(Why) Shared responsibility means not my responsibility (in present times)?
With a case of preserving traditional water systems
Shared responsibility, community ownership, public participation, and everyone’s favourite ‘citizen engagement’, and many more terms like these have been doing rounds in present times but many of them are still deemed alien by the individual who is next in turn to contribute for a community-managed good. And this has been the case of a great number of individuals in the society, justifying the fact that our natural resources, especially land and water are in worse than ever conditions today. The anthropogenic activity has put a huge burden on these natural resources and their rate of exploitation has reached record levels. To make the situation even worse, the same nature of interventions is being made to allegedly conserve nature.
These conservation efforts assume that a complex, technology-driven top-down approach is the archetype solution to all the current problems.
This not only disrespects the local context but also exacerbates the problem, many a times creating an infinite series of repercussions. Such a situation leads to the detachment of local commune from their resources and their issues and suspends any further contribution by making them believe that a) their effort in these new giant systems is too minuscule to create an impact, and b) the top actors (often the state) must take care from now on; it’s not my responsibility anymore.
This has been the story of more or less, all the decentralised water systems in India, and the kuhls of Himachal Pradesh are no different. These traditional gravity flow irrigation systems used to serve much of the needs of local population, by delivering the glacial melt in the form of pure water. But in the 20th century’s standard model of development, the water started reaching to them in a pipe, being carried from a centralised source. An equally contributing factor to the present day plight of kuhls is the increasing market-based opportunities, which has given rise to nonfarm employment, especially for the younger generations (Baker 1996). This section of society is now no more dependent on kuhls for their incomes, and is, therefore, reluctant to contribute to their management and upkeep. The kuhl regimes, as explained by Baker, are under pressures associated with these politico-economic changes, while also being subject to recurring environmental shocks (Baker 1996). Adding to the woes, micro hydel-power projects have sprung up across the streams, resulting in the drying of kuhls (The Tribune 2014). The superposition of all these factors has resulted in rendering the kuhls as an extra system, and with no delay as a useless one. There have been attempts by the state to preserve kuhls by concrete lining the kuhls, institutionalising few kuhl regimes into committees and in some cases handing over the command to state Irrigation and Public Health department. But, as explained earlier, these sophisticated, technology-driven top-down systems have failed to deliver the desired outcomes, while detaching the locals from kuhls at the same time.
So how should we solve the problem now?
Kuhls, once been the primary source of irrigation are today yearning for their communities to rescue them. The current solutions often overlook the knowledge residing with locals and ignore their stories of how adverse situations were dealt in the past. The tendency of state actors to bring in standardised theoretical solutions from outside results in impudence of the symbiotic relationship of locals with their environment.
To overcome these challenges, new methodologies to harness and analyse local know-how have to be devised.
These methodologies must first acknowledge the participation of youth as an imperative, and identify the ‘factors of intrinsic motivation’ in locals for owning the responsibility of their vernacular systems. Assessments to ascertain the awareness of locals about the benefits of these systems and their traditional methods of repair, maintenance and operations can be the first step in the right direction. Subsequently, the factors which would motivate them to participate and share the responsibilities of these community goods can be determined.
These factors can range from upfront incentives, social cohesion in the community, emotional inclination towards local resources, awareness of the minimal ecological impact of traditional systems to the fear of extreme climate events, and even many unknowns. And a prerequisite to such an exercise would be to develop the trait of critical observation sans biases.
The eventual goal should be to ingrain a sense of responsibility towards the environment and natural resources in society.
The organically structured, smaller in scale, local communities have the potential to create an impact far more resounding than any big-ticket state-driven scheme. With access to nearly infinite sources of knowledge and human networks, the youth can facilitate a movement that will have ever-lasting impressions.
To paraphrase E.F. Schumacher, the stewardship to the environment will spring from the human needs and human relationships- the human scale, which is small (Schumacher 1973).
Bibliography
Baker, J Mark. 1996. “Changing Contexts, Steady Flows: Patterns of Institutional Change within the Communal Irrigation Systems (Kuhls) of Kangra Valley,Himachal Pradesh, India.” Himalaya, The Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies 13–18.
Schumacher, E.F. 1973. Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered. Blond & Briggs (1973–2010), HarperCollins (2010–present).
The Tribune. 2014. Scanty rain delays wheat sowing. Dharamsala, 28 November.
