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A colonial discourse on 'urban water': A case study of Hesaraghatta Waterworks in Bangalore, India

Akash Jash
Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru, India; akash@isec.ac.in

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the Hesaraghatta Waterworks project as a case study of urban water governance in colonial Bangalore, now called Bengaluru. The study investigates how the project’s administrative and institutional dimensions sought to reshape the relationship between water and urban populations. The findings demonstrate that the introduction of piped water through the new waterworks coincided with the emergence of a modern water governance framework. This framework was marked by new rules and legal instruments that attempted to alter the dynamics of water-people interactions in the urban context; in the process, however, it also led to unequal access and distribution of water. Based on these findings, the paper argues that the Hesaraghatta project represented a broad transformation in the social construction of urban water, whereby water shifted from being a shared ecological resource to a centrally governed urban utility, which was characterised by an association with institutional governance, legal control, and commodification. The paper further contends that these administrative and infrastructural changes operated as strategies through which the colonial administration sought to exercise its governmental rationality, rendering water not only a material necessity but also a potential tool for population management and social ordering.

KEYWORDS: Urban water, Hesaraghatta Waterworks, Urban Political Ecology, colonial governance, governmental rationality, Bengaluru, India