Quenching The Thirst: Unraveling India's Water Crisis
As Nikhil Anand reveals in Municipal Disconnect: On Abject Water and Its Urban Infrastructures, city engineers and technocrats intentionally neglect the water infrastructure in Premnagar, a Muslim settlement in Mumbai. This neglect is not a mere oversight but a deliberate process of withholding essential services, marginalizing the residents. Political pressure shifted the engineers' focus to less congested areas, while their biases against Premnagar's residents—viewed as outsiders—further influenced their decisions, leading to inadequate attention and resources for the settlement. Anand also highlights how the reliance on bore wells for water supply, which are often contaminated with sewage and pollutants, represents a form of ecological violence. Residents are forced to use this tainted water, resulting in severe health risks and a deteriorated quality of life. Additionally, the use of illegal connections to tap into the municipal water supply exacerbates the problem by damaging infrastructure and disrupting water flow, affecting not only Premnagar but also the broader urban ecology by creating imbalances in water pressure and distribution. Anand’s insights into urban governance practices, particularly the bureaucratic procedures and discriminatory practices that exclude certain populations from accessing essential services, shed light on the flaws and inequalities inherent in current urban governance. These ideas enable readers to critically examine the governance policies that shape urban environments and understand how they perpetuate systemic disparities. Anand calls attention to the need for a more inclusive and equitable approach to urban development and infrastructure provision. This also helps readers understand how marginalized communities are systematically denied access to essential services. According to Anand, these bureaucratic barriers function as a form of social control, reinforcing the status quo and perpetuating existing inequalities.