Table of Contents

Foreword - Peter P Mollinga
Introduction: Placing Water First - Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt
I. THE REGIONAL POLITICS OF WATER IN SOUTH ASIA
National and Regional Water Concerns: Setting the Scene - Ramaswamy R. Iyer
The Monsoon Rivers of South Asia: A Geomorphological Perspective on Managing Monsoon Rivers - Avijit Gupta
The Politics of Water in Colonial India: The Emergence of Control - David Hardiman
The Regional Politics of Water Sharing: Contemporary Issues in South Asia - Douglas Hill
Global Conventions and Regulations on International Rivers: Implications for South Asia - Binayak Ray
River-Linking and its Discontents: The Final Plunge for Supply-side Hydrology in India - Rohan D′Souza
II. REGIONAL ISSUES, CHALLENGES AND APPROACHES
Water Quality and Economic Growth in India - Robert J. Wasson
When a Public Health Story Goes Sour: Arsenic Contaminated Drinking Water in Bangladesh - Bruce Caldwell
Arsenic Contamination of Ground Water: Social Determinants of an Environmental Crisis in India - Atanu Sarkar
Gender and Integrated Water Resources Management in South Asia: The Challenge of Community-managed Alternatives - Sara Ahmed
Institutions for Integrated Water Resources Management: Lessons from Four Indian States - Vishal Narain and Saurabh Chugh
Top-down or Bottom-up?: Negotiating Water Management at the Local Level in South Asia - Saravanan V.S
Watershed Development Programmes and Rural Development: A Review of Indian Policies - Sucharita Sen
III. INTERPRETING COMMUNITY ROLES AND INITIATIVES
Beyond ′Dispositif′ and ′De-politicization′: Spaces of Civil Society in Water Conservation in Rural Rajasthan - Saurabh Gupta and Subir Sinha
Submerged Voices and Transnational Environmentalism: The Movement Against the Sardar Sarovar Dam - Judy Whitehead
Negotiating Water Management in the Damodar Valley: Kalikata Hearing and the DVC - Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt
Endogenous Water Resource Management in North-East Bangladesh: Lessons from the Haor Basin - Jennifer Duyne Barenstein
The Ganga (or the Problems of Translation) - Annie Bolitho
Index

About the Author

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt has been closely associated with local level movements working on water and related environmental issues in West Bengal, India. Trained as a human geographer from Calcutta University, Kuntala has researched water and society in Lower Damodar Valley region. She has been a member of SAARC Track III water initiatives and been a resource person for Panos Institute’s flood enquiry. Kuntala has set up a Gender Water Network (see http: //www.rspas.anu.edu.au/gwn), and is a member of the Steering Committee of Gender Water Alliance. She has written widely about water resources, and has guest edited ‘Water for People’ special issue (51.1) of the journal Development. Kuntala teaches and conducts research also on community development in mining areas and has authored several papers and books. Her recent publications include the edited volume Fluid Bonds: Views on Gender and Water, Stree, Kolkata, 2006. Kuntala is currently a Fellow at the Resource Management in Asia Pacific Program at The Australian National University.

Reviews

This book provides a useful collection of chapters and will be of interest to readers in South Asia, as well as, development professionals, social activists and water systems engineers everywhere.
*Economic and Political Weekly*

This volume is undoubtedly a stimulating contribution to the recently unfolding global debate that centers on several issues, like the management of nature, climate change, environmental degradation, and an increasing resource crunch…This collection of essays is a significant contribution to the history of water and it is expected to open up a fresh dialogue between the disciplines about the management and conservation of water.
*Hnet Online.com*

Water First brings together cutting edge interdisciplinary perspectives from renowned scholars on the histories, politics, ecologies and cultures of water. Through a rich offering of case studies and local examples, it elaborates on current water management practices have inspired, and the policies that have impacted the patterns of water use. This book will be of great interest to policy makers, social scientists students, research bodies and organisations, and national and international development and donor agencies.
*Development Alternatives*

The book…should be given Biblical status by policy makers and water experts to understand the cultures, ecologies, histories and the politics of water issues in detail…. The book offers interesting observations on the gap that has so blatantly been exploited over the years. The South Asian region must pull its act to deal with diminishing water, and realize that a lot of cleaning up needs to be done before it is too late. This book will explain how to do just that.
*www.Dawn.com*

This book is all about water. It is authored by academics, some of whom can write in a way lay people can understand. Importantly, all the essays are profusely referenced, so someone wanting to read further knows where to look.
*Business Standard*