Technological solutions to political problems? Let’s worry together!

As Katie works on our fabulous website, and Moriah works on fundraising, I am hopping around in Delhi, meeting people working on all parts of this water web. So, if you told me that I had to sit and talk to people about a grim and even depressing subject like water scarcity for 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon, I would look at you like you were crazy and then comply. This Sunday, however, I didn’t even notice the 4 hours of afternoon fly by when I attended a meeting between “water gurus, or the water-ly knowledgeable” in Delhi.

The first point on the agenda was:  “Per person per day water requirement for personal needs.” Before I got to the meeting, I wondered hmm… lots of P’s in that sentence but why were we discussing this point anyway? Doesn’t someone with a modestly sized home and desk job need less water than the owner of a nursery of plants, or an urban farmer who supplies vegetables locally in the city?

Who decides how much water is a “daily requirement”?

When I raised these questions nervously amongst academics and activists, it became clear that we were discussing this point not to standardize water requirements, but to address inequity.  Some people in Delhi use 2000 litres of water per day while others don’t even get a litre of water a day. So, we were looking for a marker figure to indicate the average requirement of water, one that wasn’t too wasteful but covered a judiciously defined “basic need,” as Arun and Himanshu explained.

As we talked, I slipped into a day dream, wondering what the alternatives to standardization could be. I mean, as a “priviledged” human being, I could adapt to scarcity instead of speaking hypocritically against inequities that I create each time I use a flush toilet!

Speaking of adapting to scarcity, check out this really cool project by Sarah Kelly, an IHP and Colby alum like me: www.adaptingtoscarcity.com.

I thought about plants like cacti that have evolved to “need” less water for photosynthesis. If I am not wrong, Cacti don’t have broad faced leaves but spines to prevent excessive transpiration, since they live in deserts. To me, the cactus method is an example of using less of a resource when that resource isn’t locally available. Cacti don’t build large scale dams, privatize water, or steal from other plants. Instead, the cactus scales down on its own leaves. So, like cacti, can humans devise systems that work on reduced and ecologically sensitive consumption- as well as equitable distribution?

I thought about the different Cactus type ideas in Delhi and fell upon rainwater harvesting.

Coming back to the meeting, I asked, is it possible to take control of our own access to water in Delhi, in a marginal way by harvesting the rain?

I expected a hopeful response, but Soumya’s answer to the question just got me asking more questions (luckily, I’d rather have more questions than bad answers).

To harvest rainwater, you need a sizable plot of land, if land is available, rainwater harvesting is definitely feasible and important. But, everyone does not have large plots of land in Delhi. So, the government could and should do more and harvest the rain that falls on public property.

But instead of the government, shouldn’t people be involved in their own policy making? In their own futures? Wouldn’t people be more accepting of ideas if they were organic? Wouldn’t people feel a sense of ownership and responsibility- and bring projects to their success, if they had come up with the ideas themselves?

Why should we depend on our government for solutions when all the government does is build more dams?!

I am not asking for corporate or private solutions, just local and community based solutions like rainwater harvesting. So, in theory, shouldn’t we just autonomously harvest rainwater as cohesive communities…right?

This time, Manjit gave me an answer even before I thought of my question.

He said, you know what the crux is, we cannot depend on rainwater harvesting because it is a technological solution to a political problem.

I made no further attempts at a solution to Delhi’s water crisis but spent the rest of the meeting calming myself down. No one is giving up on small-scale or local solutions, we are just being aware of the social webs in Delhi. There are layers to Delhi’s water situation. Layers that consist of the strained social relations between people in the city. It matters whether we are friends with our neighbors, if we trust them or not, because that determines how people share a resource like – water.

We don’t practice neighborliness in my residential colony- unless it is convenient. Many of us install illegal pumps to augment our government supply of water. It’s pretty much a dog eat dog situation in my Delhi world. Few people are watching out for one another when it comes to the water crisis- although some are. We may be friends when it comes to festivals and exchanging gifts, but what about when we need community based solutions to community based problems?

I calm myself down, try to breathe out the negative. There have to be SOME communities that have started harvesting rainwater, benefited from it, AND diminished their dependence on environmentally un-sound and socially violating solutions like dams. Communities like Resident Welfare Associations or individuals with large plots of land (the elite?). So before getting discouraged about our social fabric, I need to keep the politics in mind and find ways in which people are ending inequalities and injustice within their small-scale technological solutions.

I left the room slightly peturbed, but inspired to look for the cohesive communities that address their inequalities when harvesting rainwater, communities that are worried about water, but worried together!