Political Ecologies of Water Capture in an Indian ‘Smart City’

Abstract

The historical water catchments of India's capital city were foundational to the flourishing of settlements that spanned centuries. Today, those water features are held up as 'wise' models of water stewardship for the people who criticise the Indian government's water management shortcomings. This article investigates historical imaginations of infrastructures past with attention to how their example leads to demands for 'smart(er)' water management regimes. It also shows how efforts to revive past water catchments can make meaningful contributions to water stewardship, but that they still risk perpetuating the water access inequalities and middle-class priorities that are identified in a growing body of scholarship on India's water politics. Since the existing scholarship predominantly focuses on exploitative rural-to-urban and inter-urban water flows, this text argues that water politics-including political ecologies of water-are also poignantly revealed in the study of seemingly proactive solutions such as the expansion of urban water catchments.

Leveraging Chennai’s Complex Governance Network for Addressing the City’s Water Woes

“…Given the importance of planning and policymaking in shaping urban nature, human perceptions, priorities, decision-making and power play remain central to unpacking the production of the urban environment and its social and ecological impact. Hence, the UPE lens has often been used to examine governance processes related to various aspects of the urban environment, such as climate change interventions (Broto & Bulkeley, 2013), production of unequal urban green cover (Heynen et al, 2006b), urban waste management (Cornea et al, 2016b), planning of urban waterfronts (Bunce & Desfor, 2007), water supply and access (Ranganathan & Balazs, 2015), restoration of waterbodies (Drew, 2020) and management of the urban water cycle (Swyngedouw et al, 2002). Water is a particularly essential natural resource, key to human survival and development, and, hence, often implicated in conflict and inequalities.…”

“…Water is a particularly essential natural resource, key to human survival and development, and, hence, often implicated in conflict and inequalities. Thus, it has drawn considerable attention within UPE literature and in the burgeoning work on India’s waterscape (Cornea et al, 2016a; Drew, 2020; Zimmer et al, 2020).…”

“…There has been increasing political attention to water stress and the need to conserve or restore waterbodies in India (GoTN, 2017; NDMA, n.d.). Researchers have highlighted the role of environmental and developmental imaginaries in shaping the process of ‘uncommoning’ urban lakes in Navsari, Gujarat (Zimmer et al, 2020); discussed the complex interaction of multiple interests and authorities shaping everyday governance and access to local waterbodies in Bardhaman, West Bengal (Cornea et al, 2016a); and underlined the resource inequity implications in the efforts to expand urban water catchments in New Delhi (Drew, 2020). In these discussions, it is evident that while the transformation of waterscapes causes, in many ways, broader sociopolitical inequalities, one should not think of this as a linear state-driven or elite-driven process.…”

Slow infrastructures in times of crisis: unworking speed and convenience

“…That said, its widespread implementation is proving to be a challenge given the acceleration of time-restricted tasks and demands in everyday life. 61 For while it is straightforward to implement at a relatively low cost, 62 it is a practice that requires regular maintenanceand attention to acts of maintenance is 'not so much about defective infrastructural objects' as it is about understanding the social and political relationships in which they are embedded. 63 In the case of rainwater harvesting, the amount of care and labour required to maintain systems in working order can be extensive.…”

Can nature-based solutions contribute to water security in Bhopal?

“…Countervailing this trend has been increasing recognition that catchments serving India's cities were not only foundational to former flourishing settlements, but are a crucial resource for future sustainability (Everard, 2019). Nature-based water management is now consequently increasingly recognised as a significant contributor to water stewardship, potentially informing 'smart(er)' water management regimes as an essential component of the Smart Cities initiative (Drew, 2019).…”