ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses human–water relationships in a large unplanned area of peri-urban Delhi. Unconnected to the city’s main water network, public water supply is characterised by ad hoc inadequate provision, compounded by rent-seeking and political calculation. Aquifers are exploited to the point of exhaustion, reflecting North India’s larger groundwater crisis, and local leaders are said to control water supply for political and financial gain. While Delhi’s new government plans to reform the governance of informal groundwater supply in the area, the resilience of informal arrangements appears to present a continuing challenge.
The ‘water mafia’ politics in the chapter title refers to the way allegations of corruption and complicity with the water mafia are made between local rivals for political advantage. As with talk of corruption more broadly, the popular imagination of these opaque and fluid informal political economies illustrates understandings of the local state. At the same time, the social hydrology of informal groundwater use, as a combination of natural and social elements, extends beyond the state and social relations, and is difficult for any actor to sustainably capture and control. It is, in a word, unruly. Tracing the links between infrastructure, informality and politics in this setting offers a fresh perspective on the socio-technical mediations between humans and water, urbanisation and resource governance in South Asia as well as the concepts of informality, infrastructure and politics.
