Water Policy Processes in India

Discourses of Power and Resistance

Vandana Asthana

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415778312
• eBook ISBN: 9781135219185
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The privatization of water is a keenly contested issue in an economically-liberalizing India. Since the 1990s, large social groups across India's diverse and disparate peoples have been re-negotiating their cultural relationships with each other as to whether they support or oppose pro-privatization water policy reforms. These claims and counter claims are seen as an impending war over water resources, one that includes many different players with many different agendas located across a wide variety of sites whose actions and interactions shape policy production in India.

This book is the first to assess the dynamics of water policy processes in India. Using the case study of Delhi's water situation, this book analyses emergent dynamics of policy process in India in general and, more specifically, in the post-economic reform era. Taking as its starting point a critique of linear version of policy making, the author explains both how and why particular types of knowledge, practices and values get established in policy as well as the complex interplay of knowledge, power and agency in water policy processes.

Water Policy Processes in India covers a critical gap in the literature by analyzing how governments in practice make policies that greatly affect the welfare of their people; the process through which policies are developed and implemented; investigating the aims and motives behind policies; and identifying the potential areas of intervention in order to improve the policy process in both its development and implementation stages.

1 Introduction

This book is a story of the making of a policy, one that could not be more vital to the people whose lives policy making touches, and one that includes many different players with many different agendas located across a wide variety of sites. This is a book about policy making processes, an understanding of which is fundamental to a full appreciation of the impact that policies have on everyone’s daily lives. Water Policy Processes in India analyzes the policy making process in the post economic reform era of India beginning 1991. The argument made here is that since the 1990s globalization and the rescaling of the state have brought about a contextual “messiness” in the debate about policy production. Viewed in relation to global pressures, as well as local, subnational, and national imperatives, this volume addresses the contemporary shifts in policy production in post-reform India that can be seen as a microcosm of the policy making process in all its complexity across the developing world. By (1) analyzing the process through which policies are developed and implemented, (2) investigating the aims and motives behind policies, and (3) identifying the potential areas of intervention in order to improve the policy process in both its development and implementation stages, this book attempts to understand what policy making means in practice, and in all its complexities brought about by the processes of globalization.

The subject of policy making processes is relatively understudied in most developing societies, including India. The areas that need attention and studies in the Indian policy process include (1) resource disparities; (2) uneven representation in governance; (3) the role of knowledge power networks in reproducing inequality in the policy process by delegitimizing local knowledge; (4) the context of policy discourse – the nationalist central planning framework of the post-independence period and the influence of global discourses more recently; and (5) the institutional relations – the dominance of state institutions in the early post-independence period and the swing toward market mechanisms in the 1990s (Arora 2002). This volume dwells within paradigms of most of these concerns and, through the lens of water policy processes, seeks to determine whether the new economic and political dispensation in India means a new politics of policy making.

The classical model of policy making views it as a linear process: it assumes that policies are the direct result of a rational process of problem identification by a benevolent agency (usually the state) which then “prescribes” the appropriate solution. Water Policy Processes in India questions some of these assumptions. In place of the purely linear model, it offers a multilayered, multivalent scheme in which power and influence move in many different directions and flow from many different sources.

Unlike the “policy as prescription” approach, which characterizes much of the public administration literature and has remained popular with policy makers, the approach of this book reflects a fast expanding body of literature that analyzes, explains or conceptualizes the process dimensions of policy. It does not assume that policies are “natural phenomena” or “automatic solutions” resulting from particular social problems and it does not privilege the state as an actor fundamentally different from other social actors. Questions of causation, method, and agency are treated empirically, and answers are derived from concrete empirical research designed to encompass the complexities of the policy making process in an age of globalization. But first we must turn to understand the processes of globalization and the effect they have on state and policy making.

Globalization, the state and policy production

The term globalization was first used in 1985 by Theodore Levitt (1985) to characterize vast changes in the international economy – changes related to the rapid, pervasive and global diffusion of the production, consumption, and investment of goods, services, capital, and technology. Initially used by economic historians, this term is now increasingly used in social science literature to describe a variety of economic, political, social, and cultural changes (Finger and Allouche 2002: 2). Giddens, for example, reiterated its importance in social sciences and defined globalization as a process leading to the “intensification” of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa (Giddens 1990: 64).

The interconnectedness of various social phenomena around the globe is also stressed by McGrew and Lewis (1992: 22) who define globalization as “the process by which events, decisions, and activities in one part of the world come to have significant consequences for individuals and communities in quite distant parts of the globe.”

In the literature of political science and international relations, globalization usually points to the post-Westphalian era (e.g. Held 1995) or as Rosenau (1997) sees it, to a “post-international” system. Thus, for political scientists and international relations specialists, globalization defines both a process and a situation in which political relationships are less territorially based, and nation-states become less important. As a part of this process, decision making power is gradually removed from the nation-states and shifted to other actors, which can be located “above,” “below,” and “beside” the nation-states. This repositioning has a dual effect. While technological change and economic integration have pushed the state in the direction of greater conformity and adoption of global standards and behavior, social and political forces have pulled in the direction of asserting the state’s role and power in protecting the interests and the livelihoods of its citizens.

Literature on globalization reveals that the role of the state has changed in policy making processes. The state is no longer the sole authority for protecting the interests of the poor and disadvantaged; other social, economic and political institutions are emerging as players in this process of governance. Commonly referred to as a “multiplication of all kinds of governance,” this development brings into play a constellation of actors including various institutions of the state apparatus, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), social movements, and local actors (Rosenau 2002: 230). Many global process analysts hold that the state is becoming increasingly insignificant in policy making. The retreat and erosion (Strange 1996), “the hollowing out” (Jessop 1999), and the changing architecture (Cerny 1990) of the state in response to global pressures are typical concerns. Many believe that it is the end of the nation state and a forced retreat of the welfare state (Ohmae 1995). While “weak state” theories in globalization literature point to the erosion of the state, other accounts point to the transformation of the state, arguing that it still maintains a highly significant and strategic role (Sassen 1996). States may cede authority over some aspects of economic and financial governance but there are areas where states retain a substantial degree of control.

In her book The Myth of a Powerless State, Linda Weiss (1998) offers a contemporary critique of the popular feeling among analysts that globalization erodes the power of the nation-state. She contends that the “end-of-the-state literature” exaggerates the powers the state had in the past, overlooks the diversity of the capacity of the state, and politically constructs the notion of helplessness. It is the transformative capacity of the state, Weiss believes, that can give it a competitive edge in the global economy.

Whatever be the positions of various analysts, all the extensive body of scholarly work on globalization indicates that the state is under pressure. Financial and economic globalization, along with deregulation and the opening up of government to market forces, have weakened the ability of the state to conduct macroeconomic policy. With competition emerging in many sectors, including that of infrastructure, states are compelled to loosen control over many of their public sector operations. Another factor that has put pressure on the state has been the need to compete internationally, leading to high public debt that states need to address in order to adjust to the new global economy. According to Finger and Allouche (2002), this is one of the main reasons why states have undergone substantial transformation since the 1980s in both the North and the South. Another reason cited for the recent transformation of the state has been the “legitimation crisis” (Habermas 1980; Offe 1984). In an increasingly global economy and culture, the state is more and more challenged to legitimize itself in the light of pressures from “above” and “below.”

It is therefore not surprising that states have started to adjust to this shift. While in the North this change takes the form of new public management (NPM) efforts, in the South it takes the form of structural adjustment programs mandated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These adjustments have basically been in accordance with the neoclassical or neoliberal ideologies of the increased role of the market and the reduced importance of the state in almost all sectors, but especially so in service delivery (Finger and Allouche 2002). Such ideologically motivated reforms tend to treat the state as a factor upsetting the ideal optimum equilibrium of the market’s “invisible hand” in the developmental process. Under this approach the role of the corporate sector in growth and development is to provide public good to the society. Issues involving land, water, and forests are seen as management problems which can be more efficiently handled by corporations than by the state; hence, the market in the neoliberal world will supposedly benefit society. Although this ideology has not been without its critics, it remains the dominant paradigm in governance and policy making in the state. The state in the age of globalization thus finds its policy making and governance functions involved in a constant interaction between external pressures from “above” and internal pressures from “below” and the Indian state has been no exception to this shift. The following section provides background to the structure that the Indian state has adopted in the neoliberal era.

Policy production and the Indian state

After independence India decided to follow the model provided by the British colonial administrative system. It was a decision that resulted in the massive expansion of a largely unreconstructed colonial bureaucracy. The bureaucracy of the newly independent Indian state remained highly centralized, largely working on a ‘command and control’ administrative style in the areas of both policy and planning (Kaviraj 1997: 233–4).

In the politically unstable situation that existed during the independence era after the partition of the country, the new leadership felt that a strong state needed to be established in order to maintain a sense of national unity. This resolve was clearly recognized between 1947 and 1950, when the Indian constitution was drafted. Consequently, within the framework of a federal system, the constitution gave strong political and economic powers to the center. Of particular importance was the power to allocate financial resources between the center and individual states and the center’s support for state projects within the social sector in areas such as irrigation, water supplies, etc.

However, in response to the new exigencies of economic liberalization which began in 1991, the Indian state has undergone major deviations from the way it had traditionally conducted its centralized policy planning since the post-independence era. The central Government delegated more power and more responsibility to the individual states yet reduced the amount of money available to carry out necessary programs. This decrease in state support and centrally directed state planning has reduced the fiscal independence of the state Governments and increased the importance of attracting foreign direct investment. With funds curtailed by central Government policies, many states started to seek alternative sources in the form of loans and grants from international agencies. The decrease in state support and funding cuts has meant that other agencies like the private sector and donors are acquiring a new significance. These factors have led to a new kind of policy making and raises important questions of public policy in the liberalization era.

The choice of water

Since the focus of the book is policy production in the post-economic reform era, water provided the conceptual lens through which to understand these processes because over the past two decades a remarkable transformation has taken place in Indian attitudes towards water. After a period of state dominance for much of the twentieth century, water management is undergoing a dramatic transformation through the process of privatization, liberalization and deregulation. This new policy framework is built upon a set of principles essentially imported from Washington – the principles of liberalization, privatization, the free market, and structural adjustment. Through an understanding with the State Department of the USA, the IMF and the World Bank, these principles have come to dominate the political and bureaucratic corridors of India. India began to seek its own space in the global paradigm shift by liberalizing and privatizing its public and social sector to fit into the existing system of international trade, technology and the capital revolve cycle. Although this shift to market orientation in the area of water policy retains unquestioned popularity among the states, it has been hotly debated and contested by activists and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This book contributes to the literature on the post-reform era and demonstrates how economic reforms and their political and economic context have led to accommodations at the state level bringing a new politics of policy making to India. The number of actors has increased in the post-reform era, and networks of actors exist both inside and outside the state. The form and location of expertise and sites of policy making are multiscalar and debate and framings overlap at all levels.

Another reason why water was an appropriate choice can be explained by the literature available on water. Mollinga (2005) places the literature on water into three categories: (1) literature on desirable water policy, (2) empirical research on water resource management, and (3) critical, oppositional discourse. All of these categories deal with substantial scholarly research in policy and research for policy, but, as Mollinga points out, there has been very limited research on policy processes. His analysis shows that there has been very limited research on policy production analysis from the standpoint of water and that there is a lack of literature on water resource management policy processes in India (Mollinga (2005: 7–14). Ramaswamy Iyer’s book Water Perspectives (2003) describes, among other issues, the history of certain administrative and policy processes in the water sector which can be used for a background context for further inquiry into the dynamics of water policy processes. However, Mollinga (2005: 12) argues that:

We don’t know very much about what happens in the water policy domain: how new policies are articulated, how the hydrocracies precisely work, how policy elites and their networks operate, how lobby and agitation is dealt with by the government administration, how the negotiations between government and international donors takes place, and so forth. One could ask – where are the political scientists in the water sector; who is looking in detail, as a researcher, at the internal dynamics of India’s domestic hydropolitics?

Water policy production in the state of Delhi – the subject of this book – therefore provides an excellent example of the policy pressures and conflicting aims associated with the sorts of complex, multiscalar policy production processes that have resulted from globalization. While the predominant area of theorization in public policy and water governance has focused on concepts such as agenda setting of the state, there has been little theorization of the overlap of the local, subnational, national, and global scales, which may be expressed by a variety of voices, and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that surround the widely diverse actors involved in the processes of producing water policy. This book therefore frames shifts in policy production in a way that does not always revolve around the state but delves deeply into interactions between complex constellations of actors.

These state and non-state actors both use and are bound by various discourses of reform in urban water policy. Their competing interpretations are at the root of key debates over Delhi’s water, which has enormous implications for how water policy is constructed, as well as the process that policy undergoes in its negotiations and implementation. In trying to understand the policy process as it emerges out of the competing interactions of the various actors, a mixed methods approach has been adopted that combines ethnography (Emerson, et al. 1995; Marcus 1995), and interview (Babbie 1998), to construct an analytical map of the practices and discourses that combine to form the unique policy configurations of Delhi’s urban landscape.

The controversy over a contract awarded to multinational corporation (MNC) by the Government of Delhi for a water treatment plant in Sonia Vihar provides the empirical groundwork for this mapping process. The water treatment plant was to be managed by the French MNC Ondeo Degremont, a subsidiary of Suez and one of the biggest companies in the world after Vivendi in the area of water supply, distillation, and purification. The water from the plant was to provide water for a 24/7 pilot project which aimed to provide universal 24/7 safe water and sewerage services in an equitable, efficient and sustainable manner through a customer oriented and accountable service provider to the people of Delhi. However, the Government’s water project was contested on the grounds that turning over management to this MNC would ultimately lead to the privatization of water in Delhi, which in turn would result in higher water tariffs and differential access to water for the populace. The questions driving this book came from an interest in competing values attached to water at multiple levels of society and in the lived experiences of the contestations and collaborations in which policies are negotiated, implemented, and reformed. The aim was to map the dialogical tensions in the production of water policy to understand the complex processes through which actors with power differences are attempting to manipulate access to water.

By drawing attention to the multiple ways in which water is “valued” in urban water reform in Delhi and how the discourse of valuation is used by actors to position themselves and their interests in Delhi’s water management policies, this book raises questions regarding the nature of policy making in Delhi’s water resource development and management practices in a neoliberal era. Rather than focusing on one pervasive discourse and studying its effect on people and their environment, the focus is on drawing attention to the roles of multiple actors, their history, and contestations that help expose the complexity and dynamics of water policy production.

To understand therefore, how polices are being made in practice, the importance of the relationships embedded as they are in complex networks of divergent and overlapping interests that create a particular political economy of knowledge and power needs to be understood. By tracing the origin of the water policy in the state of India, examining its historical, economic and political context and the key debates in relation to Delhi’s engagement with global pressures, as well as pressures emanating from local, subnational, and national imperatives, one can begin to understand what policy making means in practice. And in a larger sense, this book seeks answers to the following questions: What is policy? What are the processes – technical, political, intellectual, and social in policy making? What do these inputs suggest about the nature of policy making in general and in a sector as important as water in particular, a sector seen as the key to economic growth and prosperity in the arena of development and central to the new economy era?

2 Changing the frame

Repositioning policy

This study of the dynamics of making and shaping urban water reform policy uses Delhi as a case study and takes as its starting point a critique of linear versions of policy making, highlighting the complex interplay of power, knowledge, and agency in water policy processes. Policy, as argued in this chapter, is not shaped simply on the basis of agenda setting preceded by good research and information, nor does it emerge from bargaining amongst actors on clearly defined options and choices. Rather, it is a more complex process through which particular interpretations of wate...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Changing the frame: repositioning policy
• 3 The process of economic liberalization and private sector participation
• 4 Water in the liberalization process
• 5 Situating Delhi in the water reform project
• 6 Mainstreaming policy: discourses of power
• 7 Creating spaces for change: collective action on the water reform project
• 8 Understanding the water policy process
• References