Illuminant intersections: Injustice and inequality through electricity and water infrastructures at the Gujarat Solar Park in India

Abstract

Solar park development in India represents yet another frontier of capital accumulation under the auspices of climate change mitigation and rural electrification, producing new social frictions in the process. The decarbonization of India’s electrical grid has put disproportionate burdens on marginalized populations, a trend particularly evident with the Gujarat Solar Park. Aside from solar arrays, it remains unclear how the vast infrastructures that sustain the Gujarat Solar Park will influence social power asymmetries at the local scale. For example, solar parks need periodic cleanings to function properly, requiring vast amounts of water. But dryland farmers from the region lack adequate water resources for irrigation and domestic purposes. Drawing on literature from feminist political ecology and critical infrastructure studies, this study investigates how the socio-material assemblage of water and electrical infrastructures of the Gujarat Solar Park unevenly distributes surreptitious burdens across differently positioned peasants. This study builds upon the conceptual frameworks of infrastructural violence and infrastructural intersectionality to illuminate the pernicious gender and caste politics of India’s renewable energy transition. Solar infrastructures, built to ameliorate energy insecurity, may exacerbate water scarcity and pose additional threats to food security by grabbing arable land and denying marginalized smallholders engaged in food production near solar parks the water resources they need to feed themselves and the nation.