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CONTESTING WATER RIGHTS
Local, State, and Global Struggles
mangala subramaniam
Contesting Water Rights
Mangala Subramaniam
Contesting Water
Rights
Local, State, and Global Struggles
Mangala Subramaniam
Department of Sociology
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN, USA
Water is a basic need for all living beings. Yet access to clean water for
all people across the world has been a challenge. Not having sufficient
and safe water means being susceptible to diseases. It also leads to loss
of time and educational and employment opportunities. Low incomes
and limited access to water also mean choosing between paying for
water, food, school fees, or medicines. According to the World Health
Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, 748 million people around the
world lack access to an improved (clean, uncontaminated) drinking water
source, while billions more lack drinking water that is really safe.
Water as an issue has been constantly visible in my travels for my field-
based research, especially in rural areas, for more than a decade now. I
carry bottled water as I always worry about safe water in the regions to
which I travel. And then I feel compelled to explain to my interview-
ees why I carry bottled water, especially because it could be construed as
adhering to caste norms. This is ironic, considering that research about
control over and privatization of water resources is the focus of this
book.
This book is an outcome of research I began way back in 2006, when
I became interested in environmental resources and justice issues. Being
fortunate to receive a competitive Asian Initiative Research grant from
Purdue University, I used my one-semester sabbatical in 2007 to travel
through parts of Rajasthan—Udaipur and Alwar districts. Rajasthan,
located in the north-western part of India, is relatively dry and infer-
tile. The area includes some of the Thar Desert, also known as the Great
v
vi Preface
ix
x Acknowledgements
Director of the Butler Center. Thanks are also due to the publisher for
making the watercolor illustration work for the cover possible.
I am thankful for the help and support of family and friends outside
my immediate academic realm. My late father, P. R. Subramanian, and
late mother, Narayani, were very supportive of my research and writing
endeavors. My mother was a feminist in her own way. She celebrated
my accolades and constantly encouraged me to strive for more. I am
indebted to my parents for their tremendous ability to make anything
possible for me. I am very thankful for the support of my siblings and
other family members, Vasanta, Brintha, Shobha, Ravi, and Yogi, who
have all contributed to making this book project possible. Without their
help and boundless energy, this book would not have been completed.
I also appreciate Brintha’s enthusiasm to develop an illustration for the
cover of this book.
Contents
5 Conclusion 153
Glossary 169
Index 173
xi
List of Tables
xiii
CHAPTER 1
The recent and ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan draws attention
to an issue that has affected and continues to affect people across the
world: access to clean/safe water. This crisis began when the source of
water supply to Flint was changed from Lake Huron and the Detroit
River to the Flint River to save money. Among those affected are the
marginalized and particularly the poor (Subramaniam 2016). The right
to clean water is a demand of people not only in Flint, but of p eople
across the world. To make sense of the water crisis, scholars and p olicy
makers have considered the role of the government in p romoting
privatization directly or indirectly, the economic costs and benefits of
promoting efficient systems of managing water use and allocation, and
the role of the community that represents race and class differences in
negotiating and resisting the privatization of water resources that are
largely perceived by the community as common property resources
(Olivera 2014; Moyo and Liebenberg 2015; Subramaniam 2014;
Mullin 2014; Breakfast et al. 2014; Johnson et al. 2016, among
others). Communities struggle as ground water levels deplete and the
contamination of water adversely affects the lives of people, particularly,
marginalized people.
In this chapter, I provide an overview of the water crisis and also
include a discussion of the early approaches to studies about water.
I cover three main issues. First, among the environmental specters
confronting humanity in the twenty-first century, shortage of water is at
the top of the list. Providing details of the estimates of water availability