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REVIEW OF WOMEN’S STUDIES
april 30, 2011 vol xlvi no 18
EPW
Economic & Political Weekly
64
This paper is based on a study entitled “Water Rights as Women’s Rights:
Assessing the Scope for Women’s Empowerment through Decentralised
Water Governance in Maharashtra and Gujarat”. I acknowledge the
intellectual support of Sara Ahmed, Chhaya Datar and Sneha Bhat who
were part of this study. I also acknowledge the support of Navsharan
Singh from IDRC for fi nancially supporting the study.
Seema Kulkarni (seemakulkarni2@gmail.com) is with the Society for
Promoting Participatory Eco-system Management.
Women and Decentralised Water Governance:
Issues, Challenges and the Way Forward
Seema Kulkarni
Based on a study of water rights and women’s rights in
decentralised water governance in Maharashtra and
Gujarat, this paper argues that decentralisation will fail to
meet its desired objectives unless the value systems,
culture and the nature of institutions, including the
family, change. While the policy initiative of introducing
quotas for women in public bodies is welcome and
necessary, it is certainly not sufficient for the success of
decentralisation in a society ridden with discrimination
based on class, caste and patriarchy, and where the
culture of political patronage is dominant. The presence
of vibrant social and political movements that propose
alternative cultural, social and political paradigms
would be a necessary foundation for major social
changes. The success of decentralised water
governance is constrained by the conceptualisation of
the larger reform in water at one level and the notions of
the normative woman, community, public and the
private domains, and institutions at another. Unless all
of these are altered, decentralised processes will not
be truly democratic.
W
ater is a public good and as such should be available,
accessible and affordable to all the people in society.
To enable this outcome the nature of governance is
important. Appropriate decentralisation, giving powers to local
communities to manage their resources is an important avenue
for both equity and equality. However local communities are not
homogeneous. In a hierarchical society driven by caste, and class
discriminations, women suffer even more with the addition of
patriarchal impositions. This paper briefl y traces the trajectories
of decentralisation and the women’s movement to note how these
have impinged on local women and are taking initiatives to
manage water resources.
Decentralisation in India
Since the early 1990s an overwhelming number of countries
have been engaged in decentralisation of policy formulation
and implementation especially in many developing countries
in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The World Bank has marked
this as an important agenda for the 21st century as is evident
from its several reports in the last decade. In its report on
India (WB 2000), it mentions that most of its future bank assist-
ance in various sectors would be done keeping in mind the
existence of local governance. In different ways this discourse
on decentralisation has been shaping this country’s governance
language. Very broadly, decentralisation can be understood
as a transfer of administrative and political functions at the
local level.
Decentralisation has a diverse set of advocates. On the one
hand, are the free market advocates lobbying for decentralisation
of a kind where the State is required to minimise its interven-
tions. Thus a comfortable marriage emerged of local governance
(initiated by the 73rd and 74th amendment to the Constitution),
with the economic liberalisation unleashed in the 1990s. On the
other hand, we have the anti-market and anti-globalisation advo-
cates supporting this form mainly out of an optimism that these
spaces will allow people to take charge of their local contexts.
Decentralisation is seen as important because it has a potential to
bring transparency, accountability and equity in governance to
the people (Bardhan 2002).
Much of this initial enthusiasm which sought to cover decen-
tralised governance to many sectors, however seems to have now
waned and a time has come to ask more serious questions of
whether decentralised governance has really been able to address
the rising inequalities in society and if so to what extent. In India,
decentralisation in the post-independence era dates back to the
REVIEW OF WOMEN’S STUDIES
Economic & Political Weekly
EPW
april 30, 2011 vol xlvi no 18
65
early constitutional debates between Gandhi and Ambedkar in
1948 where the question of village versus individual as the pri-
mary unit was discussed. Gandhi had argued for village republics
(Harijan 1942 as cited in World Bank 2000: 18) and Ambedkar
had advocated individual rights over the village as an adminis-
trative unit. “What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of
ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism? I am glad
that the Draft Constitution has discarded the village and adopted
the individual as its unit” (Ambedkar in the constitutional
debates 1948, as cited in the World Bank 2000: 18).
Several committees were launched by post-independent Indian
governments to look into the possibilities of decentralisation.
The fi rst among these was the Balwantrai Committee in 1958,
followed by several others to look into different aspects of rural
decentralisation. Almost all the committees spoke about a lack of
political will, an interfering bureaucracy and elite capture at the
local level as the key obstacles in decentralisation. However,
none of the subsequent processes seem to have effectively tack-
led some of these constraints until 1993 when the 73rd amend-
ment was introduced with the political idea of democratic decen-
tralisation (WB 2000).
While there is no standard model or defi nition of decentralisa-
tion, many authors have tried to distinguish between types and
forms of government functions which are decentralised. In terms
of administrative decentralisation, Rondinelli’s three-way cate-
gorisation between deconcentration, delegation and devolution
is useful; wherein deconcentration refers to the transfer of cer-
tain planning, fi nancing and management tasks to local units of
central agencies, without any inherent transfer of authority.
Dele gation relates to the transferring of responsibility for
decision-making and administration of public functions to
other organisations that have semi-independent authority and
though not wholly controlled by the central government are
accountable to it. Devolution in contrast refers to actual transfer
of authority to lower tiers, granting them autonomy in terms of
their fi nancial, administrative and political decision-making
(Rondinelli et al 1989).
One of the most compelling arguments in favour of decen-
tralisation is that it brings governance closer home. Greater
proximity to people thus makes governments more accountable
to citizen pressures and more demanding of better services
(Tendler 1997). Such arguments provide a fertile ground for the
assumption that women would benefi t from these arrangements.
Given the prevailing patriarchal relations, women located in
the domestic sphere are largely responsible for the care and
nurture of the household (Beall 2006). They are thus less
mobile physically but in terms of their material realities of what
they can do or what they cannot do they also suffer from many
sociocultural restrictions that go with patriarchy. Not only are
they denied independent decision-making or exercising author-
ity on spheres that are important to them but they also do not
have any voice in the collective affairs of society. This paper
examines the central premise of decentralisation that it would
improve the outreach of services and participation in decision-
making for women from diverse social groups. This is done by
drawing on fi ndings from a study supported by International
Development Research Centre (IDRC) on decentralised water
governance in Maharashtra. Our own work over 15 years in the
area of women and water provides us with additional insights.
The main contention of this paper is that decentralisation will
fail to meet its desired objectives unless the value systems, cul-
ture and the nature of institutions, including the family change.
While the policy initiative of introducing quotas for women in
public bodies is welcome and necessary it is certainly not suffi -
cient for the success of decentralisation in a society ridden with
discrimination based on class, caste and patriarchy and where
the culture of political patronage is dominant (Mukhopadhyay
2005). The presence of vibrant social and political movements
that propose alternative cultural, social and political paradigms
would be a necessary foundation for major social changes. Even
if well thought out institutions are built, their functioning is
dependent on the culture of people. The paper begins with a
brief discussion of gender and public space participation in the
Indian context followed by a relevant mapping of decentralised
water sector reforms in India and Maharashtra. It then dis-
cusses how and whether decentralised water governance has
helped women, what are the constraints they face and fi nally
what could be the way forward.
Gender and Public Space Participation
It will be useful here to give a brief history of how women’s
issues gained public notice. In the aftermath of independence,
women’s concerns did not get integrated with the country’s
development, for it was assumed that with the general develop-
ment of the country, they would automatically benefi t. From
the 1960s to the 1970s women were at least recognised as
bene fi ciaries of welfare. This phase was followed by concerns
about poverty while fears of unbridled population growth trig-
gered family limitation programmes where women were spe-
cially targeted. Resistance to this coercive programme eventu-
ally led to the promulgation of Emergency in the country
(Vasavi and Kingfi sher 2003). In the 1970s and 1980s a vibrant
women’s movement emerged that profi led the real state of af-
fairs. The report “Towards Equality” (1974) was an important
milestone in the history of the women’s movement in India. It
highlighted women’s contribution to development. This period
also marked several policy shifts and introduction of a series
of pro-women legislations. However, the scenario changed
dramatically in the 1990s when our eco nomy was opened to
market forces and international trade. Women’s agency was
lauded as a contributor to the growing economy but mainly as
home based, non- unionised, cheap labour. From the fi rst central
initiative to establish local governments in 1957 to the 73rd and
74th constitutional amendment in 1992 and 1993, the country
has moved towards an effort at decentralisation. The two con-
stitutional amendments established mandatory provisions for
decentralisation to local governments in India in rural and
urban areas, respectively. One of the key features of these
amendments is a proportional representation of the dalits
and adivasis and one-third representation of women on local
bodies. This has undoubtedly opened up spaces for local partici-
pation in matters of governance. In linking governance to
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Economic & Political Weekly
66
economic performance, two key perspectives have directed the
State’s orientation to women’s role. One has been to include
women as key actors in the new decentralised administration
process, and the second on the “effi ciency” of institutions,
development projects and programmes.
Decentralisation and Water Governance
Since the early 1990s the water sector is going through a crisis
which is marked by increasing contestations over water, due to
scarcity, pollution, inequalities in access and decision-making.
Despite large investments made in the sector since the beginning
of the Five-Year Plans, large numbers of people still go without
the basic human right to water. Benefi ts from expansion of sur-
face irrigation are not commensurate with the investments made
as is evident from the large-scale displacement and uneven dis-
tribution of irrigation benefi ts.
Decentralisation policies in the early 1990s coupled with wa-
ter sector reforms from the latter half of the decade have sought
to change the role of the state from provider of water services to
one facilitating demand for water through increased commu-
nity participation. Commodifi cation of scarce water is thus at
the core of the new water policy reform process and the solu-
tions propose a process of institutional and economic restruc-
turing. Water is no longer seen as a free good and decentralised
management is considered the only way to ensure sustainable,
equitable and effi cient water delivery. The Ninth Five-Year Plan
(FYP 1997-2002) re- articulates the global shift from perceiving
water as a social good to be provided free by the government to
acknowledging that it is a scarce economic resource, which
should be provided according to the standard of service that
users are willing to maintain, operate and fi nance. Thus, the
rural water users are expected to contribute towards capital
costs of water infrastructure to the tune of about 10% at present
and gradually move towards a policy of full cost recovery. Apart
from this they are also expected to be fully responsible for the
Operation and Maintenance (O and M) through panchayats and
the village water and sanitation committees (VWSC) generally
referred to as pani samitis (water committees). For the fi rst time
in the domestic water sector people’s participation is called for
at all stages of project implementation right from the selection
of technological options to implementation and maintenance.
In the irrigation sector however we do not see a similar strat-
egy unfolding. Based on principles of cost recovery from users,
the new institutions – pani samitis for domestic water con-
sumption and water user associations (WUAs) in the case of
irrigation management transfer – are meant to address man-
agement ineffi ciencies through participatory planning and
inclusive decision-making. Although women’s relationship with
domestic water is seen as important, neither the Ninth Five-
Year Plan nor the National Water Policy (2002) make any spe-
cifi c mention of gender differentiated water needs or women’s
role in water management.
In Maharashtra, Jalswarjya
1
and Aple Pani
2
are the two fl ag-
ship programmes of the state government to meet the drinking
water needs of the people. Both are based on the principle of
people’s participation, capital contribution towards infrastructure
and user fees to meet the O and M costs. Along with these the
government has also introduced a number of schemes to address
the drinking water needs of its people.
For irrigation, Maharashtra has recently introduced what is
called as the Maharashtra water sector improvement programme
supported again by a $325 million loan from the World Bank.
This project aims to improve the irrigation sector through farmer
participation (read as capital contribution). Improved canal sys-
tems of irrigation projects will then be handed over to the WUA
which are water institutions formed at the lowest level of an irri-
gation project. Membership to WUAs is restricted to landholders
and owners lying in the command/service area of the irrigation
project (Joy and Kulkarni 2007; WB 2005).
Women’s participation is seen as integral to these new institu-
tions, partly because of the international discourse on rights
based approaches shaping global policy agendas but largely
because women are seen as best suited to manage the scarce wa-
ter resource which they collect and use for the welfare of the
household. Increasingly the agricultural crisis has forced the men
to migrate leaving the largely fallow and unproductive lands for
the women to manage in the absence of any clear land titles and
resources like water.
In the pani samitis there have to be 50% women and WUAs
need to have only three women on their committees on a body
comprising 9 or 12 members. Representation of women in the wa-
ter committees in the domestic water sector is largely justifi ed
because they are seen to be directly involved in work related to
collection and utilisation of water. In the irrigation sector
however their representation is very marginal and is not as
sought after as one sees in the domestic sector (Kulkarni 2005).
In both cases however women are seen as instruments to meet
the desired goals of the water sector. Such an instrumentalist
view to participation is largely apolitical in nature assuming
women to be naturally privileged water managers, and not as
active citizens capable of exercising their rights and articulat-
ing their concerns.
Quotas: Necessary But Not Sufficient
The pani samitis that were studied showed representation of
women across caste groups as per the quotas. In most of the
places the scheme was in the process of being implemented so
there was an overwhelming response of women especially when
it came to attending meetings. Although women from the dalit
castes were represented on the pani samitis as per the quota they
were largely silent and attended meetings on very few occasions.
In WUAs the scenario was quite the opposite and despite the
quota, women did not attend meetings and were unaware of their
membership to the committee and their role in it.
The Politics of Selection
Women on WUAs and also pani samitis were not entirely aware of
how they have been selected and why they were on the commit-
tees. Their names were usually suggested by the village elders. In
the WUAs it was the men who were being selected and women
were only the proxies. In fact this has been true of panchayat
elections as well where nominations are usually controlled by the
REVIEW OF WOMEN’S STUDIES
Economic & Political Weekly
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67
local power centres but this is particularly true when it comes to
selection of women who have the benefi t of reservations. In that
sense the local vested groups act as gatekeepers to selection of
women on committees (Sharma 1998). However some of the
women had a good self-image and exuded confi dence by saying
that they were selected because the villagers thought they were
articulate and capable. This is indeed a changing self perception
among women.
Nature of Participation
Participation is seen as a key to the process of decentralisation.
Most of the literature has been dichotomised into “means” and
“ends” (Oakley et al 1991) with the former seeing participation
as an effi cient tool or means for achieving better project
outcomes and the latter arguing that the process of participa-
tion is in itself an empowering one (Cleaver 1999). Participa-
tory approaches in the pani samitis and the WUAs included a
number of activities like planning of local water resources, lo-
cation of the stand posts, tariff decisions, contributing towards
the capital and O and M costs. However these strategies only
masked the failure of the public sector. All of these were largely
geared towards an understanding that participation is a means
to an end. However the women’s empowerment fund, in the
Jals warajya programme was geared towards the empowerment
of women albeit only in the economic sense. To participate ef-
fectively in all of these different activities requires a large
number of things to fall in place together. However we see a dif-
ferent picture on the ground.
Lack of Resources and Knowledge
People often lack the required resources to make informed
choices around planning of their resources. A large number of
women on our pani samitis and the few that were there on the
WUAs said they wanted to participate, but did not have the
technical knowledge to do so. For example, some of the women
were keen to ensure quality of material purchased for setting
up water infrastructure. Most of them complained that they
were never trained to understand that. Here the presence of
the “outsider” can be seen as crucial by bringing in informa-
tion and skills and a space for disadvantaged groups to
articulate their concerns. Increasingly, however the state sees
this “outsider” role as disruptive and is now advocating
by passing the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or
other civil society supports. Glorifying the community and
encou raging the formation of community-based organisations
(CBOs) and an unmediated relationship of the State with these
CBOs seems like a more favoured option now. This leaves little
space for the disadvantaged sections within the community
which is often looking for the “outsider” to create a space for
subaltern politics.
The Undifferentiated Community
Central to these participatory approaches is the notion that the
community is a desirable, undifferentiated social entity with all
the appropriate qualities for good governance. Such a conceptu-
alisation of communities overlooks the discrimination within
communities based on class, caste, gender and other social
minorities. It also conceptualises communities as storehouses of
local knowledge, seen as most suited for local governance. While
recognising the value of traditional and local knowledge, we
cannot ignore that this knowledge is undifferentiated and inade-
quate to meet current challenges. In our study women and men
across different class and caste groups differed in their views in
almost all the activities listed above. Women from the dalit com-
munities did not respond to most of our questions on participa-
tion, simply because they did not have a voice. Meetings were
largely dominated by the upper caste women in the pani samitis
and by men only in the WUAs.
A Natural Affinity
There is an unquestioned assumption that women are natural
conservers and managers of water. O’Reilly (2008)
Women’s groups must fi rst and foremost serve the purpose of making
the water supply system sustainable in the long run, i e, women must
be mobilised to take responsibility for the water management of their
village. The health and hygiene education objective and the empow-
erment and self-help objective are important but should be subordi-
nate to this overriding goal (“Project Social Side” report cited in
O’Reilly 2008).
In the Jalswarajya project, wall posters which were an inte-
gral part of the water campaign glorifi ed women’s virtues in
management of water. Such a portrayal of women’s participa-
tion (facilitators of village water management) puts additional
pressure on women’s unpaid reproductive work. Moreover these
assumptions of women as naturally inclined to such work rein-
force the gender stereotypes and continue to keep women in the
domestic terrain without understanding the underlying power
structures of agency.
Degrees of Participation
Bina Agarwal (2001) outlines six different forms or levels typi-
fying varying degrees of participation in a hierarchical “ladder”
moving upwards towards more effective and empowering
participation. Locating women from our pani samitis and WUAs
on this participatory ladder reveals the entire politics of parti-
cipation rooted in discriminations in society. With the intro-
duction of quotas, as we saw earlier, women are very well rep-
resented in the committees particularly so in the pani samitis.
WUAs do not have a caste quota among women and there we see
only upper caste landowning women as representatives. Pani
samitis clearly have a visible presence of women, particularly
in areas where women have been mobilised by NGOs or other
civil society groups. In some of the places some women’s visible
presence is seen to translate into favourable outcomes for
them – for example better locations for stand posts. But women
from other castes or class have not necessarily benefi ted from
such a presence thus highlighting the differing needs of dif-
ferentiated communities.
In a comparative analysis between pani samitis and WUAs we
see greater numbers of women attending meetings and speaking
up in these meetings in the domestic rather than the irrigation
sector. This is not surprising considering that the sectors are
REVIEW OF WOMEN’S STUDIES
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Economic & Political Weekly
68
being seen as the female and male sectors respectively. Domestic
is seen as the welfare sector and irrigation is a commodity sector
and public expectations about women do not allow them this
transition so easily. The degree of participation depended greatly
on whether there were strong “outsider” partners, the cultural
context of the region and the information that the women had,
the class and caste they came from, etc. In our study, women
from the upper castes in the coastal area of Konkan were far more
active than their counterparts in the remote adivasi jungles of
Chandrapur. Historically, Konkan has seen strong women man-
aging their households because of heavy outmigration of the men
from the area.
Participatory Exclusions
Another concept of participatory exclusions (Agarwal 2001)
becomes very relevant for our fi ndings. These exclusions take
different forms both for women as victims of patriarchy and for
women from diverse social and economic backgrounds. These
can be overt like in the case of WUAs where membership rules
exclude non-landowning women or subtle, located in local cul-
tural and social practices which implicitly prevent women from
speaking out at public meetings or in front of male elders as was
the case with most of our pani samiti and WUA women who
refused to speak in the presence of men or in the best instances
corroborated what the men spoke (ibid).
Inclusion and participation in sector reforms process is
critical from the point of view of ensuring that the hitherto
excluded sections like women, dalits and the poor participate
and benefi t from water use planning. The infl uence that these
sections can exert over decision-making processes seems to
be limited in our study areas. Although the effort is to include
women, there are several non-programmatic aspects of human
life that have already created unequal terms of participation.
The ability to participate across caste, class and gender in the
domestic water sector, was constrained due to their inability to
negotiate and articulate on equal terms as a result of historical
conditions of structured inequalities. The State’s interpretation
of decentralisation is the undifferentiated community and hence
it takes a position that once the scheme is handed over to the
community, it will not be involved in the micro-management
of the scheme especially regarding “which people” or “which
women” participate and why. These questions are best left
at the mercy of local moralities and how the vested interests
deal with it.
Costs of Participation
In a number of cases participation has placed an extra burden on
women’s time or reinforced gender stereotypes without com-
mensurate economic or social benefi ts in terms of income or sta-
tus gains (Baden 1993). New water programmes are full of com-
mittees mainly formed to pacify different political interests and
constituencies. In domestic water, especially we see three to four
committees/subcommittees apart from the pani samiti itself –
the social audit or the women’s empowerment committees for
example. Women on the committees have spent considerable
time attending meetings without the anticipated benefi ts in
terms of meeting either their practical needs or their strategic
needs.
3
It was interesting to see that in the fi rst phase of the pro-
gramme women did not see this as a burden and were enjoying
this space to enter the public sphere; however delays in comple-
tion of projects often led the women to see this as a burdensome
activity claiming their time and energy. The question of oppor-
tunity costs is often diffi cult to assess as women rarely fi nd an
opportunity to go beyond the realm of household work. So op-
portunity costs and work burdens can be understood differently
by women located differently in the social status ladder. For
many of these women this was the fi rst opportunity to partici-
pate in public matters and hence they did not really see this as a
burden or an additional cost. The opportunity of participation
was also seen as one converting into a real opportunity of time
saving due to the water scheme.
The most obvious question that follows from here is: Who
then shares work at the household level? Since there is some
amount of social consent for women to participate, women
obviously did have to negotiate sharing of their housework as
well. We heard a large number of women saying that often
these work burdens were transferred to other women members
in the family, usually the co-sister or daughter-in-law or daugh-
ter. In one of the villages where the woman village head was
also the president of the pani samiti, she admitted that she
would not have been able to perform these roles if her co-sister
had not taken on these responsibilities.
In WUAs women’s participation does not even aim to address
the larger question of women’s rights. Access to water is linked
to landownership in command areas of irrigation projects,
thereby excluding all those who fall outside the “command”. So
most women and other landless households or farmers who fall
outside the command area (typically these are dalits or other less
disadvantaged castes in Maharashtra) cannot claim right to
water by design.
Constraining and Facilitating Factors
Some of the key constraining or facilitating factors cited by
women are related to the design of the programmes, the rules
for membership, support from the household, the social expec-
tations of the society that defi ne women’s roles and behaviour,
women’s own perceptions of their skills and capacities to per-
form, their personal attributes and interests, the nature of
organisations and the culture of the meetings. For example our
pani samitis and WUAs had elderly women some of whom had
been on committees earlier and therefore more confi dent of
participation. Lack of household supports was of course cited as
one of the most constraining factors for participation. Usually
burdens were shared by other women of the household in very
supportive families, but none of the women said that household
work was being shared by the men and nor is it likely to be so
for the next several years to come. Division of work has been a
long-standing demand of the feminist movement which slowly
lost its steam with sectoral approaches to women’s develop-
ment. Women’s participation in public sphere is increasingly
being understood as independent of the burdens that they take
on in the reproductive sphere.
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The assumption that governance close to home would bring
large numbers of women in the public space does not really hold
true and especially not in irrigation which is a male-dominated
sector. Although governance was closer home, women were dif-
fi dent to speaking up in front of the male elders whom they
have known for so many years. Being a part of the same patriar-
chal and caste-ridden society is often a major constraining
factor for women to come out and challenge the prevailing
order. They also lack the informal net works that have long been
in place and which determine the process of decision-making.
Goetz (1997) argues that local government is always hier-
archical and more embedded in local social and power
structures compared to national government and so it is
diffi cult for women to penetrate as independent political ac-
tors, or for them to raise controversial gender issues. Often, the
role and infl uence of traditional authorities gets mapped on to
the new form of formal local government structures introduced
by decentralisation.
Numerical strength or rather the lack of it was cited as a major
constraining factor by women. “If there were more women we
would have spoken our minds. It’s diffi cult to speak out in a room
full of men with only two-three other women around. More num-
bers would have led to better articulation of our concerns”
(women committee members from a WUA). The idea of critical
mass leading to positive outcomes has been discussed widely
(Agarwal 2001) and in our study we do see the pani samitis which
have a 50% representation on committees far more vocal and
confi dent than the WUAs where the membership is not always
33% as the committee size varies from nine to 12 but the number
of women always remains at three. The reasons in the case of
irrigation of course extend beyond numbers to the nature and
culture of the sector as well.
Rules that defi ne women’s roles at the household and in the
community foreclosed options for them to come out and partici-
pate in the meetings. In the WUAs, women were so burdened with
domestic work and agricultural work that they barely had the
time to know what was happening outside of that domain. Irri-
gated agriculture is also demanding in terms of their time and
energy for women. Sexual division of labour is not questioned
within the framework of the sectoral reforms which are resource
focused rather than being people centred.
Culture, place and time of the meeting are also seen as con-
straining factors. Panchayat halls or credit cooperative society
offi ces were the typical sites for the meetings. These are very
public and “male” in nature and barely are women seen in these
spaces. Given the roles and expectations of women, rarely could
women challenge these to enter these spaces. Women are also
aware of the rowdy nature of these meetings, where they would
hardly fi nd an environment to speak up. All the WUA women
members said that they would be happier to attend meetings if
they were held in anganwadi halls or school premises for exam-
ple. These seem like spaces where women will be accepted as the
community is attuned to seeing women in these spaces regarding
their children’s education. Usually meetings are held in the day
time when women are at work in the fi eld or if it is earlier when
they are busy with domestic work. The question is whether
women really have a time suitable for meetings? The answer
often is no – not unless division of labour is seriously brought on
to public agendas for a debate.
Has Decentralisation Created any Counterfactuals?
It was assumed that proximity would make water governance
more inclusive and participatory for women and people and
therefore also benefi cial to them. In the earlier sections we have
looked at the nature of participation and also the constraints that
women face in participating in local water governance. The ques-
tion then is whether things have really changed for women or not
and whether decentralisation is a desirable demand to pursue in
the context of women and water.
Presence in Public Space
One of the important counterfactuals created is related to wom-
en’s presence increasing gradually in the public sphere. Despite
the various constraints women face there is a shift from com-
plete absence to gradual presence in decision-making related to
water. The presence is more prominent in the domestic water
sector which is closer to women because of the social norm that
says this is women’s work and hence has a special relationship
to it. There is also a longer history of NGOs and civil society
groups working with women in this sub-sector of water and
shaping public acceptance of women’s participation. Irrigation
in that sense is still seen as a male domain despite the bulk of
irrigated agricultural labour that is being put in by women. Pro-
ductive water has a greater value attached to it in terms of the
market and this value creates its own culture which in a way
defi nes the rules of participation.
Equity in Access to Water
Equity as we understand in the water sector is a matter of mini-
mum assurance to all for water required for livelihood needs irre-
spective of their ownership of assets, especially those who depend
on land and water for livelihood needs including the landless.
For a rural woman who has little space to move out of her
current role of a nurturer, access to domestic water closer to
home is crucial. The meanings of equity get complex when it
comes to women and productive water. The fi rst barrier is
the social one where women from diverse social groups would
have different requirements and also diverse understandings
around access.
Gender and equity in drinking water and sanitation is about
basic human rights – the right to water and sanitation has been
well stated and women, like men, are adequately covered in prin-
ciple at least. Where they lose out though is the disproportionate
share of the work that they shoulder around domestic water and
the marginal space they have to articulate their concerns in the
committees.
In irrigation or productive water on the other hand, gender
equity gets tied to the household, caste or other social groups
that women belong to. Does independent access to water for
women like independent land titles form a signifi cant and
viable alternative? Currently water access is linked to landown-
ership which is largely unfavourable to women, landless and
REVIEW OF WOMEN’S STUDIES
april 30, 2011 vol xlvi no 18
EPW
Economic & Political Weekly
70
dalits or adivasis who may depend on productive water for
other needs. So the equity question in irrigation and water for
livelihoods begins not with participation, though it is impor-
tant, but with the de-linking of access to water from landown-
ership. From the women’s point of view though the discourse
around access gets complex.
4
Equity in Voice
In the pani samitis women were present for the meetings and
their presence did make a difference to them and towards the
overall outcomes of the programme in some of the villages. But
largely their voice was to reiterate what the majority male deci-
sions were, at least in the formal spaces of the meetings that we
were able to assess.
In the WUAs women were either completely absent or their
needs on the timing and place of the meetings too were not con-
sidered. The overall culture of the sector determined the pres-
ence or absence of certain kinds of people.
The comparison between domestic water and irrigation or
productive water is worthy of attention. Whereas women are
actively sought in the domestic water sector the productive wa-
ter sector is seen as a male domain. This is refl ected not only in
the rules that have been crafted but also in the way programmes
are designed. Jalswarjya or Aple Pani supported women’s par-
ticipation (albeit through a limited understanding) through
several incentive structures like the women’s empowerment
fund or 50% women on pani samitis, etc. In contrast WUAs only
introduced a quota for landholding women in command areas
and provided no incentives for even the few women (precisely
three) on every committee of nine or 12 members. Women on
WUAs therefore had little gains in terms of either access to
water or decision-making around water.
Gender Relations at Home and Community
It might be too early and presumptuous to make a statement on
whether participation in pani samits or WUAs have changed gen-
der relations in the household and the community. Many of them
from the pani samitis said that they had earned respect in the
community. They had demonstrated their ability to participate in
public meetings and to speak there. This has of course varied
across the different social groups where both overt and covert
restrictions act as constraining factors. While earning respect in
the community can be seen as an indicator of such a change the
underlying instrumentalist view cannot be ignored. In one of the
villages in Jalgaon district, the village head was proud of his “all
women pani samiti” which had received a lot of government at-
tention for being the only one in the district and thus brought in
new schemes to the village. These and other examples also high-
light the limitations of incentive structures that are couched
within an instru mentalist viewpoint.
Addressing patriarchy through the water sector becomes an
even more contentious issue and the State does not see a role for
itself there. Most democratic institutions including the pani sami-
tis and WUAs are of a public kind and do not really engage with,
affect or attempt to infl uence domestic and familial life. However if
gender relations are understood as part of a larger understanding
of social relations of production, and water is seen as a means of
production and a source of life then the State cannot evade its
responsibility of addressing inequities in the relations of repro-
duction. In the water sector it means not only including women,
landless, tribals and dalits in improving access and participation
in decision-making, but also addressing the public-private divide
and women’s roles (gender division of work) that traverse across
these two domains.
Valuing Water: A Significant Counterfactual
Both the programmes in our study indicate that the water sector
reform process is dominated largely by the management transfer
view where responsibilities of management are delegated or
transferred to the users without a commensurate transfer of
power to design schemes or allocate water. The overriding
concern of the programmes has been to improve participation
through capital contribution. Valuing water or pricing water was
thus seen as crucial reform to the success of the programme.
This was evident in the language and the discourse used to
elicit participation of the community. Most had internalised this
discourse very well. Most of the women we spoke to tended to
agree that pricing was necessary for good functioning of water
schemes and that people should pay the 10% contribution to-
wards the infrastructure. The idea of “sense of ownership” linked
to payment of capital contribution was accepted unconditionally.
Thus the State was accepted in the role of a facilitator. It was only
on further probing that women raised concerns over the rising
costs of drinking water. This is a signifi cant shift brought about
by the State in the way people think. In this kind of an environment
raising the demand for right to minimum water at affordable
costs becomes increasingly diffi cult.
Decentralisation the Only Solution?
In a similar vein decentralised governance has also earned
acceptability with the community. Interestingly, different
stakeholders (men, women, dalits, adivasis) tend to agree on
the need for improving water resources through such reforms
and most would even agree that decentralisation is the best
form to achieve this.
For the hitherto excluded groups, decentralisation raises hopes
to redress their historical exclusion from accessing water and
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MANAGER
REVIEW OF WOMEN’S STUDIES
Economic & Political Weekly
EPW
april 30, 2011 vol xlvi no 18
71
making decisions around it. Claims for representation in the
decision-making process therefore becomes critical for these
groups. For local vested interests this often holds a promise for
strengthening their political base.
5
For multilateral agencies
(e g, the World Bank in Maharashtra) and often the government
as well, it holds meaning in terms of reducing State expenditure
on both management as well as infrastructure and for private
parties it opens up spaces for making economic profi ts in the
event of clear entitlements getting institutionalised.
6
Given these diverse set of interests, which often appear like a
win-win situation, it is not surprising that there is little struggle
or debate over the new reforms in the sector. The State which is
proactively supporting the neo-liberal agenda is also forced to
attend to its political constituency.
Conclusions
The effects of these reforms can unfold only gradually when the
State is pushed to the corner by private interests or multilateral
agencies. What is important to understand is that decentralisation
cannot be wished away as a donor-driven discourse as we see
how historical inequities are used to occupy the spaces created by
decentralisation, thereby defeating the very purpose for which
decentralisation was introduced.
For most stakeholders, particularly the socially excluded,
therefore the question is not as simple as whether to oppose or
engage with the State; rather, a combination of the two may be
necessary if the restructuring idea has to gain currency over the
transfer viewpoint.
Notions of representation and participation in the public
sphere has served women who did not otherwise possess a
public voice and identity to demand that their points of view be
heard. The right vested through public participation allows
them a space to demand for change. Panchayati raj institutions
are a good example of how despite the debates around male
proxies women have come out and utilised that space to their
advantage, overcoming structural constraints. The idea of
women as a signifi cant constituency when politicians or bureau-
crats make plans does empower women. Such new ideas do con-
tribute to changed perceptions about one self even in the wake
of added responsibilities. This is evident through the discussions
we had with over 150 women in Maharashtra. It is a slow process
and also highly differentiated across caste, tribe and class lines
and change may come through gradually if the systems are
strengthened in different ways. It assumes of course that the
commitment to decentralisation is not abandoned with the
completion of the scheme.
The process of empowerment of women gets a push wherever
there is a strong initiative from either the civil society, local NGOs,
or in some cases even an active and committed bureaucracy. As
mentioned earlier we see empowerment and participation as a
process and to that extent the domestic water sector does hold
some hope.
7
The irrigation sector has completely missed out on the agenda
of women and this largely comes from its acceptance of the
dominant narrative of the normative woman who can go far
enough to participate in welfare/health and hygiene oriented
sectors of sanitation and drinking water but no further. This im-
age dominates and is refl ected in the lethargy of the government
to provide any active policy or programmatic incentives for
women to participate.
Women’s incentive for water management – underlying their
agency – is not just related to their resource dependence, but also
to social and institutional structures, which do not allow them
the same access to resource rights, economic opportunities or
decision-making as it does for men. Engendering governance is
not merely a technical exercise – increasing the number of
women in organisations or political spaces, such as water com-
mittees, but about redefi ning the nature of public space and ac-
knowledging that the private domain – where much gendered
socialisation takes place – cannot be seen as distinct or separate.
However, there is little recognition of the implications of the
public-private divide or the terrain of households and to a lesser
extent within communities, and the intra- and inter-dynamics of
power that characterise institutional sites and that set the bound-
aries for participation by women and men. Not only are institu-
tions assumed to be neutral, the public-private divide that deter-
mines women’s exclusion from the public domain is used to rein-
force gendered power relations in “organisations” at all levels
(public, private and civil society).
8
Men who see women’s roles as confi ned to the home fi nd it dif-
fi cult to accept their participation in the public sphere on the
assumption that women lack mental and educational skills to
make decisions while organisational cultures tend to assign
typically “female tasks” to women staff or keep them at desk jobs
rather than fi eld-oriented positions.
Our analysis shows that the success of decentralised water
governance is constrained by the conceptualisation of the larger
reform in water at one level and the conceptualisations of the
normative woman, communities, public and the private domains
and institutions at another. Unless all of these are altered decen-
tralised processes will not be truly democratic.
Categorical thinking about domestic water and irrigation and
men and women is commonplace now and affects among several
things how policies and programmes are shaped. Spaces are
divided on what is masculine and what is feminine – the home
and the outside world. Men’s identities, therefore, are linked to
the public sphere, money and power while women’s identities
revolve around the home, nurture and subsistence. These identi-
ties transmit in exactly the same manner in the water sector and
the sectoral divide is evidence to this. It can be argued, that such
categorical, dual thinking has worked to the advantage of women,
insofar as it has given them space to participate in decision-
making in domestic water. However, we cannot overlook the fact
that these very advantages in fact can be counterproductive and
distance women from entering other spheres of work. Alterna-
tives lie in re-conceptualising the normative rules for men and
women and water.
Finally we would argue that decentralisation provides (or at
least, appears to do so) legitimate space and a framework for
women’s participation in water governance at the community
level. Decentralisation has the potential for reshaping the institu-
tional infrastructure of water management and of facilitating
REVIEW OF WOMEN’S STUDIES
april 30, 2011 vol xlvi no 18
EPW
Economic & Political Weekly
72
Notes
1 Literally meaning water freedom, this ambitious
programme supported by the World bank through
a 268 million loan was started with a few pilot
districts in 2003 and expanded to include 26 dis-
tricts in its second phase which would be ending
in 2012.
2 Aple Pani meaning “Our water” is funded by the
German bank the KfW and it covered three dis-
tricts in Maharashtra. It runs on similar principles
as the Jalswarjya.
3 Caroline Moser’s work is considered as founda-
tional in the context of practical and strategic
gender needs. While the practical relate to meet-
ing women’s day to day needs which for example
in the water context would be to have water at the
doorstep, strategic needs on the other hand imply
a change in the position of women – are they able
to decide, do the own property, etc.
4 SOPPECOM has been working on this issue and
one of the alternatives proposed in this regard is
the carving out of water entitlements for women
where they are able to decide on its use.
5 Shelawe Budruk in Jalgaon district of Mahara-
shtra is a classic example of how the local leader
climbed the political leader by bringing in the
Jalswarajya scheme in an otherwise not water
scarce village.
6 The push towards going in for private connec-
tions over public stand posts is clearly a move to-
wards facilitating cash collections. Similarly, in
irrigation we see that clauses for both creating
individual entitlements as well as tradability of
water rights have been introduced.
7 This is evident from our discussions with both the
government offi cials as well as with the women
themselves.
8 It is important to clarify the distinction between
institutions as “rules of the game” and organisa-
tions as the “players” – see Kabeer’s work on the
institutional framework (Kabeer and Subramani-
an 1999) and Goetz (1995) who builds on the
above in the context of gender and organisations.
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equitable community representation and inclusion (Ribot 2003).
However, the decentralisation of roles and responsibilities
without the concomitant devolution of real power and resources
means that decentralisation as a political objective has little
meaning for women’s representation or participation given the
inherent gender biases which prevent women from exercising
voice, accessing resources or institutions (Mukhopadhayay 2005).
Decentralisation is a process, which needs to be negotiated,
and the hard reality is that for poor and marginalised women
negotiation is being contested in an economic environment
where policies of privatisation, pricing and centralised, techno-
centric delivery systems (large dams, pipelines and the Indian
state’s river linking project) dominate the political discourse on
water management.
Professor M. N. Srinivas Memorial Prize 2011
Indian Sociological Society
Institute of Social Sciences
8 Nelson Mandela Road, Vasant Kunj
New Delhi 110 070
The Professor M. N. Srinivas Endowment Fund was jointly set up by the Indian
Sociological Society and the Indian Council of Social Science Research in 2001.
This Fund has instituted a prize for young sociologists/social anthropologists
for publishing the best sociological/social anthropological paper in any of the
social science journals/edited volumes, in English, in India. The prize will carry
a sum of Rs. 2,500.
Papers published during 01 January 2008 - 31 December 2010 are eligible for
consideration. The authors, who are life members or ordinary members of the
Society with at least one year’s standing, will be eligible for the contest. The
author must be 40 years or less in age on 31 December 2010. If the paper is
co-authored, all the authors must be 40 years or less in age on 31 December
2010. The authors will submit only one paper for consideration.
A reprint of the paper along with photocopies of the title page of the journal/
edited volume and age proof must reach the Secretary (Offi ce) of Indian
Sociological Society on or before 31 August 2011. The typewritten/handwritten/
computer printout manuscript will not be accepted. Besides the authors, other
scholars and Editors of professional journals are also welcome to bring suitable
papers to the notice of the selection committee for consideration.
