Water occurs in many forms, is extremely variable in its occurrence, has multiple aspects or dimensions, is perceived very differently by different people and at different times, and is used or dealt with by a multiplicity of people and agencies in many different ways, at several levels, and on different scales. Some of these complexities are known to all, but others are not so well understood. These complexities lead to a series of partial or imperfect or half-baked formulations or recommendations for future action. The paper sets forth briefly the aspects, dimensions, and complexities of water; expounds and criticises some of the formulations and prescriptions currently in vogue; and then draws the threads together in a fairly full but terse declaratory statement. Though the statement is essentially a personal declaration, it is the author’s hope that governments, civil society organizations, international bodies such as the World Bank, World Water Council and Global Water Partnership, and others, will find it useful as the point of departure for a re-examination of their ideas and approaches, and perhaps the re-formulation of their concepts, policies and prescriptions. The declaration is offered as a draft policy statement or manifesto for consideration by all concerned.

Introductory
During the last decade or so, there has been a growing concern about the mounting pressure on the world’s finite water resources. The subject figured prominently at the Second and Third World Water Forums (The Hague 2000 and Kyoto 2003) and at the annual Water Symposium at Stockholm (August 2003). The World Bank, ADB, UN agencies, the Global Water Partnership and its national affiliates, the International Water Management Institute (Colombo), universities and research institutions all over the world, and of course many national governments, have all been concerned about water. Some themes and formulations have emerged in these processes; for instance, the Stockholm Symposium has been talking about `drainage basin management’, and GWP has been propagating the idea of `Integrated Water Resource Management’ or IWRM. It is the present writer’s view that all these are partial perceptions and prescriptions, and that we need to get beyond these to a fuller, richer and deeper understanding of water. This paper is offered as a modest aid to such understanding. Some of the facts and illustrations mentioned are Indian, but the argument in the paper is not confined to the Indian context; it is addressed to all concerned with water.

The paper is organized in five Sections. After this introductory Section, the second Section will set forth briefly the several aspects, dimensions, and complexities of water. The third Section will expound and criticise some of the formulations and prescriptions currently in vogue. (Both those Sections will be discursive, and will take the form of a series of short paragraphs on a wide range of themes.) The fourth Section will try to explain what is meant by `going beyond drainage basin and IWRM’ and what kind of transformation is needed. The fifth and final Section will draw the threads together in a fairly full but terse declaratory statement. It will be a personal declaration on water, in the form of a series of propositions adumbrating a way of looking at and dealing with water, that differs significantly from what currently holds sway in water establishments, national or international. If it brings about some much-needed re-thinking on water on the part of all, the author will be gratified. 

II. Complexities
This Section sets forth the aspects, dimensions and complexities that need to be kept in mind in thinking about water. It is a broad survey of the ground, necessarily entailing some statements of the obvious, as a preliminary to a consideration of certain formulations.

Variability
The variability in the occurrence of precipitation is well-known and is frequently referred to. In so far as India is concerned, it is common knowledge that most of the water that the landmass receives by way of rainfall comes down in a relatively short period in the year, and that even within that period, the intensity is concentrated within a few weeks. We also know that precipitation varies widely over the Indian landmass, ranging from 100 mm in some parts of Rajasthan to 11000 mm in the Northeast (Cherrapunji). These variations, along with other factors, contribute to the phenomena of floods and drought. All this is familiar ground over which we need not tarry, except to note that it leads to certain prescriptions; but we shall come to them later.

Forms
Water occurs in many forms: precipitation (snow, sleet and rain), snowmelt, glaciers, rivers, streams, lakes, ponds and other surface water bodies, groundwater aquifers (shallow and deep; active, trapped and fossil), springs, wetlands, soil moisture and atmospheric moisture (leaving aside the oceans). That all these are manifestations of water is not common knowledge, though it may seem self-evident when pointed out. Even less common is the knowledge of the concepts of hydrosphere , hydrological cycle , hydrological unity and the finite nature of the quantum of water on earth; these terms are mostly used by specialists. Though all water constitutes a unity, different forms of water have distinct characteristics; give rise to different issues in the context of utilization and management; and the governing laws are different.

Aspects, Dimensions
Turning to the many aspects or dimensions of water, there is first drinking water (including within that term water essential for cooking and washing): this is water as life-support. (Access to sources of water is therefore essential for all human beings, but especially so for certain communities - particularly tribal ones - with a vital relationship to rivers and/or forests. Besides, water is life-support not merely for humans but also for livestock, wildlife and aquatic life.) Water for irrigation and water for industrial uses (process, cooling, steam generation) are inputs into economic activities . Water for the generation of hydroelectric power is a special category; in a sense it is a raw material, but it does not get consumed in the process: it is a special variant of water for industrial use. Water is also a medium for navigation; here again it does not get consumed, but a certain level of flow has to be maintained, and this may limit the availability for other uses. Water for municipal uses such as sanitation or firefighting or in hospitals can be regarded as a social good. With the growing salience of environmental and ecological concerns (including concerns about the control of pollution), the phrases `minimum flows’, `environmental flows’ and `water for nature’ have gained currency, but these (as we shall see later) reflect fundamental misperceptions of the relationship between nature and water. Lastly, in many cultures, water has ritual and sacramental functions. Though the quantum of water needed for such purposes may be small, this constitutes an important aspect or dimension of water; and apart from ritual uses, water itself is often regarded as sacred, or as a divinity. Even where the religious dimension is absent, rivers and lakes are important elements in the social and cultural lives of countries; civilizations are associated (indeed, identified) with them; and people tend to develop strong emotional attachments to them. 

Perceptions
Corresponding to (but not identical with) the multiple dimensions and aspects of water are the diverse ways in which water is perceived by people: as private property, as a tradable commodity, as a basic, fundamental or human right (and animal right), as the domain of the state, as a common pool resource belonging to the community, as a symbol of a civilization and as a sacred resource or divinity; and there are different views as to the `ownership’ of water. These differences in perception lead to important differences in policy prescriptions (state control, community management, private ownership, property rights, water markets, etc). 

Some Linkages
At this stage, three inextricable linkages need to be taken note of. First, water-use and land-use are linked and the formulation of `policy’ for the one cannot be done in isolation from policy for the other. Secondly, water is an integral part of the natural environment; each sustains and is sustained by the other. To talk about balancing `water resource development’ and `environmental concerns’ is to betray flawed thinking; this will be elaborated later. Thirdly, water supply and sanitation are the obverse and reverse of the same coin. We cannot talk about water without talking about sanitation . 

Levels, Scales
Next the different levels at which water is used or dealt with must be noted. (This can also be described as scales.) Ponds, tanks and lakes (except where these are very large) are used locally; historically, they were also managed locally, though that may not be the case in all places today. There is a history of community-management of such traditional water-harvesting and management systems in India, and that history is not entirely dead. The more recent NGO-inspired initiatives in rainwater-harvesting and watershed development are also local, small-scale and community-led. The use of groundwater for drinking or for irrigation is also largely a local matter, though with power-operated borewells and a network of pipelines the water can be transported over a certain distance. These are mostly instances of investment and management by relatively more affluent farmers or industrial units, i.e., private initiatives, though there are also instances of municipal extraction of groundwater for urban water-supply. Major and medium structures on rivers and streams are larger enterprises generally undertaken by the state, though there is now much advocacy of a private sector role in such projects. Going beyond such individual projects, the next level or scale is the river-basin or sub-basin. As we proceed from small, local activities at the micro-watershed or village level to clusters of watersheds and then to sub-basins and basins and beyond basins to links or transfers between basins, we are not merely traversing the hydrological domain but also moving to larger social, organizational, management and political levels: from villages or clusters of villages to districts, to provinces or States (in a federal set-up), to inter-State relationships, to the national level and then to the inter-country or regional level. 

There are three complexities here: first, hydrological units and divisions (mini and micro watersheds, sub-basins, basins, configurations of aquifers) do not always - in fact rarely – correspond to political or administrative divisions ; secondly, political boundaries running across or along rivers, whether within a country or between countries, tend to become emotionally charged and conflict-prone; and thirdly, social groupings, institutions and organizations in relation to water do not necessarily correspond to (or relate well with) official formations and structures. To reconcile the logic of political divisions with that of hydrological (or ecological) unities; to establish a cooperative, constructive, working relationship between civil society institutions and official formations; and to ensure that their (governments’ and civil society’s) water-related activities are in harmony (or at least not in conflict) with the facts and imperatives of the ecological system, is a formidable task.

Laws
Turning to laws, there are three sets of complexities in the Indian context. At the level of the Constitution of India, the nature of the constitutional provisions relating to water, the (imperfect) understanding of water that they embody, the (not wholly satisfactory) allocation of responsibilities between the Centre and the States, the (creaking but recently repaired) machinery for resolving inter-State conflicts, and the future role of the third tier (i.e., that of local self-government at the village and city level) introduced by the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution, present several problems. Secondly, in the domain of the laws, there are asymmetries between surface water and groundwater and ambiguities in relation to surface water itself; and there are complex inter-relationships between water-related laws and other laws such as those relating to the environment, wildlife, tribal areas, and so on. Thirdly, there is the question of the relationship between the formal law of the statute books and customary law as embodied in centuries-old traditions and conventions. These Indian legal features and conundrums will not be elaborated here. Doubtless there are similar or different features and conundrums in other countries. 

`Looming Crisis’, `Water Wars’
The finite nature of the supply of water on earth and the mounting pressure on it because of the forces of population-growth, urbanization and economic `development’ lead to predictions of a crisis and of `water wars’. The `water wars’ thesis is based on a misleading analogy between water and oil, and overlooks the evidence of inter-country cooperation through treaties and agreements; we need not spend more time on that thesis. However, the forecast of a `crisis’ cannot be lightly dismissed. Undoubtedly the pressure on water will be acute and conflicts may arise, but will there in fact be a `crisis’, and will it be as severe as is feared? There could be a difference of views on this. `Demand’ projections are generally based on current patterns of water-use with some modest adjustments for improvements in efficiency and resource-conservation. Those projections need to be re-examined stringently. In every kind of use, major economies are desirable and possible, though difficult. Substantial improvements in efficiency in water-use in agriculture (in conveyance systems, crop-water requirements, irrigation techniques, yields ) are needed, and if achieved, will release large quantities of water for other uses. In rural and urban water supply, the tendency is to project future needs on the basis of per capita norms which are fairly high and which are sought to be raised further. However, instead of improving the norms for supply from the current figures to higher levels, it might be more appropriate to maintain (or perhaps even reduce ) current norms, enforce economies on those, whether in rural or urban areas, that use too much water, and improve availability to groups or areas that receive too little. The substantial incidence of waste in urban water-supply systems is also a matter that calls for concerted action. In industrial use of water, multiple recycling and re-use needs to be insisted upon, allowing minimal make-up water. Strenuous efforts need to be made to promote improvements in efficiency and technological innovations in every kind of water-use to maximize what we get out of each drop of water. Apart from minimizing waste, it needs to be recognized that domestic and municipal waste is also a source from which water for some uses needs to be extracted. If we do all this, the demand picture will not remain the same. The pressure on the resource will not disappear but may well be less severe than now feared; a crisis may still emerge, but it may not be unmanageable. A critical examination of projections of future water demand, or rather of the assumptions and methods involved, ought therefore be an important area of study.

`Water Resource Development’ (WRD) Projects
In India, and perhaps elsewhere, the term `water resource development’ or WRD has acquired a specialized meaning: it has become synonymous with large dam-and-reservoir projects. The Government of India, in its response to the Report of the World Commission on Dams (which it rejected), declared its intention of constructing additional `storage’ (i.e., dams-and-reservoirs on rivers) of 200 billion cubic metres (BCM) within a period of 25 years. More recently, it has announced a `mega’ river-linking project. We are not concerned here with the details of those projects. They are mentioned only as examples of a particular kind of approach, which India shares with other countries. There are three difficulties here. 

First, as with industrial or consumer goods, the implicit assumption is that from a projected future demand we should proceed to a supply-side answer, i.e., `production’, to meet that demand. However, such an approach, which is simply unsustainable in the long run even with industrial and consumer goods, is particularly so in the case of water. With water we have to reverse the approach: we must proceed from the recognition of a finite supply to the management of demand. This has already been urged in an earlier paragraph.

Secondly, granting that the storing of water in reservoirs behind dams may make more of the resource available for use, we have to note that this has certain consequences. The approach of `taming’ or `harnessing’ rivers (the equestrian metaphors are significant) was unchallenged until recently, but in the last three or four decades it has come under severe questioning. There is much disenchantment with large WRD projects, and there are movements against them in several countries. The reasons for the mounting opposition to such projects are the following: they have serious impacts and consequences , environmental, social and human, not all of which can be remedied or mitigated or compensated for, or even foreseen fully ; Environmental Impact Assessments and Cost-Benefit Analyses are highly flawed as the basis for project decisions; the balance between total costs and total benefits (financial, economic, ecological, social and human; direct and indirect; immediate and distant; primary and secondary / tertiary; quantifiable and non-quantifiable) is difficult to ascertain; the costs will be definitely incurred and may turn out to be higher than foreseen, whereas the benefits are uncertain and may fall short of expectations; the financing of such projects presents formidable budgetary and debt-service problems; and so on. 

Thirdly, even from a supply-side perspective, large-dam projects are not the only answer; there are other possibilities. We must shake ourselves free of the usual engineering conventions of defining `available water resources’ in terms of flows in rivers, and `usable water resources’ in terms of what is stored behind a dam. What is available in nature is rainfall, not just river-flows; and while storing river waters behind a dam doubtless converts `available’ water into `usable’ water, so does in situ rainwater harvesting (i.e., `catching the raindrop as it falls’) and local watershed development. These are also part of the supply-side answers to the demand. Fortunately, many successful examples of such initiatives are available. If these examples could be replicated wherever feasible - in forms that are appropriate to each location, and with due regard to the hydrological aspects - they could be far more significant components in national water planning than we can now imagine.

It is not being argued that large `WRD’ projects should be ruled out; the intention is merely to stress the need for caution in undertaking them: the proposition is that we should be wary of them and choose them only if they emerge (after a consideration of all possibilities and after a stringent scrutiny) as the unique possibility or the best option in a given case. 

“Water Infrastructure”
A related term is `water infrastructure’. In itself, it is an innocuous term, and could include even small local check-dams and contour trenches, but it is generally used (particularly in World Bank documents) in the sense of large structures. The implicit stress is on project construction, and on supply-side solutions. In that sense it is akin to `Water Resource Development’.

`Paradox of Flood and Drought’ 
This is a formulation often heard in India. The topography of the land and the pattern of rainfall result in the incidence of floods in some places and droughts in other areas, and sometimes they can occur (in different areas of course) at the same time. There is neither `paradox’ nor `irony’ here: these are merely facts of geography that govern our lives. Area-specific ways of coping with these features of nature that impinge on our lives have to be, and can be, worked out. This is where the challenge lies. Unfortunately, the wrong perception of a paradox or irony here leads to the wrong answer: the `inter-linking of rivers’ to divert flood-waters to arid areas. 

`Inter-Linking of Rivers’
A detailed critique of the Government of India’s ambitious river-linking project cannot be attempted here . Each such `link’ proposal must of course be examined carefully to establish need, feasibility, techno-economic viability, acceptability from environmental and human points of view, and so on, and some may be found worthy of approval. The objection is to a general theoretical conceptualization of river-linking. The fallacy involved in is particularly evident in the expression `national water-grid’ on the misleading analogy of a power-grid or a highways-grid. In a power-grid or a highway-link, the movement can be in both directions, but that is not the case with a river-link; water will flow only in one direction. Apart from that, highways and power lines are human creations and can be manipulated by humans. Rivers are not human artefacts; they are natural phenomena, integral components of ecological systems, and inextricable parts of the cultural, social, economic, spiritual lives of the communities concerned. They are not pipelines to be cut, turned around, welded and rejoined. (Even from a purely `scientific’ point of view, it is necessary to comprehend the special attributes of the earth and biological systems. `Science’ here should mean earth science, not water engineering.)

`Flood Control’
The initial response to flood damage was to try to `control’ floods through structural means such as dams or embankments. It was found through experience these efforts were ineffective or even harmful. Without going into the matter in detail it can be said that while dams may moderate flood flows to a limited extent under normal conditions (provided they are planned and operated for that purpose among others), they may aggravate the position if (in the absence of a flood cushion) water has to be suddenly released in the interest of the safety of structures. As for embankments, there is serious doubt about their efficacy as flood-control measures. They have often proved a remedy worse than the disease. It is increasingly recognized that what we must learn to do is not so much to `control’ floods as to cope with them when they occur and minimize damage, partly through `flood-plain zoning’ (i.e., regulation of settlement and activity in the natural flood plains of rivers) and partly through `disaster-preparedness’. However, the notion of `flood control’ continues to hold some sway over people’s minds. (This is no doubt part of the approach of controlling or subduing nature.) 

The word `integrated’ is often used, but rarely in all the senses outlined above. `Integrated planning’ often means no more than planning a cluster of large projects. A truly integrated, holistic planning would mean inter-disciplinary planning, with a consciousness of the hydrological cycle, guided by earth science, marrying land-use and water-use, harmonizing diverse water uses on the demand side and integrating all development’ from local rainwater-harvesting and micro watershed development to mega’ projects (and surface water and groundwater) on the supply side, while at the same time fully integrating environmental, ecological, human, inter-generational, social, & water-quality concerns, and fully associating the people concerned (`stakeholders’) at all stages. That kind of `integration’ is not often seen.

`Basin Planning’
There is much advocacy of `basin planning’. This arises from a recognition of the limitations and dangers of isolated project planning. Discrete project planning is undoubtedly inferior to project-planning within a larger framework. However, this is still a limited vision for two reasons. 

The first is that while widening our vision from a point on the river to the river as a whole we are still thinking only of the river, and not of the ecological system of which it is a part – by which it is sustained and which it in turn sustains. Moreover, a river-basin approach does not ipso facto take groundwater aquifers into account; and basin boundaries and aquifer boundaries may not necessarily coincide. 

Secondly, as the discrete and fragmented planning of projects is unsatisfactory we wish to plan in a larger context, but we are still thinking in terms of projects. The engineer wants to build better and larger projects. When he thinks of the basin as a whole, he thinks in terms of what from an engineering or economic point of view might seem `optimal’ locations. For instance, techno-economic optimality might suggest the concentration of agriculture in one part of the basin, industry in another, power generation in a third, and so on. There could be some merit in such an approach, but it is essentially a centralizing tendency. That tendency is reinforced by the addition of the adjective `integrated’.

Thus, the idea of `integrated basin planning and management’, which prima facie seems eminently sound, contains within itself the seeds of centralization and gigantism. That may not be a necessary consequence of the idea, but we need to be aware of and on our guard against such tendencies. (Institutional and organizational safeguards against centralization can of course be built.)

If by `sustainability’ we mean the long-term maintenance of an ecological balance and thus the survival of planet earth and with it humanity; if we approach this in a positive spirit of fostering a harmonious relationship with nature rather than merely limiting the harm that we do; if we think of rivers as deities to be worshipped and not as horses to be harnessed and ridden; if we think of them not as separate entities but as integral parts of larger ecological systems; then our planning might take different forms from the conventional. On the one hand we might look at a larger framework than a river basin, and on the other, we might focus on smaller land-and-water complexes such as micro-watersheds as well as the enormous possibilities of local rainwater-harvesting. We would also learn to think not merely of human need but also of the needs and rights of other species and forms of life - birds, animals, aquatic life, vegetation, indeed the river itself. We could still plan `projects’ but with reference to a much wider and more complex framework; there could still be room and need for river-basin commissions or authorities but they will cooperate and live with the river, not `manage’ or `harness’ it. 

Subject to that caution, it is certainly necessary to take a comprehensive view of a river system as a whole. The initiatives that are taken at the micro-watershed level have eventually to be built into a harmonious, holistic, integrated basin-wide (or sub-basin-wide) total picture. Contrariwise, a broad basin-wide master plan can provide pointers to local initiatives.

Regional Planning, Cooperation
From the idea of basin planning it is easy to proceed to that of regional planning or regional cooperation, particularly as many rivers run through or along several countries. There also strong and persuasive political and economic reasons for regional cooperation . However, such cooperation need not be identified (as is often the case) with a clutch of big projects or confined to the sphere of governments. Such efforts may be necessary and important, but there are many other possibilities and compulsions of cooperation. The protection of water sources (rivers, lakes, mountains, forests, aquifers) from pollution, degradation or denudation; the preservation and regeneration of deteriorating wetlands (e.g., the Sunderbans in the India-Bangladesh context); improving and maintaining water quality; dealing with common problems such as drainage in the Indus basin in both India and Pakistan, or the occurrence of arsenic in aquifers in both India and Bangladesh; coping with floods and minimizing damage; sharing experiences in local water-harvesting and watershed development and in the related social mobilization and transformation: these are among the areas in which inter-country cooperation will be very fruitful, and in some instances very necessary. Such cooperation can be at the level of governments, NGOs, academic institutions or `think tanks’, or `people-to-people’.

`Water Security’
`Water security’ has been the subject of many seminars and conferences in recent years. This writer has some reservations about the growing tendency to stretch the term `security’ to cover an ever-widening range of concerns, and to bring practically every concern that any of us might feel about anything under the rubric of `security’. However, one cannot hope to change current usage; people do tend to speak of `food security’, `water security’, `environmental security’, and so on. Confining ourselves to water, what can `security’ mean in this context? It means essentially a concern about adequacy, availability, reliability and quality of supplies. These matters can be discussed without bringing in the language of `security’. 

`Water security’ concerns are offered as the justification for the undertaking of large WRD projects, but if we forget for a moment the questionable calculus of supply and demand and look at `security’ from the point of view of protecting the ecological system and planet earth, we must consider the possibility that by building a series of large WRD projects we may not be ensuring security but endangering it. That leads us to environmental concerns. The subject is discussed in the next three paragraphs . 

`Environmental Flows’, Water for Nature’, Minimum Flows’
These expressions are reflections of wrong ways of thinking. `Environmental flows’ and `water for nature’ carry the implication that in allocating water for various purposes, an allocation must be made for `environmental’ purposes or for `nature’. This is to turn things upside down. We receive water from nature as a bounty; we cannot presume to allocate water to nature. Water itself is a part of nature, and sound ecological balance will determine the continued availability of water. Ecology, then, is anterior to all water-uses, and it is absurd to make an allocation of water for ecology. Ecological considerations may impose restraints on the various uses of water, and on the draft that we make on nature: ecology itself cannot be treated as being among the competing recipients of allocations of water. Instead, ecological imperatives must guide our water-use.

As for the idea of a `minimum flow’ in streams, this is welcome in so far as some flow is better than no flow (i.e., total abstraction leaving a dry bed). However, there is a danger here. To those who regard water flowing in the stream as `wasted’ and only water abstracted as `used’, the idea of a `minimum flow’ may carry the sanction for the obverse, i.e., `maximum abstraction’. It will be disastrous if the concept is understood to mean that heavy diversions or abstractions are all right so long as a `minimum’ is left in the river. We ought to be concerned, not with the minimum that should be grudgingly allowed to flow, but with what is needed for maintaining the integrity of the river regime. What needs to be minimized is the interference with the natural regime.

`Use’ and `Waste’
In this context, we must take note of the common tendency to regard river water as `used’ only when it is taken out of the river, and to think of water flowing past in a river or stream, and particularly water flowing into the sea, as `wasted’. Flowing water, including what flows into the sea, serves important purposes and is therefore `used’ and not `wasted’ water. Adapting Milton’s words , we can say “Water also serves when it only flows”.

The argument that the environmental and human consequences and impacts of developmental planning can be taken care of through Environmental Impact Assessments and Cost-Benefit Analyses is, as pointed out earlier, open to serious doubt. (Incidentally, environmental / ecological / social consequences need to be taken note of not merely in relation to large WRD projects, but also in relation to ground water -exploitation and even in the context of rainwater-harvesting.)

Stakeholder Consultation, Participation 
These have become fashionable terms and are frequently used sanctimoniously, but what do they mean? 

`Participation’ can vary from the full involvement of the people from the earliest stages of planning (putting people at the centre) to the mere formality of asking for comments on a plan, programme or project prepared entirely within the governmental machinery, with no serious intentions of making any significant changes. 

As for the term `stakeholder’ it is a flawed word that has great potential for misuse. First, it is a notion drawn by analogy from prospecting for oil or minerals and carries a connotation of an individualistic claim with an underlying implication of contestation. Secondly, it is an ethically neutral concept that lumps together every person or party having any kind of connection or concern with the project. Not only those who are likely to be adversely affected by the project or expect to enjoy the benefits that it will bring, but a wide range of others who are concerned with it in one form or another come within the ambit of the term. Thus, politicians, bureaucrats, engineers, donor agencies, consultants and contractors are all `stakeholders’. The interests and concerns of these diverse categories may not in all cases be benign and legitimate, and some may have a more vital `stake’ than others, but the term `stakeholder’ makes no distinctions: it legitimizes and levels all kinds of `stakeholding’. Everyone is a stakeholder, and the primacy of those whose lands and habitats are taken away and who suffer a traumatic uprooting is not recognized by the term. 

Even taking only two categories (in relation to a `water resource development’ project), namely, project-affected people and prospective beneficiaries, the vital difference between the two tends to get blurred by the bland assimilating term `stakeholders’. There is a cruel irony in describing the involuntary and helpless victims of a project as `stakeholders’, and this is compounded when they are put on the same footing as those who stand to benefit from the project. Let us not forget that while in the case of the former existing rights (i.e., natural and often centuries-old rights of access and livelihoods) are taken away, in the case of the latter the project, by diverting river waters through canals, confers new rights not earlier enjoyed. The former are stake-losers, whereas the latter are stake-gainers. While it is fashionable to refer to project-affected persons as `partners in development’, that sanctimonious formulation bears little resemblance to reality. Efforts to involve them in decision-making and to give them their rightful share in the benefits of the projects that impose hardships on them have either not been seriously pursued or been unsuccessful. 


Water Policies of Governments
Both the World Bank and GWP often ask governments to adopt national water policies. These are undoubtedly important. However, there are other agencies and instruments of equal importance. In relation to water, which must be regarded (primarily, or at any rate, importantly) as a Common Pool Resource, the community or `civil society’ has an important role to play – as important as that of the government. National water policies need to recognize and incorporate this. By the same token, non-statutory law, i.e., customary law (the cluster of traditions and conventions that have acquired a normative force and have social sanctions attached) is as important as statutory law or government policy. The latter needs to take note of and incorporate the former, and where the two do not converge, an effort at harmonization is necessary.


Private Sector Participation
The advocacy of `privatization’ in relation to water is part of the prevailing economic philosophy. In the case of consumer or industrial goods – say, soap, steel, fertilizer, machinery – the argument is that it is not the business of the state to produce or market these things, that they should be left to the play of market forces (subject to regulation), and that if there are state-owned enterprises producing these things they should be `privatized’, i.e., their ownership should be transferred to private hands. By analogy, the same argument is extended to water. However, there are some difficulties with that analogy.

First, in the case of consumer or industrial goods, if the price is too high, or if the supply fails for commercial reasons, we can at a pinch do without them or look for substitutes; we cannot do without water and there are no substitutes for it. We cannot reduce our intake of water (for drinking, cooking and washing) below a certain level. The supply cannot be allowed to fail. And rationing by price has only a partial application to water because the pricing out of any individuals or groups is unacceptable. While the pricing of water has to be generally based on certain obvious considerations (viz., it must sustain the supply, discourage wasteful use and promote economy and conservation), no one should be denied this basic need merely because he or she cannot afford the price. How are we to resolve this conundrum? It is clear that the analogy with consumer and industrial goods is imperfect. 

Secondly, soap or steel or fertilizer can indeed be wholly left to the market; there is no obligation on the part of the state to provide these commodities, though it may have to regulate the market. However, if water is a basic need and therefore a basic right, the state does have a responsibility to ensure that no one is denied it. Even if the supply is entrusted to a private agency, the responsibility of the state does not disappear: in the event of a failure on the part of the private agency, the responsibility will revert to the state.

Thirdly, water is a vital and scarce natural resource of the community and the country, and a finite resource. It has to be protected from pollution, contamination and depletion, and conserved for future generations. 

It follows that the privatization argument cannot forthwith be transferred from consumer or industrial goods to water. Keeping that in mind, let us consider what privatization can mean in relation to water. 

It can mean the transfer of the water supply function in a rural or urban area from the local municipality or corporation or other agency of the state to a private agency. The state can earmark a certain quantum of water from a specified source and ask a private party to distribute it in a certain area. The private body is then an agent or a contractor or a licensee or a concessionaire. It may invest in purification systems, storages, pipelines, pumping systems, quality control, etc, collect charges from the consumers for the service, and pay certain charges to the state. What this means is that a service that was being performed by a state agency will in future be performed by a private agency. (Under those circumstances the question of `ownership’ of water, i.e., whether the state earlier owned the water and whether that ownership stands transferred to the private agency, need not arise.) 

Alternatively, privatization can mean the entrustment of a `water resource development’ (WRD) project to a private body, or the authorization of such a body to undertake a WRD project, i.e., build dams, reservoirs, canal systems, etc, on a river, or install plant and equipment for the extraction of water from a river or river-bed or lake or aquifer. This may involve serious questions of control over natural resources, resource-conservation and sustainability, equity and social justice, and so on. 

A simplistic proposition might be to say that the privatization of a service is acceptable subject to regulation, but that we must be wary of privatizing the resource itself. However, such a distinction is difficult to maintain. The privatization of the water supply service may sooner or later lead to the transfer of control over the resource. A private agency is unlikely to undertake the responsibility for water supply to a certain area without some degree of control over the source of supply (a stretch of the river or a lake or an aquifer or whatever). Even if it is not formally given the ownership of the water source, the transfer of control structures (a dam or a barrage or a bore well or a pumping station) to it (or the building of such structures) gives it a position of power which cannot easily be undone, and which can have serious implications. 

There are difficulties even with the privatization of a water supply service. In the first place, there may be competitive bidding for the selection of a party, but the selected party, once it is in place and in control of systems, assets and structures, acquires a virtually monopolistic position and (as mentioned above) a power that is not easily `regulated’ by regulatory authorities, if any. Secondly, the prime motive – the raison d’etre - of the private corporate sector is profit. The `accountability’ of the management is primarily to the shareholder, not to the customer or to the community. If considerations of profitability come into conflict with other considerations, profitability will prevail . How can such an approach be brought into the sphere of a basic life-support resource? Can profitability really be allowed to prevail over `other considerations’, when these include the protection and conservation of the resource, ecological sustainability, assurance of basic need, social justice and equity? Can these considerations be adequately taken care of through regulation? 

These difficulties get compounded when privatization goes beyond the provision of a service. The doctrinaire call for `privatization’ includes allowing the corporate private sector to build and operate dams across rivers for hydro-electric power and/or for irrigation. Assuming that the private sector is interested in investing in such capital - intensive, long-gestation, modest-return projects, how are the environmental and social impacts (which have presented serious difficulties to the state in past projects) going to be handled by the private entrepreneur and manager? Supply may match demand but resource conservation may receive scant consideration; resettlement and rehabilitation aspects are likely to be given grudging attention only to the extent that resistance by those affected and public opinion compel such attention; and it is naïve to imagine that market forces will obviate conflicts or provide a magical route to their resolution. (That does not mean that one is arguing for a dominant role for the state; but merely that the alternative to the state is not necessarily the corporate sector.)

One important question that will need consideration in this context is whether allowing the domestic private sector to exploit national natural resources, particularly water, will make it difficult to deny a similar right to foreign investors in terms of the WTO regime and the principle of `national treatment’ of foreign investors, and if so, whether there is a danger of countries (particularly the smaller and weaker ones) losing control over their own natural resources. Some fear this, while others regard the fear as exaggerated. This needs to be gone into carefully. 

Water Markets
That leads us to the question of water markets. It would be unrealistic to rule out water markets on theoretical grounds. In any case, they already exist and are unlikely to disappear. Many would say that we need more of them, not less, and that the future lies in that direction. The question has to be discussed in relation to both surface water and groundwater. 

However, we must first take note of two basic pre-requisites without which there cannot be markets: there has to be a tradable commodity, and that commodity has to be owned by someone. Is water a commodity? We have to answer that question with a `Yes and No’: water used in agriculture or industry is a commodity and water as a basic life-support means is not ; and the latter aspect of water is the primary one and must prevail over the former. Thus, the first pre-requisite for a market, namely the existence of a tradable commodity, is present only in a highly qualified sense. The second, namely, ownership, is even more problematic. 

The advocates of water markets recommend: “Define property rights and allow trading”, and they may add: “Other countries have done so”. The state in India does accord or recognize land titles and titles (pattas) to trees. Can it similarly define property rights in respect of water? 

Consider domestic water supply first. We may say that the citizen (or the household) has a right in this regard, but what kind of a right is it? Can the individual or the household be allowed to sell that right to someone else? If the right to water (for drinking, cooking and washing) is a part of the right to life , how can it be regarded as a property right and made tradable? That objection seems unanswerable. 

Are the water rights of a farmer for irrigation, or those of an industry for industrial uses, property rights, and can they be made tradable? (We may ignore cases of purely contractual rights, such as those where a farmer or an industrial unit buys water from a private source, and confine ourselves to the context of surface water and public systems.) The water needs of a farmer for irrigation purposes may be determined with reference to the area of land in question or the crops to be grown or a combination of the two factors. In a situation of scarcity limited quantities of water may be arbitrarily allocated by the state or other agency (e.g., water users’ association, if any) responsible for providing irrigation water. The important point is that the water is provided for irrigation. Similarly, an industrial unit gets an allocation of water from a state or municipal agency for certain uses (process, steam-generation, cooling, and so on). In both these cases, the entitlement to water is essentially linked to use. These `water rights’, if we wish to use that language, are use rights. They may be customary rights, rights of long standing, contractual rights or statutory rights, but they are (to repeat the point) use rights. How then can they be made into `tradable property rights’ as is often advocated? How can any individual or group or institution or corporate body be given a right to water unrelated to use? If the use ceases, the entitlement should surely cease. 

Temporarily, a possibility of trading in water may arise. A farmer may for certain reasons decide not to cultivate his or her land for a year or two, or may temporarily change to crops demanding less water. He or she may then have surplus water for sale during that period. An industrial house may decide to suspend operations for a certain period for various reasons, and may have water to spare. However, these are temporary situations. If the industry closes down for good, or if the farmer makes a long-term change to crops that need much less water, or decides to move out of agriculture altogether, should the old water entitlements still hold and be allowed to be traded in? 

That line of argument seems to lead to the conclusion that the prescription “define water rights and allow trading” is untenable and cannot be followed. And yet, this has been done in certain countries. Farmers have been allowed to sell their water to industries or for urban water supply. States (having a `surplus’ of water) in a federal structure have been allowed to sell water to other States (which are short of water). Both those examples are taken from the United States of America. It is sometimes argued that water markets are the answer to conflicts over water, whether between uses (e.g., agriculture and industry) or between administrative or political units (e.g., States or provinces). This is a dangerous and pernicious principle, and the mere fact that it seems to have worked in some instances in certain countries should not blind us to the dangers. 

As already pointed out, farmers or industries may have temporary surpluses to spare, but a permanent surplus should entail a loss of the water right and a reallocation of it by the state or the community. As for water-sharing by States in a federal structure or by countries, the general principle has been that the lower riparian has certain rights and the upper riparian a certain obligation towards the lower riparian. To say that the upper riparian can sell water to the lower riparian would be to negate that well-established principle or stand it on its head. Apart from the denial of the rights of the lower riparian, it would introduce a commercial motivation into the thinking of the upper riparian and might lead to an unsustainable exploitation of the resource. (That applies also to the sale of water by farmers to industry or by rural communities to urban areas. This too may lead to an over-exploitation of the resource for commercial reasons.) Further, the upper riparian province or State or country can sell water to the lower riparian only by acquiring control over the waters through structures: in other words, the upper riparian will first stop the water from flowing to the lower riparian, and then sell the water so blocked to the lower riparian. The preposterousness of the proposition is obvious and does not need to be laboured. Upper and lower riparians (or riparians and non-riparians) must share waters (where necessary) through the routes of agreement, treaty, conciliation, mediation, arbitration or adjudication, and not by a sale-and-purchase contract. 

The supply of water by private tankers in urban areas and the burgeoning bottled-water trade are also instances of water markets. These ought not to be necessary at all. They become necessary and possible only because of the failure of public systems in terms of the duration, regularity and dependability of supply and the quality of the water provided. If the public system provided an adequate, reliable and safe supply, the demand for tankers or for bottled water may disappear. Apart from that, these supplies (and the soft drinks business) have necessarily to draw raw water from somewhere, and that draft may be an unsustainable or inequitable one. The instances of the borewells of the Cocal Cola company reportedly depriving an entire area in Kerala of its water, and of the Chattisgarh State handing over a 20-km stretch of a river to a private concessionaire for water supply, are well-known. In both these cases, there has been a public outcry, and the stories are as yet unfinished. 

Water markets tend to emerge particularly in the context of groundwater extraction through tube wells and bore wells, and they serve some useful purposes. They make possible the practice of irrigated agriculture by the poorer or less affluent farmers through the purchase of water from those who can afford to invest in tube wells or bore wells. However, there are dangers of unsustainable extraction as also of inequitable relationships between sellers and buyers. Under Indian law, only those owning land can have rights over groundwater; the landless (including communities, tribal and other, who may have been using certain natural resources for centuries) can have no such rights. Further, this legal position leads to inequities of various kinds: a rich farmer can install power-driven tube wells or bore wells in his land and their operation can make dug wells in the neighborhood run dry; he (she) can sell water so extracted to his poorer neighbors even though the water may come from a common aquifer running under their lands; and he (she) can deplete the aquifer through excessive exploitation. 

Thus, the idea of water markets presents us with the following problem:  in the domestic context, how to allow limited and regulated water markets to function without inequity and injustice, and without danger to the resource; and  in the international sphere, how to protect the rights of the poorer and weaker countries over their own natural resources from predatory corporate giants. 

`Virtual Water Trade’
In the context of water markets, we must also take note of another term that has come into use, namely `virtual water trade’. A water-abundant country can grow and export things such as rice or wheat or fruit and vegetables needing much water to produce, and a water-deficient country can import them. This is taken as equivalent to exporting / importing water. It is argued that developing countries that face growing pressure on their water resources need not use their water to grow such water-demanding produce, but could import their requirements from water-rich countries (thus virtually importing water). However, many would argue that a distinction needs to be drawn here between imports of essential food and imports of other things such as fruits and vegetables; that a vulnerable dependence on food imports is not desirable; and that a measure of self-reliance in this regard is necessary. It seems to this writer that there is much force in that argument, and that the concept of `virtual water trade’ is an obfuscation.

Every import or export can be re-described as something else. Exports of rice and wheat can be treated as exports of water (among other things); exports of aluminum can be regarded as exports of electric power; exports of iron and steel originate in iron ore and can be regarded as exports of the soil of the country; and so on. This can serve the purpose of drawing our attention to the implications of certain kinds of trade. For instance, a water-stressed country or area within a country can be cautioned against producing, say, paddy for markets outside its borders. However, in international conferences and forums the concept of virtual water trade tends often to be used as one more means of persuasion directed at developing countries, extolling the virtues of markets and imports as against domestic production. We need to be wary of this insidious theory. 

`Common Pool Resource’, Community Management
At the opposite pole from privatization and markets is the view that water is `commons’ or a common pool resource (CPR) to be managed by the community. That is an attractive and persuasive view, but there are difficulties here too, and they must be noted. First, the notion of `commons’ (as distinguished from private ownership) is of easy application in the context of a small lake or pond or tank or other water body on common land; we can think of it as owned by the community. With larger water bodies and with streams and rivers difficulties begin to arise in the form of `upstream versus downstream’ issues, riparian rights, and so on. However, we can still argue that the water-source belongs to the community as a whole, or to `civil society’, and that the conflicts that arise can be resolved within that overall framework (though that benign formulation comes under stress when rivers cross national boundaries or even political divisions within a country). The notion of commons also runs into difficulties in the context of urban water supply systems (where an agency, whether public or private, supplies water to the citizens by a network of pipelines from its storages), or in that of the supply of irrigation water through canals from large reservoirs, whether state-owned or privately owned. 

However, the notion of commons has a value even in such contexts; what we are trying to do is to deny the private or state ownership of water and to vest that ownership in `civil society’. Even civil society, however, cannot be said to own water; it would be better to talk about management by civil society. An alternative or complementary view might be to regard the state as holding water and other natural resources in trust for the community and for future generations.

It must be noted that there need be or should be no confrontation between the state and civil society. Both have their roles to play, and what is needed is a constructive, cooperative relationship between the two.

Water-Harvesting, Watershed Development
There is now a widely held view that local rainwater-harvesting and community-led watershed-development should be extensively undertaken, and this writer supports that proposition, and believes that this approach holds much promise for the future. However, (leaving aside the institutional aspects, which are important), what will be the hydrological consequences of extensive rainwat