Exploring the tensions between planning and politics: India’s Sardar Sarovar Project

Keywords: everyday politics; water; political ecology; expertise; water governance; India
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 50

Abstract

India’s most controversial dam project, the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) was considered by its planners the most studied and best planned in the country. Despite its superior reputation in terms of planning, the project suffered strong criticism at the hands of sub-national, national and international civil society organisations representing interests of the displaced (human and non-human), and took nearly 71 years to complete. Contested heavily on grounds of human rights violation, environmental harm and poor implementation of promised benefits, the project went through significant periods of suspension, with its extensive canal networks are still under construction. In this paper, I draw on assemblage theory to examine the refractory processes of governance and the genesis of the everyday politics of water as arising from the incongruity between planners’ expertise, and the local politics complicating access to water promised by large-scale water infrastructure such as SSP. Through secondary research, the paper aims to throw light on the tensions and negotiations between local politics and state planning as part of project implementation and resulting plan revisions, and how this, in turn, impacted the project’s endurance. The paper concludes with a discussion that explores the tensions between planners’ expertise and local politics in the project’s command area.