Contextuality of the strategy of human right to water: Struggle for water access to slum-dwellers in Mumbai, India

AbstractThis article responds to the need, highlighted in the academic literature, for in-depth investigations into the role of contextual factors in shaping the struggles for water justice, deploying a strategy that relies on the normative appeal or legitimacy of the human right to water—called the HRW strategy. It demonstrates how specific contextual factors were crucial in influencing the course and outcome of a judicial intervention based on the HRW strategy deployed in the struggle for securing formal water connections to two million slum-dwellers in Mumbai. Although the court upheld the HRW of slum-dwellers and ordered the release of the water connections, the municipal administration promulgated a policy that effectively continued the denial of water access for most of these slum-dwellers. More specifically, the article discusses the strong influence of contextual factors on the initial decision to adopt the HRW strategy and judicial intervention, the success of the legal tactic deployed, and the favorable court order. The article relies mainly on the detailed analysis of formal policy and judicial documents and the data from multiround, semistructured, and extended interviews with 11 respondents who were activists, experts, municipal officials, or media persons. AcknowledgmentsI wish to acknowledge the ethics approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the University of California, Irvine, for interviews and fieldwork carried out in 2019.Notes1 I decided to use the terms “slum,” “slum-dwellings,” and “slum-dwellers” instead of my preference for fair and considerate terms such as “informal settlements” and “informal settlers” because of the widespread use of the former set of terms in the formal policy and legal documents and the everyday language in the city.2 The detailed break-up of these 64 respondents from the following five categories was (1) municipal officials including engineers (n = 12); (2) activists from water, housing, and other sectors (n = 16); (e) elected representatives and other participants in electoral politics (n = 14); (4) experts, academics, and researchers (n = 18); and (5) media (n = 4).3 Interviews with a senior water activist and water sector activist. In accordance with the Institutional Review Board guidelines of the University of California, Irvine, the anonymity of the interview subjects is maintained in this publication by using monikers designed to ensure their anonymity while identifying them.4 Interviews with senior urban sociologist and planning academic (both were involved in providing research support to PHS).5 Interviews with a senior water activist and water researcher-activist.6 Interviews with water researcher-activist and senior urban sociologist.7 Interview with a water researcher-activist.8 Interview with a water researcher-activist.9 Interviews with two water researcher-activists.10 Interview with a public policy academic.11 Interview with a water researcher-activist.12 These unprotected slum-dwellers were often referred to as “illegal squatters” in the legal and policy documents.13 Interview with senior water activist.14 Interviews with senior female media person and a senior urban sociologist.15 Interview with senior urban sociologist.16 Interview with water researcher-activist and planning academic.17 Senior water-activist and water researcher-activist clearly stated in their interviews that these two instruments were targeted. However, they did not elaborate on the underlying reasons.18 The detailed and nuanced elaboration and explanation of the legal tactic provided in this section did not come directly and entirely from the interviews with the activists or experts during the fieldwork. However, there were some indications to this effect. For example, one activist mentioned a high risk in challenging the Slum Act (of 1971) in the court, and, in a separate interview, one expert mentioned that there was no need to challenge the Slum Law. The connection explicated in this section between the two prongs of the legal tactic and the two critical features of the policy instruments came out of my analysis, aided by some clarifications provided by legal and public policy experts. The explanation discussed in this section were also cross-checked with these experts.19 Interviews with water researcher-activist, planning academic, senior municipal engineer, and junior municipal engineer.20 These findings were cross-checked with public policy academic and senior municipal engineer.21 Interview with public policy academic.22 Interview with public policy academic.23 Interview with housing sector activist.24 This issue of the limited legitimacy of HRW in the Indian system has been discussed in the literature. These perceived limitations on legitimacy come from three main sources. The first is the lack of legislative right, as no legislation in India explicitly grants HRW. Second, HRW has indirect constitutional legitimacy in India as courts derive the HRW from Article 21, which essentially guarantees the right to live. Third, there is a lack of a clear positive obligation on the state to honor HRW in India (Narain, Citation2009; Winkler, Citation2008).25 Interview with housing sector activist.26 Interview with senior municipal engineer.27 Interview with senior municipal engineer.28 Interviews with senior water activist and water sector activist.29 Interviews with senior water activist and water researcher-activist.Additional informationNotes on contributorsParoma WagleParoma Wagle is an Assistant Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning, in the School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Tech. This paper was written when Paroma was a Presidents’ Excellence Chair (PEC) Network Cultures Postdoctoral Fellow, jointly appointed in the Departments of Geography and English Language and Literatures at The University of British Columbia (UBC). Paroma’s research has been in the areas of urban planning and policy, urban geography, environmental planning and policy, environmental sustainability, urban climate justice, interacting human-environment systems, and inequalities in urban services especially in water access.