Securing human right to water of slum-dwellers in Mumbai, India: Achievements, limitations, and institutional appropriation

Abstract

This paper elucidates different forms and modes by which the two State agencies in Mumbai, India—the High Court and the municipal government—appropriated the human rights to water of an estimated two million slum-dwellers in the city. While the order of the High Court made inadequate and narrow interpretations of human rights to water, the municipal policy and functionaries indulged in delayed, selective, cosmetic, distorted, or rhetorical acceptance of these rights. These interpretations and actions led to many limitations and risks for the realization of human rights to water for slum-dwellers including penal tariffs, sub-par infrastructure, and new barriers to water access. Yet, the court order also removed a stiff legal barrier and empowered slum dwellers by lending legitimacy to their claims to water access. This paper responds to concerns in the literature over the appropriation of human rights to water by capitalist States especially in the Global South and its adverse implications for the realization of these rights. It also substantiates previous researchers’ claims that there is a potential for positive outcomes of struggles for these rights. Finally, I indicate that, while countering such institutional appropriation, struggles for human rights to water need to undertake political action to enforce these rights.