BAGMATI
2 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space AAR5270 - Globalization and Urban Development Assignment II, Spring 2022 Department of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Architecture Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway Supervisor: Peter Professor,GotschNTNU Authors: 100191000310001
3 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space IntroductionCONTENTS 4 Methods 5 Kathmandu Valley, Nepal 6 Case 8 Through the lens of different stakeholders 10 Green versus Brown Agendas 11 Who are squatters? 12 The squatter settlements 13 Non-government support organizations 14 Mapping the squatter settlements, parks and public spaces, and heritage structure beside the rivers 15 The self-conception of the squatters and their role in the city 16 The activists cleaning the river 17 Governmental institutions 19 Stakeholder issue analysis 21 Discussion 22 Conclusion 23 References 24
Bagmati River, considered holy by both Hindus and Buddhists, is an important feature of the Kathmandu Valley. The ancient holy temples and cremation ghats on the banks of the Bagmati River, including Pashupatinath Temple listed in the UNESCO world heritage site, hold great cultural values (Sharma, 2018).
The present condition of Bagmati River and all other rivers of the valley have moved very far away from these sweet memories.
With the aim of studying “Urban Rivers and Public Space”, this report attempts to dive deep into the case of Bagmati River in the context of continuously urbanizing Kathmandu Valley. Discussing the case through the lens of green versus brown agendas, the report aims to explore the perspectives of different stakeholders involved. This case study focuses on the government’s initiatives of beautifying the river, cleaning of the river by volunteers and activists, and the present state, wishes and actions of the people currently inhabiting the squatter settlements besides the river.
While dead bodies are cremated on the banks of this river, the feet of the dead bodies are dipped in the river three times to end their reincarnation cycle and the chief mourner takes a holy river-bath after the cremation works. These traditional and religious practices that exist even today have made Bagmati river a significant entity in people’s lives. The people who lived in the valley since their childhood remember Bagmati as a space where they spent their childhood, playing and enjoying the beauty, a place where they used to swim and drink water directly from the river (Sharma, 2018).
Fig: Pashupatinath and Bagmati River (Source: Pexels)
4 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space Nepal is a country with a population of approximately 30 people, land-locked by Tibet in the North and India in the East, West and South. Nepal is characterized by diverse geography of tallest mountains, forested hills and fertile plains. Kathmandu is the nation’s capital city while Kathmandu Valley is an urban agglomeration with a population of approximately 2.9 million people, that include the cities of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. The valley is a central hub not only for economic activities, offices, headquarters and educational institutions but also for architecture, heritage and culture. Bagmati river flows through the valley, separating the cities of Kathmandu and Lalitpur. While Manohara river joins Bagmati river from the east, Bishnumati river joins it from the North-west and the river exits the valley via Chobar in the South-west.
Urbanization and pollution has degraded the river and its banks to such levels that it feels like an open sewage channel passing through the middle of the city. The river water itself is black and filthy and the smell of that sewage-infused water makes it unpleasant to pass through the bridges over the river. There are heaps of solid waste on the river and its banks and large squatter settlements at multiple places beside the river. This dynamic amalgamation of religious and historical significance, temporal changes and present reputation of home for the urban poor makes Bagmati a topic worth researching on.
INTRODUCTION
BRAINSTORMING OBSERVATION
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STAKEHOLDERSKETCHINGMAPPINGMAPPING
SECONDARYQUESTIONNAIREINTERVIEWRESEARCH
METHODS
The initial phase of the case study started with the exploration of the secondary literature, government websites and documents, and research through social media on the active stakeholders in ongoing projects related to Bagmati Cleaning Campaign. With a few responses, the case study proceeded with questionnaires sent to the stakeholders to know about their views regarding Bagmati River. Where there was a lack of response from the activists involved in the Bagmati Cleaning Campaign, the analysis of the public posts made by them in their social media profiles revealed more information on their involvement with the campaign. Apart from these, we could also make use of personal experiences since one of the group members comes from Lalitpur, Nepal and has researched about the case of Bagmati briefly in 2018. Further, we draw on personal interviews conducted by one of our group members during her research about Bagmati. In addition, we received valuable help from our Professor Peter during his visit to Kathmandu recently. The access to the case was significantly aided through these personal accounts of observations and research. Additionally, brainstorming and mapping enabled us to further visualize and discuss the case. We draw on the theories of green versus brown agendas for the analyses of our case.
6 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space KATHMANDU VALLEY, NEPAL1Sources:21-TheNoun Project 2 - Nations Online Project 3 - Mapz
7 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space 3
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The discharge of industrial and municipal untreated sewage, widespread dumping of garbage, sand mining in riverbeds and banks for the booming construction industry and humanFig: Maoist training (Source: The Kathmandu Post (Pradhan, 2019))
The South Asian country of Nepal and its capital Kathmandu were facing various upheavals and socio-political changes in the last two decades, including a complicated process of democratization, the sudden collapse of monarchy and a civil war between government forces and Maoist insurgency, as well as the effects of neoliberal globalization and modernization. These events and processes represent the driving forces of an ongoing rural-to-urban migration from Nepal’s countryside to its sprawling cities, with Kathmandu, as the political, economic and cultural center of Nepal as main destination, making it one of the fastest growing cities of South Asia. Nepal is currently transitioning from a rural based to a predominantly urban economy, which results in people coming to the cities in hope of job opportunities and socioeconomic mobility (Shrestha & Shrestha, 2020). In addition, the fighting between government forces and maoist insurgency in the 1990s mostly took place in rural areas, also driving people to the cities in search of security (Rademacher 2011; Sengupta
Originating from the north of the Kathmandu Valley and replenished by rainfall and springs the Bagmati river flows through Kathmandu where it converges with Bishnumati river right in the city center before it runs further south to India, eventually joining the Ganges. Dotted with Hindu and Buddhist temples and already present in the founding myth of Kathmandu, Bagmati has a high cultural and historic value for Kathmandu and the whole nation of Nepal (Rademacher 2011). Since the 1990s the rivers of Kathmandu are in a process of continually degradation and gradually more and more people are voicing concerns over the state of the rivers and call for measures of restoration. Degradation here has an ecological as well as a cultural dimension as severely reduced water flow and quality and significant morphological changes endanger the sustainability of the river’s ecosystem as well as the cultural and religious values of it.
CASE2011).
The rate of urbanization began to increase in the Kathmandu Valley during the late 1950s and took more pace after the 1970s due to new road constructions, but the conflicts of the Maoist insurgency in the 1990s led to even further increment of urban growth. Intense densification and urban expansion into the surrounding countryside led to a five-fold increase of Kathmandu’s built up area between 1955 and 2000 (Sengupta, 2011). This process of mostly unplanned urbanization led to a continual undersupply of affordable housing, rising inequality and not least had a significant impact on the local environment (Shrestha & Shrestha, 2020). All these aspects contribute to the socio-political and ecological setting that defines the Bagmati river and its urban river banks.
Urban Rivers and Public Space
The Fig: Land use land cover map of Kathmandu Valley (Source: Ishtiaque, Shrestha and Chhetri, 2017)
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Aspects of degradation are all linked to the city’s rapid and unplanned urbanization that confines the sewage, garbage and housing infrastructure to an insufficient level (Khadka, 2020).
The following sections highlight the situations and perspectives of the major groups connected to the fate of Bagmati; the people living in informal settlements on the riverbanks, NGOs supporting the inhabitants of these settlements, the activists engaged in cleaning and restoring the river, and governmental agents and international NGOs working on the reconceptualization of the riversides through the construction of green public spaces and beautification projects.
While the poor water quality is foremost a problem for the river ecosystem and the people living close to it, the morphological changes, the garbage pollution and the fetid odor affects also culturally valuable sites like the Pashupatinath temple, the most sacred Hindu site in Nepal, destination for pilgrims and used for cremation ceremonies at the river shore (Rademacher 2011).
various stakeholders concerned about the state of Bagmati and its surrounding share the assessment that the state and ongoing process of river degradation is disastrous, but the differing groups disagree on the question, what forms the most pressing aspect of this degradation and it should be approached (Rademacher 2011).
Urban Rivers and Public Space
encroachment on the banks, floodplains and riverbeds exposed by channelization are identified as the main causes of river degradation inside the urban area (Rademacher 2011). These
THROUGH THE LENS OF DIFFERENT STAKEHOLDERS
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Among the various stakeholders engaged with the Bagmati, we focus on the major actor groups of squatter communities and NGOs supporting them, environmentalists and cultural activists engaged in river cleaning, and governmental institutions and nongovernment organizations working on the green development of Bagmati, because of their central role in the production of the physical and political landscape of the river. While the various governmental administrations and the river cleaning activists both work on their respective and sometimes conflicting agendas to stop the degradation of Bagmati River and restore its ecological and cultural value, the inhabitants of the informal settlements call the riverbanks their home. This constellation forms the basis for ongoing conflicts between social, ecological and cultural issues that can be conceptualized as conflicts of green versus brown agendas and can only be understood and possibly mitigated through a close analysis of the perspectives, aims and relationships of the stakeholders.
Fig: BEFORE: Bagmati river at Chobar (Source: Pinterest) Fig: AFTER: Bagmati river at present (Source: Pxleyes)
Before we turn to a presentation of the stakeholder groups we give a brief introduction to the concept of green versus brown agendas and how this theory serves as our theoretical lens for understanding the political friction around the Bagmati river. Urban environmental problems may be in general terms divided into two categories; green and brown agendas. Issues relating to sanitary and environmental health that heavily affect the low-income groups in the society, are referred to as brown agendas. These agendas are deemed more relevant to the cities in the global south. While issues that are recently promoted by environmentalists focussing on less resource consumption and depletion, climate change and ecosystem disruptions come under the green agendas, which tend to be more relevant to the global north. The green agendas have a vision for long-term ecological sustainability while brown agendas focus on immediate health problems being faced by the more economically deprived people (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2000). Conflicts have been arising between advocates of these agendas, regarding what should be prioritized in development plans, especially in regions of where environmental health problems are serious and the management institutions are weaker, like in parts of Africa or South Asia (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2000). This debate is linked to the question of whether the focus for the future development of cities should be on more sustainable development or to fulfill the immediate needs of the people, also leading to a discussion on whether simply copying the ideas that worked in the global north to the poorer cities can be of any effect. In her study on brown agendas in the context of the Bagmati river, Shrestha (2009) discussed how there is a need to mainstream brown agendas in the definition of sustainable development, referring the case of eviction of squatter settlements along the Bagmati river and the lack of regard for the these people in the Bagmati action plan, which tends to focus more on the green agendas.
Beyond the concept of green versus brown agendas that focuses on the conflicting scopes within environmental issues and on the question, whether public health or sustainable ecosystems is the most pressing problem, there are several cases where environmental issues as a whole are in conflict with social development. While questions of environmental sustainability become more and more traction in the context of global climate change and ongoing urbanization, sometimes measures of ecological development lead to trade-offs with social development like intensifying gentrification due to the beautification of urban areas through the creation of parks (Haase et. al., 2017). These conflicts between ecological and social issues can also be observed on the urban riverbanks of Bagmati, where the calls for restoration of the river and the plans for green public areas are threatening the homes of people living along the river.
11 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space GREEN VERSUS BROWN AGENDAS
Huge informal settlements are a rather new phenomenon in Kathmandu and the urban areas of Nepal in general. These settlements are mostly populated by rural immigrants and started to develop during the abrupt spurt of urbanization in the 1990s with a growth rate even twice as fast as the average urban growth rate of Kathmandu and at present make up two percent of its population (Sengupta, 2011; Shrestha & Shrestha, 2020).
Fig: BEFORE: Balkhu squatter settlement (Source: Google earth) Fig: AFTER: Balkhu squatter settlement (Source: Google earth)
12 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space WHO ARE SQUATTERS?
The main cause for people to move into informal settlements, often straight on arrival from their rural origin, are the growing housing affordability problems, due to the shortage of land, the rising urban poverty and the insufficient housing infrastructure (Sengupta, 2011).
While the term “Slum” refers foremost to the poor living conditions of a settlement, the term “squatting” is used to describe the legal status of people residing on land or in buildings they are not formally entitled to inhabit. Although the living conditions of the people inhabiting the informal settlements of Kathmandu’s riverbanks are varying, they can be described as slum dwellers, but since the focus of this report rests foremost on the political struggles around the Bagmati river, we make use of the concept and term of squatting. The Nepali term for squatters is “sukumbasi”, originally used in rural contexts to describe people without legal ownership of land and adapted to name the inhabitants as well of the urban informal settlements. Some of these people reject this term, since they try to claim tenure rights for the land they are inhabiting and describe themselves as “swabasi” – dwellers staying by themselves, to emphasize the agency as well as the burden of their situation (Brooks, 2016). However, the idea prevails that the people in squatter settlements of Kathmandu Valley aren’t ‘genuine sukumbasi’ since they own land in their home districts. This idea has resulted in the term “hukumbasi” meaning ‘people who rule over the land they inhabit’ (Shrestha, Poudel and Khatri, 2020). Thus, this term delegitimizes the demands of the squatters to be relocated and heightens suspicion about them, causing distrust and conflict (Shrestha, Poudel and Khatri, 2020).
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Several initiatives have been launched to relocate the people squatting the riverbanks, but as illustrated by the case of a NGO building housing in the peripheral quarter of Ichangu for the inhabitants of the Sankhamul settlement, the monthly rent was simply unaffordable for them and additionally their new homes would have been too far away from their workplaces, wherefor they remained in their squatted settlement (Shrestha & Shrestha, 2020). Another example for governmental intervention is the attempted eviction of the Thapathali squatter settlement in 2012 (Brooks, 2016). The virtually unannounced eviction and demolition of the settlement led to violent clashes between the settlement’s residents and police forces and was followed by the reconstruction of the settlement by its inhabitants, unwilling to move away from the city center.
Since the rest of the city is so densely populated the riverbanks as well as the floodplains and riverbeds exposed by channelization provide the most accessible area to settle down within the city center. But these areas are permanently contested, since some of them are privately owned and of high value in the booming city of Kathmandu and others are owned by the state of Nepal or local administration and intended for the construction of parks and other public areas. Therefore, the people squatting these lands live in the constant fear of imminent eviction (Rademacher, 2011).
Fig: Road in front of Balkhu squatter settlement (Source: Authors) Fig: Eviction of the squatters (Source: The Kathmandu Post (Ojha, 2017))
SQUATTER
In their analysis of the challenges in the informal settlements of Kathmandu, Manoj Shrestha and Sudha Shrestha (2020) state that the people living in these settlements belong to the most vulnerable members of society, facing health and sanitation issues and social exclusion, while being excluded from public infrastructures and services and don’t have any property rights or a security of tenure, because land ownership forms the legal base for all these rights.
THE SETTLEMENTS
Fig: UN Park (Source: Gotsch, 2022)
Opting for the assistance instead for marginalization and expulsion of the people living in informal settlements, the Lumanti Support Group aims to improve their living conditions. Lumanti Support Group for Shelter is a non-profit organization aiming to improve the shelter conditions in informal settlements and marginalized communities in the cities of Nepal. They have focused on slum upgrading, relocation housing, saving and credits, and water and sanitation interventions.
Fig: Pashupatinath temple (Source: Times of India (Jain, 2016)) 213
14 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public NON-GOVERNMENTSpace
Fig: Relocation housing at Kirtipur (Source: Lumanti)
SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS
While the work of the support organizations is embraced most of the time, some cases are met with suspicion. When one of the employees of Lumanti Support Group was interviewed about the collaboration efforts with the squatter settlements in 2018, she mentioned that it was difficult to make interventions in many of the settlements that are politically influenced and do not want to collaborate with Lumanti, rather demanding land rights from the government. She mentioned that it is difficult to conduct any research work on such settlements since they are skeptical about every information they pass to any foreign intruders (researchers, government officials, or organization) in the settlement.
Fig: Squatter settlement at Balkhu (Source: Authors)
15 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space Squatter MAPPINGLEGENDHeritageParks/PublicsettlementsSpacesstructuresTHE SQUATTER SETTLEMENTS, PARKS AND PUBLIC SPACES, AND HERITAGE STRUCTURES BESIDE THE RIVERS 1 2 3
Government agents frame the squatter settlements and their inhabitants as nuisances and obstacles for the development and beautification of the city and to support from international donors (Rademacher, 2011). The squatters on the other hand, have developed self-confidence by claiming that they have been protecting public land that otherwise would have been already privatized and present themselves as city-makers by providing the necessary work force for the construction and services sector of Kathmandu, arguing that the urban economy is depending on the informal sector (Brooks, 2016). Therefore they argue for the recognition of their citizen rights and demand for participation in planning processes regarding their settlements. The observation of houses self-built by the squatters (in the picture to the right) demonstrates that they have the capacity to make permanent structures if they are provided with security of tenure.
One of the members of Jagaran Tol Sudhar Samiti in Balkhu squatter settlement, said that the squatter settlement area is not the same for the people living there and people like us, who are researching the case. If we are found clicking photos, or taking videos, or asking questions to the people, they might feel they are vulnerable to some government actions (which have happened in the past such as bulldozing the area). One man, who refused to reveal his name, said that if a land right document is provided by the government to them, they have the capacity to build better homes. The site could be the same land they have been occupying at present i.e. banks of Bagmati River.
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Fig: Houses built by the squatters (Source: Authors)
When asked about the pollution and smell that exists beside the river, he said that the government will eventually come up with some waste management system so the pollution won’t stay forever. He expressed his concern over the construction of mass housing in the outskirts of the city. He says that destroying such valuable agricultural land that exists in Nepal for the construction of houses is not appropriate. The land of the city, Kathmandu, has already lost its fertility due to the construction of numerous structures over the years. He said that it would be appropriate if we made new houses within the city that has infertile land, rather than move to the outskirts and build houses on valuable agricultural land. The other benefit of residing within the city is that their work stays with them. Being a retail shop owner, his business had a better prospect in the city rather than in some relocation housing elsewhere. All in all, he said that even if they were relocated, they will find a way of life within the settlement anyway. When asked what he thinks about the people having their work and businesses within those closely packed houses, he said that people can’t live without work, it is their way of life. A community needs every function that can exist to sustain itself and the basti is doing just that.
THE SELF-CONCEPTION OF THE SQUATTERS AND THEIR ROLE IN THE CITY
There are stakeholders coming from various different backgrounds working on the Bagmati Cleaning Campaign every week. A public group of these activists and environmentalists on Facebook has around 35000 members at present. Multiple government and non-government organizations, educational institutions, business institutions, activists and individual volunteers can be seen participating in the campaign. For many individual volunteers, personal satisfaction of cleaning their surroundings and happiness is the key driver to keep going. Some activists express their concerns about how the polluting activities of the river are sinful and that god will punish them for doing so. These activists are foremost concerned with the river as a site of cultural heritage and therefore even criticize the governmental modernization projects for taking the altered river morphology for granted in their conceptions of public green areas, instead of aiming for the recreation of the former course of the river as stated before it gets completely destroyed by the slumming activities once Whileagain.Shrestha and Shrestha (2020) conclude that access to drinking water and education, as well as proper waste management and sanitation infrastructure are the most pressing issues of the informal settlements at the Bagmati river, Reilly Brooks (2016) comes to a different conclusion with further reaching political implications. Analyzing the conflicting perspectives of the squatters and government agents of Kathmandu, Brooks concludes that security of tenure is the most central aspects for enhancing the situation of the squatters and mitigate the ongoing conflicts, because the constant fear of eviction hinders the inhabitant to work on community-driven development, to make use of their citizen rights and to participate in the debates on relocation.
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The Bagmati Cleaning Campaign was started with the aim to clean the river and make people aware not to throw waste in the rivers anymore. The Campaign conducted door-to-door programs to teach people how to make compost, accompanied by governmental policies to punish people throwing garbage in the river (HPCIDBC, 2021). As per the statistics stated by HPCIDBC, 15000 metric ton waste has already been extracted from the Bagmati River for which 2,500 organizations have participated and 1,000,000 people have been involved directly or indirectly in cleaning the Bagmati River. The organizations that are involved include NGOs, INGOs, Private Organizations, Community Based Organizations, Mother Groups, Schools and Colleges, Religious Organizations etc.
THE ACTIVISTS CLEANING THE RIVER
Other voices put forth different perspectives, expressing frustration with the situation of the urban informal settlements and governmental development actions. When a relocated past inhabitant of one of the informal settlements currently residing in Kirtipur Relocation Housing was interviewed, he stated his views on what relocation housing should be like. He stated his concerns about the pollution of the city and strongly suggested that the housing should be away from the city, in the outskirts. He argued that the housing should still be within the valley and that the people should be satisfied with the location of the housing. The dissatisfaction was in the dense development of commercial and industrial buildings in the core of the city that dump the sewage in the rivers. He was very pessimistic about the fact that other better waste disposal methods could be invented in the future. He said, even after 10 years, people are still going to dump all the waste in the rivers. In such circumstances, the housing built in the core of the city might last for maximum 10-20 years
“Should we bring the water back to places like this [a temple], or should we build parks that assume the water will stay where it is—far, far away from our holy places?” (Rademacher, 2011, p. 3)
18 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space during a speech on a demonstration against river degradation:
Still other activist are focused on the environmental value of the Bagmati river, whether as a good for itself, or as a resource for the people of Nepal and a attraction for tourist, as put forth by a young activist: “I just finished high school and aim to study environmental engineering. [...] I want to send a message to the people that you should not just focus on cleaning only your house, you should think about the environment too. These rivers and the environment are our major national asset and they are what attract the tourists to the country so we should stop destroying nature in this way.” (Source: Facebook Profile: DrLaxmi Paudyal, May 7th, 2022) In some cases politicians and their agents are participating in cleaning activities to boost their popularity for upcoming “Inelections:theface of the upcoming local elections, we are constantly cleaning the river. [...] In the current local elections, I request everyone to vote for the candidate who loves the people, aims for development, and especially who is capable of managing the city’s waste. Even God will punish those who make the city dirty.
Jay Bagmati!” (Source: Facebook profile: Khagendra Karki, May 7th, These2022)stakeholders might have different interests driving them to be present there at Bagmati River every week but the common agenda is to clean the river and its banks. While interviewing one of the stakeholders who retired from a government job after 35 years of service, moved to Canada, and is still actively promoting the river cleaning campaign every day, he shared his thoughts for the whole Bagmati River scenario. Regarding his motivation to get involved with the Bagmati Cleaning Campaign, he said that he was involved in Bagmati related projects for about 14 years. He had seen clean water in the river during his childhood and assured that previous generations did not pollute the river. Since our generation polluted the river, he said that we should apologize for that and make up for it by cleaning the river so that we can pass a cleaner river to the future generation. Regarding squatters he said: “The squatter settlement besides the river is one of the main problems of Bagmati. But this is beyond the scope of campaigners. This is due to an unplanned policy of the Nepal government. [...] The government is aware of these problems, trying to solve those problems too. But it is slow speed. Government should be more responsible and increase their speed to solve the problem. [...] Those people living on the bank of Bagmati river should be shifted to another residential area, the government can manage it. The riverbank can be used as a park, heritage sites, walking area and attractive tourist spots.”
Fig: River cleaning campaign (Source: Chand, 2022)
Fig: Zoning of the river system (Source: Bagmati Action Plan 2009-2014)
The government on several occasions have recognised the problem with the river pollution and that the waste management is the most critical problem around the area. A committee for Implementation and Monitoring of Environmental Improvement in Pashupati area was established by the Government of Nepal in April 1995 which was modified to High Powered Committee for Implementation and Monitoring of the Bagmati Area Sewerage Construction/Rehabilitation Project (BASP) in 1996. Later in May 2008, it was renamed as High Powered Committee for Integrated Development of the Bagmati Civilization (HPCIDBC). The main task of HPCIDBC is to revive the Bagmati River to its original state (Sharma, 2018). HPCIDBC collaborated with the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC), an autonomous NGO and initiated the Bagmati Action Plan in 2009 with an intention to restore and conserve the river and its tributaries with a vision of a ‘Clean, green and healthy river system that is full of life and valued by all.’ The plan divided the whole river system within Kathmandu Valley into 5 zones based on the population density and the existing water quality: Natural Conservation Core Zone (Zone 1), Rural Zone (Zone 2), Peri-urban Zone (Zone 3), Urban Zone (Zone 4) and Downstream zone (Zone 5), and objectives and activities were defined specific to each zone.
GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS
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The plan recognised how waste management is the most challenging part and proposed a new community managed DEWATS (Decentralized Water Treatment System) as one of the measures to manage waste. For the Peri- Urban and Urban zones, the objectives were to improve river water quality by proper waste water management, controlling and relocating squatter settlements from river banks and to conserve culture
Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space and heritage related to the river. The government has also set out key objectives which include the construction of a 30 km sewerage line, 5 treatment plants, 30 km river training, 30 kms of roads and green belt along river banks along with organizing several public awareness programmes. The plan also laid down a monitoring plan for the proposed activities and identified HPCIDBC as the key organization for coordinating and leading the plan. Other projects that are run by HPCIDBC include watershed management, rain water harvesting and ground water recharge, solid waste management and social mobilization and Bagmati River beautification works.
While the river cleaning activists, as the major stakeholder group, are mostly regarded positively by the governmental administration, some agents of the HPCIDBC present the describe the Bagmati Clean-up Campaign as merely propaganda, with no tangible results (Sharma, 2018). So, while the government shares many perspectives of the cleaning activist regarding the problematization of river degradation, the practices are focused on the construction of green public space aiming to thereby enhance the city scape as a whole.
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Moreover, it is widely believed and discussed by government agents that the squatters originated in the river banks of Kathmandu Valley in the form of political puppets who could be summoned to participate in demonstrations and rallies of the parties protesting monarchy and eventually abolishing it in 2006 (Shrestha, Poudel and Khatri, 2020), or that most of them aren’t even real squatters, since they were owning land in other places or managed to establish themselves so well on the riverbanks, that their can’t credible seen as poor (Brooks, 2016).
There are other government bodies that are linked with the Bagmati River. Bagmati river basin improvement project (BRBIP) supports the development and implementation of flood forecasting and warning systems for the entire Bagmati Basin. BRBIP argues in their official website that the Bagmati River Cleaning Campaign is one part of the river cleaning process but it needs involvement of permanent institutions to deem the attempts sustainable. Moreover they suggest that the locals along the beautified stretches of the river must take ownership of the public space and stop the old practices of dumping household waste in the river. Integrated Development Society Nepal (IDS Nepal) along with BRBIP conducted a study on understanding Water and Sanitation Data of the Bagmati Watershed Area. The project analyzed available demographics, socio-ecological, water and sanitation and watershed related data of the Bagmati River Basin to enhance solid waste management, social mobilization and watershed management activities in the upper region of the Mostbasin. aspects of the Bagmati Action Plan focus on long term development, which could be corresponded to the green agenda. The immediate situation in the informal settlements next to the river are widely ignored and their inhabitants are framed as a nuisance to the beautification of Bagmati, as stated as well by the the manager of the Bagmati Area Sewage Construction and Rehabilitation Project, describing the squatters as major obstacles for the development of Kathmandu, making “the challenge of securing international funding much more complex” (Rademacher, 2011, p. 113). This is mirrored by the activities as conducted in the last decades and stated in the Bagmati Action Plan (2009-2014) towards the squatters that only evolve around the eviction and destruction of the settlements, without elaborated plans of relocation or compensation (Sengupta, 2011).
21 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space STAKEHOLDER-ISSUE ANALYSIS
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The urbanists advocating for the brown agendas argue that the river should be cleaned and the squatters should be relocated to appropriate housing, the environmentalists advocating the green agendas believe that the river sides should be cleaned of the squatting people and other garbage to let nature take over its original form, regardless of whether the squatters are relocated or not. In contrast to both the green and brown agendas, what the squatters really demand is legal tenure for the land they are currently residing on.
Ecological and social issues may be in opposition regarding the creation of parks on the river banks, where currently people are living in informal settlements. On the other hand, the ongoing degradation of river water quality is not only an ecological problem but also raises questions of public health – a central issue of social inequality. But these issues are treated differently by different stakeholders. While the squatters are exposed to unsanitary living conditions, the other stakeholders view the act of squatting itself as an unsanitary act that degrades the river.
Also to summarize all the different agents engaged against the environmental degradation of Bagmati as working on the same green agenda must be deemed as a problematic simplification, since their motives are heterogenous and partially even conflicting. While the plans of the government and international organization of constructing parks along the river banks are based on the ideal of modernization, many activist engaged in cleaning the river and raising awareness for its degradation
Fig: Different facades of Bagmati (Source: Gotsch, 2022)
TheDISCUSSIONSwordBagmatidoesnot just represent the river but also the spaces around it, like the river banks, the cultural heritage and monuments, the formal and informal local communities, the newly built stretches of green promenade, pockets of green parks; a string that binds the Kathmandu Valley and its inhabitants as a whole. Bagmati as a space is looked upon by different stakeholders with different objectives. While the government and activists regard it as a public space they need to recapture, for the squatters it is their home and refuge and therefore they like to claim it as their private dwelling. As urban planners, it becomes necessary to grasp all the conflicting ideas for an overall perspective of the case and its actors, to propose solutions that are beneficial for all related stakeholders and realistic for the authorities to implement.
This more nuanced perspective on the different stakeholders reveals that only the interests of the government are in direct opposition to the informal settlements since they have plans with squatted areas. The river cleaning activists may wish for a relocation of these settlements but only insofar as they contribute to the pollution and cultural degradation of the river, but they have concerns that go beyond this single aspect of the problematic state of Bagmati.
23 | Bagmati | Urban Rivers and Public Space feature mostly arguments of cultural loss and degradation that emphasize the cultural and religious value of the Bagmati for the Nepalese people. This leads as well to activists criticizing the construction plans of parks that take the current state of river degradation and enclosure for granted.
DrawingCONCLUSIONonacademicliterature and primary sources like interview and facebook content alike, this report aimed to highlight many perspectives of the stakeholders connected to the ongoing degradation of the Bagmati and its urban riverbanks in Kathmandu Valley. The current scenario is divided amongst the different stakeholders where the government plans to beautify the river and the surroundings, the activists want to clean the river and the settlers want a guaranteed land tenure. These divided approaches based on specific interests have led to a slower and an overall unsuccessful development of the space. It seems that city planning in Kathmandu would serve the majority of the citizens better by approaching the infrastructural problems of the city, regarding affordable housing as well as sewage and garbage management, instead of beautification projects.
As Shrestha (2009) states, a nuanced strategy is needed for the overall development for the environment and for human well being. She argues that sustainable development goals should
While the degradation of the Bagmati river and its banks in Kathmandu raises questions of ecological sustainability and social change alike, we want to conclude that to fully grasp the different situations and interest of the stakeholders of the river, it is necessary to deploy a more nuanced perspective that goes beyond the simple dichotomy of environmental versus social Evenissues.though it is a bold statement, while studying the case of Bagmati river and the political struggles surrounding it, we got the feeling that it would serve the public good, if the inhabitants of the informal settlements would be granted tenure rights. This would enable them to realize their potential to develop their settlements by themselves. also take into consideration issues of social justice and equality and mentions that brown agendas need to be mainstreamed in the overall sustainable development plan. This could be done by conducting participatory processes where environmental problems are discussed and agreements should be reached on what issues should be prioritized (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2000). National policies should consider issues relating to ecological sustainability and try to integrate with other social and economic priorities (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2000). Involving all groups for a discussion aids in understanding the broader contexts of the region and helps identifying vested interests that try to block certain developments for personal gains. These learnings could be useful to understand our case of the Bagmati river where different stakeholders have different ideas and agendas for the development of the region and show how a consensus can be reached by better and inclusive planning for the future urban developments.
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