Publications & Presentations

Abstract: Communities across the world interact with common pool resources in distinct ways, including for economic as well as social and cultural purposes. The involvement of local communities in the conservation and management of these resources requires recognising and building upon their customary de facto governance arrangements. However, the absence of a comprehensive database around the customary governance arrangements hinders their recognition, also weakens these arrangements and the institutions around them. The absence of such a database weakens the trust of external stakeholders in these customary arrangements and in local communities’ abilities to act for sustainable management of resources. In an attempt to address this issue, this research was carried out for preparing such a database to record the customary governance arrangements around the common pool resources, namely the People’s Commons’ Register (PCR). This participatory action research was conducted at three locations in the central Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. This paper shares the methodology evolved as an outcome of the research. It also highlights some key insights into the complex relationships of different stakeholders around the common pool resources. The creation of a database such as PCR is an essential first step in creating awareness and collectivising local communities for the conservation and management of the common pool resources. PCR aims to become a people’s document by enabling them to access opportunities to secure their rights to use, protect, manage and establish claims on their resources.

Abstract: The natural landscapes such as watersheds can be understood as infrastructures due to the functions, benefits, or services they perform as a system. Healthy watersheds facilitate the stabilisation of land- and water-based livelihoods, thus addressing a primary reason behind distress induced rural–urban migration. Therefore, we propose an understanding of small watersheds in India as infrastructures of desirable immobility for those depending upon land- and water-based livelihoods. Small watersheds in India emerge as infrastructures of desirable immobility in its rainfed regions, in contrast to the large water infrastructures such as dams and canals that are primarily concentrated in the water endowed areas of the country. The shift in focus from large water infrastructures to small watersheds has contributed to improving the livelihoods of rural communities in rainfed regions, thereby helping to reduce the incidence of distress migration. Conceptualising watersheds as infrastructures of desirable immobility brings attention to the infrastructural work required to prevent forced mobility. Studying the emergence and operation of small watersheds as infrastructures of immobility can improve the understanding of the challenges to maintaining healthy watersheds that force mobility upon the poor and vulnerable sections of the rural population.

Abstract: The experience of watershed development and management in countries of the Global South highlights significant challenges to governance. Establishing the overlap between watershed and commons, this paper identifies some of the most critical challenges to watershed governance in India, which follow from the uneven power relations and politics among diverse watershed actors. Common issues are faced in the implementation of the adaptive, polycentric governance regimes that are recommended for governing complex social-ecological systems like watersheds. Popular approaches in the commons literature that are focused on institutional analysis, however, do not adequately engage with the power and politics in natural resource governance; indeed, power relations and politics around a watershed can be better analysed using a social constructionist approach to natural resource governance. As has been attempted in some recent commons scholarship, this should include perspectives from political ecology, feminist political ecology, and critical human geography. Such an approach can help explain the historical emergence of the watershed through multiple socially constructed processes. It can also facilitate investigation into the relationship between watershed governing institutions and the changing human subjectivities of watershed actors that underlie dynamic scalar commoning. This paper discusses the potential, challenges and limitations of a social constructionist approach to the comprehensive diagnosis of watersheds; it also highlights some key questions that can be addressed through future research. 

Abstract: Rainwater harvesting has a crucial role in facilitating supplementary irrigation and groundwater recharge. The current research study assesses the socio-economic impacts of small rainwater harvesting structures, Doha Models – percolation tanks dug along the length of lower order seasonal streams, in semi-arid Jalna district of Maharashtra state in India. These structures facilitated recharge of wells in the agricultural fields close to streams. Facilitated by an increased water availability for irrigation, cropping intensity, cropping diversification and crop yields – especially for winter crops requiring assured irrigation – on these agricultural fields grew more than on the agricultural fields away from streams. High risk commercial seed crop cultivation also increased on the agricultural fields close to streams. At two of the four study sites, well recharge led to improvement in drinking water supply and also led to a reduction in physical drudgery associated with fetching water. Ownership and income from livestock also record a growth owing to better water and feed availability for livestock, facilitated by rainwater harvesting. The cost benefit analysis yields an internal rate of return of 16% for Doha Models. However, the study highlights that the benefits from Doha Models are limited to the agricultural fields which are downstream and are close to streams, leaving a large portion of agricultural land. Also, no community institutions are managing these structures. Based on this analysis, the study suggests increasing community participation in the designing and implementation of these structures. 

Abstract: While thinking of crimes and their relationship with the police presence, ceteris paribus the police presence must reduce the crime rate. While several empirical studies, mostly outside India, support this hypothesis, there are other studies which do not find a clear relationship between the two. There is also evidence of a positive relationship between the police and crime and that an increase in crime rate leads to an increase in the police presence. This study is an attempt to explore this relationship between the police strength and crime rate in India. It uses state data on seven crime categories and compares it with the state data on police presence per lakh population and square kilometre for 2016 to determine this relationship. It also does a comparison across years. Results from the study indicate that the total cognizable IPC and SLL crimes reduce with an increase in the police strength per lakh of population. However, no such relationship exists with the police strength per square Km. For none of the seven crime categories under analysis, crime rates are in a clear inverse relationship with the strength of the police. Relationship of crime rates with NSDP per capita and unemployment is also at variance with the earlier research findings. Study results warrant the need for further research on this subject in the Indian context. It also flags the need for further research on criminal motivations which defy police presence.

Abstract: Land degradation and climate change concerns have rendered agriculture—the primary livelihood for many—uncertain in many parts of rural South Asia. To cope with the uncertainties of agriculture, people, particularly the poor and marginalised sections of the rural population, practise, among many other coping strategies, temporary or seasonal out-migration to the urban centres within their country. In this chapter, we consider healthy watershed landscapes as infrastructures of desirable immobility to prevent this distress-induced out-migration. We further discuss the experiences of maintaining healthy watersheds and the challenges faced in watersheds’ operation as infrastructures of desirable immobility.

Abstract: The major objective of this study is to characterise the farmers’ reception with respect to the package of practices that promotes organic input practices. A questionnaire was designed to capture various socio-economic and agro-ecological aspects of the farmers and farms respectively. Data was collected through personal interviews with farmers, and several focus group discussions (FGDs) were also conducted to understand the collective reflection of the farmers. Four aspects of the adoption of the package of practices by farmers are covered in the study. It includes motivation for adopting organic farming practices, the adoption rate of various organic practices, their experience and challenges in adoption, and various characteristics of the farm and farmer affecting the challenges reported.

Abstract: Watershed (development and management) programmes aiming for natural resource conservation and livelihood generation have been a critical rural development strategy in India for a few decades now. However, the experience of these watershed programmes in India and outside highlights significant social, economic, and political challenges which render the governance of watersheds complex and the replication of these programmes difficult. Significant challenges in watershed governance relate to ensuring equity in cost and benefit distribution and the dynamics across different levels and scales of their governance.

This review paper brings together two kinds of literature – commons literature dealing with the large scale complex natural resource governance and infrastructure studies within STS (Science and Technology Studies) – to argue that studying watersheds as emergent infrastructures can facilitate crucial insight into some of the challenges to their governance and their outcomes. It argues that these challenges arise from the interaction of watershed governing institutions, technological interventions within the watershed, and the broader societal context across different scales and levels of their governance. This paper proposes a multi-sited ethnographic investigation into the twin processes of infrastructuring and commoning through watershed programmes to understand watersheds’ emergence through these programmes.

The approach of studying the intertwined processes of infrastructuring and commoning, which this paper discusses, adds insights from the rich natural resource governance research in the commons literature to study the environmental infrastructure through an STS perspective. 

Abstract: Maharashtra has a known history of farmer suicides fuelled by different reasons. A less than expected return from agriculture is one of the prominent reasons. This background lends importance to ensuring supplementary irrigation for crops and water harvesting is a credible means to achieve this end. This study explores the benefits and impacts of one less known water harvesting structure, Doha Model, in Yavatmal district of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. Yavatmal has just 5% of the net sown area under irrigation, with 79% of total workers dependent on agriculture. This study collects both quantitative and qualitative data to explore the impacts of Doha Model on agriculture, livestock and domestic water use. It uses questionnaire survey and focus group discussion to collect data from 37 households. Study finds out that the Doha Model has positively affected agriculture including cropping intensity and yield. It has also led to saving of opportunity cost of fetching water for livestock. However, there is no reduction in physical drudgery related to fetching water. Scope of benefits is limited to the downstream farmers closer to the stream and there is also a low sense of ownership of Doha Models in the local community. Study finds the immediate need for maintenance of these water harvesting structures.

Abstract: This blog post is a reflection on a Science, Technology and Democracy workshop in Delhi, highlighting some of the themes of discussions, key insights and broader questions emerging from the workshop for us.

Abstract: This blog post discusses some of the key themes of the research of Charu Singh, lecturer at Stanford University, on the history of scientific languages and the translation of European technical vocabulary into South Asian languages. 

Abstract: The technological interventions on watersheds as not something that are not necessarily implemented as per a plan but may emerge as a result of multiple other factors. Understanding the process through which the technological interventions are designed and implemented on a watershed can help in improving the understanding of watershed outcomes.

Abstract: There is a need to relook and reimagine People's Biodiversity Registers (PBR). PBRs, now mandated as part of the Biodiversity Act, are supposed to document local traditional knowledge on biodiversity, and they can play a crucial role in India's biodiversity conservation. But this has not happened for most of the PBRs across the country. This story tries to identify some of the gaps and what could be done differently.

Abstract: Documenting customary laws is a step towards community-led conservation. People’s Commons’ Register, by documenting these laws, has the potential to facilitate community-led conservation and management of the commonly-held resources and also give some negotiation power to the community in recognition of its customary laws. However, it should be seen, at best, as a foundation in this context. Recognition of the People’s Commons’ Register by the state, hand-holding of the community groups in the task of conservation and management of these resources are a few of the tasks ahead.

Abstract: Degraded wastelands have led to a fodder shortage in the Barwani district of Madhya Pradesh which already ranks quite low on a number of socio-economic parameters. Involving local communities in the efforts to restore the wastelands will enable them to rear more livestock, thus improving their incomes.

Abstract: Wider adoption of agroecological practices are limited by certain constraints which are highly region and community specific. Our study across the tribal communities in Odisha found that capacity building activities with a focus on women farmers will be of strategic value which would result in better adoption of sustainable farming practices, leading to multiple benefits like livelihood improvement, family nutrition improvement and empowerment of tribal households.

Abstract: Groundwater recharge in Kandhamal’s undulating terrain and pumps to lift water may address some of the economic poverty which is widespread in the Kandhamal district of Odisha. These interventions on water extraction coupled with water recharge can facilitate better returns from agriculture by ensuring supplementary irrigation to the tribal farmers in the region.  

Abstract: Agricultural interventions by women have ensured nutritional security in many parts of rural Odisha.  However, there is a need to recognize the women self-help groups not only as platforms to reach different ends in the domains of livelihoods, education and healthcare among others but also as ends in themselves – as the community institution that can visualize its future and work towards its realization.  Building further capacity will help them see themselves as change agents who can tackle their societal issues.

Abstract: The neglect of the local community’s customary rights is a potential reason contributing to the degradation of forest resources in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, which has a significant geographical area under forests. Therefore, there is a strong need to recognise these customary rights and enhance the community’s capacity to conserve their forests. The first step in the legal recognition of these different bundles of rights, as termed by Elinor Ostrom, the noble laureate widely recognised for her work on the Commons, is their identification and documentation in terms that are comprehensible across the different groups of stakeholders.

Abstract: Digging of streams and the creation of pond-like structures along their length can provide farmers with the much needed source of irrigation to the farmers in the rainfed undulating regions of India. Such an intervention has shown positive results in Mandla and Dindori districts of Madhya Pradesh. 

Abstract: Marathwada region of Maharashtra is prone to droughts. However, farmers in some of the villages of this region have made agriculture remunerative by harvesting rainwater in pond-like pockets in streams that are locally known as Doha. These structures have led to groundwater recharge. Creating  such structures in conjunction with a watershed approach – catching the water where it falls, from ridge to valley – rather than implementing different water harvesting structures in isolation - can enhance the overall benefits from the watershed interventions.

Abstract: A major constraint to the spread of now widely acknowledged organic farming is argued to be the drudgery involved in preparing the organic inputs, the time and labour commitment, as compared to the chemical inputs which are readily available. The promotion of input-based enterprises using locally available material to produce competitive alternatives to chemical inputs can facilitate the transition of farmers from chemical-intensive to organic agriculture.

Abstract: Struggling to gain recognition and access to their rights as a community living at the fringes of the forests and off the forest produce, the villagers of Dhurmaras in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh attempt to make the best out of the situation they are in, hoping the government will address their issues and see them as contributors to society.

Abstract: Describing the risks in migration and the burden it places on those left behind as well as the changes it has brought about in the people and their lives, this article explores options for generating a similar income within the village itself while acknowledging the lure of migration.