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Water: A Cultural View Pre-colonial Water Traditions Emergence of Colonial Technologies

Water: A Cultural View

Unconfined aquifer Settlement

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Stepwell

Pervious Layers

Confined Shallow Aquifer

Pre-colonial Water Traditions

All historic settlements that emerged in semi-arid or arid regions developed unique techniques and traditions in tune with their geographical needs and embodied their cultural idiosyncrasies. In the region of north Gujarat, one finds a consistent relationship between the depressions of land where water was collected and the higher ground that was inhabited by people. Drinking water was provided by a well or a stepwell (well with a flight of steps leading to the water) that accessed the aquifer. Rainwater harvesting evolved as a cultural practice and each house had a domestic water tank. With streets snaking along the water flow to drain into surrounding agricultural areas, the cityscape could be read as a funnel to channelize water back to the ground and store some in the process. This relationship between the stepwell, lake and the settlement has dictated the organization and character of the built form. An intimate working knowledge of terrain, holistic understanding of groundwater table, and percolation rates were put into practice (Sinha, 2019), enabling the historic settlements to flourish in the semi-arid climate.

The social dimension of stepwells is revealed in the folk songs translated by MehtaBhatt that describe the women’s playful journeys to fetch water as they enjoyed the uninhibited company of one another (Mehta-Bhatt, 2014). These structures were intertwined with the ritualistic routines of women (who were burdened with the task of fetching water) and were one of the few socially legitimate spaces for them to move freely outside the domestic realm. They also became resting spaces for nomadic tribes and travellers who descended in the cool depths of the earth to refuel and refresh. Their social embeddedness within settlements not only depended on the patrons, but also on the community of well-diggers and the variety of users who nurtured them. These structures belonged to an infrastructural system that unified the dwelling and the regional scales and represented a complex intersection of urbanism and community governance (Bharne and Bogosian, n.d.). It can be concluded that the culture of water extended beyond its physical structure and encompassed the many processes and rituals of the people who built, used and appropriated them (Livingston, 2002).

Figure 10. Dams: Modern temples of India, Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurating the Bhakra Nangal dam

Emergence of Colonial Technologies

Sunita Narain in her book, ‘The Dying Wisdom’, details the politics of the decline of traditional systems, largely brought about by colonial attitudes toward water management, some of which are discussed here. It was in the British administration, that the state become a major ‘provider’ of water replacing communities and households as the primary units of provision and sustenance (Narain and Agrawal, 1999). Additionally, there was an increasing emphasis on the use of surface and groundwater moving away from the earlier reliance on rainwater and floodwater, even though the later was available in greater abundance.

The centralization of water systems also altered the relationship of settlement with water, as it no longer depended on the reticulated terrain and collection from lakes. The extension of pipes beneath city streets and a parallel transformation with taps in the private sphere led to the ‘hydrological extension of the city’. Water came into the houses through piped sources and functioned invisibly in the background of everyday life (Gandy, 2004). The disparate operational networks of provision and maintenance of water supply and storm water drainage severed the cyclical and holistic water ecologies of semi-arid cities. The system of stepwells with spatial qualities was supplanted by an engineered network of hidden pipes and washbasins; technologies that embodied assumptions about water’s ubiquity and abundance (Brown et al., 2016). Water that was once an active element of social space receded to the backdrop and the rainwater catchment deteriorated.

During the colonial era, stepwells, wells and water tanks of the old city of Ahmedabad were sealed and the British declared their ownership of over natural resources. Sunita Narain notes that ‘the traditional system in which people contributed voluntary labor had died with the death of local ownership of the resource’. The introduction of tube wells in rural India enabled propertied farmers to no longer depend on community structures. It is not just the infrastructural dimension of water-use, but its holistic ur¬ban paradigm that was gradually eroded (Bharne and Bogosian, n.d.); an erosion that is as much cultural as political.

Figure 11. Sardar Sarovar Dam, Gujarat

Figure 12. Sabarmati Riverfront, Ahmedabad, 2015

There was also a gradual shift in emphasis from small dams and river channels to large dams, electric tube wells and canals commanding extensive areas. Proliferation of these technologies was linked with nationalism and leaders of modern India invested almost exclusively in mega-irrigation projects and mega-bureaucracies to manage its water systems (Narain and Agrawal, 1999) valorising centralisation, planning and modern technology. Today, India is ‘one of the most active dambuilding countries’ (Ward, 2003), while the era of large dams in the West is largely over (Purseglove, 2019). This ‘peculiar mixing of ideologies’ of centrally managed canals and water supply versus the distribution of millions of tube wells anticipated, in technological and spatial terms, came to define the ‘politics of post-colonial water infrastructure’ (Acchiavati, 2017).

However, while accessing the revival of traditional structures, it important to note that they were also intrinsically politicized and enmeshed in social inequalities. Morrison warns that the radical shift after the advent of colonial technologies does not indicate a complete opposition between the (evil) modern dams and the (good) traditional structures. She recognizes that traditional structures also showcased a complex interplay of power relations involving unequal benefits and risks. Morisoon critiques the ‘new traditionalism’ discourse (Sinha, 1997) that relegates these structures to an imagined golden era with an equitable and sustainable management by communities. She points to the dangers of the discourse that posits an impossible return to an imaginary past. Instead, she argues for a ‘third way’ in which both the historical complexity and the contemporary material demand is acknowledged. It is important to determine the correlation between scale and density of population of these territories while discussing the revival of traditional techniques. Therefore, although there is no simple solution to the water problems, an informed perspective on the historical experiences of the region should inform future waterscapes rather than ‘either a romantic and unrealistic view of tradition or a blind faith in modern science and technology’ (Morrison, 2010).

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