Svachchhata in the Settlement or Slum Sanitation? The Ontological Politics of ‘Sanitation’ and ‘Slums’ in an Informal Settlement of Mumbai, India M.Sc. Thesis by Giacomo Galli June 2013 Water Resources Management Group Cover photograph: View of Garib Nagar (photograph by Giacomo Galli) Svachchhata in the Settlement or Slum Sanitation? The Ontological Politics of ‘Sanitation’ and ‘Slums’ in an Informal Settlement of Mumbai, India Master Thesis Water Resources Management submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Science in International Land and Water Management at Wageningen University, the Netherlands Giacomo Galli June 2013 Supervisors: Dr.ir. J.A. Bolding and Dr.ir. M.Z. Zwarteveen Water Resources Management Group Wageningen University The Netherlands www.iwe.wur.nl/uk per Rina e Bianca ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The thesis that lies before you, marks one of the final steps in achieving an academic degree. As such it marks the end of a two-year master period, five years of studying in Wageningen and a longer period in Amsterdam in which I was supposed to study, but did not know what to do in my life. In all these periods of time, I have learnt so much, that my gratitude for those that have enabled this process is infinite. I would therefore like to take the time to thank those people that have allowed me to get this far. First of all, I would like to thank the people that made the research possible on which this work is based. The residents of Garib Nagar have been very kind in embracing me in their community, not only as a researcher but also as a friend. I will forever remember the evenings drinking chai, the Bollywood movies and the fantastic dinner with Sajjad and his friends. The Umeed staff has also been fantastic in allowing me to be part of their team in all their activities, especially Sonali G and Kishor have been very caring. I will fondly remember you all. The YUVA staff through which I was able to partake in the Umeed project and carry out my research have also embraced and guided me in this process. I would like to thank Pramila, Husna, Taslim, Jaisingh and Kiran for helping me out with all the activities; Sabah for co-researching and co-writing on the ‘water and sanitation study’; Sitaram for being a fantastic supervisor and a great source of inspiration; and last but not least Raju for being a friend I will never forget and an inspiration for the rest of my life. I would also like to thank Seema and Joy and other staff from SOPPECOM for welcoming me in Pune, showing me their activities there and putting me in contact with Sitaram. In Mumbai I would also like to thank my roommates Vinay and Vidhu and their mother as well as Raju for taking good care of me. Furthermore, all kind people I met in the city that helped me out with translating or just to have a good time in the parks, bars and beaches of Mumbai. I would like to especially thank my thesis supervisors Alex and Margreet for not just doing their job. Margreet I would especially like to thank because she has been able to constantly challenge me to think and to go further than conventional wisdoms. By pointing me towards interesting literature and constantly questioning my phrasing, she has really been able to shape the way I think. I also really appreciated her visit to Mumbai. Her passion towards her research is something I can only aspire to; I hope you will get the professional recognition you deserve. Alex I admire deeply for his patience and concern towards all his students. His personal commitment and approachability make him the most popular teaching staff amongst me and my fellow students. Sometimes I do fear that the energy he puts in his courses and supervision is too much at his own expense. It sound strange to say, but I would especially like to thank you for praising my work, at times I even thought it was a bit exaggerated, but your compliments have always motivated me to push harder and uphold your expectations. Furthermore, I would like to thank the other teaching staff of the irrigation and water engineering group at Wageningen University for having created the space for thought-provocative learning, be it in courses or personal conversations. Special thanks are reserved for my parents. Grazie per aver sempre creduto in me e nelle mie capacità. Senza i vostri sacrifici che avete fatto e la seconda oppurtunità che mi avete dato non sarei mai arrivato a questo punto. Grazie anche di avermi sopportato quando sono stato impossibile. Mi dispiace per tutte le tristezze e preoccupazioni del passato, son contento che quel periodo sia ormai lontano e spero che con questa la fine di questi studi inizi un periodo piu facile per voi e me. A last thank you goes out to all my friends in Amsterdam, Wageningen, Mumbai and elsewhere that have supported me in this period. Especially after I’ve come back from Mumbai I have been somewhat detached from social life, I guess it’s part of writing a thesis. Rossella, grazie per avermi sopportato durante questo periodo di scrittura, speriamo che non sia impossibile anche così per la prossima. Mi ha fatto molto piacere che tu mi sia venuta a visitare in India e spero che la prossima volta che andiamo a stare in un altro continente sia insieme. Un bacio. iii SUMMARY Over sixty per cent of Mumbai’s residents, India’s largest city with a metropolitan population of over 20 million people, are living in so-called ‘slums’. Life in the ‘slums’ is by no means easy, as basic services such as water and sanitation services are often lacking. It is estimated that around a 500,000 people in Mumbai defecate in the open. This leads to dangerous situations, as in dense urban environments pathogens spread very easily. Despite worldwide campaigns to reduce the number of people living in ‘slums’ and the number of people without access to ‘basic sanitation’, efforts herein do not seem to achieve the desired results. In fact, some of these campaigns have even led to mass-scale demolition drives which have merely displaced people from their houses. This thesis departs from the notion that terms like ‘slum’ and ‘sanitation’ have a very strong normative layer and are open to varying interpretations. These different views are not only discursive, but also material; as a matter of fact, both ‘sanitation’ as ‘slums’ can ‘be done’ in different ways. This notion of multiple enactments, which stems from the “diaspora of the Actor-Network Theory”, allows considering that a single object can be enacted in multiple ways. This, in turn, creates space for a form of ontological politics to take place in which some enactments become more dominant than others. This thesis engages with the concept of ‘multiple enactments’ by Annemarie Mol and that of ‘collateral realities’ by John Law in an attempt to 1) describe the various enactments of ‘slum’ and ‘sanitation’ as they take place in a Mumbai ‘slum’ and 2) analyse what the effects of these enactments are for the marginalised of the city. This empirical data of this thesis is based on five months fieldwork in Mumbai, India where I was working as a volunteer for an NGO named YUVA. Together with staff from this organisation, which works on empowering the oppressed and marginalised throughout India, a study was set up to understand (and to bring about change in) the water and sanitation situation of a small informal settlement of the city. During this study attempts were made to have the communal toilet block of the settlement reconstructed and to improve the solid waste collection of the area. However, as the settlement is considered to be ‘illegal’ by the municipal institutions, no such services are provided. This enactment of ‘illegality’ is both discursive and material, as even the residents of the settlement are considered to be illegal and backward by city’s bureaucrats. In fact the through their enactment of illegality, the municipal bureaucracies shape the conditions for the residents of the settlement to turn to a local politician for access to public services. In a delicate process of negotiations, votes and money are exchanged for public services provision. In this process, a nexus is formed between local leaders, politicians and bureaucrats that shapes and reinforces local power structures. This differentiated mode of citizenship and of political organisation has been described and conceptualised by Partha Chatterjee with his concept of ‘political society’. This enactment is also both material and semiotic; the communal toilet block is in fact a material manifestation of the differentiated citizenship of those living in the ‘slums’. Analysing various dominant global enactments of ‘slums’ and ‘sanitation’ leads to various insights, First, as these objects are being ‘done’, various ‘collateral realities’ are shaped. As working on ‘sanitation’ and ‘slums’ is part of ‘doing development’ and of ‘bringing modernity’, those that live in ‘slums’ or don’t have access to ‘sanitation’ are unintentionally shaped as backward and unhygienic; these notions are actively used in the ‘illegality’ enactment. Second, as each enactment comes to being, it serves to increase the authority and thus the interests of the enabling organisation or network behind the same enactment. Third, in the process of making a coherent object, certain enactments are actively denied or distributed to other realms. In this way, according to dominant enactments, ‘doing sanitation in slums’ does not include (local) political processes and power analyses.