India's Water Wars

Muradnagar, Aug. 22: Armed with axes, hammers and sticks, thousands of farmers converged on this township in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to prevent construction of the proposed water pipeline being laid to fetch additional waters from the river Ganges to the New Delhi-situated treatment plant operated by a subsidiary of water giant Suez Lyonnaise. Construction was put to a halt.

Plachimara, Aug. 4: On the 105th day of agitation, protestors attempted to force their way into a Coca-Cola factory in this South Indian state of Kerala with intent to destroying property. One hundred and thirty villagers were arrested in the ensuing police crackdown.

Kudus, September: Women’s groups converged at this obscure hamlet in the Western Indian state of Maharashtra to call for a nation-wide campaign against the deprivation of precious water supplies to local communities by multinational corporations such as Coca-Cola.

Bhuvaneshwar, September: The people’s struggles against the privatization of essential services (including water and electricity) assumed a more focused approach at a meeting of participating non-governmental organizations at the capital of the federal state of Orissa. A roadmap of a sustained struggle against international funding agencies (including the World Bank and the UK's Department for International Development) was released at the conference.

If the above gives the impression that water-related struggles are erupting today in India, the thought is not wildly off the mark.

India, with 16 percent of the world’s population, 2.45 percent of the land mass and four percent of the world’s water resources, already has a grave water crisis. In 15 federal states, the underground water levels have been falling at rates ranging between five and seven percent, and some are expected to run dry as early as 2015 because of exploitation and misuse. Twelve major rivers in the country are designated as polluted (with untreated industrial and domestic waste and pesticide/fertilizer run off from farms), and hydrological experts say that there are no more freshwater sources to be found anywhere in India.

Corporations have estimated that the total global water market is U.S.$500 billion. The emerging water market in India is estimated to be over U.S.$2 billion (one-third for water provisioning, one-third for municipal water treatment and one-third for industrial water treatment).

In India, the market for business in pollution control equipment (currently about U.S.$8 billion annually) is estimated to be growing around 10-12 percent yearly and is anticipated to grow to approximately U.S.$13-14 billion by the year 2005. The bottled industry market is growing at a whopping rate of 55 percent annually and is expected to cross the 1000 crore rupee mark (over U.S.$200 million) within the next two years.

Two years ago, when 62-year-old Kesri Singh, a former advocate of India’s Supreme Court, decided to come out of retirement to launch the Dehat Morcha (a forum to fight water privatization), a great deal had happened: global water giants (Vivendi, Swez Lyonnaise and Saur of France; RWE/Thames Water of Germany and the UK; Bechtel of the UK and Enron from the U.S.) had established a firm presence in the country and were negotiating agreements facilitating privatization of water utilities in 20 cities spread over several federal states. Community struggles had also been gathering momentum against Coca-Cola and its bottling plants, and passions were running high against policies that permitted global corporations to rake in profits, while the common people were robbed of the sacred and natural resource of water.

Kesri Singh hoped to prevent the federal government from going through with its plans to construct a pipeline through the Western Uttar Pradesh region (for fetching additional waters to a transmission plant at New Delhi managed by the French company Ondeo Degramont).