The politics of water.

• Author: Krishnamurthy, Chandra Kiran B.
• Position: The Politics of Water Resource Development in India: The Narmada Dams Controversy - Book review

The Politics of Water Resource Development in India: The Narmada Dams Controversy

John R. Wood

(New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2007), 284 pages.

This wide-ranging, detailed and analytical book attempts to embed an analysis of the controversy over the systems of dams on the Narmada River into a narrative of the politics of water infrastructure development in India. In doing so, the book views the Narmada Dams controversy through the lens of the politics of water resources development. The book manages to successfully address these two overlapping and involved topics through the use of the narrative style. The outcome--however tedious at times due to excessive detail--is ultimately compelling. However, the work lacks analytical depth, as the analytical portions are neither coherent nor comprehensive. While the necessary analytical framework is developed early on, it is never elaborated upon and is not utilized to answer the book's central questions.

The book's central questions revolve around the context and genesis of the dispute over the projects on the Narmada River, the politicization of the dispute and the principal actors involved in the dispute. The role of institutions governing federal-state interactions pertaining to water issues are also analyzed in detail.

The first three chapters, which are organized thematically, provide the necessary background and context for the issue at hand. In contrast, events in later chapters are recounted chronologically, with discussions of the causes and contexts provided for each significant event.

An understanding of the nature and evolution of the Narmada dispute requires some background on three distinct and interrelated political issues: water development policy in newly independent India and its historical context, the evolution of center-state relations and seemingly extraneous government policies. For instance, the Department of Environment and the Forest Conservation Act in 1980 both had significant impacts on water issues in India.

With the aim of elucidating the roles of the three political issues mentioned above, the early chapters investigate the political-legal background and the evolution of the dispute. Chapter Three provides an overview of the various policy and political elements involved in decisionmaking on water policy, including the level at which water-related infrastructure decisions are made and implemented. Case studies of specific projects on various interstate rivers are used to buttress the argument that such projects have either begun by being political or have become political as the result of water scarcity or with changes in the political landscape.

Chapter Four then goes into detail on the genesis of the Narmada projects, focusing specifically on the height of the terminal dam of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), the source of much of the controversy. (1) This discussion includes details on the causes for an increase in the scope and size of the various dams proposed, the increasing ambition of the planners and the historical context for these--recurring drought and...