Some water for all: People's science lessons from the Krishna Valley (India)

Among social movements struggling for water reforms in India, the Krishna Valley movement of Maharashtra state has taken a distinctive approach toward irrigation development. As a partnership between farmer's organizations and NGOs, this movement has countered the state's supply-side development model by melding oppositional politics with reconstructive efforts. Engineers affiliated with this movement have used their expertise, in combination with farmer's experiential knowledge, to design alternative irrigation systems that promote equitable access to water. While this movement has advocated small-scale technologies, as part of its overarching goal of protecting the rural poor against drought, it has also supported the building of large dams when the social impacts of displacement, and ecological costs of water impoundment, are minimized.; In chronicling the evolution of the Krishna Valley movement, this thesis situates contemporary political organizing within a historical view of the natural and social conditions that produce water scarcity. This thesis locates the strength of the movement in its thirty years of experience articulating alternative irrigation designs. Through diverse hydrological experiments, movement leaders have built a corpus of knowledge about how irrigation can be designed toward the goals of increasing access and improving the efficiency of end use.; As the Krishna Valley movement has evolved, it has scaled up its efforts toward the reform of government river basin development. In this most recent phase, movement leaders have focused their work on transforming the Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation (MKVDC). Through campaigns to re-design MKVDC dams, the movement has impacted the ways in which projects are being developed. These project changes have led to broader policy reforms that improve compensation packages for displaced peoples and devolve management to beneficiary groups.; While the movement has demonstrated methods by which the MKVDC can implement demand driven development, it has had limited impact on changing the broader political economy of water distribution in Maharashtra. State water policy continues to revolve around the interests of a powerful sugarcane economy. Dislodging the power of this industry will require dismantling a regime of institutional support that has been entrenched since the late nineteenth century.