Top to Bottom Reforms

In their articles, both Karen Bakker and Lyla Mehta address important issues concerning the most essential natural resource to human life (and often most taken for granted): water.

Bakker discusses current debates about water privatization, the changing role of the state in providing access to water, as well as the human rights movement that has developed around this issue. Indeed, as Bakker points out, the debate about water privatization is a “microcosm of contemporary debates over the roles of states and markets, and over the acceptability and efficacy of markets and private ownership as solutions to the world’s putative environmental crises” (349). This struggle has resulted in the private sector putting their resources into wealthier, urban areas with low revenue risks (355). Relating this to human rights issues, private companies agree that water is a human right but companies would only be willing to supply water if the risk-return ratio were acceptable, which is often not the case in rural communities (362). Full privatization would thus be inconsistent with human rights, but if the state creates strong regulations for price controls and quality standards and establishes universality requirements, the private sector will able to take over provision. Thus, the state needs to be repositioned as an active player in this debate (364).

Mehta looks at the issue of water access in the drought-prone region in western India, Kutch. She deconstructs the common perception of the water “crisis”, showing that scarcity is not simply a natural occurrence but is also an anthropogenic concept, governed by access and control of the resource (377). Furthermore, Mehta reveals that the cultural and historical factors limiting certain groups’ access to water (380, 381). Indeed, state sponsored water projects have “exacerbated the water problems in certain areas, making scarcity indeed ever present and all pervasive” (381) by not taking into account such determining social limitations. Mehta argues that powerful discourses about biophysical scarcity have overshadowed the fact that access to and control over land are prohibiting equal access to water (383).

While the two articles address water control and access from very different points of view, in thinking about them together, the immensity of the water “crisis” became apparent to me: not only is there much work to be done in order to reach a consensus on water privatization vs. state control, but many social and cultural barriers must be overcome at a local level to grant everyone equal access to water. Even if Bakker’s proposed state repositioning could be achieved, in order to properly restructure water provisioning, equal access to water would not automatically be guaranteed, due to reasons Mehta has pointed out.

Certainly, the Kutch case is a somewhat an extreme example as it is not only subject to severe environmental conditions but strict cultural and social divisions. Water projects in other parts of the world would thus not necessarily face such severe barriers to achieving equal access rights. However, the Kutch case highlights how crucial it is to correctly assess the situation at a local level in order for a water project to achieve its goal. After all, while private companies as well as states are influenced by economic gain and efficiency, the purpose of their “product” is to serve all potential consumers. If this goal cannot be reached due to any type of circumstances (technological, social, cultural), then the project should not be considered a success. From a human rights perspective, one could even argue that in a case such as Kutch, not extensively exploring the local context which consequently led to continued denial to water access to the majority of the population was a form of disregarding human right to water.

The use of political ecology in these cases has truly demonstrated the importance of looking beyond the “evident” explanations of resource and scarcity issues in order to find the best-fit solutions. Furthermore, by linking two studies in political ecology, a more complete set of solutions and next steps can be generated.