barrage andriver Hooghly-Bhagirathi) or an abs-traction of the flow (as in the case ofirrigation projects) or a temporalmodification of the flow (as in the caseof hydropower projects).

As a result of such interventions,the aquatic ecosystems are affected,reducing them to a sub-pristine stateof existence (the pristine state beingone without any human intervention).Similarly, the recent initiative byseveral IITs for making a new manage-ment plan for the Ganga river basindefines environmental flows as ‘aregime of flow in a river or stream thatdescribes the temporal and spatialvariation in quantity and quality ofwater required for freshwater as wellas estuarine systems to perform theirnatural ecological functions (includ-ing sediment transport) and supportthe spiritual, cultural and livelihoodactivities that depend on these ecosys-tems’.2

Abstraction of water is neces-sary and interventions are unavoidablefor meeting human water require-ments. In the perception of the IUCN,environmental flows constitute a flowpattern moderated by human interven-tions, but in a manner that while thewater related ecosystems are alteredto a sub-optimal state, they would con-tinue to function, albeit in a partiallydegraded manner. The scale and typeof abstraction of water from a river,lake or an aquifer would be deter-

1. IUCN, Flow: The Essentials of Environ-mental Flows. Gland, IUCN, 2003.2. GRBMP, Report Code: 012_GBP_IIT_EFL_SOA_01_Ver 1_June 2011

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mined by informed negotiation amongstakeholders on an acceptable levelof ecological degradation. Hence, theclaim is that the modification ofthe flow of water and its ecologicalimpacts would be acceptable to allstakeholders, on the basis of thesatisfaction of human water require-ments and a sub-optimal functioningof the related ecosystems.

It needs to be clarified that environ-mental flows consist not only of thequantity of water but represents theannual hydrograph, establishing theperiodicity of the flows. They repre-sent a package of water flows and itsperiodicity throughout the year. Sucha modified flow pattern that maintainsthe periodicity of flow in rivers, lakesor aquifers but changes the quantityof flows by abstraction, is knownas ‘mimicking of the natural flows.’Under the managed hydrologicalregime, while the flows would exist ina sub-pristine state, a mimicking allo-cation would ensure that the aquaticecosystems and services provided bythem are not threatened with extinc-tion but are damaged to an agreed andpredetermined extent.

In principle, such an arrange-ment of compromise offers a platformfor negotiated settlement of conflictsover short-term economic use andlong-term ecological sustainabilityof water systems. This will be mostuseful for policy making and manage-ment related to large structural inter-ventions on water systems. Such amechanism for conflict resolutionbased on environmental flows is,however, in a nascent stage and needssubstantial theoretical and methodo-logical refinement before it can helpdecision making in government, judi-ciary, etc. In the absence of such arefinement and clear conceptualiza-tion, decisions run the risk of beingpremature and counter-productive.

The approach is based on thefact that ‘rivers and other aquatic eco-systems need both water and otherinputs like debris and sediment to stayhealthy and provide benefits to peo-ple. Environmental flows are a criti-cal contributor to the health of theseecosystems. Depriving a river or agroundwater system of these flowsnot only damages the entire aquaticecosystem, it also threatens the peo-ple and communities who depend onit. At its most extreme, the long-termabsence of environmental flows putsat risk the very existence of depend-ent ecosystems, and therefore thelives, livelihood and security of down-stream communities and industries.The question thus is not whetherwater abstraction projects are needed,but whether and for how long societycan afford not to provide for environ-mental flows.’3

The starting point for movingtowards this goal would be the draw-ing up of a more complete frameworkfor ecological functions and servicesrelated to the river, lake or aquifer inquestion, both in their pristine stateand at present, if they are now regu-lated systems.

From recent discourses an impres-sion seems to have gained ground inthe public mind that a win-win mecha-nism has finally emerged, with whichwater from rivers, lakes and aquiferscan be substantially abstracted with-out hurting their ecological integrityas long the proper quantity of environ-mental flows is left out for meeting theneeds of the natural ecosystems. Sucha concept is simplistic and risky. Envi-ronmental flows must not be consi-dered as an unique volume of waterthat can be estimated ad hoc as theneed of the natural ecosystems, say 25per cent of the annual flow. The con-

cept also does not support the ideathat the remaining 75 per cent of thewater from rivers, lakes or aquiferscan be abstracted without paymentfor ecological damages.

The concept of environmentalflows only offers a quantitative indi-cator, relating managed supply ofwater with stability and functioning ofthe aquatic ecosystems. Starting fromthe pristine flow, any abstraction oraddition should be based on a negoti-ated sub-optimal state of the aquaticecosystem that is acceptable to allstakeholders and compensation paidfor damage to ecosystem services andrelated livelihoods. Thus, there is nofixed amount called environmentalflows, but flows that are allocated onthe basis of agreed levels of degrada-tion of the natural ecosystems whencompared with the pristine.

If, for instance, the agreement isthat a river should remain in pristinestate, the total flow of the river wouldconstitute the environmental flows.Elsewhere, in another river, a largepart of the total flow may be abs-tracted, leaving it almost dry. In sucha case the agreed environmentalflows would be very small. In all ins-tances, the abstractions need to ensurecompensation for damages to thefunctioning of ecosystems and liveli-hoods. Environmental flows, accord-ingly, do not prescribe any ‘minimumflow’ that many policy documentshave started to project as the alloca-tion which, if retained in the stream,would justify abstraction of all theremaining flows.

Assessment of environmental flowsmust be subject to a proper under-standing of the diverse ecologicalprocesses and ecosystem servicesrelated to water systems. Tharme haspointed out the very underdevelopednature of this new area of water sci-ence.4 Assessments of environmental3. GRBMP, 2011, op cit.

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flows can only be made in relation toidentified degradation of ecosystemprocesses and services, like that of themovement and growth of specific fishspecies. At present, however, only asmall part of the totality of ecosystemprocesses and services related torivers, lakes or aquifers can be clearlyidentified and thus subjected to suchassessment processes.

In addition, the totality of environ-mental flows can be categorizedfirst, as biological, and second, as geo-morphological. For the first group, anexample can be taken of the flows thatare needed to sustain the movementand spawning of fish population, as inthe case of the high value hilsa fish inthe lower parts of the Ganga basin.The flow of water also generates sedi-ment loads in the uplands and trans-ports them to the floodplains andthe delta, generating fertile land forhumans and habitat for diverse aqua-tic biodiversity. Flood flows flushheavier sediments out to the deltas andcoasts, clearing the river bed. All theseare vital ecosystem services and needadequate flows for their continuation.

For example, when a river flowoutpours into the ocean, it is often des-cribed by arithmetical hydrologistsas wastage of freshwater. For the eco-logically informed, however, suchflows are necessary for clearing theconfluence and also to reduce theingress of salinity from the oceans.The absence of such ecosystem ser-vices would damage the estuaries andcoastal habitats and the rich fishingeconomy based on them.

Environmental flows needed formaintaining such individual ecosys-

tem functions and services can beapproximated by modelling, and as oftoday, hundreds of models are beingtried out. However, if ecosystem func-tions and services of a river, lake oraquifer without human interferenceare seen in their totality, the relatedtotal environmental flow requirementswill be very similar to their naturalannual flows devoid of any extraction.

Since it is also important to pro-vide water supply to meet humanrequirements, engineering interven-tions, large or small, are needed. Anyengineering intervention, howeversmall, will invariably impact the eco-system processes and services relatedto the source. The challenge is toarrive at acceptable environmentalflows based on an agreeable trade-offin which the abstraction of water issocially acceptable, and ecologicallysustainable as also ensure that all thedamages to livelihoods and ecosys-tems are adequately met.

Existing procedures for projectassessment in India cannot be calledscientific from such an ecological andholistic perspective. There is a cleartendency for the promoters of waterabstraction projects to disregard eco-logical linkages and deprive the peo-ple whose livelihoods are negativelyimpacted by water projects. In theabsence of a deeper scientific under-standing, vested description of envi-ronmental flows may be used to get ablanket approval for abstraction

projects without paying the necessarycompensation. In needs to be stressedthat environmental flows do not pro-vide free lunches to any water project.

Even though there cannot be aunique environmental flow independ-ent of an agreed ecologically non-pristine status of water systems, vari-ous estimates giving unique amountsof environmental flows have beenmade for India.5 ‘The estimate turnedout to be about 476 km3, which con-stitutes approximately 25 per cent ofthe total renewable water resourcesin the country. This, however, was notin fact an estimate of EF per se, butrather an estimate of the total volumeof EF.’ Somehow, in this instance, theenvironmental flows are being shownas absolute, not negotiable and apro-duct of technical research alone!This closes the door for arriving at anegotiated path for the regulatedwater systems. And this is a danger-ous confusion!

It needs to be stressed that ourcurrent state of knowledge of watersystems and ecological modellingrelated to flows of water, what tospeak of projecting a single quantita-tive figure of water requirements asshown above, is inadequate. Such aunilateral prescription of environ-mental flows or water requirementsof aquatic systems as a method forthe resolution of water conflicts mayactually become the source of manynew conflicts. All stakeholders relatedto water systems need to increasinglyunderstand the basis, scientific orotherwise, of various claims of assess-ing environmental flows, so that theconflicts between economic demandson and the ecological sustainabilityof water systems can be proactivelyresolved and a more robust holisticprocess of decision making on India’srivers, lakes and aquifers can be putin place.

4. R.E. Tharme, ‘A Global Perspective onEnvironmental Flow Assessment: EmergingTrends in the Development and Applicationof Environmental Flow Methodologies forRivers’, River Research and Applications 19,2003, 397-441.

5. V.U. Smakhtin, C. Revenga and P. Döll,Taking Into Account Environmental WaterRequirements in Globalscale Water ResourcesAssessments. Research Report of the CGIARComprehensive Assessment Programmeof Water Use in Agriculture. InternationalWater Management Institute, Colombo, SriLanka,2004, 24 pp, (IWMI ComprehensiveAssessment Research Report 2); V. Smakhtin,C. Revenga and P. Döll, ‘A Pilot GlobalAssessment of Environmental Water Require-ments and Scarcity’, Water International 29,2004, 307-317.

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Contested constructionsof waterS H A I L A J A F E N N E L L

WATER is a scarce resource that liesat the heart of much of the politicaland social contestation in local, sub-national and national arenas in SouthAsia. This is reflected in the increa-sing attention it now receives inboth the scientific and social scienceresearch agendas. The consequencesof a drastic reduction in water flow inSouth Asian rivers is prominent inthe earth sciences while the dangerof large dams to local ecologies andlivelihoods, illustrated most famously

by the case of the Narmada BachaoAndolan, has become a global symbolof poor ecological management.

The strength that is unleashedfrom institutional management ofwater is also manifestly evident: his-torical analysis points to state insti-tutions gaining considerable cloutfrom ownership of water, an extremecase being that of ‘oriental despot-ism’. Similarly, debates about themarketization of water raise concernsabout unfair advantage to the private

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sector and the possible exclusion ofthe poor.

The literature on water manage-ment currently emerging from newinter-disciplinary work, in particularthe sub-field of institutional designof natural resource management,indicates that institutional mecha-nisms must incorporate both techni-cal dimensions such as scale of theresource alongside social specificity,such as heterogeneity of users to ensuresustainable solutions (Ostrom 1990,2005).

There are now specific formulationsfor advancing our understanding ofwater resource management thatincorporate the presence of waterresources in different physical forms,river and groundwater, as well as itsdifferent use by location, rural andurban, to provide finer distinctionson the supply side features of ‘fit’. The‘fitting’ of water management toadministrative and hydrological boun-daries – ensuring an ‘interplay’ bet-ween water management and otherforms of governance, and evaluatingdimensions of ‘scale’ at various levelshas been uncovered in recent institu-tional analysis (Mollinga 2007).

There has also been more care-ful analysis of the demand-side insti-tutional differences that emerge inthe management of natural resourcesdue to the contextual aspects that arebased on different needs in individualcountries (Bandaragoda 2009). Theimportance of identifying and incor-porating both supply-side and demand-side features in relationship to waterownership and pattern of use drawingon both scientific and social scienceperspectives foregrounds the needfor further inter disciplinary frame-work for sustainable water resourcemanagement.

The implications of the newthinking in institutional design point

to a need for devising an interdiscipli-nary framework of water management,as policy advisers tend to work withina single academic discipline. Thisrestrictive policy framing makes it dif-ficult for policy makers to identify themost appropriate academic construc-tion of water to provide the blueprintfor policy design and analysis.

This article recommends aninstitutional analysis of water andbegins by identifying the difficultiesconfronting natural resource manage-ment within national policy frame-works based on a single disciplinaryframing. The case of forest manage-ment is illustrative. This is followedby a discussion of how a constructionof water resource management thatdraws on a range of social science dis-ciplines can identify gaps in the valu-ation of water to improve estimationof both returns as well as risks. Thepaper concludes that giving a greatersocial contextualization to accessand ownership of water resourceswill permit a better balance betweendemand and supply side aspects andinvolve a fuller array of stakeholdersto ensure sustainable water resourcemanagement.

Natural Resource Managementhas been a subject of study within anumber of science and social sciencedisciplines, ranging from botany tomanagement studies. Within socialscience thinking a shift took place inthe 1980s, from a singular focus oneconomic valuation methods usingquantitative techniques such as cost-benefit analysis to an understandingof the technical and social features ofa particular natural resource.

The move from market econom-ics to institutional design came aboutas part of a new understanding of howproblems of the environment shouldbe addressed. The starting point wasan admission by economic analysts

that using a ‘one-size fits all’ approachto natural resources was not viable andthat one needed to incorporate thetopographical and social particulari-ties of natural resource, e.g., whetherwater was located in an inland lake ora river valley and the nature of thegroups who had access to the resource(Ostrom 1990).

The physical and social contextwithin which a natural resource ismanaged became the starting pointfor new cost calculations that focusedon how the concerned individualsconserved resources. The frameworkof analyzing water management thatwas devised within the school ofNew Institutional Economics (NIE)focused on identifying economiccosts associated with mechanisms forthe conservation of resources. TheNIE framing regarded the propertyrights assignment among individualusers of the natural resource as centralto ensuring efficient resource useand thereby conserving the naturalresource. NIE thinking, consequently,directs governments and other insti-tutions to give primary importance tothe pattern of the allocation of own-ership, favouring those individualusers who have the greater stake in aresource as priority owners (Libecap1989, Ostrom 1990).

The impact of such a framingthat has been influenced more by NorthAmerican rather than the Europeanapproaches to institutional analysisin the social sciences has resulted ina greater interest in contracts betweengovernment and individuals (or groups)than in mapping the complex useof the resource by individuals andcommunities. The preference in theNIE approach for identifying naturalresource management with particularowners and users, rather than the pat-tern of use and its relationship to thesocial context, has resulted in a nar-

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row notion of management rather thanprovide a socially constituted basis forsustainable resource use.

The limitation of the NIE frameworklies in the assumption that optimizingindividual preferences drives the deci-sions of individuals in the manage-ment of natural resources (Saravanan2009). A discussion of natural resourcemanagement is consequently reducedto the desires of individual players anddoes not incorporate the larger socialcontext within which these decisionsare taken. The focus on individualdecisions also prohibits an explicitincorporation of norms that might ope-rate in time periods that exceed thatof an individual’s life (Fennell 2010).In particular, it does not help in under-standing the role of factors that func-tion across generations and haveinter-generational effects.

The contribution that long-termsocial norms play in the lives of localcommunities in managing naturalresources has been disregardednot only by NIE but also the main-stream development institutions. Thisoversight has resulted in supply-sidedecisions being made by nationalgovernments and their designatedinstitutions regarding ownership andcontracting without taking on boardthe demand-side considerations thataffect the livelihoods of local commu-nities dependent on these naturalresources. The inability to incorporatethe role of social groups demandingaccess to and in managing naturalresources has resulted in a partial andlopsided understanding of manage-ment design.

The shortcoming of both tradi-tional economic thinking and NIEthinking on institutional designexposes the limits of costing andcontracting approaches to naturalresource management. Thus the needfor policy formulation on water man-

agement to go beyond single discipli-nary perspectives and comprehen-sively incorporates social and technicaldimensions (Ostrom 1990). A restric-tive policy framing which denies therole of communities and groups inconserving natural resources also pre-vents them from being involved asactive agents who can contributeto appropriate blueprints for policydesign and analysis.

The significant role played by com-munities in the management of natu-ral resources has become an importantarea of study in ecological social sci-ences in the last decade. The sub-fieldof forest management has been par-ticularly helpful in improving ourunderstanding of the challenges posedby state policies that do not take intoaccount the needs and perspectivesof local forest communities. Thesestu-dies focus on the institutionaldiversity present in both the supplyand demand-side features of naturalresource management, using a combi-nation of natural and social sciencetools (Ostrom 2005). The purposeof these new techniques in naturalresource management is to ensure thatfaulty methods drawn from narrowsingle-disciplinary approaches are nolonger applied in institutional design.

One sub-field where the dangersof narrow approaches became evidentby the end of the 20th century isthat of forestry (Moran and Ostrom2005). The diminution in forest coveracross the globe, and a number ofnational contexts makes it evident thatsupply-side concerns far exceed thedemand-side analyses of the mannerin which forests are managed. Theevidence in the national examplesbelow shows the consequences ofsuch a one-sided approach to naturalresource management.

The increasing colonial demandfor Asian wood gave rise to a new

commodity trade during the 19th cen-tury in South Asia and East Africa(Sivaramakrishnan 1995). The lucra-tive market opportunities arising fromthe considerable commercial value ofparticular species of timber resultedin private contracts being provided bythe state for the removal and use ofwood and other forest produce. Whilesuch contracting was initiated duringthe colonial era, it continued into thepost-colonial period with little consi-deration for the historical denial ofcommunity rights in and usage bythe public of the forests (Guha 1989).This disregard for traditional, com-munal and indigenous rights to forestresources by the state resulted in aconfrontation with the communityand groups in civil society.

A clash over the ownership of theforest and its primacy as a form of lifeand livelihood has resulted in distri-butional conflict and contestationover rights. At the heart of this conflictis the manner in which the state usespolitics, rhetoric and knowledge toprivilege current economic value andmarket opportunity over cultural, tra-ditional and indigenous forms ofsociety. In the case of forests, we needa deeper study of the history of own-ership and stakeholder usage for‘there is a dialectical relationship bet-ween discourses of rules and dis-courses of protest, and we can advancethe study of this relationship by treat-ing resistance as a diagnostic ofpower’ (Sivaramakrishnan, 1995: 3).The nature of and reason for contes-tation reveals the problems thatemerge when demand-side factorsare not adequately recognized andincorporated into policy design.

Malaysia: The case of the OrangAsli, the original peoples of Malaysiawho were excluded from any legaldeed to their traditional lands, sets outthe difficulties faced by local commu-

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nities in getting formal recognition oftheir systems of natural resource man-agement. The formal position of theBritish colonial administration wasin support of the laws promulgatedby the princely Malay states whichdecreed that all land was the propertyof the kings. After independence, thesame understanding was carried overinto the national policies of Malaysiangovernment. The National Land Codethat was introduced in 1965 to providea uniform system of land ownership,continued to draw on the systemof land registration that had initiallybeen introduced by the British colo-nial administration during the 1930s(Means 1985).

As independent Malaysia was afederation of thirteen princely states,it required the promulgation of lawsthat could operate across all states.The National Land Code proceeded tovest land rights of individuals onlyupon registration in the land registry.Though this was approved by each ofthe princely states, the legislation wascontradictory to the practices of indig-enous groups viz. the twelve tribes ofOrang Asli whose practice was to passon their collective rights from genera-tion to generation through customarylaw, and not to vest it in an individual(Cheah 2004).

The inability of state law torecognize the rights of the Orang Aslibecame a matter of public concernwhen the federal government used theLand Code to compulsorily requisi-tion the land of the Orang Asli Temuantribe to facilitate a road link betweenthe new Kuala Lumpur internationalairport and Kuala Lumpur city. TheTemuans complained to the HighCourt of Malaysia and sought therestitution of their right to ancestralland. In its 2002 decision, the courtrecognized that the rights of the OrangAsli were different from the private

land rights determined within marketcontexts, and that the Orang Asli didnot obtain only economic productsfrom the land, but that their very wayof life was directed by the spirits oftheir ancestral land. It, therefore,decreed that the ‘native title’ of theOrang Asli could not be treated asthough land was a mere commodityand on par with private land holdingsbut rather that it should be regardedas a way of life that was based on asystem of beliefs linked to the land(Cheah 2004).

India: The colonial policies offorest management that had beenintroduced during the 19th centurycontinued unaltered till the 1970s.Forest agitations, most particularlythat of the Chipko agitation in themountainous regions of Uttar Pradesh,resulted in changes in the forestlegislations in the 1980s (Damodaranand Engel 2003). Even though the newlaws recognized the rights of hill com-munities, their traditional systems ofgoverning access to resources werenot incorporated in subsequent forestpolicies.

The difficulty of striking a proper bal-ance between state policy and com-munity demands is best illustrated inthe Joint Forestry Management (JFM)programme introduced in the 1990s.The JFM was designed to initiate aparticipatory form of forest manage-ment. However, these programmesfailed on account of official interfer-ence and were unable to vest any powerin the local communities, whether byintent or poor design, and preventpremature exploitation of the trees(Sundar 2000).

This new managerial form oforganized resource use became theofficial state framework for a wave ofsocial forestry programmes in Indiandistricts for the next two decades. Theparticipation that was to be the foun-

dation of this framework did not resultin the poorest sections of the forestcommunity, by caste or occupation,gaining equal access to forest resou-rces (Vemuri 2008). The failure ofthe JFM programme to restructure theaccess structure indicates that thesocial features of demand were nottaken into account adequately in whatremained a top down managementstructure of the bureaucratic adminis-trative and forest services.

China: The difficulties faced bythe state in recognizing and design-ing common property resources arewidespread and cross over differentdevelopment paradigms. After inde-pendence in 1949, all land, includingforest land, in China was declared asstate property. The Chinese approachto forest management during the firsthalf of 1950s was modelled closely onStalin’s understanding of controllingand exploiting nature (Bao 2006).Though from 1956 onwards, forestland was awarded to private house-holds, this policy was revoked duringthe years of the cultural revolutionfrom 1966-76 (Long and Zhou 2001).It was thus only after the start of theeconomic reforms of the 1980s, thatthere was a reconsideration of therights to the forests with regard tousage and management of resources.

In September 1984, the National Peo-ple’s Congress Standing Committeeadopted the Forest Law of the Peo-ple’s Republic of China. This law wasformulated to protect, nurture, andrationally utilize the forest resourcesso as to speed up the greening ofthe country’s territory. The law wasdesigned to foreground the roles thatthe forest could play with regard tostoring water, saving soil, adjustingthe climate, improving the environ-ment, and supplying forest products(Xi 1999). The remit of the law waslargely concerned with changing incen-

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tives with regard to the cultivation,planting, logging and utilization offorests and to regulate the operationand management of forests, trees andwoodlands.

The strong developmental spinplaced on the use and conservation offorest lands has implications for therights and lives of indigenous peoplewho have long established customarylaws with regard to the forest lands infar flung areas of the country. The saleof user rights and the growth of tour-ism have emerged as large revenueearners for the provincial govern-ments, but they have also come intoconflict with the traditional ways ofthe indigenous groups. The marketbased approaches to user rights havedevalued traditional ways of knowl-edge transfer regarding flora andfauna.

The politics of forest resource man-agement is contest-ridden in Asia.Indigenous and tribal groups continueto be overlooked by the bureaucraticand forest institutions and supply-side matters such as contracts take theupper hand. Similarly, official lawsare rarely invoked by the local com-munities who would rather turn totheir customary laws to deal with for-est disputes. The gap between con-tractual supply-side models of forestuse and the group demands arisingfrom social norms of forest use indi-cate that all is not well in the world offorest policy modelling.

There has been an attempt toreduce confrontation between stateand civil society by relying on com-munity approaches that use interdis-ciplinary tools to ensure sustainableforest resource management. The big-gest challenge to managing theseresources is the difficulty that playerson the supply and demand sides face increating a common platform througha process of ‘collaboration as a way

forward’ (Vira, Daniels, Dubois andWalker 1998).

This collaborative process isbased on the understanding thatsustainable resource management ismore likely in a situation where allplayers have a shared urgency of riskin natural resource use. The centralplank in this approach is that allstakeholders identify a common needfor a valued resource that permitsthe use of procedures to reduce risk byusing collective mechanisms to miti-gate costs. If such collective mecha-nisms can be made to work, despite thepresence of social and economic hier-archies, the process of collaborationis likely to succeed. In situations suchas those seen in the development tra-jectories of the forest sector in Malay-sia, India and China, where there islittle effort to identify all the stake-holders on the demand and supply-side, it is not surprising that theinstitutional design for resource man-agement suffers from poor computa-tion, resulting in an underestimationof relative costs and benefits (Adams,Brockington, Dyson and Vira, 2002).

The lessons from the poor record offorest resource management highlightthe difficulty of identifying the fullrange of players on both supply anddemand sides of natural resourcemanagement and usage. Simple inter-ventions based on legislative reformdo not provide a sufficient basis, asthe legal framework alone is not ableto ensure equality of access for allplayers, nor can it reverse top-downbureaucratic administrative and for-est institutional structures.

The limitations of these earlymanagement frameworks have led toa review of natural resource manage-ment that goes beyond relying oncontract and formal laws to a morecareful inclusion of social norms andinformal practices (Ostrom 2005).

The importance of carefully linkinglaw to policy and administration hasalso been recognized with regard towater resource management. In par-ticular, water law, policy and admin-istration have been identified as threepillars of water management in inter-national literature (Saleth and Dinar2000). These formulations are alsofinding favourable reception amongscholars of Indian water policy.

Even as the focus on law, policy andorganizations as central themes for animproved institutional analysis ofwater management has been wel-comed, there is concern that these glo-bal policy formulations have yet todevise tools that can analyze howsocieties adapt to the supply sideinterventions by the governmentand other institutional players (Shah2005). Additionally, there is concernthat the lessons from the internationalsphere should not be seen as the magicmantra that can solve water manage-ment problems. In fact, the reverse pro-cess by which Indian water resourcesexperiences have helped fashionnational and international water policyframeworks should also be recognized(Mollinga 2010).

The possible solutions forIndian water resource managementthus lie in the overlapping spheres ofthese two processes. The complexitiesof India’s water-bodies demandsdetailed knowledge of social and tech-nological processes (Shah 2003)alongside a more astute evaluation ofthe hydrological and other ecologicaldimensions (Bandaragoda 2006).

The case of rural water mana-gement has been of particular signi-ficance in devising managementstructures. The context of this phe-nomenon emerged with the risingpower of the rural farmers’ lobbiesin the 1960s. Another dimension ofrural action emerged with the increas-

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ingly vocal protests by subordinategroups such as marginal farmers andlandless labour in anti-dam move-ments such as the Narmada BachaoAndolan from the 1980s.

The political economy of ruralwater management has thus beenplayed out in the battleground bet-ween national architects of develop-ment policy and local advocacy groupsfor the poor and marginalized groupsin the last few decades. The backdropto this story of conflicting claims towater is the increasing demand forwater resulting from the introductionof thirsty high-yielding varieties(HYVs) brought in by the GreenRevolution technologies of the 1960s,and the associated increase in rent-seeking opportunities alongside thegrowing revenue accruing from waterdelivery (Mosse 2003). The politicalposturing of the rural elites and theiruse of irrigation facilities to gain pri-vate wealth through the proliferationof corrupt practices in water deliveryand usage became endemic in thesector. It is within this social con-text that we need to understand thespecific characteristics and types ofwater resource management in ruralIndia.

The technical aspects of such ine-qualities have also received attention.The first feature is known as the ‘headend-tail end’ problematic. This termi-nology relates to the topographicalfeature in an irrigation system wherefarmers on the upstream side of acanal are able to appropriate morethan their due share of the water, depri-ving those at the downstream. Suchdifferentiation is compounded by thefact that richer farmers tend to occupyor to manipulate access to the ups-tream land and this results in anunhealthy overlap between social andspatial inequality with regard to ruralwater resources (Mollinga 2003). One

consequence for Indian rural watermanagement has been that there is nostrong lobby to demand irrigationreforms and activist movements inthe matter of water distribution haveso far not come to the forefront in anyconsistent manner.

The second aspect regarding techni-cal differences in irrigation relate tothe heterogeneity of irrigation types:for instance, how well irrigation hasbeen overlooked in relation to canalirrigation. In the former, water isrestricted to examination of a singlesource while in the latter case, wateravailability is dependent of the abilityof individual tube well pumps to drawup ground water. The preference inthe economic approach to water man-agement based on the existence andoperation of water markets is relatedto the importance of tube well extractedwater for the accumulation of ruralwealth in regions such as the Punjab.It is the economic costs rather than thesocial and political aspects of wateraccess to non tube well owners and ine-quities that exist with regard to smallfarmers and tenants that have been thesubject of study (Dubash 2002). Theexisting management structures forgroundwater extraction have focusedon evolving a contractual frameworkthat is based on rationing of waterextraction across claimants. Such anapproach is ineffective, as it does notpermit an institutional analysis ofindividual household demand nor thepattern and purposes of water use byeach household (Shah 2005).

The third aspect regarding thetechnical features of water resourcemanagement is that of false conceptua-lization, as in the case of tank basedirrigation. Despite the tank being ahuman construction that is locatedwithin a community, a limited analy-sis of the social differentiation in avillage results in poor management

practices. This shortcoming arises outof a shallow understanding of bothcommunity and small villages as non-hierarchical spaces. This is a mani-festly faulty proposition as we seecaste based and use based conflicts inwater usage that are prominent inthese communities (Shah 2003).

Tank irrigation is therefore pre-sented as a simple form of waterresource use and conservation. This isnot accurate as there are social fea-tures and social relations that affectwater usage: e.g., where elites under-take mechanical recharging of waterbasins that change the water levels intanks in the locality and consequentlythe water availability to householdsfrom traditional water use arrange-ments.

There are numerous shortcomingsof a narrow economic and technicalanalysis of Indian water resourceswhich have been highlighted byIndian scholars. This failure is furthercompounded by the existing manage-ment practices undertaken by admin-istrative and water bureaucracies atdistrict, block and cluster levels inrural India. These bodies continue tooperate within a top-down institu-tional framework. This has resulted ina history of confrontation betweencommunities asserting group rightsand the state claiming natural resourceownership.

The claims of subordinate andmarginal groups are resisted by natio-nal development architects who advo-cate a trickle down policy, claimingthat it will eventually benefit thesegroups as economic growth proceeds.This market based approach to deve-lopment has been unable to accordrights to marginal farmers, landlesslabour and other marginal groups inlocal communities whose rights towater resources have consequentlydiminished over the last few decades.

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This situation prevails despite theattempt of new management app-roaches to include the ‘community’,possibly because the water resourcesthat are located in these communityspaces are becoming increasinglyattractive to the state as contributorsto new sources of wealth (Shah 2003).This head-on collision results in con-flicts regarding the institutionaldesign of natural resource manage-ment frameworks between the supplyside interventions being devised bybureaucrats, national and interna-tional agencies and the patterns andpurposes of use among heterogeneoususers of water across a range of waterresource types (Shah 2005).

The inequity perpetuated by suchpoorly designed institutional mecha-nisms for water management hasresulted in regressive social and eco-nomic consequences within localcommunities. Furthermore, there areadditional social fractures created byan overlap of social and spatial differ-entiation. These complex social fea-tures imply that legal reform by itselfcannot ensure that water resourcemanagement can be improved throughremedying ownership assignment.The reason is that legal reform in anarrow economic framing is restrictedto only those who have rights of own-ership, such as landowners, tube wellowners, and tank irrigation owners,while regarding all other groups asmere tenants of the state (Fennell2010). This binary separation of mem-bers of a local community creates abasis for conflict within the com-munity and works against forginga common identity that is necessaryfor sustainable natural resource man-agement.

The focus on identifying owner-ship and contractual rights does nottake into account of the processes orpurposes of usage by those in the com-

munity who do not have access tothese privileges. Consequently, legalreforms that reorganize the principlesof rationing water or of redistributingwater use, only value the economicbenefit from such usage but fail totake into account livelihood or cul-tural dimensions that do not have amarket equivalent. A legal perspectivethat reduces individuals’ varied use ofwater to mere economic motivationand eschews the cultural, political andsocial experience results in poor com-putation of the costs and benefitsof particular mechanisms of waterresource management. It also mili-tates against a securing of all threepillars of water management – law,policy and administration – requiredfor sustainable institutional design.

If the institutional design of waterresource management mechanismsfails to incorporate tenets of socialjustice in relation to both supply anddemand side features, there is lesschance of constructing a commonidentity around resource use. Socialjustice, defined in terms of equityrather than individual equality, appearsto be a more effective starting point,as it permits individuals to be treated‘fairly’ so as to address social andeconomic inequalities. The call forequality based on a notion that all indi-viduals are identical and can thereforebe fully functional in a market contextwithout caste, class or gender hierar-chies is not likely in situations markedby a variety of inequities in wateraccess and use (Fennell 2010).

The limitations of existingwater resource management mecha-nisms in India cannot be overcome bylooking only at legal reform withoutensuring that proposed legal changesdovetail with policy and administra-tive reforms. This is particularly per-tinent in the current legal environmentwhere the right to property is regarded

as sacrosanct. Note that it was onlyafter the green revolution in agricul-ture became widespread in India andthe powerful landlords became ruralcapitalists that the state changed itsviews on private property in land hold-ings. These forms of persistent ine-quity in treatment by the courts havecast doubt on the ability of the law totransform social relations.

It is the current challenges toensuring that legal reform is trans-ferred to policy and administrativespheres that make the new interdis-ciplinary mechanisms based onmultidisciplinary perspectives so pro-mising. The possibility of using ins-titutional features such as the ‘fit’between administration and hydro-logy, provides a way to disentangleparts of supply features that couldmake for more careful legal redresssuch as regulatory reform of deliverymechanisms and the monitoring ofuse; in the case of ‘interplay’ therecould different methods of creatingsynergy between water managementand other local management struc-tures, whether these are social ormarket-based could be determined bythe use of participatory evaluation;and finally ‘scale’ could be incentivesprovided for both administrative andwater bureaucracy to reduce any rent-seeking opportunities from top-downmanagement.

The possibility of moving across thethree pillars – from administration, topolicy and finally the law – facilitatescommunity-led initiatives that focuson both the process and the purpose ofwater usage by each household in thecommunity. Using the appropriatemethods to identify household usagecan provide contextualized and loca-tion specific evidence on water avail-ability, access and ownership. Theheterogeneity, and possible conflict,between diverse groups in the com-

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munity can be an entry point foruncovering the challenges to estab-lishing a platform for resource man-agement. In recent years there havebeen academic initiatives to use multi-disciplinary teams and approaches todevise a broader basis for conceptu-alizing the management of naturalresources that takes into account thesocial, political, and ecological sys-tems that interact with the economicmotivation of individuals (Poteete,Janssen and Ostrom 2010).

The identification of the specificsocial, cultural, political and econo-mic values that each group accords towater availability and access can leadto a better estimation of the benefitsand costs of current ownership pat-terns of water resources. For instance,if there is evidence showing that thelives and livelihoods of marginalgroups are adversely affected by exist-ing water ownership patterns, it wouldbe a more effective strategy to pro-vide new water markets that favourthe most disadvantaged, whether bycaste, class or gender. The ability toincorporate social and power relationsthrough the mapping of lived expe-riences facilitates the study of indi-vidual choice in terms of communitynorms and locally constructed attri-butes and values (Cornwall andScoones 2011).

The move from earlier govern-mental and market notions of owner-ship of natural resources to modelsthat draw on stakeholder manage-ment encourages collaboration acrossgroups to maintain the resources inthe water sector. Simultaneously, themovement away from legal diktat fornatural resource management frame-works to an administrative processbased on a mapping of heterogeneousdemands within a local community,ensures that both demand and supplyfeatures of institutional design can be

tested and subsequently monitoredwhen the framework is operational.

The growing concerns about water,both globally and within India, havebrought to the fore the difficulties ofcreating a platform for sustainablewater resource management in a con-flict ridden policy environment. Thedivisive elements are not only in theactual field of water management butalso in the combative attitude takenby individual disciplines regardingthe appropriate policy framing for theinstitutional design of water resourcemanagement.

An alternative framing of aca-demic disciplines in new resourcemanagement analysis shows how theintersections of various disciplinaryperspectives can contribute to a morenuanced understanding of the supplyand demand side features of waterresource provision and usage. Themost important feature is the ability tobring in contextualized and location-specific analysis of water availability,access and ownership. The possibi-lity of using these process and pur-pose based mapping of heterogeneoususage within a community permits thedrawing up of a water resource designthat has the ability to identify thedifficulties of attempting naturalresource management within nationalpolicy frameworks. Such a frameworkpermits a construction of water draw-ing on natural, scientific and socialscience disciplines to identify gaps inthe valuation of water which lead topoor estimation of both returns as wellas risks in a range of environments.

As indicated in the review ofchallenges of forest resource manage-ment, it is clear that following a narrowapproach that focuses on economicvaluation and regards law as a start-ing point for devising a framework fornatural resource management is fun-damentally flawed. The need to regard

policy as primarily constituted bypolitical and social contestationto prevent further reduction in thewater resource availability in Indiapoints to legal reform as the final stagerather than the starting point for insti-tutional design. Undertaking an analy-sis of state institutions and how theyregard water, particularly in relation-ship to ownership and contractualconsiderations, shows that there is anexclusion of the poor and margina-lized groups in the local community.

Governance mechanisms for sus-taining natural resources need to takeinto account the technical dimensionsto create a better fit, interplay andscale dimensions within any manage-ment mechanism. In the case of waterresources, given the presence ofwater resources in different physicalforms – canal, tube well and tank – aswell as the particularities of ruralpolitical economy in India, opportu-nities for sustainable water resourcemanagement will be enhanced byfocusing on those individuals andhouseholds most inequitably treatedby existing ownership assignment.This use of equitable rules of inclusioncan remedy existing binary formsof social structure with regard toresource use and facilitate the creationof a common platform that is requiredfor sustainable water resource man-agement principles to operate.

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108. International Water Management Insti-tute (IWMI), Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2006.M. Bao, ‘The Evolution of EnvironmentalPolicy and its Impact in the People’s Repub-lic of China’, Conservation and Society 4(1),36-54, 2006.W.L. Cheah, ‘Sagong Tasi and Orang AsliLand Rights in Malaysia: Victory, Milestoneof False Start?’, Law, Social Justice andGlobal Development, 2004. http://www/go.warwick.ac.uk/elj/lgd/2004_2/cheahA. Cornwall and I. Scoones, RevolutionizingDevelopment: Reflections on the Work ofRobert Chambers. Earthscan, London, 2011.Damodaran and Engel, Joint Forest Manage-ment in India: Assessment of Performance andEvaluation of Impacts, ZEF Discussion Paperson Development Policy, Bonn, 2003.J. Davis, ‘Corruption in Public Service Deliv-ery: Experience from South Asia’s Water andSanitation Sector’, World Development, vol.32, 2004.S. Fennell, Rules, Rubrics and Riches: TheRelationship Between Law, Institutionsand International Development. Routledge,Oxon, 2010.R. Guha, The Unquiet Woods: EcologicalChange and Peasant Resistance in theHimalaya. University of California Press,Berkeley; Oxford University Press, Delhi,1989.G. Hodgson, Economics and Evolution: BringLife Back Into Economics. Polity Press, Cam-bridge, 1993.G. Libecap, Contracting for Property Rights.Cambridge University Press, New York, 1989.Long and Zhou, ‘Indigenous CommunityForest Management in Jinuo People’sSwidden Agroecosystems in South WestChina’, Biodiversity and Conservation 10,2001, 753-767,E. Moran and E. Ostrom, Seeing the Forestand the Trees: Human-Environment Interac-tions in Forest Systems,. MIT Press, Boston,2005.E. Ostrom, Governing the Commons: TheEvolution of Institutions for CollectiveAction. Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge, New York, 1990.E. Ostrom, Understanding Institutional Diver-sity. Princeton University Press, Princeton andOxford, 2005.R. Means, ‘The Orang Asli: Aboriginal Poli-cies in Malaysia’, Pacific Affairs 58(4), 1985,637-652.R. Mechler, S. Hochrainer, D. Kull, S. Chopde,P. Singh, S. Wajih and The Risk to ResilienceStudy Team, (2008), Uttar Pradesh DroughtCost-Benefit Analysis, From Risk to Resil-ience. Working Paper No. 5., eds. M. Moench,

E. Caspari and A. Pokhrel, ISET, ISET-Nepaland ProVention, Kathmandu, Nepal, 32 pp.Peter P. Mollinga, ‘The Water ResourcesPolicy Process in India: Centralisation, Polari-sation and New Demands on Governance’in Vishwa Ballabh (ed.), Governance ofWater: Institutional Alternatives and Poli-tical Economy. Sage, New Delhi, 2008,pp. 339-70.P. Mollinga, ‘The Material Conditions of aPolarised Discourse: Clamours and Silencesof Critical Agricultural Water Use in India’,Journal of Agrarian Change 10(4), 2010,414-436D. Mosse, The Rule of Water: Statecraft, Ecol-ogy, and Collective Action in South India.Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2003.A.R. Poteete, M. Janssen, E. Ostrom, WorkingTogether: Collective Action and the Commons,and Multiple Methods in Practice. PrincetonUniversity Press, Princeton, NJ, 2010.V. S. Saravanan, ‘Decentralisation and WaterResources Management in the Indian Hima-layas: The Contribution of the New Institu-tional Theories’, Conservation and Society7(3), 2009, 176-191.R.M. Saleth and A. Dinar, ‘InstitutionalChanges in Global Water Sector: Trends, Pat-terns and Implications’, Water Policy 2(3),2000, 175-199.E. Shah, Social Designs: Tank IrrigationTechnology and Agrarian Transformation inKarnataka, South India. Wageningen Univer-sity Water Resources Series. Orient Longman,New Delhi, 2003.T. Shah, ‘The New Institutional Economicsof India’s Water Policy.’ Paper presented atinternational workshop on African WaterLaws: Plural Legislative Frameworks forRural Water Management in Africa, 26-28January 2005, Johannesburg, South Africa.K. Sivaramakrishnan, ‘Colonialism and For-estry in India’, Comparative Studies inSociety and History 37(1), 1995, 3-40.N. Sundar, ‘Unpacking the Joint in Joint For-est Management’, Development and Change31, 2000, 255-279.A. Vemuri, ‘Joint Forest Management inIndia: An Unavoidable and Conflictual Com-mon Property Regime in Natural ResourceManagement’, Journal of Development andSocial Transformation, Vol 5, November2008.B. Vira, O. Dubois, S. E. Daniels and G. B.Walker, ‘Institutional Pluralism in Forestry:Considerations of Analytical and OperationalTools’, Unasylva 49(194), 1998, 35-42.W. Xi, ‘Forest Policy, Law and Local Partici-pation in Forest Management in China’, 1999.http://www.iges.or.jp/en/fc/phase1/ir99/1-3-Wang%20.pdf

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Further readingSOUTH ASIA WATER SECURITY

Aiyaz, Rumi. Water for Indian cities: governmentpractices and policy concerns. ‘Issue Brief’ 25: Sep-tember 2011. Available at http://www.orfonline.org/cms/export/orfonline/modules/issuebrief/attach-ments/Issue_brief_25_1284629003854.pdf

Ali, Saleem H. Water politics in South Asia: techno-cratic cooperation and lasting security in the Indusbasin and beyond. ‘Journal of International Affairs’61(2): Spring/Summer 2008: 167-182.

Allan, J. A. Virtual Water: part of an invisible synergythat ameliorates water scarcity, in L. Martinez-Cortina, Peter P. Rogers and M. Ramon Llamas(eds).Water crisis: myth or reality. Taylor & Francis,2006.

Virtual Water: the water, food, and tradenexus: useful concept or misleading metaphor?‘Water International’ 28(1): 2003: 4-11.

Biswas, Asit. Indus water treaty: the negotiating pro-cess. ‘Water International’ 17(4): 1992.

Briscoe, J. India’s water economy: bracing for a tur-bulent future. Washington, DC: The World Bank,2005.

Brown, Lester R. Outgrowing the earth: the foodsecurity challenge in an age of falling water tablesand rising temperatures. New York: W.W. Norton& Co., 2005.

Chellenay, Brahma. Water: Asia’s new battleground.Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press,2011.

Climate change, Food and Water Security in SouthAsia: critical issues and cooperative strategies in anage of increased risk and uncertainty. 2011. Avail-able at http://www.gwp.org/Global/About%20GWP/Publicat ions/Colombo%20Synthesis%20Report%20Climate%20Change%20Food%20and%20Water%20Security%20in%20South%20Asia,%20final.pdf

Grail Research. Water: the India story. Grail researchreport. Noida, India.

IDSA Task Force. Water Security for India: TheExternal Dynamics. A Report. New Delhi: 2010.

Available at http://www.idsa.in/sites/default/files/book_ WaterSecurity.pdf

Iyer, Ramaswamy R. India’s water relations with herneighbours. USI National Security Series 2007.K.W. Publishers, 2008.

The politicization of water. www.infochangeindia.org/age, Accessed on February 21,2006. http://www.grailresearch.com/pdf/ContenPodsPdf/Water-The_India_Story.pdf

Rivers of discord. ‘The Times of India’,6 November 2002.

John, Wilson. Water security in South Asia: issues andpolicy recommendations. ‘Issue Brief’ 26: Febru-ary 2011. Available at http://www.orfonline.org/cms/export/orfonline/modules/issuebrief/attach-ments/water_1297246681981.pdf

Joy, K. J., Biksham Gujja, Suhas Paranjape, VinodGoud and Shruti Vispute (eds). Water conflicts inIndia: a million revolts in the making. Delhi:Routledge, 2007.

Mandel, Robert. Sources of international river basindisputes. ‘Conflict Quarterly’: Fall 1992: 25-56.

Mckinsey Consulting. Charting our water future. AReport. November 2009. http://www.mckinsey.com/App_ Media/Reports/Water/Charting_Our_Water_ Future_Exec%20Summary_ 001.pdf

Mukherji, A. Groundwater markets in the GangaBrahmaputra Meghna basin: theory and evi-dence. ‘Economic and Political Weekly’ 39(31):3514-20.

National Advisory Council. Drinking water securityin rural India. A concept paper. New Delhi: Govern-ment of India, 2008.

Rogers, P. et al. (eds.) Water crisis: myth or reality?London: Taylor and Francis Group.

Rotberg, Fiona and Ashok Swain. Natural resourcessecurity in South Asia: Nepal’s water. Institute forSecurity and Development Policy, 2007. www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/Silkroadpapers/2007/0710Nepal.pdf

Sahni, Hamir K. The politics of water in South Asia:the case of the Indus waters treaty. ‘SAIS Review’26(2): Summer-Fall 2006: 153-165. http://www.

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bupedu.com/lms/admin/uploded_article/eA.264.pdf

Shah, T., O.P. Singh and A. Mukherji. Some aspectsof South Asia’s groundwater economy: analyses ofa survey in India, Pakistan, Nepal Terai and Bang-ladesh. ‘Hydrogeology Journal’ 14: 2006: 286-304.

Stimson Centre. India’s water relations with herneighbours. Washington DC: 27 October 2008.http://www.stimson.org/rv/pdf/Ramaswamy_Iyer_Presentation.pdf

Strategic Foresight Group. The Himalayan challenge:water security in South Asia. Mumbai: SFG, 2011.

Thapliyal, Sangeeta. Water security or security ofwater? a conceptual analysis. ‘India Quarterly’67(1): March 2011: 19-35.

Tripathi, Jayant K., Barbara Bock, V. Rajamaniand A. Eisenhauer. Is river Ghaggar, Saraswati?Geochemical constraints. ‘Current Science’ 87(8):25 October 2004:1141-1145.

Understanding water conflicts in South Asia. Avail-able at http://www.saciwaters.org/CB/water%20and% 20equity/water%20and%20equity/IV.%20Readings/4.%20Conceptual-ormative/4.2.%20understanding%20water%20conflicts.pdf

United Nations. Beyond scarcity: power, poverty andthe global water crisis. Human DevelopmentReport. New York: UNDP, 2006.

Verghese, B.G. Water conflicts in South Asia. ‘Stu-dies in Conflict and Terrorism’ 20: 1997:185-194.http://werzit.com/intel/classes/amu/classes/lc514/LC514_Week_14_Water_Conflicts_in_South_Asia.pdf

Water Issues in South Asia. ORF Discourse:May 2011. Available at http://www. orfonline.org/cms/export/orfonline/modules/orfdiscourse/attach-ments/odv_8_130526 2176430.PDF

Warikoo, K. Indus water treat: view from Kashmir.‘Himalayan and Central Asian Studies’ 9(3): July-September 2005: 18-23.

WASSA Project Report. Water and security in SouthAsia: water sharing conflicts within countries andpossible solutions (Vol 2): 2003. Available at http://www.gee-21.org/publications/Water-Sharing-Conflicts-within-Countries-and-Possible-Solutions.pdf

Wolf, A. T. Conflict and cooperation along inter-national waterways. ‘Water Policy’ 1: 1998: 251-265.

World Bank, India’s water economy: bracing for a tur-bulent future. A report. Washington, DC: The WorldBank, 2005.

Zawahri, N. A. Internationl rivers and national secu-rity: the Euphrates, Ganges-Brahmaputra, Indus,

Tigris, and Yarmouk Rivers. ‘Natural ResourcesForum’ 32: 2008: 280-289.

WATER PRIVATIZATION

Abernethy, C. Financing river basin organizations, inM. Svendsen (ed). Irrigation and river basin man-agement: options for governance and institutions.Wallingford, UK: CABI Publishing, IWMI, 2005.

Amarasinghe, U. A., T. Shah and O. Singh. Chang-ing consumption patterns: implications for food andwater demand in India. IWMI Research Report 119.Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Manage-ment Institute, 2007.

Barker, R. and F. Molle. Evolution of irrigation inSouth and Southeast Asia. Comprehensive assess-ment of water management in agriculture researchreport 5. Colombo: International Water Manage-ment Institute, 2004.

Barrows, C.J. River basin development planning andmanagement: a critical review. ‘World Develop-ment’ 26(1): 1998: 171-86.

Biswas, A.K., O. Varis, and C. Tortajada. Integratedwater resources management in South and SoutheastAsia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Briscoe, J. The financing of hydropower, irrigationand water supply infrastructure in developing coun-tries. ‘Water Resources Development’ 15(4): 1999:459-91.

Budds, Jessica and Gordon McGranahan. Are thedebates on water privatization missing the point?Experiences from Africa, Asia and Latin America.‘Environment & Urbanization 15(2): October 2003.http://www.environmentandurbanization.org/documents/budds_mcgranahan.pdf

Budds, Jessica. Are the debates on water privatiza-tion missing the point? Experiences from Africa,Asia and Latin America. ‘Environment and Urbani-zation’ 15(2): October 2003: 87-114.

Haie, N. and A.A. Keller. Effective efficiency as a toolfor sustainable water resources management. ‘Jour-nal of the American Water Resources Association’10: 2008:1752-1788.

Joshi, Gopal. Overview of privatization in South Asia;available at http://www2.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/bangkok/paper/privatize/chap1.pdf

Kijne, J.W., D. Molden and R. Barker (eds.). Waterproductivity in agriculture: limits and opportunitiesfor improvement. Comprehensive assessment ofwater management in agriculture series no. 1.Wallingford, UK: CABI Publishing, 2003.

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Kumar, M.D. Impact of electricity prices and volu-metric allocation on energy and groundwaterdemand management: analysis from western India.‘Energy Policy’ 33: 39-51: 2005.

Molle, F. and J. Berkoff. Irrigation Water pricing: thegap between theory and practice. Comprehensiveassessment of water management in agricultureseries, no. 4. Wallingford, United Kingdom: CABIPublishing, 2007.

Cities versus agriculture: revisiting inter-sectoral water transfers, potential gains, andconflicts. Comprehensive Assessment of WaterManagement in Agriculture Research Report 10.Colombo: International Water Management Insti-tute, 2006.

Perry, C.J., Michael Rock and D. Seckler. Water asan economic good: a solution or a problem? IWMIResearch Report 14. Colombo: International WaterManagement Institute, 1997.

Shiva, Vandana. Resisting water privatization, build-ing water democracy. 2006. Available at http://www.globalternative.org/downloads/shiva-water.pdf

Wegerich, K. Groundwater institutions and mana-gement problems in the developing world, InTellam (ed). Urban groundwater managementand sustainability. Holland: Springer, 2006,pp. 447-458.

Westerhoff, G.P. The use and management of servicecontracts: participation in the private sector. Inter-national Report. London: International WaterAssociation, 2000.

HYDROPOLITICS

Bakshi, Gitanjali and Sahiba Trivedi. The Indusequation. Strategic Foresight Group, 2011. www.strategicforesight.com/110617.pdf

Brichieri-Colombi, J.S. Hydrocentricity: a limitedapproach to achieving food and water security.‘Water International’ 29(3): 2004: 318-328.

Islam, Yeadul. Hydropolitics: a techno-political tan-gle in South Asia. Available at http://www.dscsc.mil.bd/upload/mirpur_papers/3/Yeadul%2520Islam.pdf

Jones, Garth N. Hydropolitics in the 3rd World: Con-flict and Cooperation in International River Basins.‘Journal of Third World Studies’: Spring 2003.

Lele, Ajey, Namrata Goswami and Rumel Dahiya.Asia 2030: the unfolding future. New Delhi: Lancer,2010.

Michel, David and Amit Pandya. Troubled waters:climate change, hydropolitics and transboundaryresources. Washington, DC: The Henry L. StimsonCenter, 2009. http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/Troubled_Waters-Complete.pdf

Mustaffa, Daanesh. Social construction of hydro-politics: the geographical scales of water and secu-rity in the Indus Basin. ‘The GeographicalReview’ 97(4): October 2007: 484-501. http://www.amergeog.org/gr/oct07/mustafa.pdf

Salman, M. A. and Kishore Uprety. Conflict andcooperation on South Asia’s international rivers:a legal perspective. Washington, DC: A World BankPublication, 2002.

Hydro-politics in South Asia: a compara-tive analysis of the Mahakali and the Ganges trea-ties. Available at lawlibrary.unm.edu/nrj/39/2/05_salman_ ganges.pdf

Siddiqui, Iqtidar H. Hydro politics and water warsin South Asia. New Delhi: Lancer, 2011.

Wirsing, Robert G. Hydro-politics in South Asia:the domestic roots of interstate river rivalry. ‘AsianAffairs’ 34(1): 2007.

FLOODING IN PAKISTAN

Government of Pakistan, Economic AffairsDivision. Countrywise update of Foreign Assis-tance for Flood Affectees (17 September 2010).http://www.infopak.gov.pk/Flood%20Relief%20Fund/17_9_2010ForeignAssistance_a.pdf.

Gronewold, Nathanial and Climatewire. Is theflooding in Pakistan a climate change Disaster?‘Scientific American’: 18 August 2010. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-the-flooding-in-pakist

Haq, Noor-ul. Pakistan floods 2010. Available at http://www.ipripak.org/factfiles/ff126.pdf

Kronstadt, K. Alan, et al. Flooding in Pakistan: over-view and issues for congress. 18 November 2010.Available at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41424.pdf

Singapore Red Cross (September 15, 2010). Pakistanfloods: the deluge of disaster – facts and figures asof 15 September 2010". http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/ rwb.ns f /db900SID/LSGZ-89GD7W?OpenDocument.

The World Bank. Response to Pakistan’s floods:evaluative lessons and opportunity. The World

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Bank, 2010. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTDIR GEN/Resources/ieg_pakistan_note.pdf

TRANSBOUNDARY WATER SHARING

Barham, E. Ecological boundaries as communityboundaries: the politics of watersheds. ‘Society andNatural Resources’ 14(3): 2001: 181-91.

Karthykeyan, Deepa. Conflicts and cooperation ontransboundary waters in South Asia. 2011. Availableat http://athenainfonomics.in/wp-ontent/uploads/2011/08/Conflictandcooperation.pdf

Mohan, Shantha, Salien Routray and N. Shahikumar(eds). River water sharing: transboundary conflictand cooperation in India. New Delhi: Routledge,2010.

Sneddon, Chris and Coleen Fox. Rethinkingtransboundary waters: a critical hydropolitics of theMekong basin. ‘Political Geography’ 25: 2006: 181-202. http://perso.univ-lemans.fr/~ffortu/Developpement_environnement_et_agriculture/Asie/%5Bcoleen%20Sneddon%5D%20transboundary%20waters%20a%20critical%20hydropolitics%20of%20the%20mekong%20basin.pdf

Wolf, Aaron T. and Joshua T. Newton. Case study oftransboundary dispute resolution: the Indus watertreaty. Available at http://www.transboundarywaters.orst.edu/research/case_studies/Documents/indus.pdf

WATER LAW

Babcockt, Hope M. Reserved Indian water rights inriparian jurisdiction: water, water everywhere, per-haps some drops for us. Available at http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1502&context=facpub

Chauhan, B.R. Settlement of international and inter-state waters dispute in India. Delhi: Indian LawInstitute, 1992.

Settlement of international water law dis-putes in international drainage basins, 1981.

Cullet, Philippe and Sujith Koonan. Water law inIndia: an introduction to legal instruments. Delhi:Oxford University Press, 2011.

Gulhati, N.D. Development of interstate rivers: lawand practice in India, 1972.

Iyer, Ramaswamy R. Water and the laws in India.New Delhi: Sage, 2009.

Singh, Chattrapati (ed.). Water laws in India (con-taining a collection of papers by various authors on

water rights in India. Delhi: Indian Law Institute,1992.

Sitarama Rao, V. Law relating to water rights. A.I.R.Manual 31 (5th ed.): 1996.

Water law and the commons: proceedings of a work-shop, 2009. Available at http://www.ielrc.org/activities/workshop_0612/content/d0623.pdf

URBAN WATER CHALLENGES

Baker, Lawrence A., Peter Shanahan and JimHolway. Principles for managing the urban waterenvironment in the 21st century. Chapter 14. Avail-able at http://www.jlakes.org/book/WATER-ENV-CITY/fulltext(26).pdf

Challenges of integration in urban water manage-ment: a mid-term assessment in Alexandria, Egypt,2008. http://www.switchurbanwater.eu/outputs/pdfs/W6-0_CALE_REP_Challenges_of% 20inte-gra tion_ in_UWM.pdf

Khatri, K.B. Challenges for urban water supply andsanitation in the developing countries. UNESCOIHE Institute for Water Education. www.unesco-ihe.org/. . . /f i le/9.paper%20urbanisation%20kala%20draft.pdf

Mays, Larry (ed). Integrated urban water manage-ment: arid and semi-arid regions. UNESCO-IPH,CRC Press, 2009.

McKenzie, David and Isha Ray. Urban water supplyin India: status, reform option and possiblelessons. http://erg.berkeley.edu/publications/Isha%20Ray/McKenzieRay-India-urbanwater-forWP.pdf

Rygaard, Martin et al. Increasing urban water self-sufficiency: new era, new challenges. ‘Journal ofEnvironmental Management’ 92: 2011: 185-194.http://www.kysq.org/docs/Rygaard%20et%20al..pdf

Shah, T. Groundwater and human development: chal-lenges and opportunities in Livelihoods and Envi-ronment. ‘Water Science and Technology’ 8: 2005:27-37.

The World Bank. Urban water supply and sanitation.South Asia rural development series. Washington,DC: World Bank Publications, 2000.

Uitto, Juha I. and Asit K. Biswas (ed). Water forurban areas: challenges and perspectives. Waterresources management and policy series, 2008.

Vaidyanathan, A. Depletion of groundwater: someissues. ‘Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics’51(1-2): January-June1996.

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CommentThe not-so-discreet burdens of Indian communismWeighed down by various forms of orthodoxy, Indian Communismexhibits an indifference to many of the expanded critiques ofpower and domination, as well as to the viable institutional alter-natives, that have emerged since the second-half of the twentiethcentury. Reconstructing a meaningfully ethical and democratic leftmay require a fresh start.

Election installation, Democratic Youth Federation of India,Tiruvalla, Kerala

THE recent article by Sumanta Banerjee (SB here-after) in the November 2010 issue of the Economic andPolitical Weekly1 raises important issues about the stateof actually existing Indian communism or what shouldrather be called Indian Collectivist Bureaucratism(ICB hereafter). It represents a significant initiative ininitiating conversations around reconstituting andreconstructing a transparently democratic left in India,with the accompanying themes, institutions and prac-tices that this would entail. This note is meant to be sug-gestive, a contribution to the conversations that havebeen unfolding in various forums.

With all its limitations, established Indian com-munism or ICB has managed (in Kerala and West Ben-gal), however unevenly, some tangible social gains in

the arenas of land reform, literacy and health care, thelatter especially for women and children.

To avoid any confusion or misinterpretation,deliberate or otherwise, it is important to clarify whatthis comment is not about. It is emphatically not, evenby default, an apology for formations like the BJP, theCongress and others, whose politics draws on grada-tions of caste, region, communalism and on serving theinterests of corporate capital.

Situated in a society which is overdetermined byfeudal authoritarianism, brutality and hierarchy, allderived from the multiple interlocking viciousness ofpatriarchy, caste, class and other forms of exclusion,ICB cannot but help reproduce these features in itsinstitutional discourses and practices.2 Indian societywith its multiple overlapping oppressions, old and new,is a Pandora’s box, a bottomless dungeon of power,domination, antagonism and violence. Rather than belimited only to the key notion of alienated and exploitedlabour that has been the dominant discourse of ICB andorthodox Marxism in general, Indian society is the tem-

1. ‘End of a Phase: Time for Reinventing the Left’, Economic andPolitical Weekly XLV(46). The present article references Banerjee’sarticle as a point of departure. Since the state assembly electionsin April and May of 2011, a number of articles on the themehave appeared: Badri Raina, ‘The State of the Left’, http://www.zcommunications.org/the-state-of-the-left-by-badri-raina,24 May 2011. Sukumaran Banaji, et al., ‘End of the Left in India?’;Sumanta Banerjee, ‘West Bengal’s Next Quinquennium, and theFuture of the Indian Left’, both in Economic and Political WeeklyXLVI(23) and Pranab Bardhan, ‘The Avoidable Tragedy of theLeft in India-II’, Economic and Political Weekly XLVI(24).

2. ‘Indian society is... composed of hierarchical systems withinfamilies and communities. These hierarchies can be broken downinto age, sex, ordinal position, kinship relationships (within fami-lies), and caste, lineage, wealth, occupations, and relationship toruling power (within the community). When hierarchies emergewithin the family based on social convention and economic need,girls in poorer families suffer twice the impact of vulnerability andstability. From birth, girls are automatically entitled to less; fromplaytime, to food, to education, girls can expect to always beentitled to less than their brothers.’ Ela R. Bhatt, We Are PoorBut So Many: The Story of Self-Employed Women in India.Oxford University Press, New York, 2005.3. ‘...Necessary to broaden Marx’s critique of the alienation oflabour to include all aspects of domination, class, race, gender,

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plate par excellence for discovering, understandingand dismantling the expanded categories of the myriadcategories of nested dominations and vectors of powerthat haunt everyday experience.3

Caste continues to undermine the assumption ofand the hope for working class solidarity, given that it(caste) functions to fracture society into splinters, andinserts hierarchy and domination even into the inter-stices of subaltern groups. B.R. Ambedkar, para-phrased by Omvedt observed: ‘To build the strengthof the working class, the mental hold of religiousslavery would have to be destroyed; the preconditionof a united working class is the eradication of caste anduntouchability.’4

The dynamic of caste denies the assumption offundamental human equality enshrined in the Indianand other modern democratic and republican consti-tutions. Lohia’s concept of the intersectionality ofcaste, class, gender and language is of crucial impor-tance in this sense, and points the way towards anecessary but insufficient political programme.5

For a German educated Indian socialist to championlanguage exclusiveness is intriguing, given that lan-guage has frequently functioned and continues to func-tion in enabling contexts as a powerful medium for thecontinuous reproduction of hierarchy, exclusion andoppression.

The variously traumatized and brutalized Indianpsyche, both within the confines of the family and inlarger Indian society and culture, constitutes a hope-lessly inadequate and non-existent basis for recon-structing even the rudimentary elements of a humane,democratic and ethical, socialistic practice that iscongruent with the best traditions of a self-criticalmodernity.

Worse yet, these traumatized psyches in theirdiscourses and practices within ICB were and continueto be thoroughly fixated and mesmerized by the equallyif not more retrogressive mindsets, texts and practicesof Soviet and Chinese peasant societies, wartimecollectivist juntas and gulags, inflected through theIndian cauldron. Themes such as the oxymoronic‘democratic centralism’ are just so much more grist for

the unapologetically authoritarian and congenitallymale-supremacist world of ICB.

Convinced of the inevitable installation ofdogmatic and positivist versions of Marxist and/orMaoist dystopias, and drunk on industrial era scientismand gigantism as in the former Soviet Union, or rurallabour camps a la the Khmer Rouge, the need forcritical, historicist and normative caution was thrownto the winds. The despotic figure of the Indianfather, husband, religious authority, teacher, landlord,employer, bureaucrat, party apparatchik, etc., dovetailsseamlessly with the all too familiar personality struc-tures of an absolute god, policeman and tyrant, mostoften rolled into one. Indian collectivist atavisms mayclosely resemble many of the traits highlighted in TheAuthoritarian Personality, published in the mid-20thcentury, by members of the critical theory tradition.6

ICB in its discourses and behaviour seeks tosubstitute its version of an anti-humanistic moonscapefor the institutionalized multiple viciousness of theIndian status quo. SB succinctly summarizes theexperience of various collectivist junta regimes:‘We find a continuity in the use of terror as a means ofcreating a “socialist order” in the praxis of communists– from Stalin, through Mao to Pol Pot, and the presentCPI(M) leaders and Maoists in India.’7

The everyday experiences of life even under theparliamentary segment of ICB, the CPI(M), leave a lotto be desired. Historian Mukul Kesavan observes thatbecause he is an outsider, he ‘hasn’t had to suffer thecountless (and seemingly endless) little tyrannies ofLeft rule in Bengal, the hubris of its leaders and thethuggery of its cadres.’8

Ironically, ICB reflects in reality (not just in amirror) the pathologies of larger Indian society, dis-guised as they may be through manipulative populisms,opaque ideological formulas and inscrutable inner-party dynamics.

ICB seems oblivious to the enormous corpus ofhumane and ethically informed socialist theory andpractice that has been accumulated in other parts of theworld. Even while the Soviets, their Eastern Europeansatellite juntas and the Chinese peasant communistswere setting up their doleful, collectivist, flat earth/scorched earth deserts, parts of northwestern Europe,nature’, Ben Agger, The Discourse of Domination: From the

Frankfurt School to Postmodernism. Northwestern UniversityPress, Evanston, Illinois, 1992, p. 8.4. Gail Omvedt, ‘“Ambedkarism”, The Theory of Dalit Libera-tion-1’, http://www.ambedkar.org/D-Mag/D-MagAmb.pdf,14 April 2001, viewed on 9 July 2011.5. Anand Kumar, ‘Understanding Lohia’s Political Sociology:Intersectionality of Caste, Class, Gender and Language’, Economicand Political Weekly XLV(40).

6. Theodor Adorno, et al., The Authoritarian Personality:Studies in Prejudice. Harper, New York, 1950.7. ‘End of a Phase: Time for Reinventing the Left’, see fn 1, above.8. ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’, http://www.hindustantimes.com/Turn-turn-turn/Article1-697197.aspx, viewed on 17 May 2011.

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were concurrently establishing working models ofwhat are still enviably decent societies (albeit withinthe ecologically problematic accumulationist-productivist-militarist paradigm).9

ICB has not, does not and will not want to under-stand the complex themes and processes that gotowards constituting individual and social subjecti-vity, the womanist-feminist critiques of pervasive,aggressive and far-reaching patriarchy, physical, ver-bal and psychological violence and the complexities,limits and fragility of the ecosystem. It is almostdeliberately innocent of and (possibly) dismissive ofthe critiques of personality and social-psychologicalstructures on the one hand, and on the other, thesubstantive democratic themes/practices advanced bythe civil rights, women’s, ecological, peace, indigenouspeople’s10 and subjectivity (lesbian, gay and trans-gender) movements that captured the imagination andprincipled commitment of significant civil society sec-tors in Europe, the Americas, and parts of Oceania, inthe second half of the 20th century.

The various sections of ICB have failed toaddress, even in theory, the deification of the politicaland ideological state, the apparatuses of the adminis-trative bureaucracy and its machinery of repression.On this issue, ICB competes with other bankrupt poli-tical formations in their zeal for meanness, or worse.Most significantly, many of the themes and practicesof ICB converge with the predatory bureaucratic statewhich has been grafted onto the familiar pre-existingsocio-cultural power structures outlined above.

In the Indian context the inability, incompetence,and failure of the congenitally rent seeking and archaicpaper pushing, rubber stamping, public administrativesystem to deliver even the most elementary levels ofhygiene, sanitation, safety and ordering of publicspaces and amenities should count as rank derelic-tion.11 The utter disregard for the dismal condition ofpublic amenities is to be seen everywhere – be it state

transport buses; a lack of interest in the upkeep of pub-lic assets shown by both management and employees;the shabby and dilapidated public and private build-ings and spaces; the pervasive pollution of air, waterand land; the spectacular absence of sanitation andhygiene – and the list goes on. It is the mass produc-tion of such spaces of misery and the programmed help-lessness of society as a whole in adequately addressingthis misery, that is an ubiquitous experience of Indianrealities, past, present and future.

Even in the arena that ICB claims a monopoly on,i.e. on building alternative economic institutions, itappears like the proverbial ostrich with its head in thesand. While it has been obsessed with the social andeconomic dead-end models of the former SovietUnion, Maoist China, etc., it has spectacularly missedthe boat on a range of substantive alternatives in Indiaand in other parts of the world. It is by systematicallydeconstructing and destroying the idea, promise andpotential of a modern, successful and ethically respon-sible public administrative and enterprise system thatICB and all other political formations have opened thedoor to the frenzy of neoliberal fantasies about a mini-mal or non-existent public sector, except as a whollyowned subsidiary and enabler of the corporate sector.

Rotating a few faces out of the edifices of actu-ally existing ICB will at best be a symbolic exerciseand at worst, a sure recipe for more of the usual. Whatis needed is a definite break with the assumptions,institutional legacy and the one-dimensionality ofIndian Collectivist Bureaucratism.

In his closing remarks, SB alludes to varioussocial movements in India as providing a broader can-vas for the process of left reconstruction. One can onlyagree with this suggestion, but what is left untheorizedare the essential themes that these movements here andelsewhere have contributed towards transforming andexpanding the ambit of left critique and practice.

The multiple axes of social domination in thissociety have been referred to in earlier parts of thisarticle to indicate the social and cultural field that ICBoperates in and by which it is significantly influenced.Here, I would like to very briefly and indicatively touchupon two specific universes about which ICB has beenparticularly remiss – the domination and invisibilityof women and ecology.

The women’s movement has clearly shown howwomen contribute massively to social reproduction(without which there would be no production), as wellas to production conventionally understood (onephrase from the movement that expresses this well is

9. Even though the erstwhile social-democracies of north-western Europe constructed their welfare societies on conventionalindustrial models, there is growing evidence that they are activelycultivating the transition to a ‘green’ economy.10. A number of indigenous people’s movements raised extremelysalient questions about human survival and quality of life issues,against economic, industrial and technological hubris and one-dimensionality, and were some of the earliest and most eloquentadvocates for ecological sanity. See for example, Jack Weatherford,Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformedthe World. Crown Books, New York, 1988.11. For a fictionalized but provocative narrative of the system by aformer insider, see Upamanyu Chatterjee, The Mammaries of theWelfare State. Viking, New Delhi; New York, 2000.

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‘Women hold up more than half of the sky’). Women’sbodies, work, emotions, time, dignity, nurturing,imagination, intelligence are all relentlessly consumedon the altar of patriarchal society and in fact make thevery existence of that society possible. Yet, women arecondemned to social and cultural invisibility, segrega-tion, overwork and low or no wages, to sexual exploi-tation inside and outside marriage and so on.

The women’s movement has also shown thatwhile male politicians are exclusively focused on thepublic arena, a range of women’s oppressions areexperienced in the private sphere of the family andextended kin networks. Dismantling the pillars ofpatriarchal society demands that mechanisms ofpower, domination and violence that operate in theprivate sphere also become the objects of inquiry, cri-tique and transformation.

Reflecting its contemporaneity with the firstwave of industrialization, orthodox Marxism andits offshoots like Indian Collectivist Bureaucratismwere, and continue to be, wedded to the Prometheanparadigm of massive industrial production and theopen-ended and instrumentalist use of ecologicalendowments, even after the projected dismantling ofthe capitalist order. As Rudolf Bahro, one of the theo-rists of the German green movement who coined theneed for both military and ‘industrial disarmament’,observed: ‘Even… a thinker as profound as AntonioGramsci was still able to view technique, industriali-zation, Americanism, the Ford system in its existingform as by and large an inescapable necessity, and thusdepict socialism as the genuine executor of humanadaptation to modern machinery and technology.Marxists have so far rarely considered that humanityhas not only to transform its relations of production,but must also fundamentally transform the entire char-acter of its mode of production, i.e. the productiveforces, the so-called technostructure.’12

Both the hidebound cliques of the various sec-tions of ICB and perhaps even some of the emergentsocial movements have yet to consciously break withthe archaic deep structures of grassroots communitiesin our society and the very real tendency for theirapparent ‘leaders’ to continue to work implicitly orexplicitly within those deeply problematic frameworks.

The institutionalization of archaic, puritanicalmindsets and practices within ICB and its resoluteresilience to modernist social and cultural sensibilitiesis highlighted in one of ICB’s bastions, Kerala. Despitethe fact that women have access to relatively highlevels of literacy and health outcomes, there is scantevidence, even in the 21st century, of any meaningfulexpressions of autonomous social, cultural and (for themost part), economic agency for women.

Even a cursory glance at the grim, dour-faced,agit-propagandist displays and unimaginative con-claves of ICB’s top brass, reveals monotonously malecharacteristics (the token female presence being theexception that proves the rule). Further, these con-claves are marked by the scant representation of theyoung and in that sense reflect the patriarchal ethos ofthe Indian family where the reigning motto is ‘fatherand only father knows best.’

The challenge for grassroots social movementsthat seek to become the kernels of a reconstructed leftis to articulate in clear and unequivocal terms, multi-dimensional critiques of the Indian wasteland in com-bination with an emphatically modernist,13 ethical,democratic left vision, and meaningful practices ofpersonal integrity, social reconstruction and creativeinstitution building.

Indian Collectivist Bureaucratism, saddled as itis with multiple and irreparable craters such as authori-tarianism and patriarchy, its ambivalences about mili-tarism14 and rank ecological blindness, is an inadequatevehicle for social and cultural reconstruction. Nobodycan accuse ICB of enthusiasm, dynamism and/or crea-tivity in ideas and practice, a curious fate for politicalformations that claim to be the inheritors of a form ofanalysis once associated with the cutting edge insocial, cultural, economic and political modernity. Yetthe possibility of a minimally sane society is depend-ent on a fresh start that imaginatively draws and buildson themes articulated by transparently democratic,ethical and non-communalist social movements,including those of workers in this society, as well bythe global democratic left.

Santosh George

12. R. Bahro, Socialism and Survival. Heretic, London, 1982,p. 27, quoted in Kate Soper, ‘Greening Prometheus’ in Ted Benton(ed.), The Greening of Marxism. Guillford Press, London, 1996,p. 84. This section relies on Benton’s useful compilation of keydebates between various strands of Marxism and left informedEcology.13. By ‘modernist’ one means to suggest the historic liberatingthemes signified by democracy, and the phrase ‘liberty, equality,solidarity’, converging with universal human rights, multi-dimen-sional justice, anti-authoritarianism, anti-patriarchy and ecologi-cal integrity.14. As Tariq Ali, the British commentator, has observed (para-phrase): India and Pakistan spend millions of dollars on weaponsof mass destruction while ordinary people (in these societies)‘eat dirt’.

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‘India’ against corruptionTHE recently concluded large scale protest triggeredby Anna Hazare’s indefinite fast on the Jan Lokpal Billissue arguably had a distinctive urban middle class sup-port base. The protest showed the resolve of the urbanmiddle classes (upper/lower) to undertake a cleansingact emanating from their moral concern for growingcorruption in the existing state and political institu-tions. It also revealed their distinctive lack of confi-dence in the political class across party divides. Thecapitulation of an otherwise recalcitrant governmentand opposition in the Parliament, as it finally agreedto accept the core demands of the campaign, dulyexhibited the growing clout of the middle classes inIndia’s democracy. As with ‘corruption in high places’at the moment, the political drive to ‘cleanse’ thesystem in the coming months as proposed by ‘civilsociety’ (read Anna team) is likely to compel thepolitical regime to focus with greater alacrity on issuesthat are of utmost concern to the largely discontentedmiddle classes in a rapidly urbanizing India.

The protest raised two pertinent questions thatneed to be explored. First, how does one make senseof the growing trust deficit among the urban middleclasses in the entire political class and, more impor-tantly, in the formal democratic institutions and theprocedures which enjoy constitutional sanction andhave endured all these years despite grave challenges?Second, how does one make sense of the keenness ofthe political class as a whole or more specifically thetwo polity-wide coalition making parties, the Congressand BJP, to not alienate the middle classes, come whatmay. The question assumes significance given the mid-dle classes’ relative lack of ‘presence’ in numericalterms, a distinct disadvantage in a single plurality elec-toral system in India.

The urban middle classes’ growing disenchant-ment with electoral democracy, evident in terms of itsrelatively lower level of electoral participation evenas India witnesses a ‘democratic upsurge’, may beattributed to the following two factors: the first is theurban middle classes’ wariness with the emergentidentity based electoral politics that encouragespopulism and patronage along the lines of ethnic cleav-ages. Political apathy can thus be viewed as a ‘back-lash’ of the upper caste urban middle classes, a progenyof the Nehruvian middle class, against emergent poli-tical processes that veer around regionalism and lowercaste resurgence. Being both ‘secular’ and a votary of‘meritocracy’, the urban middle classes, along with the

Indian diaspora, tend to look at the emergent sectarianpolitical culture as antithetical to its avowed dream ofa harmonious ‘great nation state’. Second, the apathymay also be attributed to the urban middle classes’overwhelming concern with economic, rather thanpolitical, issues. There is a growing realization amongthe ‘new’ metropolitan middle classes that the rampantcorruption prevalent in the state institutions andservices, constitutes a serious impediment to theongoing process of neoliberal market-oriented growththat is propelled by infusion of global capital andarrival of the corporate sector and with which its classinterests are crucially linked.

As to why the political class, cutting across partylines (including the mainstream left), can ill-afford toalienate the middle classes, one can refer to the follow-ing factors: First, in terms of numerical ‘presence’, themiddle classes form the fastest growing segment ofIndia’s population. While the exact number varies,depending on the criteria used for enumeration, themiddle classes in India are widely estimated to bebetween 250 to 350 million, making it the secondlargest middle class in the world after China. Sowhether 20 or 30 per cent of India’s population, theIndian middle class in terms of sheer numbers is big-ger than the entire population of most countries ofEurope and is almost as big as the US population in size.

Second, the middle classes, in a somewhat mutedway, continue to retain their inherited caste/commu-nity based privileges and loyalties, even as they alsoseeks to delegitimize the language of caste in the realmof politics. As such the middle classes, more oftenthan not, reflect the interests of and influence the waystheir ‘own’ communities would operate in the demo-cratic system.1 Third, the middle classes are equippedwith ‘cultural capital’ that give them access, not onlyto the higher echelons of state institutions involvedin policymaking but also to print and visual mediaand global audiences in a web-connected world ofFacebook, SMS and Twitter.

Fourth, the ‘metropolitan’ middle classes’ tacti-cal alliance with the entrepreneurial class (due toshared spatial and sociological origins, uncritical sup-port for economic reforms and adherence to consum-erist culture) contributes to its political influence.2

1. Andre Beteille, ‘Classes and Communities’, Economic andPolitical Weekly, 17 March 2007; also D.L. Sheth, ‘Secularisationof Caste and the Making of New Middle Class’, Economic andPolitical Weekly, 21 August 1999.2. Leela Fernandes, India’s New Middle Class: DemocraticPolitics in an Era of Economic Reforms. Oxford University Press,New Delhi, 2007.

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After all, with campaigns increasingly becomingcostlier, it is only the entrepreneurial class that is in aposition to make serious money available to politicalparties (and also to ‘civil society’ campaigns like thepresent one).

At a more general level, there are several otherquestions raised in the aftermath of the campaign thatat the moment remain unanswered. Would the increas-ing proclivity of the ascendant elitist middle classes,with the ordinary citizens as foot soldiers in toe, to ‘dic-tate’ to state institutions and circumvent democraticprocedures, as evidenced during the recent campaign,pose a threat to the ongoing ‘silent revolution’ in theform of political power being steadily transferred tothe lower castes/class through the electoral route?Would India’s present and future democratic regimes,in facing the onslaught of the now confident, pro-market middle classes, be able to accommodate lowercaste/class based claims by continuing with anti-reform affirmative policies and actions that enabledirect and indirect transfer of public resources in theform of subsidies and protective discrimination to thelower castes/class with the same zeal?

Would the urban middle classes, having experi-mented and tasted success with the non-electoral tech-nology driven ‘civil society’ route (referendum/recall/consultation) for exerting political power and influ-ence, finally succeed in hegemonizing the nationalagenda (recall the ‘India Shining’ campaign)? Andwhat about the distinct economic and political choicesand concerns of the ‘plebeian’ middle class of lowercaste/rural origin who are dissimilar in terms of itssociological as well as spatial origins? As the ‘metro-politan’ middle classes push hard for promoting a non-party ‘new politics’ based on legal activism/theatricalmedia powered campaigns like the recent one thatwas built around the support of local associations incivil society (NGOs funded by global capital) and thenew middle class icons like a ‘saintly’ Anna Hazareand Medha Patkar or even spiritual/yoga ‘feel good’gurus/swamis like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and BabaRamdev, the question remains whether all of this willfurther deepen the crisis of democratic governance.

Ashutosh Kumar

State response to movementsTHE Seminar issue of September 2011 is devoted tothe problematic of ‘Combating Corruption’ and con-tributors, a majority of them from civil society, have

offered rich analysis focused on the Anna Hazaremovement of August 2011. There is, however, need forbroadening the discussion on the role of social move-ments in a democracy. Politics is the driving force inevery society and it is no one’s case that the activity ofpolitics can be caged within the rules of the game asdefined by the constitutional system of a democraticpolitics. The pillar of politics in democracy is the‘freedoms’ that are available to citizens to exercise theirright of dissent against the legally constituted institu-tions of the state. And dissenters and nonconformistsdefine their own boundaries without caring for the lim-its imposed by the legal-institutional apparatuses ofthe state. The question is: How does the state respondto social movements launched by public spirited dis-senters and diverse kinds of opposition groups?

The Indian state, during the sixty four years ofits post-independence journey, has dealt with a largevariety of movements which have emerged on thebasis of felt-grievances of different segments andregions of society in a variety of ways. It used itsorganized and well-equipped armed forces in dealingwith the Communist party-led Telangana movementfrom 1947 to 1950, despite the fact that it was an‘armed’ struggle of the peasantry against feudaloppression and exploitation. The state did not addressthe genuine demands of an oppressed peasantrybecause it always uses its coercive forces againstangry social groups, particularly if they launch anarmed struggle against an unresponsive state which isprotecting the interests of the exploiting classes.

The policy of bullet versus bullet has been con-sistently followed by the Indian state against armedgroups which sought to opt out of India’s territoriallydefined boundaries or against peasants and tribals whotook to arms because the state was seen as protectingthe oppressor landlords and mafias who have exploitedthe poor tribals and their natural resources.

It is not without reason that the managers of theIndian state have publicly observed that ‘the Maoistinsurgency is the greatest threat to the security of thestate’ and have sought to crush it. The above narrativeclearly shows that our ‘democratic’ state has littleconcern for people’s struggles if solutions aredemanded by launching armed movements, eitherby suffering peasants or tribals or groups which claimto have the right to opt out of the Indian Union. A demo-cratic state on the basis of its claim of moral superiorityand democratic sanctions has legitimized its use ofcoercive power against anti-state armed struggles ofgroups who are fighting for their ‘rights’.

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While this is one facet of the relationship betweenstate and movements, the other is that the functionariesof the state also negotiate with and accommodatethe demands made by social movements which aredescribed as ‘normal activity of dissident groups in acompetitive electoral democratic political system.’ TheJayaprakash Narayan or Anna Hazare-led movementsmay rhetorically be described as extra-constitutional,but the functionaries of the state go out of their way tonegotiate, bargain and accommodate the demands ofthese so-called social movements of civil society.Every such movement is concerned with the reform ofthe political system and while the state may resist somedemands, it always keeps its doors open for settlementwith the leadership of such intra-state reformist move-ments because they are spearheaded by leaders andsocial groups who are not ‘outsiders’ as far as the statesystem is concerned.

The JP movement was launched in 1974-75 to‘purify’ a corrupted electoral system with a view tocleansing the democratic institutions by limiting theentry of MLAs and MPs accused of electoral malprac-tices. Jayaprakash Narayan launched his struggleagainst ‘polluted’ governmental institutions becausethose holding the reins had adopted ‘foul’ means tocome to power. He wanted to restore the majesty andlegitimacy of democratic institutions through his pro-posals for electoral reforms. Reforming democracywas the main agenda of the JP movement. Similarly,numerous other movements for the reorganization ofstate boundaries too have received a ‘royal treatment’from negotiators and interlocutors of the government-in-power, by the opposition parties and media, bothprint and audiovisual. Anna’s movement too was for a‘negotiated settlement’ on the issue of an appropriatemechanism to check corruption in public life and pub-lic institutions. Anna led a popular struggle for aJan Lokpal bill and like many other democratic strug-gles in post-independence India, this movement tooachieved its goal on the basis of ‘democratic accom-modation’ by the powers-that-be.

Clearly the state itself decides to adopt differentyardsticks while dealing with different movements ina democracy. Depending upon the basic social issuesraised by the movement and the methods chosen forachieving its goal, the state decides either to ruthlesslycrush the movement or negotiate with its leaders. If onthe one hand, the demands of a surplus generating peas-antry or rural oligarchy, as articulated by the lateMahendra Singh Tikait’s Bharatiya Kisan Union, arenegotiated and conceded, struggles launched by land-

less agricultural labourers, share croppers, marginalfarmers and tribals receive a cavalier response, oftenpushing them into taking up arms against the state.

The Anna Hazare movement too needs to beexamined on the basis of its demands, and the supportit garnered from the emerging middle classes who usedmodern means of communication to spread theirmessage across the country. Is the emergence of thephenomenon of movements, actively supported byupwardly mobile technocratic, professional middleclasses, any surprise? Instead of berating a social move-ment, which may have a broad social base among therising Indian middle classes, the focus should be onanalyzing the ideological driving force of this segmentof our society, since middle class activism is here tostay.

By and large this ‘moneyed class’ is insecure andsocially conservative, even status quoist. It is notsympathetically oriented towards movements for therights of the ‘real’ poor, the basic classes, and usuallysupports every state action which, in its judgement,is needed to maintain and protect the existing socialorder. The mainstream of this ‘new class’, a productof fast-changing material forces of production, isstatus’-quoist’, right-wing conservative and, in thespecific Indian situation, a believer in and practitionerof ritualized religion.

Hence, the upshot is that the rapid, ongoingsocial change is creating a new strata of society andmovements articulating demands which cannot be dis-missed in a contemptuous manner. Social movementsshould be properly analysed. Further, historical evi-dence also testifies to the fact that even the essentially‘socially conservative middle class’ can become an‘agency’ for basic social transformations in society.The Indian middle class, old and new, has revealed its‘two faces’ or two tendencies during the different strug-gles of the 20th century. At one level, every tall leaderof the Indian national struggle against British colonialrule, despite different ideological persuasions, camefrom the middle classes and made every kind of per-sonal sacrifice for the liberation of the country. TheIndian middle class has been actively involved bothin right of centre or left-of-centre or even full-fledged Communist party-led struggles. It is thiscomplex and contradictory character of the emergingmiddle classes which influences both the goals anddirections of the social movement, as also the responseof the state.

C.P. Bhambhri

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BooksELITE AND EVERYMAN: The Cultural Politics

of the Indian Middle Classes edited by AmitaBaviskar and Raka Ray. Routledge, New Delhi,2011.

THE middle class is an elusive and yet popularcategory. Be it lay discourses on social and politicallife, or serious academic writings on economy, historyand cultures of contemporary India, the category ofmiddle class is used in a large variety of contexts. Butwhat exactly is (or are) middle class(es)? What is spe-cific about the Indian middle class? What role does itplay in contemporary Indian social life? While recentwritings by Indian economists have mostly concen-trated on its size as an ‘income category’, the term hasa broader sociological and conceptual history, both inthe western context and in India.

The edited volume by Amita Baviskar and RakaRay brings together essays that draw upon and indi-cate a wide range of scholarship that has recentlyemerged on the Indian middle class. The essays, firstdiscussed in a workshop at the Institute of EconomicGrowth in New Delhi, discuss a wide array of concernsabout the Indian middle class, ranging from the sim-ple economics of middle class in terms of its numbersor income levels, to its history, changing social andoccupational profile, and even the ways in which it isrepresented in sex surveys.

As the editors suggest in their introduction, the‘arrival’ of the middle class, or the growing scholarlyinterest in the subject, is also a consequence of theeconomic progress that a section of Indians have madeover the last 50 or 60 years. Though their numbers inrelative terms are still small, estimated to be anywherebetween 10 to 26 per cent of the population, in abso-lute terms they have been growing, particularly dur-ing the post-liberalization period. More importantlyperhaps, the middle class in India has also graduallyoccupied centre-stage, displacing the ‘poor’ and the‘peasant’, the common man.

The pre-liberalization common man was a ratherquiet and humble creature. The popular media articu-lated his concerns in terms of roti, kapda aur makan.The growing presence of middle class has changed thispopular concern to bijli, sadak aur pani. While thisshows a degree of social and economic mobility of theaam admi, it does not mean that the entire poor popu-lation has moved up the ladder. One can equally readthis shift as reflecting a further marginalization of thepoor, whose number, even in relative terms, remainsvery large. However, the aam admi of urban India isno longer a humble and helpless creature. He is now amiddle class person, a citizen, who could be betterdescribed as ‘everyman’. Unlike the common man,‘everyman’ is assertive and demanding. It is thisascendency of the middle class during the 1990s, the

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post-liberalization period, that provides the context fordifferent essays in the book.

So far, with the exception of historical commen-taries, writings on the Indian middle class have mostlybeen of a general nature, based on impressionisticnotions about the urban professional and salariedclasses, invariably focusing on the conceptual difficul-ties of using the term in the Indian context. They oftencritiqued the Indian middle class for not being likeits western counterpart, as being self-serving or non-secular. In contrast, the papers presented in the volumemostly draw on empirical evidence. Even the concep-tual discussions have moved beyond the earlier mor-alistic commentaries. The introductory chapter by theeditors and the paper by Leela Fernandes are goodexamples of this tendency. Similarly, Sanjay Joshi’shistorical account of the middle class in Lucknow andthe paper by the Rudolphs on the post-land reformRajputs of Rajasthan, raise interesting conceptual ques-tions about the specific context of the emergence of amiddle class in India. In the same vein, the paper byRoger Jeffrey, Patricia Jeffrey and Craig Jeffrey providesa fascinating ethnography of the mobile Jats of westernUttar Pradesh, their growing desire to be a part of themiddle class and their efforts at changing their lifestyles.

The post-1990s context and the rise of a ‘new’middle class is the subject of several papers. Workingthrough numbers, E. Sridharan provides a comprehen-sive analysis of the data on employment, incomeand consumption categories through different datasets. In another paper, Carol Upadhya and SmithaRadhakrishnan present their work on the softwareprofessionals.

The book also has several papers on the personalor private life of the middle class. While Nita Kumarfocuses on the reproduction of middle class througheducation by looking at the child, Seemin Qayumand Raka Ray present their work on changing practicesof servant-keeping in Kolkata and the challengethat middle class households face in negotiatingtheir relationships with servants vis-a-vis theirself-identities of being modern. Another study ofKolkata by Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase and TimothyJ. Scrase look at the lower middle class among theBengali bhadralok, their experience of relative down-ward mobility and the growing pressure of conform-ing to the new normative of middle class life, wheresuccess in English medium education has increasinglybecome critical. In another essay in the section, PatriciaUberoi analyzes the changing ‘sexual character’ ofthe Indian middle class by comparing a survey done

by the famous sociologist G.S. Ghurye conducted dur-ing the late 1930s with a 2007 sex survey published byIndia Today.

Continuing with the changing 1990s, the lastthree chapters of the book look at the emerging natureof middle class politics and urban public sphere.Focusing on cinema, the first of these chapters byWilliam Mazzarella, looks at the manner in which anew liberal discourse on censorship emerged aroundthe ‘freedom of consumer choice’ for the urban edu-cated viewer, even while it accepted censorship for the‘masses’. Similarly, Amita Baviskar and SanjaySrivastava discuss the reconfiguring of urban spacesin their contributions. However, they focus on two verydifferent contexts and with differing perspectives.While Srivastava’s ethnography of the Akshardhamtemple in Delhi shows how the appeal of the templelies in its ability to present itself as a ‘tableau of con-sumption’, Baviskar examines the ‘ongoing emer-gence of the public sphere on Delhi’s street’ and therestructuring of urban space to make it fit the bourgeoisnotion of environmentalism and modernity.

Though one can always quibble about oridentify what has not been addressed by the book, it ishard to ignore its contribution to the scholarship on theIndian middle class. The range of subjects covered andthe quality of scholarship makes reading of this bookan imperative for anyone interested in understandingthe changing character of the middle class and contem-porary India.

Surinder S. Jodhka

REFLECTIONS ON NATION BUILDING:A Gypsy in the World of Ideas by Rajen Harshe.Pentagon Press, New Delhi, 2011.

MEMOIRS of teachers seem to be curiously non-existent today. And yet, names such as S. Radha-krishnan, K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar, V.V. John andC.D. Narasimhaiah were widely known to the teach-ing community in post-independence India. Full ofscintillating wit and humour, their accounts accom-plished several goals at the same time: they mappedthe contours of the teacher’s intellectual and spiritualevolution, captured the history of learning, especiallywith regard to the institutional and pedagogic aspects,recorded the changing attitude of society towards theuniversity and finally, offered reflections that couldserve as an effective road map for the future. Indeed,for a great many of the leaders of our national freedom

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struggle, education and nation building, went hand inhand. And thus, we think of Gandhiji’s interest inBasic Education, Tagore’s endeavours in Shanti-niketan and Sri Aurobindo’s experiments in Baroda,Bengal and Pondicherry.

Paradoxically enough, post-independenceIndia’s commitment to higher education, in terms of amassive outlay of resources of money and manpower,seems to have coincided with a gradual withdrawal ofthe venerable teacher figure into a private shell as arecluse. No doubt, star teachers and professors havebecome public intellectuals today; they command a fanfollowing in the media and on campus. But we rarelysee glimpses of their private selves, the world of theirintimate thought, their anxiety, dilemma and fears,related to their vision of education.

The more teaching has become a ‘profession’in terms of an increased pay packet and mandatoryteaching hours under the supervision of national levelbodies like the UGC (University Grants Commission),the more society has been deprived of the valuablepresence of the teacher figure. That is why RajenHarshe’s ruminations on men, matters and institutionsin the present volume, seen from the perspective ofa teacher over the last three decades, merits publicattention. Written in a lucid, conversational style with-out the pitfalls of jargon, this is not a memoir in theconventional sense. Harshe writes with feeling; thereis the personal note, the reflective persona who looksback constantly and revises his cherished views andbeliefs as he goes along.

It is this humanistic self of Harshe that comes outagain and again in the essays. With an experience thatspans many places: Pune, Delhi, Paris, Hyderabad,New York and Allahabad, he has had a rich and event-ful career as a teacher, administrator and institutionbuilder. Calling himself a gypsy in the world of ideas,he writes insightfully on personalities like Gandhi,Marx, Nehru, Tilak and Mandela and introduces theideas of J. Krishnamurti, Sarojini Naidu and FrantzFanon. He examines issues such as the Naxalite move-ment, the university system, insurgency in the NorthEast, alienation of youth, the Partition of India, theBerlin Wall and the globalized economy. Above all,there is the all powerful presence of history. He looksclosely at history with its myriad meanings, examinesthe nature of the past and the problems inherent in thewriting of this discipline.

The chapters themselves are fairly small, eachwritten in the form of a column; many of these, welearn, were published in the form of a column called

‘V.C’s Diary’ in the Allahabad edition of HindustanTimes. As Harshe looks back, he asks a number ofpointed questions: Was Nehru an enigma or tragedy?What are his lasting contributions? How did Tilakadd an ideological or spiritual basis to India’sfreedom struggle? What is the lasting legacy of theanti-colonial Fanon and the 13th century Marathisaint poet Gyaneshwar?

He has his answers. The ideal is to avoid politicalcorrectness and all forms of dogmatic and sectarianthinking. Nehru had his strength and his failings too:Kashmir and China. So much of our schooling, he aptlysays, is an unmitigated drudgery. The youth today needsrole models and inspiring figures. Violence can be coun-tered only through non-violent peaceful methods.Some of the answers seem to be familiar. Perhaps thenovelty lies in the manner in which Harshe articulatethese ideas and beliefs with passion and fervour andgrounds them in concrete personal experience.

There are primarily two reference points forRajen Harshe’s personal narrative: his experienceat the ‘Golden Threshold’ of the University ofHyderabad, and his association with the AllahabadUniversity. These provide a catalytic agency to histhinking. ‘I have allowed my soul and mind to talk to(my) readers,’ he says aptly.

In the late seventies, Rajen came to the ‘GoldenThreshold’ which then served as the city campus ofthe newly started Central University. Named after animmortal collection of poems by Sarojini Naidu, theplace became more than an address or a locale.It breathed the atmosphere of Sarojini and her fatherDr. Aghorenath Chattopadhyay who, we learn, was thefounder of the Nizam College, Hyderabad. There werealso a host of nationalists such as Gandhiji who cameto the Golden Threshold.

It is at this sacred site, a beehive of intellectualactivity, that Rajen reflected on teaching and teachers.What is teaching and who are the ideal teachers?In the process, he discovers ‘spirituality throughresearch.’ In the intimate bond between the teachersand taught, he sees the non-dualism of Advaita. Thereare kindred souls such as the philosopher RamachandraGandhi and poets like Arvind Krishna Mehrotra andMeena Alexander. But then, no idyll can be a perma-nent one and Hyderabad University goes through itsshare of turmoil and conflicts in the eighties beforebouncing back.

Later in his career, Rajen picks up the threadagain when he is invited to lead the newly convertedCentral University of Allahabad in 2005. A fruitful five

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year stint at Allahabad saw him transform the place intoan active centre of learning that brought back a modi-cum of the earlier glory of the university. There is thesense of satisfaction for a job well done!

It is the chapter, ‘Golden Threshold’ that I likedthe most in the book. It is at G.T., as the place is knownlocally, that Rajen reveals his innermost self. Thememories often turn lyrical and poetic as he recollectsthe image of the birds seen through the windows of hisoffice. These birds, he muses, ‘must have been writ-ing poems on the sadness of the sky underneath theveins of green leaves with their beaks.’ They remindhim of his students who were ‘perennial angels’ in hislife. The music in him takes him inexorably into themany skies traversed by the birds that fly all over.

A Gypsy in the World of Ideas is a memorableaccount that would be of interest to a wide cross-sectionof society. The chapters are written at different timesand therefore betray a degree of unevenness in style.Where he succeeds, Rajen is able to transfigure the aca-demic experience into the personal, and finally in theform of lasting vignettes. Occasionally, the opinionsexpressed reiterate the familiar. On the whole, how-ever, this is a book that should have a wide appeal.Attractively produced by the Pentagon Press, RajenHarshe’s reflections on higher education would hope-fully lead to a more full-fledged personal narrative.

Sachidananda Mohanty

FLOWERS FOR MY FATHER. Tributes to P. Laland His Writers Workshop compiled and editedby Srimati Lal. Writers Workshop, Delhi 2011.

Professor P. Lal called his only daughter Srimati, ‘childof my heart’, who after his death in 2010, has expressedher profound, rare and deep devotion to her father inthis collection, Flowers for my Father, which hasessays, reminiscences from 33 writers/colleagues,drawings by Srimati, and photographs.

P. Lal, a legendary Professor of English Litera-ture at St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta, founded hishighly controversial and path-breaking Writers Work-shop for Indians writing in English in 1958. At thetime, few thought Indians could be creative in English.I remember Philip Larkin saying that no Indian couldwrite poetry in English! All the more incredible, there-fore, was P. Lal’s Open Sesame to Indians writing inEnglish, a language which he believed was as muchan Indian language as any other. So finely honed washis intuition that he bravely sparked off his Writers

Workshop with an anthology and a credo titled Mod-ern Indo-Anglian Poetry (1969). It was a radical andrefreshing manifesto, rejecting even Swami Purohitand Tagore (who had been included by W.B. Yeats inhis Oxford Book of Modern Verse) for ‘syntacticalVictorianisms, philosophical Gibranisms, and piousyearnings of the spirit.’ (Lal did, later, translateTagore’s last poems.) Even more irreverently, Lalrejected Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri as ‘a gushy comicalexperience.’

The stage had been set for a new poetry, a freshlanguage and poetic idiom, and, with increasingconfidence, Indian writers began to explore andexpress a sense of their own world. No more poemsabout larks and daffodils! I remember, still, the thrillof first reading Mary Erulkar’s stunning poem: ‘TheThird Continent’:‘Where Europe and America build their archesThe pale women lean like fountains in the wind…There, the women walk where the winds of hungerLament in the black harps of their hair.’

Many who first published their work with Lal’sWorkshop went on to become known nationally andinternationally. Anita Desai published her first storieswith WW. So did Shashi Deshpande, Ruskin Bond,and Farukh Dhondy. Poets Nissim Ezekiel, KamalaDas, A.K. Ramanujan, Arun Kolatkar, Agha ShahidAli, Keki Daruwalla, Vikram Seth and many otherswere all first published by Lal.

Lal also opened up his house in Calcutta forliterary meets, and among the famous who met therewere Pearl Buck, R.K. Narayan, Allen Ginsburg, MulkRaj Anand, Gunter Grass and Geoffrey Hill.

He also published Miscellany, a magazine whichaccepted stories, poems and articles from unpublishedwriters. This gave new writers a sense of identity, andencouraged them to keep writing. Perhaps there couldhave been more critical input, and more editing. ButI think Lal’s attitude was: Here is a boat. Get in, ven-ture into the ocean. See how far you can go. Manydrowned along the way, or just gave up. Many wenton to reach distant shores!

Lal was a great teacher of English literature,but no Anglophile. He was well grounded in Sanskrit,and started to ‘transcreate’ (a word coined by him, nowin the Oxford Dictionary) the great classics of India.He started with the Mahabharata, shloka by shloka.This he continued to do almost till the end. He alsotranslated the Ramayana, the Upanishads, great San-skrit plays, the Dhammapada, the Bhagavad Gita, theJap-ji, and much more.

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And to add to this phenomenal output, he was alsoa stylish calligrapher. I remember the thrill of receivinghis exquisitely handwritten letters, addressed to SujathaDevi! His highly developed aesthetic sense was surelythe reason for his books being handbound in exquisitelycoloured handloom saris by Tulamiah Mohiuddin.They were printed on an India made hand-operatedmachine by P.K. Aditya. What a tremendous achieve-ment this was. Gopal Krishna Gandhi writes in his tri-bute to P. Lal: ‘If P. Lal had been born in an age whenscripts were emerging, he would have stayed with themystic signs and symbols that preceded the alphabet.’

Since he belonged to the age of writing, of fully-formed letters and a world of evolved words, he made hischoice early and clearly: he would adhere to that whichwas readied by the hand, read by the eyes, and retainedby the enquiring mind, all in one seamless stretch.

To overthrow the colonial legacy, claim our own,and yet have the stature and poise to start a movementencouraging those wishing to write in English. Wheneveryone was debating ‘Indianness’, Lal knew thatIndians could and would make English one of their ownlanguages, and use it in a unique way. Lal wrote manypoems in English himself. One of his most touchingpoems is ‘For My Daughter, Srimati’. In Srimati’sarticle, ‘Bouquets to Baba’, the daughter has a visionof her father, senses his presence. He whispers to her:‘Forgive them all, Tepari! You know better. They knownot what they say or do…as usual! Remember how theydidn’t even know which switch worked at Belle Vuenursing home? You did. Among many other things.Smile, my little Tepari…smile. Do your own thing!’

That Lal was a genius and visionary is very clear.He was never small-minded, petty or vindictive, witha clear and open spirit, aspiring always to a life ofbeauty and an exalted spirit.

Anna Sujatha Mathai

DANGEROUS SEX, INVISIBLE LABOR: SexWork and the Law in India by Prabha Kotiswaran.Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2011.

Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor is a complex and cou-rageous interdisciplinary study of sex work in contem-porary India. Its complexity lies in the sheer variety ofepistemological and methodological registers that theauthor has chosen to navigate, drawing widely fromwritings in feminist theory, legal realism, postcolonialtheory, and law and economics, besides herself under-taking a multi-sited legal ethnography. Its courage, in

its attempt to provide an account that takes seriouslysex workers’ own description of what they do as‘work’, without collapsing into the tired (but easy)binaries of coerced victim/transgressive heroinethat characterize most writing on the subject.

The book is divided into three parts, with distinctbut interlocking theoretical orientations and narrativestyles. The first, ‘Theorizing Sex Work’ analyzes thefeminist skirmishes over the sex work question, pains-takingly tracing the theoretical trajectories of radical,abolitionist and materialist feminist divergences andagreements. Kotiswaran then maps the effects of thesediverse strands onto the contemporary internationaldiscourse on sex markets and trafficking. This isunfortunately the least compelling section in the book.The writing seems laboured, and tends to be repetitive.In chapter two alone, for instance, the author ‘revisits’,‘recasts’, ‘resituates’, ‘rethinks’ and ‘re-modifies’ thedebate several times over, in delineating the contoursof tediously and tenaciously intractable feminist(op)positions. Despite her exploration of lesser-knownfeminist materialist writings on the subject, parts of thesection read like a mandatory review of literature froma doctoral dissertation. For an author who is unembar-rassed and vocal about her postcolonial materialistpolitics, her choice to foreground these predominantlywestern feminist genealogies, and bracket off thepostcolonial into her concluding section, is somewhatpuzzling.

In the second section, ‘The Political Economy ofSex Work’, the book takes an unexpected and refresh-ing new direction. The section is based on fascinatingethnographies of two very different and highly diffe-rentiated markets for sex work, the pilgrimage townof Tirupati and brothel-based prostitution in the redlight district of Sonagachi in Kolkata. The author’smaterialist and legal realist orientation leads her tostudy minutely the economic institutions of livelihoodand rent, and the relationships of formal and informallegality which structure the libidinal economy ofsex work in these two locales. Her study of the com-plexity of contractual and non-monetary economicforms, plurality of governmental, legal and socialnorms, and political movements and manoeuvresthat variously constitute the contemporary urbansex worker as the ‘adhiya’, the ‘chhukri’, the ‘flyingsex worker’, the brothel, street or ‘lodge’ based pros-titute working on ‘contract’ or ‘commission’, seriouslyunsettle existing theoretical and legal frames andshould be compulsory reading for every advocate forpolicy or legal reform. If there is a failing in this sec-

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tion, it is that the ‘thickness’ of Kotiswaran’s ethno-graphic description occasionally wears thin, and herwriting can tend towards economic determinism, evenreductionism. For instance, in detailing the kinds oftenancy agreements that exist in Sonagachi, she endsevery sub-section with an assessment of its relativeinvestment and legal risk, and profitability. Her uncriti-cal deployment of policy and governance terminologysuch as ‘stakeholders’ or ‘Category A/B/or C sex work-ers’ (classified on the basis of income, and in one ins-tance used to generalize about their relative preferencefor cigarettes or alcohol!) without unpacking the dis-cursive histories of these managerial classificationsflatten and diminish what is an otherwise politicallyengaged and carefully wrought narrative.

In the final section, ‘Toward a Theory of Redis-tribution in Sex Markets’, Kotiswaran ‘applies’ hertheoretical frame to her empirical field. In the first ofthe two chapters that make up the section, she under-takes a leap of legal imagination, conjecturing howlegislative changes such as partial decriminalization(the criminalization of customers as contemplated inthe proposed amendment to the Immoral TraffickingPrevention Act, but not passed by the Indian Parlia-ment), complete decriminalization or legalizationwould impact the complicated world of brothel basedprostitution in Sonagachi. Such ‘modelling’ is prem-ised on several farfetched assumptions (including thatthe law will be uniformly and perfectly enforced) whichmake it vulnerable to the charge of over-determinism.Nevertheless, through this hypothetical exercise,Kotiswaran successfully demonstrates that even in amodel where laws have no unintended consequences,legal changes can ripple out into the social world incomplicated and surprising ways. In her concludingchapter, Kotiswaran draws together the sometimesdisparate themes in her work, and proposes a (post-colonial) materialist feminist theory. She provides atrenchant critique of the teleological nature of Marx-ist, feminist and developmental progress narratives,and instantiates through her ethnographic work, how sexmarkets in India disrupt any such universalist histories.

The diverse disciplinary domains that Kotis-waran traverses, the depth of detail, her use of Marx-ist and governance terminology, and her classificatoryand densely analytical descriptive style can make thisbook a demanding, though sometimes a difficult, read.Nonetheless, it is an important, even unique, book andfor these reasons should be read.

Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh

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BackpageFEW sectors, in the last two decades, have received asmuch concerted attention as school education. Start-ing with the National Policy on Education, 1986, allthe way to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Right toEducation Act in 2009, governments have tried hardto actualize the goal of Education for All. Equally criti-cal has been the Supreme Court’s intervention in themidday meal scheme, amendments to the law on childlabour, and the abolition of corporal punishment.Alongside, we have witnessed an enormous increasein the financial allocations for elementary education.

While all this has without doubt changed theIndian education landscape, and for the better, as therecently published Probe Revisited: A Report onElementary Education in India, OUP, 2011, based ona detailed survey of seven Hindi belt states carried outin 2006 makes clear, progress remains uneven. Evenas close to 95% children are enrolled in school, a hugeincrease since the earlier Probe survey of 1996, ‘inrural North India, about half of the time, no teachingtakes place in primary schools,’ On this count, at least,little has changed. A significant proportion of govern-ment schools continue to be plagued by old problems– indifferent infrastructure, irregular teacher attend-ance, poor quality of teaching – cumulatively result-ing in unsatisfactory learning outcomes. To state sharply,when parents and children, particularly from the poorand marginalized strata, see that children are learninglittle and there is little hope of future benefits fromschooling, there is growing despondency.

The picture, however, is not all bleak. Enrolmenthas indeed gone up and school infrastructure andfacilities are today much better. As many as 86%schools report a functional midday meal schemes andclose to three-fourths of the schools have village edu-cation committees, indicating greater social participa-tion. Most important, the gender, caste and religiousgaps in school attendance have narrowed.

Even accounting for the differential progressacross states and regions, the Probe Report highlightsa range of concerns that, despite new schemes and pro-grammes, and legislative changes, the policy makersfind difficult to tackle Some of the difficulties arisefrom the surge in enrolment which means that morechildren from disadvantaged backgrounds are now inschool. Since, unlike their better-off cohorts, they can-not rely on family support, they require far greaterattention and care in schools. This, unfortunately, is

missing, in part because of a severe inadequacy oftrained teachers, prevalence of mindless rote learningand the persistence of a discriminatory environment.

A vast majority of the teachers in governmentschools are drawn from more privileged social groups.They are also unionized. A combination of tenurial secu-rity and pre-existing social bias makes them less account-able to poorer parents and children. The end result– actual attendance is far below enrolment and attend-ance does not automatically translate into learning. Evenvillage education committees, usually marked byunequal power relations, are unable to ensure account-ability. Clearly, the thrust towards hiring contract teach-ers (with lower pay and qualifications) has only resultedin swelling numbers (affecting teacher-pupil ratios)without improving quality and learning outcomes.

One fallout of this unsatisfactory experience isthe exponential growth in private schools, catering notonly to the unmet demand for schooling but often draw-ing away students from government schools. Clearly,parents feel that they will serve clients better and be moreaccountable for fear of losing clientele. Incidentally, thistrend is noticeable not just in urban areas but also inlarger villages, even though many private schools donot match government schools in terms of infrastruc-ture, financial resources and trained teachers.

While it is true that classroom activity levels andachievements of basic literacy and numeracy are oftenbetter in private as compared to government schools, thequality varies a great deal. More important, though lessnoticed, is the fact that a privatized school system isfundamentally inequitable, accessible only to thosewith an ability to pay. Invariably, private schools catermore to those from a higher caste and class backgroundand more boys than girls. A policy reliance on privati-zation cannot thus be a solution.

This then is the quandary. Private schools, qua-lity apart, cater to the relatively privileged. Efforts atsignificantly improving the quality of governmentschools despite numerous schemes have so far notyielded desired results. The proposal, implicit in the RTEAct, to illegalize and close down all schools (mainlyprivate) not meeting statutory parameters may furtherworsen the situation. Unless government schools canbe made to work better, relying merely on larger allo-cations and fine sounding policy pronouncements willnot help.

Harsh Sethi