Contextuality of the strategy of human right to water: Struggle for water access to slum-dwellers in Mumbai, India

Abstract

This article responds to the need, highlighted in the academic literature, for in-depth investigations into the role of contextual factors in shaping the struggles for water justice, deploying a strategy that relies on the normative appeal or legitimacy of the human right to water—called the HRW strategy. It demonstrates how specific contextual factors were crucial in influencing the course and outcome of a judicial intervention based on the HRW strategy deployed in the struggle for securing formal water connections to two million slum-dwellers in Mumbai. Although the court upheld the HRW of slum-dwellers and ordered the release of the water connections, the municipal administration promulgated a policy that effectively continued the denial of water access for most of these slum-dwellers. More specifically, the article discusses the strong influence of contextual factors on the initial decision to adopt the HRW strategy and judicial intervention, the success of the legal tactic deployed, and the favorable court order. The article relies mainly on the detailed analysis of formal policy and judicial documents and the data from multiround, semistructured, and extended interviews with 11 respondents who were activists, experts, municipal officials, or media persons.