‘You’re looking at the backdoor privatisation of water.’ Watch part two of P Sainath's talk on water

In this second part of P Sainath’s lecture on the Marathwada water crisis put up by Newsclickin (see the first part), he talks about the political corruption that made the Maharashtra water crisis worse. He also demonstrates with pictures the wide-scale disparity in water consumption within cities, and between urban and rural areas.

“You've had a particular kind of politics in Maharashtra... At one time and the same time we had Mr S M Krishna from Karnataka based in Mumbai Rajbhavan and travelling three to four times a week to Bangalore. You had Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, may he rest wherever, and you had Mr Sharad Pawar as agriculture minister. As we used to say in Vidarbha at the time, 'dekho Maharashtra ki haalat, Rajyapal jo hai uska interest hai neighbouring state. Mukhyamantri jo hai uska interest hai real estate, aur Krishi Mantri jo Vidarbha mein unko kehte hai Cricket Mantri (Look at the condition of Maharashtra. The governor is interested in the neighbouring state, the Chief Minister is interested in real estate, and the agriculture minister is called the cricket mantri in Vidarbha)'... these were the three guys presiding over the destinies of the state for some time, especially the latter two.”

Sainath shows slides of building complexes in Mumbai and Pune with extravagances like attached swimming pools with each flat. He talks about a building coming up in Borivali that'll have two swimming pools per floor, with a grand total of 210 pools – and then one large pool om the ground floor if those 210 fall short.

"Now understand this, everybody can say you can't count the water on my lawn, it's only such a small amount, I used 20 litres or 30 litres to water... it adds up. Golf as a game... golf courses take 1.8 million litres of water per day in season. I am going to show you some slides, the kind of buildings that are coming up in Mumbai... I want you to see a single building planned to come up in Borivali which will have 210 swimming pools...."

He juxtaposes these pictures with those of people in rural areas trying many different ways to acquire water for everyday necessities. Dalit women who have to wait until everyone else has got water, men who spend a lot of money on petrol just to be able to get water, women making 30-40 trips from their homes.

"You're not just looking a rural urban divide, you are looking at a gigantic class divide within the city where 0.1 per cent of the population is cornering most of the water."

"The rage of the 90s was water users' associations, you don't hear much of that now no? Water users' association primarily meant the rich farmers of an area who would corner that water with their superior bargaining power. I love this word 'water users' – what are the rest of us? Dry land bacteria?

"All your dams, tanks, rivers are in the process of being privatised. The management is being privatised. Chhattisgarh was the first state in the country to do it with 23 km of the Sheonath river. Maharashtra had an Act, a ready Bill in Assembly which was blocked by resistance, to privatise the management of dams... you are looking at the back door privatisation of water in your country...

"Rational pricing means who can afford water gets it... or are we going to say everybody has to get, that it is not charity, it is not sending a train to Latur, it is the right of the child of Latur. What rational pricing will you adopt for her?... Is water a commercial good or is it a fundamental right? And by the way I also want to insist it's not a fundamental human right, it's a right of millions of other species on your planet..."