Water future is in the hands of an archaic water sector, predominantly under government control, and afflicted by business-as-usual approach.
Cape Town achieved ‘Day Zero’ not too long ago, sending alarm bells ringing across the urbane world to set in order its water management system to avoid being next on the new nomenclature for cities. Despite it being clear that improved water management requires better coordination between demand and supply while keeping a close tab on the source, water scarcity continues to haunt human habitations like never before. No surprise that quite a few cities have already started vying for the second position. With depth to groundwater level having slumped to 93.7 per cent during the last decade, and with most water bodies consigned to unrestricted development, Bangaluru continues to be in the race for such dubious distinction.
Water crises is at the tipping point across the world. In their 2018 study published in Nature Sustainability (1, 51-58), Martina Florke, Christof Schneider and Robert McDonald had projected an urban surface-water deficit of 1,386–6,764 million m³ affecting one-third of the 482 world’s largest cities studied. The study had concluded that by 2050, Jaipur will be the city with the second-largest water deficit in the world, Jodhpur 14th and Chennai 20th. Several other studies point to the fact that a grim water future is staring all across, with its implications cutting across the socio-economic fabric of the society. In light of the emerging scenario(s), a volume on Water Futures of India assessing the status of science and technology in addressing the impending crises evokes interest.
Initiated by the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), and supported by two projects at the Inter-disciplinary Centre for Water Research (ICWaR), the edited volume comprises of chapters written by eminent scientists and engineers engaged in water research and practice with an aim to bring to light the status of water science and technology in dealing with the current and emerging water crisis. From water trapped in deep aquifers to that locked in glaciers, and from what flows on the surface to that floating in the atmosphere, science and technology of understanding water in its different forms and settings has grown in leaps and bounds. Seemingly, science is now able to account for each drop of water as it moves through the consumptive systems. Paradoxically, however, the more is known about the universal solvent, its source and flow dynamics, the less is at the systems’ command to resurrect the elixir of life to its pristine glory.
Given its growing demand, moving water on a circular economy pathway has emerged as an opportunity to accelerate and scale-up recent scientific and technological advances supporting greater efficiency across sectors. Within the regulatory market space, the value of existing practices and technologies that enable navigation through the water pathway, the material pathway, and the energy pathway allow a shift from ‘take-consume-dispose’ model to strategies based on demand management, resource diversification, operational optimization and nutrient recovery. However, limiting itself in scope Water Futures of India remains restricted to addressing water challenges from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Covering subjects ranging from groundwater hydraulics, glacier hydrology, desalinization technologies, sediment dynamics, and isotope hydrology, authors suggest several new tools and techniques to address geophysical complexities within the limited experimental domains. The comprehensive list of scientific challenges raised in the opening chapter, however, remain grossly unaddressed. The volume broadly acknowledges such gaps in connecting cutting-edge science to policy and practice, but none of the contributions break free from the confines that public-funded science and technology has come to be identified with. Consequently, in part it reads like a text with the remaining a subject of research, being researched.
Water Futures in India raises questions on the directions and relevance of public-funded research on a subject as critical as water. Why it remains at a distance from addressing societal problems? Why scientific research doesn’t influence policy? Why communicating science with other stakeholders remains limited? While technological developments are urgently needed to improve efficiency of water use across sectors in a circular economy pathway, it needs to be underpinned by a strong policy response to ensure its effectiveness.
Part of the problem lies in water sector being archaic, predominantly under government control, and afflicted by business-as-usual approach. Consequently, it lacks progressive vision and poor adoption of innovative techniques. Given the fact that there is no formal science-policy interface that encourages applied research with the aim of adopting science to improve sector performance, much of the high-end research remains fodder for research journals only. Given large scale spatial and temporal variability of water in the country, role of scientific tools, methodologies and technologies in addressing water issues cannot be undermined.
Water Futures of India falls short of making a desired impact. It is an assortment of randomly selected papers/articles which do not measure up to the expectations from such a volume. Given the fact that not all science produced in the country is applicable on the ground, the volume could have been better designed to position the contents against a futuristic framework. Nonetheless, it has been an ambitious undertaking with a limited shelf life.
Water Futures of India
by P P Majumdar & V M Tiwari (Eds)
IISc Press, Bangaluru
Extent: 481, Unpriced
First published in AnthemEnviroExpertsReview, Sept 2020
It is not the distance but the approach that creates connection of convenience between shades of insecurities and vulnerabilities.
Hold it tight. The rickshaw ride could turn unruly as it meanders through the underbelly of an unalike city that undervalues the compulsive human-driven commuting that crisscrosses its bye lanes. Ipshita Nath’s debut of dozen stories of rickshaw rides are an act of poignant meditation amidst searing crowds who are oblivious of the realities simmering at the bottom of the city’s shaky foundations. The mute rickshaw is the inanimate character that ferries the stories of embedded frustrations, guttural aspirations, and discreet reflections. Are these the lived experiences of subterranean existence that help theorize situations of the mind as it grapples with the bizarre and mundane?
That is, until one reads to find that the rickshaw is a mute witness to situations and characters that are in constant conflict with each other. The twelve short stories in the book are interesting in terms of imagination and reach on the study of being, and about nothingness. While Balram’s jerking of carnal lust provoked animal instinct that weighed brutally upon him, Jugal’s desire for justice ruthlessly dismembers those who evade the hands of law. The stories of Balram and Jugal emanate out of irresistible desires, with strength and vulnerability negotiable within the realm of human thought and action. The rickshaw only helps connect the dots between the extreme realities.
Nath’s rickshaw pullers are ordinary people pursuing the extraordinary within the make-shift world of possibilities. For them, the forbidden Khan Market and luxurious Dubai are only few peddles away. It is not the distance but the approach that creates connection of convenience between shades of insecurities and vulnerabilities present at different levels in the society. ‘It was all pervasive; an omniscient scent of rot sitting over a narrative of deterioration so great that it seemed larger than life, like a miasma of some eternal putrefaction.’
Imaginative and unusually enticing, this collection of short stories place the unknown rickshaw pullers, their feelings and minds at the centre. Through that the stories peep into what goes on in those minds: surge of mistaken adventures, provocative wrong choices, and multiple shades of love and desire. The Rickshaw Reveries is bold and adventurous, a collection that represents a strange case of rickshaw pullers’ as an agency without a distinct social identity. Within the stories, life exists on the edge of a precipice but throbbing with life nonetheless as if there is no tomorrow. Flowing in the cesspool of love and desire, the bittersweet experiences reflect a sociology of their own.
For existence that is practical and somewhat hard-hearted, the trade-off in rickshaw pullers’ life is often at the cost of life itself. Could it be any other way? Nath captures the undercurrents of the trade-off that lunges hubby Mounir full hog to procure a color television that breaks into Shabana’s conditional frigidity. A television set did the trick but at the cost of him losing vision to acute sleep apnea, but Shabana seemed strangely at peace. Strange are the ways of love, which is sometimes unrequited and at other time returned for a heavy price.
With stories that are disturbing and discomforting, The Rickshaw Reveries unearths shades of truths lying at the cross section of an informal economy. Their survival goes unnoticed, so is their death. Pushed to die at the landfill of civilizational footprints, the life less lived becomes feed for vermin who scavenge a feast out of them as flying eagles keep an eye on it. There are sub-stories within stories that smack of our collective insensitivities. The stories are not about understanding the rickshaw-wallahs but to live and breathe along their dreadful existence.
Engaging with the metropolis is a genre that is gaining literary currency, and Ipshita Nath has demonstrated her ability at getting inside the bewildering realities of urban spaces. She has a narrative skill that is engaging and engrossing, the stories linger longer after reading them. The ubiquitous rickshaw connects these stories of madness, but there is indeed a method in the madness. Packed with real life anecdotes that play along the stories, a flavor of authenticity is lent to the narrative. Without doubt, the author would have wandered the bye lanes on a rickshaw to piece together realities that enhance the value of imagination.
If attention to language, strong imagination, and formal inventiveness are essential indicators of good fiction, Nath ticks all the boxes with reasonable competence. To me, storyteller Ipshita Nath has arrived riding on a rickshaw!
The Rickshaw Reveries
by Ipshita Nath
Simon&Schuster, New Delhi
Extent: 286, Price: Rs.350.
First published in The Book Review, issue dated July 2020.
National chauvinism does not go very far – even where it goes it only acts as a delusive will-o’-the wisp.
Historian T.C.A Raghavan excels in telling story, or rather stories, of history writing in a fascinating account of three historians who shared much in common about their single-minded passion for details in reconstructing the historical past. Coming together of a knighted professor in Jadunath Sarkar, a committed civil servant in G.S. Sardesai, and an unassuming prince in Raghubir Sinh produced volumes on the intricate interface of history that had fading Mughals, rising Marathas and struggling Rajputs at the centre of an immense political flux in the country. History Men captures the intensity of their relationships, often at intellectual variance with each other, in producing history free from its ideological biases.
Sarkar’s multi-volume research on Aurangzeb, Sardesai’s authoritative study on Marathas, and Sinh’s insights on tussle between Marathas and Rajputs are significant historical outputs, but it was the extraordinary fellowship between the three that created a benchmark for scholarship in history writing. All three had a voracious appetite for unearthing facts of history and a near obsession with establishing factually chronology through primary sources. As historians they sought to speak the truth at a time, during early 19th century, when history was under the threat of being appropriated to further the pursuit of nationalism. The discipline of history continues to be confronted by such reality even today.
Through a commentary on trio’s published research and reflections on their unpublished exchanges, Raghavan examines the challenge of history writing both as a discipline as well as a piece of heritage. They had their share of disapproval and criticism for judging the historical characters as they did, but remained firm in their historian resolve of seeking truth, understanding truth, and accepting truth. That has been the enduring legacy of these three medievalists. Towards the end of his life, Sarkar had reiterated that ‘national chauvinism does not go very far – even where it goes it only acts as a delusive will-o’-the wisp.’
Constructing history by mounting joint exercises and expeditions contributed a distinct flavor
to history writing, by which the three could infect each other to connect geography and topography of the place(s) with characters’ ambitions, achievements and regrets. Such an approach helped history vibrate with life and vigor
born of the personal acquaintance with the site of important historical event. For instance, without a visit to Afzalpura, near Bijapur, it would not have come to light that a premonition of his coming end had impelled Afzal Khan to kill and bury all his 63 wives. The tombs of the same shape, size and age close to each other bear testimony to it.
Historical events in the Mughal-Maratha-Rajput interface interested all three historians in exploring every possible nuance in drawing both the minutiae and larger generalizations. While the killing of Afzal Khan continues to be the wildest exultation among the Marathas but for historians the question worth exploring was to ascertain if his slaying was a treacherous murder or an act of self-defence on the part of Shivaji? Regardless of antagonism and alienation from their own fraternity, the spirit of inquiry and endeavor
in research remained foremost in the minds of these historians. Had Rana Sangha not invited Babur from Kabul to destroy Ibrahim Lodi, the medieval period would have been a different history?
As much a tribute to the incredible contribution of Sarkar, Sardesai and Sinh to the art and science of history writing in the country, History Men makes for an engaging and compelling reading. That the three historians were committed to the Rankean approach to the practice of history is an essential take home for those interested in pursuing the discipline of history.
History Men
by T C A Raghavan
HarperCollins, New Delhi
Extent: 427, Price: Rs. 799.
First published in The Hindu, issue dated July 5, 2020.
