Abstract
Recognition of the right to water in Indian courts has had little impact on the ground. This paper explores the seeming disjuncture between what happens in the court and the everyday reality of living with a less-than-perfect claim on city water services in India’s urban slums. The paper seeks to understand and contextualise a court ruling which looks like it declares a right to water for people in urban slums, but in effect gives them little beyond what they already had. The paper also looks at the ‘everyday reality’ of municipal administration and the provision of drinking water in slums through in-house connections and community taps. In both case studies, the author looks to understand how the practice relates to frameworks of law and policy that shape the rationality and scope of action of the actors concerned, both judges and municipal officials. She found that the issue of land was the main stumbling block in both places, but it was conceptualized a little differently in each situation. These case studies underscore the critical importance of making the local interface between poor people and the state more empowering in order for rights to become local and meaningful.
Highlights
The courts in India have declared the right to water to be a constitutionally recognized right; this right has not been translated into legislation or state policy
In the last national survey focusing on services deficiencies in slums [1], it was reported that around 80 percent of slum households in the larger cities in Madhya Pradesh were dependent on community taps for their main source of drinking water, whereas another 20 percent depended on taps shared with neighbours
The local route is less risky in terms of a threat of eviction, but as unlikely to provide an outcome if the goal is to have a secure and exclusive house connection
Summary
The courts in India have declared the right to water to be a constitutionally recognized right; this right has not (except in very rare exceptions) been translated into legislation or state policy. The logic of poverty alleviation and some diffuse notion of human entitlement provide rationality for this special regime which is built on everyday interactions between the poor and the state These two arenas show us how the right to water is inextricably tied up with the issue of land. I explore a ‘special regime’ that provides them water, but of a lower grade than what is supplied in non-slum areas In both cases, it is pertinent that people in slums have a background threat of evictions, disconnections and shut-downs because of how they are located in terms of the rules of property titling, building plan approval, trade licensing and myriad other forms of state control. The formal rules of inclusion and access provide the terrain that is navigated through collective positioning
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