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ABSTRACT
Processes of urbanisation create peri-urban spaces that are socially and institutionally fluid. In this article, we analyse how contestations and competition over declining water resources in peri-urban Kathmandu Valley in Nepal reshape water use, access and rights as well as user communities themselves, by creating and reproducing new and existing exclusions and solidarities. Traditional caste-based discriminatory practices, prohibiting Dalits from physically accessing water from sources used by higher castes, are said to be no longer practiced in Nepal. However, our findings show that, exclusion persists for Dalits even though the characteristics of exclusion have changed. In situations of competing water claims in the research location, Dalit households, unlike higher-caste groups, are unable to exercise prior-use water rights. Their water insecurity is compounded by their relative inability to mobilise political, social and economic resources to claim and access new water services and institutions. By juxtaposing the hydro-social and social exclusion analytical frameworks, we demonstrate how exclusions as well as interpretations and experiences of water (in)security are reified in post-Maoist, supposedly inclusive Nepal.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Caste is an elaborate traditional system of social stratification that combines elements of occupation, endogamy, culture, social class, tribe affiliation and political power. Each caste is further divided into sub-castes, which are often used as surnames (for Dalit castes, sub-castes, surnames and traditional occupations, see Bhattachan, Sunar, and Bhattachan Citation2009, 48–49).
3 Varna is the basic stratification of the caste system, which divides society into four layers: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Sudras. According to Pariyar and Lovett (Citation2016, 135), ‘tasks assigned to the Dalits are considered to be too ritually polluting to merit inclusion within the traditional Varna system and so the Dalits experience social exclusion’.
4 Prior to restructuring of the local government units in 2017, the Village Development Committee was the lowest local government unit, and was administratively divided into nine wards.
5 Claims for rights to use and make decisions related to a water source on the basis of historically being the prior user(s) of it.
6 It hierarchically organised Nepali caste groups into four broad categories: (1) Tagadhari (wearers of sacred thread); (2) Matwali (liquor consuming castes); (3) Pani nachalne choi chito halnu naparne (impure but touchable castes); (4) Pani nacalne choi chito halnu parne (untouchable castes). The fourth are referred to as Dalits or untouchables (with heterogeneity and hierarchy within the group) in present Nepali society (Dahal et al. Citation2002).
7 Nepal has a long history of feudal land governance. Although land reform began in the early 1950s and remains a repeated political commitment, for lack of political will there has not been any real change so far. Compounded by a discriminatory and strictly hierarchical society, landlessness among Dalits has historically been, and remains, far above the average of Nepal (see Wickeri Citation2011; Khanal, Gelpke, and Pyakurel Citation2012).
8 After two rounds of Jana Andolan (people’s movement), in 1990 and 1996-2006.
9 This includes several hamlets, including one of 16 Dalit households. Uphill villagers commonly refer to the area as Dandathok, one of the hamlets.
10 Dandathok belongs to the Padali Community Forest User Group (CFUG). Raksidol spring now lies in Padali CFUG after GPS-based boundary delineation in 2016.
11 Among Dalits, the titles (surnames) correspond to their traditional occupations, e.g. Sunar (goldsmiths), Tamta (coppersmiths), and Sarkis (shoemakers). There are many sub-clans and sub-castes, so a social hierarchy exists amongst the Dalits themselves, even though they are all considered untouchable and impure (Dahal et al. Citation2002; Bhattachan, Sunar, and Bhattachan Citation2009).
12 An expensive private school with a secondary branch is in Sisneri since the late-1990s. The school management provided financial support to the school managed by Patle CFUG Committee and gained access to its water.
13 Interview, December 23, 2017.
14 Alcoholism was common among Tehrabise elders.
15 Tole refers to a small settlement within a hamlet.
16 No other community-managed drinking water supply in Lamatar has been formally registered.
17 Interview, April 5, 2016.
18 Interview, September 23, 2016.
19 Interview, April 7, 2016.
20 Interview, January 22, 2017.
21 Interview, January 18, 2016.
22 It worked in wards 1, 7 and 9 of Lamatar in two phases (2008-2011; 2011-2013). The first phase focused on improving drinking water supply in Dandathok.
23 The 1-inch main pipeline was replaced by a larger (1.5-inches diameter) pipe.
24 Note that there are 32 taps in Dandathok.
25 Interview, April 5, 2016.
26 Interview, April 7, 2016.
27 Interview, April 7, 2016.
28 They recall their water supply pipes were broken due to water pressure. RDWSS users also used this supply for construction of houses.
29 Interview, April 7, 2016.
30 December 2017.
31 Interview, August 28, 2016.
32 Interview, January 23, 2017.
33 He was in-migrating from USA and had bought over 0.6 hectare of land, earlier owned by non-dalits. The interview was with his brother, who took care of the property.
34 The rule under this informal resource governing practice is ‘right to water comes through right to forest’. Thus, to get the right to use water originating in Patle CF, in-migrants have to be a member of the Patle CFUG.
35 Most houses in Tehrabise were damaged by the 2015 earthquake.
36 Interview, September 10, 2017.
37 Interview, September 10, 2017.
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Notes on contributors
Anushiya Shrestha
Anushiya Shrestha is a PhD candidate at the Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, Netherlands. Her research interests include critical analysis of policies and practices around changing resources use and management, with a focus on peri-urban land and water issues.
Deepa Joshi
Deepa Joshi is Honorary Research Fellow at Coventry University, United Kingdom. A feminist political ecologist by training, her research has analysed shifts in environmental policies and how these restructure contextually complex intersections of gender, poverty, class, ethnicity and identity. Her interests lie in connecting gender and environmental discourse to local capacity building initiatives and advocating for policy-relevant change across developmental institutions. She has worked primarily in South Asia, and to a lesser extent in South East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Her published research presents ethnographic analyses of how inequality is reiterated and experienced across institutions and processes of policy-making, in policies per se and in implementing institutions at scale. Email: [email protected]
Dik Roth
Dik Roth is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Among his research interests are the anthropology of law and policy, legal plurality and complexity, property rights and justice, natural resources and resource conflicts, with a focus on land and water. His regional research focus is on South and Southeast Asia, and the Netherlands. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law. Email: [email protected]