Post-colonial Water Governance: Shifting Paradigms

Water governance has been at the centre of societal formations. From ‘hydraulic societies’ headed by ‘oriental despots’ to community-based models of water governance all point to the centrality of this naturally available resource defining state-society-citizen relations. Accessing water under the modern welfare state came to be seen as a ‘material’ emblem of citizenship. Later, neoliberalism paved the way for commercialisation and privatisation riding high on the slogan of ‘universal access’ and discourse of ‘scarcity’. These paradigmatic shifts signalled changes in water governance. This article charts a broad-brush history of changes in the governance structure and logic of water supply over the last seven decades in Delhi. It focuses on a specific aspect of water governance, that is, mechanisms to supply drinking water in post-colonial Delhi. The case of the capital city of a developing country has been used as a prism to comment on the trajectory of water governance in post-colonial societies.