Contextualizing Collaborative Planning: Addressing Water Resilience in the Urban Poor Settlements of Ranchi

Abstract

The research embarks from the standpoint that unequal geographies of service delivery in the Southern city evidence differentiating practices embedded within dominant rational planning practices. It aligns and responds to the call of Southern urban theorists to develop alternative planning practices by anchoring within the socio- spatial specificities of Southern urbanisms. Foregrounding this objective, the research turns to the collaborative planning model and its pragmatic tradition of resisting the subjugating tendencies of instrumental rationality by admitting new ways of knowing and being from the life-world. Drawing upon a multi-actor collaboration that sought to address the circumstance of water insecurity in the urban poor settlements of Ranchi city, the research uses Healy’s (1997) Forum, Arena and Courts as entry points to frame on-ground recursive and collaborative interventions. These include unpacking the context to frame and implement interventions that sought to enhance water security while operationalising supporting actions that aim to sustain the interventions. Within this framing, the paper draws upon the critiques of the collaborative planning model as standpoints for contextual reinterpretation to foreground a) the importance of empowering strategic actors at the bottom of socio-political hierarchies to lead the process; b) conceptualize consensus as a process rather than an end-point recognizing its intrinsic relationship with conflict; and, c) institutionalizing formalized yet flexible processes for consensus-building. Overall the paper argues that collaborative planning with its focus on the particularities of place and on the human capacity to invent, create, and transform presents a viable starting point for resisting the dominating confines of instrumental rationality in significant ways.

Keywords

rational planning collaborative planning informality water security Ranchi

1. Introduction

The water-stressed nature of some of the urban geographies of the Global South and its interlinkage with questions of urban poverty and climate change induced vulnerability is identified as a persistent and escalating crisis (Lundqvist et al., 2003; Ray and Shaw, 2019).¹ The crisis is as much a product of socio-political processes as it is of ecological occurrences (Truelove, 2019; Ahlers et.al., 2014; Swyngedouw, 2004). The unequal waterscapes of the Southern city emerge as indictment of the ‘mismatch’ between borrowed planning practices and the ‘stubborn realities’ that characterize the global South (Watson, 2013). It exemplifies how the dominant planning exercise, in relation with larger processes of economic and political restructuring (Watson, 2009a), has through its framing of the formal (planned) and informal city (unplanned) (Roy, 2012) led to differentiating practices of the state.² Against this context, the call to reconsider the assumptions of technocratic determinism and modernist ideal that guide rational planning frameworks gains credence and volume.

Highlighting the exclusionary nature of dominant rational planning practices, scholars have argued for planning approaches ‘for and from’ the South (Bhan, 2019; Watson, 2009b; Watson, 2013; Mohan et.al, 2021). This is premised on the argument that modes of space production categorized within the formal planning and governance registers as the ‘unplanned or informal’ - slums, squatter settlements, urban villages- in fact present modalities and rationalities capable of re-imagining planning frameworks (Roy, 2012; Watson, 2013, Harrison, 2006). The present paper aligns with this proposition while expanding upon it to address the ‘how?’ How can alternatives to rational planning practices be developed by grounding within the empirical specificities of Southern urbanisms?

To address this question, we turn to the collaborative planning approach developed in the 1990s by scholars like Forester (1993), Healey (1997) and Innes (1995). The alignment between collaborative planning approach’s orientation towards learning the ‘lifeworld’ (Healey, 1997) embedded in the ‘everyday realities’ (Bhan, 2019; Harrison, 2014), provides a fertile ground for arriving at grounded alternatives to rational planning. Collaborative planning theorists conceptualized planning as a process of open argumentation for developing inter-subjective mutual understanding between diverse stakeholders (Healey, 1997). Rooting itself in the pragmatic tradition that rejects the notion of a priori principles to emphasize experience in framing and validating knowledge claims (Healey, 2008), collaborative planning argues that by admitting new ways of knowing and being from the local, daily and subjective, it is possible to remake and impact dominant power relations (Healey, 2003).³

However, even as the theory evolved, it was critiqued along several dimensions, three of which are critical. Firstly, its overemphasis of individual agency and insufficient consideration of the dominant power relations (Fainstein, 1997; Huxley and Yiftachel, 2000). Secondly, the challenges of achieving consensus in contexts that are marked by pluralistic meanings and beliefs (Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 1998). Thirdly, the challenge of translating positions arising out of discussion and debate into substantive outcomes (McGuirk, 2001). Responses to these critiques, Healey (2003, 2008) and Hoch (2007) emphasized that the collaborative planning approach was not envisioned as a stagnant planning theory. Instead it follows in the pragmatic tradition of unlocking transformative potential by focussing on the particularities of practice. It is a model meant for reflexive reinterpretation within diverse settings including Southern geographies, albeit with nuanced consideration of situated governance contexts, histories and cultures (Healey, 2012; Watson, 2002; 2016).

Engaging with the problem frame of water insecurity in Southern cities and its disproportionate manifestation for the informal city, the paper advances Healey’s call for adapting and moulding the model to suit the diverse contexts of the Southern city where assumptions of liberal democratic settings do not always hold true. The paper mobilizes the dominant critiques as standpoints for contextual reinterpretation (Harris, 2005), thereby prioritizing hopeful action over paralyzing critique in the face of planning complexity (Hoch, 2007). In doing so, it demonstrates ways to circumvent the dangers of contextual blindness while counter-acting the repressive tendencies of techno-rational planning processes.

Drawing upon a multi-actor collaboration that sought to address water insecurity in the informal socio-spatial forms of Ranchi (discussed further in Section 3), the paper suggests grounded pathways to resisting the confines of instrumental rationality. These socio-spatial territories co-exist alongside the formal-serviced city, yet are basic service deficient, often positioned as exceptions to the formal or the planned city. They exemplify the tension, disjuncture and interrelation between institutional and grounded modes of space production, thus, constituting a fertile ground for locating an investigation into alternatives to rational planning practices.

Following this introduction Section 2 presents the theoretical framework that draws on formal (rational) planning approaches in Southern cities and its role in exacerbating unequal hydrological landscapes and the subsequent call for planning reform. It discusses collaborative planning theories and its pragmatic roots, attendant critiques to highlight the need for contextual reinterpretation of the approach. Section 3 discusses the informal socio-spatial territories of Ranchi and the water stress patterns that characterize these as well as the methods deployed in the research. Drawing upon situationally and contextually relevant processes that aimed to enhance water security in these territories, Section 4 discusses their relevance to operationalise collaborative planning while tackling the critiques to the collaborative planning model. The paper concludes in Section 5 to argue that collaborative planning can be a viable alternative to rational planning.

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1 Rational Planning and Differentiating Practices of the State

The inception of rational planning in cities of the Global South is linked to transnational histories of colonialism and post-colonial development (Mahedevia and Joshi, 2009; Watson, 2009a; Parnell and Pieterse, 2010; Mohan et.al., 2021). While it was hoped that following independence there would be a re-imagination of planning frameworks, many post-colonial governments ended up reinforcing colonial plans and land managements in more rigid forms (Watson, 2009a; Njoh, 2003; Mabin, 2014). The rigidity of planning practices, contrary to the dynamic on-ground urbanization characteristic of the Southern city continues to be criticised, manifesting in calls for planning reform. A growing body of scholarship has pointed to how the dominant contextually inappropriate planning practices have consolidated and exacerbated socio-spatial inequality (Mohan et.al, 2021, Bhan, 2019; Watson, 2009a; Roy, 2009). The unequal hydrological landscapes of Southern cities are one such manifestation, exemplifying this disjunction.

Specific to the basic service of water provisioning, planning for provisioning water relies on rational expertise and institutional legitimacy premised on a supply-oriented engineering ethos. Incepted during colonial regimes and continued by most sovereign governments post colonisation, the provisioning of water is based on assumptions of unlimited supply and domination and control of nature. State-led efforts to realize the vision of a networked city with universalized and standardized basic services, rarely translated into reality (Gandy, 2008). The UN estimates over 1.8 billion people, most of them in the Global South, without reliable access to safe drinking water (Stoler and Tutu, 2016). Within this water crisis, the correlation between socio-economic status and water supply access is widely evidenced (Coelho, 2005; Das and Safini, 2018; Bakker et al., 2008; Watson, 2009a). Decisions on service delivery favour projects and neighbourhoods that align with the state’s notion of modernity while the poor- concentrated largely in the informal or unplanned socio-spatial territories - have to pay more and greater proportions of their income for basic services.

Historically, the state has shaped the differentiated and fractured forms of space and infrastructure, water included . By extension the “informal water” is a product of historically specific forms of state practice over time (Ranganthan, 2018). These practices were further boosted in the 1980s with the neo-liberal reforms that shifted the state’s approach to infrastructure provisioning from universality to profitability. Categories of deserving and non-deserving publics were recast and accompanied with the creation of new nomenclature, language, titling and modalities of service delivery (Coelho, 2005). Differential service delivery reflects the state’s positioning of demands of the ‘deserving’ civil society as rights, and those of the ‘undeserving’ political society as claims (Chatterjee, 2004, emphasis added).

The call for planning reform is embedded in the recognition of a disjunction between increasingly techno managerial planning systems and the every-day lives of a marginalised urban population. In India, provisioning of water is largely the mandate of provincial governments, although the national government has been a significant and influential player in urban water and sanitation primarily through providing substantial funding; setting the overall policy framework; and, putting out technical standards and norms. The mandate is therefore often split between the national and the provincial governments. Furthermore, the focus is largely on creation of built assets - water treatment plants, distribution networks, augmenting the source, amongst others. This, in itself is not an indication of the quality and efficiency of the service (Wankhade and Balakrishnan, 2014, Desai, 2018). Advancing pro-poor and inclusive urban planning frameworks will require foregrounding modes of space production placed as exceptions to the planned city (Roy, 2012). The informal city and its socio-spatial signifiers such as slums, squatter settlements, urban villages amongst others operate with a survival rationality that appropriates, embeds and rejects the governing rationality of the state to create arrangements that work (Watson, 2003). That these informal practices constitute the dominant mode of practice in the urban South has led to calls to re-position them as central to planning practices and ensuing theory (Bhan, 2019). The provocation is that by anchoring within the empirical specificities of everyday relations, practices, and experiences, it is possible to develop ‘new’ modes of planning praxis suited to the ‘stubborn realities’ of the Global South (Bhan, 2019; McFarlane, 2008; Watson, 2009b, Mohan et.al., 2021).

In other words, generating grounded alternatives to rational planning processes requires new ways of knowing and being from the ‘lived space’ of everyday urban reality. The collaborative planning approach developed in the 1990s by Forester (1993), Healey (1997), and Innes (1995) responds to this requirement. It presents a viable start point for this epistemological widening that entails a critical reimagination of the top-down, rational and marketized planning processes.

2.2 Collaborative Planning Approach

The collaborative planning model emerged in the 1990’s in context of two interrelated trends: the increasing neo-liberal influence on public policy; and, post-modern critiques of scientific rationalism (Harris, 2005). Described as a way through which ‘political communities may organize to improve the quality of their places’ (Healey, 1997, pp xi) collaborative planning provided a new way of conceptualizing urban dynamics and institutional design. It rejects the absolutism of techno-scientific analysis and deductive logic to provide pathways for admitting experiential, local, intuitive, tacit, and expressive knowledge systems (McGuirk, 2001). In employing consensus-building practices that enable diverse stakeholders to develop inter-subjective mutual understanding, it is possible to identify new ways of planning and managing co-existence in shared places (Healey, 1997). In other words, collaborative planning re-casts planning and work of planners as ‘building relational capacity to address collective concerns’ (Healey, 1997, pp 69).

There are arguments that communicative planning does not challenge the political and economic hegemony of neo liberalization as it allows the state to outsource its responsibility to non-state actors. It is seen as a creative co-option of democratic practices which only reinforce existing power relations, thus legitimising neoliberalism (Purcel, 2009, Roy, 2015). However, a call for “chains of equivalence”: movements made up of allied groups seeking broad transformation of existing power relations” (Purcell, 2009) offers a way for disadvantaged groups to challenge existing hierarchies. Models of collaborative planning that pursue such struggles, seeking to resist the current hegemony and establish new political structures, holds the potential to counter the influence of neoliberalism on public policy. Interventions to enhance water security in Ranchi, as demonstrated later, relies on the chains of equivalence movements of ‘non-deserving publics’ that seek to counter the neoliberal agenda.

At the core of the collaborative planning theory is the pragmatic conception of action (Hoch, 2007), that assumes that planners, through the verb of collaboration emerge as objects rather than subjects of change (Healey, 2008). Collaboration allows to ‘act in little ways’ to change perceptions, understandings, and modes of practice (Healey, 2008, pp. 8). The question of ‘what to do’ in the face of socio-spatial complexity, by focusing attention on the empirical and consequential dimensions of planning rather than on its doctrinal debates (Hoch, 2007; Healey, 2008) emerged critical.

Even as the scholarship around collaborative planning theory and the attendant pragmatic planning tradition continued to expand, it was critiqued along three strands. Firstly, critics pointed out that the theory engaged insufficiently with the question of power relations while overemphasizing individual agency. It failed to recognise or chooses to ignore the wider set of institutional relations that planning forms a subset of (Fainstein, 1997). Its focus on the practical workings of planning denies it the critical distance required to understand the structuring forces that facilitate or hinder realization of collaborative qualities (Huxley and Yiftachel, 2000). These critics, based on their understanding that efficacy of practical action requires a vivid comprehension of ‘real’ social causes (Hoch, 2007), position the claims of collaborative planning theory to shift power bases as overly optimistic (Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 1998). It is inevitable that collaborative planning practices will be subject to the workings of power allowing distortion, manipulation, control and exclusion (Harris, 2005).

Secondly, critics question the possibility and the desirability of the consensus-building that collaborative planning orients itself around. This critique builds off the insufficient consideration of power relations but focusses more specifically on limitations of the modes of power mediation proposed by the model i.e. dialogue and consensus-building. The ideal speech conditions that Habermas postulates- all affected parties are included, all are given equal possibility to represent claims, existing power difference are neutralized, and participants openly explain goals and interests- are utopian. In the highly politicised arena of planning, there are winners and losers and it is impossible to expect participants to abandon their political positions and act neutrally. The model insufficiently engages with the question of what to do in situations where consensus can’t be reached and how to circumvent the threat of imposition in reaching consensus (Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 1998). Further, by placing consensus as the end-goal it ignores the possibility of conflict in driving engagement and attendant action (Jon, 2020).

Thirdly, critics point out that the model’s overt focus on process takes the attention away from substantive outcomes of planning interventions. This challenge operates on two levels: developing coherent strategies out of open discussion platforms and then accommodating these discursively produced strategies within existing frameworks. Collaborative planning’s over-emphasis on processual conditions risks it devolving into ‘talking shops’ (Fainstein, 1997). A ‘sheer collection of more ‘yeses’ from more types of people is not a prerequisite for collective action’ (Jon, 2020, pp. 237). Parameters of success for the model require that agreements translate into tangible and practical outcomes. Without a focus on outcomes it is difficult to defend the model as well as secure stakeholder interest (Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 1998).

Hoch (2007) and Healey (1997, 2003, 2008) respond to some of these critiques. Hoch (2007, pp 273) says that pragmatists ‘need not apologise for caring about professional planning and planners’, a focus which was critiqued by Fainstein (1997) and Huxley and Yiftachel, (2000). He emphasized the contribution of pragmatic analysts in circumventing the paralysis of overly critical approaches and providing practical advice for dealing with the complexity that arises in specific situations. Responding to the critique on insufficient consideration of power and outcomes, Healey (2003) emphasizes that the collaborative planning model was not intended as a fixed ‘recipe’. Healy (1997, pp 259, adapted from Crosby and Bryson, 1992) outlined institutional strategies for adapting the collaborative planning model elaborated as the three phases of ‘Forum’, ‘Arena’ and ‘Courts’. These, she argued should be adapted within the specificities of institutional settings and governance cultures to situationally derive what is ‘good’ and ‘just’. In doing so, the intention is not to neutralize power. Rather the objective is to reduce domination to a minimum. It considers process and outcomes as co-constitutive rather than separate. Harris (2005) reiterates that the collaborative planning approach was conceived as a ‘form of practice’ and positions critiques to it as standpoints for informing and strengthening the model.

Finally, while emphasizing the need and potential for contextual re-interpretation of the collaborative planning approach, Healey (2012) offers a word of caution. She stresses the need to attach a sort of ‘origin narrative’ and employ the pragmatic tradition of continually open, exploratory and evolving inquiry for working out the practices suited to the particular context or situation. This consideration is reiterated by Watson (2002; 2016). She highlights that the usefulness of collaborative planning theory in dealing with problems of inequity, division and social breakdown in unequal geographies such as those of the Southern cities is contingent upon proceeding from a thorough understanding of context-specific socio-spatial and political processes.

Aligning with Healey’s (2003, pp 117) proposition that ‘strategic actors who can make a difference will be those who focus on real opportunities for innovation and who work with the ‘grain’ of the emergent properties of specific situations’, the following sections focus on contextual adaptation and reinterpretation of the collaborative planning approach. By deploying the model to enhance water security in informal geographies of Ranchi, it operationalizes the pragmatic advice of working with the ‘grain’ to identify new ways of knowing and being that can feed into and assist in evolving alternatives to the dominant rational planning practices in the Global South.

3. Ranchi and its Informal Socio-Spatial Territories

Ranchi, is an emerging metropolis of 1.07 million and the capital of the Eastern state of Jharkhand (CRISIL Infrastructure Advisory Team, 2013). The socio-political identity of the state is linked to its mineral resources and its predominantly tribal population. Since the late 1950’s Ranchi’s growth has been industrially propelled. However, post 2000, following its designation as capital of Jharkhand, the city experienced unprecedented urbanization accompanied by the conversion of agricultural land, shrinkage of surface water bodies (Kumar et al., 2011), groundwater depletion and water pollution (Singh, 2013). The city matches the motif of ‘small cities’ that face ‘triple environmental governance challenges’: development and under-development challenges exacerbated by limitations in financial and human resources (Véron, 2010, pp 2834).

The inadequacies of the rational planning processes in Ranchi and their supply-driven, utilitarian and technocratic approach to water resource management is evidenced in the city’s escalating water crisis. The city’s main water source has been the Subarnarekha river and tributaries of Harmu, Potpoto and Jumar. Its piped water supply is from three dams built across these rivers: Kanke Dam in the north, Hatia/Dhurwa Dam in the southeast and Getalsud/Rukka Dam in the northwest (Wirths, 2020). This piped water supply system however covers only 29 of its 55 wards (Khwairakpam & Kumari, 2018). Majority of the city’s population depends upon groundwater for their water supply needs. With the city’s exponential population and built-up area increase (Ahmad and Goparaju, 2016), it is no surprise that its groundwater resources have been exploited to the extent of 112% (Singh, 2013). Over the past five years, the state has been hit by droughts three times (2016, 2018, 2019) (Shree & Kumar, 2018). The decrease in rainfall is especially problematic given that Ranchi’s aquifers are semi-confined in nature, which means that the water level is replenished by rainfall and not by seepage of river water. The water crisis is further evidenced by the reducing quality. A recent study measuring water quality in commercial and industrial zones revealed that 80% of the samples had poor water quality and only 9% showing good water quality (Tirkey et.al., 2017). During droughts, the municipality transports water from distant boreholes or from one of the three dams and supplies it to specific communities. Instances of clashes between citizens to gain access to these municipal water tankers (Bhaduri, 2016) starkly evidences the water crisis in the city. This water insecurity is however more pronounced in the informal socio-spatial territories.

In order to understand Ranchi’s informal socio-spatial territories, it is necessary to touch upon the tribal histories of the city. Legally, tribal land rights in Ranchi are dictated by the provisions of the Chhotanagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act, 1908. Introduced during colonial regimes, the CNT Act was meant to prevent the dispossession of tribal lands and integrate traditional land systems. However, as the city expanded, first with the setting up of mineral industries, and then with the designation as state capital, tribal lands were expropriated (Khakha, 2019). The erstwhile tribal hamlets emerged as heterogeneous zones of exception, marked by a diverse set of tenurial classes and a complex overlap of urban and rural activities (Anand, 2017). This hybridity and specificity do not find acknowledgement within formal planning and policy frameworks. In most cases these hamlets get categorized as informal. The city officially has 254 informal settlements – slums and urban villages - supporting 30 % of the city’s population. While these are typical informal socio-spatial forms in terms of representing a geography that minimally shares in the benefits of urbanization, they are atypical in terms of their tenure rights. Their classification as informal exacerbates vulnerabilities since they are accorded the least priority in formal planning and governance mechanisms especially with regards to service provision. For example, within the city’s industrial area, planned colonies have piped water supply while the slums and urban villages within the same area do not have any service except electricity (Anand, 2017).

These 75-100 years old settlements traditionally depended on water sources like rivers, open wells, talab (tanks) and dadis.⁴ Denied access to formal service provision, the traditional water sources that these communities relied on are also becoming unusable due to disruption of ecological relationships and industrial pollution. Declining water tables along with anthropogenic contamination has affected the resilience of this natural resource too with communities having to rely on private water tankers in summers. Notably, while quick-fix solutions of the municipality like deep bores in the settlements have dried up over the years, community wells in the same settlements continue to have water, although, this is non-potable. Engagements with the community revealed their awareness of resilience of traditional water sources and management practices against the unreliability of state promoted technologies of water delivery. This awareness on the resilience of these surface water systems emerged as the start point of a community led engagement that sought to enhance water access in the informal settlements of Ranchi as discussed later in this Section.

3.1 Methods

The research locates itself within the action oriented approach entailing “a systematic inquiry that is collective, collaborative, self-reflective, critical, and undertaken by the participants of the inquiry” (McCutcheon and Jung 1990). As the name suggests, the approach allows foregrounding action in the research enterprise. Given the present study’s focus on themes of unequal distribution of resources, power and conflicting interests, the action oriented approach is ideal for three reasons. To begin with, it allows for a reflexive understanding of practice and the articulation of a rationale or philosophy of practice to improve the lives of the community involved. This reflexivity emerged critical in conversations that sought to interrogate “received notions of improvement or solutions in terms of who ultimately benefits from the actions undertaken” (Herr and Anderson 2005). Second, it is oriented to some action or cycle of actions that the community would wish to take to address a particular problematic situation. The idea is that changes occur within the setting or within the participants and researchers themselves. Third, it allows for collaboration (within the setting) and with stakeholders who have a stake in the problem under investigation.

The action oriented research was operationalised via mixed methods that relied on multiple dialogic engagements designed to replace the ‘extractive’ model of social research (Stoecker 2009). The mixed method approach integrated qualitative and quantitative analysis. Qualitative information such as the main reasons for water stress, pockets of water stress as well as the implications of water scarcity were sought from Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and semi-structured interviews. A, participatory exercise to map settlements spatially with a focus on mapping the wells and their command area constituted a critical data collection exercise. These conversations also provided insights on when and why (in their opinion) did water become scarce and what could possibly be done to address this scarcity. Additionally, community knowledge on sources of water in the past and how these were used and managed elicited and used to comprehend the familiarity of community members with passive nature based technologies that could possibly be re-introduced as solutions.

Quantitatively, the research relied on household data on water usage, patterns of usage as well as sources for the same. This data was critical to understand household scale water consumption patterns, especially for potable water as well as the mapping of different usages to multiple sources of water. Data was also collected on the quality and quantity of water in the wells. The latter continues on a bi-annual basis and is discussed later in the paper.

4. Addressing Water Insecurity through a Collaborative Planning Approach

The project emerged out of the partnership between Mahila Housing Trust (hereafter the NGO), a non-government community development organisation with a long-standing presence in the slums of Ranchi, Integrated Design (hereafter the Planner), a planning practice focused on curating sustainable habitats, the communities residing in the slums and the state represented by the local elected member (hereafter the Councillor). Critical to the project was the NGO’s model of working where it organizes families into a group called the Community Based Organizations (CBO). Within the CBO women leaders are identified who are then federated to constitute a Community Action Group (CAG). The CAG, comprising of 10-12 women leaders –Vikasinis – who act as the executive committee of the CBO and leads action on their behalf. The Vikasinis are trained to actively interface with government bodies and take charge of improvement processes.⁵ MHTs long presence in the slum settlements of Ranchi coupled with its belief that the lack of improved water and sanitation in poor settlements cumulatively impacts health, safety, and well-being of communities, especially women who are already doubly disadvantaged (and therefore the need for immediate action) emerged critical to the collaboration.

The collaboration amongst communities, the NGO and the planner focused on understanding existing water stresses in the settlements, generate consensus on potential solutions, and implement pilot interventions for enhancing ecological resilience. The interventions implemented included, as demonstration pilots, the rejuvenation and repair of four wells in two settlements and the installation of a pilot grey water management system in one of the settlements. Both relied on nature-based passive technologies that the communities had tacit and experiential knowledge of. Three years since implementation, a regular monitoring of water in the wells points to marked improvements in both water quality and quantity.

The rest of this Section describes the contextualisation of the collaborative planning model towards enhanced water access and security in the two pilot settlements in the city. It discusses the instances that reveal pathways for tackling the critiques to the collaborative planning model. The interventions use Healy’s strategies of forum, arena and courts as entry points to frame recursive activities entailing a) context setting; b) preparation and implementation; and c) supporting activities.

4.1. Context setting

Premised on the Forum phase that advocates creation and communication of meaning (Healey, 1997; Crosby and Bryson, 1992), the context setting exercise in Ranchi was initiated via identification and mobilisation of all the stakeholders- both articulate and silent, powerful and powerless, within and beyond immediate territories. The Vikasinis as women leaders were critical to this process of stakeholder identification and mobilisation that went beyond women to engage other stakeholders including men and youth. The relationship of MHT with the women was leveraged to facilitate the larger community engagement with the action- research while exercising control (through discussions) on the design and methodology of the research as well as the envisaged action. Consequently, the inquiry was by or with the community as against to or on them (Herr and Anderson, 2005) thus rendering the process reflective. This is evidenced and illustrated in greater detail in the rest of this section

The objective of multi-stakeholder mobilisation was to arrive at a multi-lens framing of the water challenge in the community. This entailed conversations with community members on how and why water access emerged as a challenge and everyday implications of water scarcity for the community. The CAG and the Vikasinis as members of the same community were tasked with initiating, leading and steering the conversations, conducted at multiple places within the settlements. Discussions revealed a nuanced understanding of the historical occupation of land and its role in water security within the settlement largely through wells, dadi’s and the river. In restricting the human habitation to the tanr area - the highlands and, using the adjoining productive lowlands - the dons- solely for a variety of agricultural activities (thus catering to the food requirement), the communities ensured that wells, the river and the dadis remained alive (Mohan et al., 2021). A violation of this practice – triggered largely by unfettered urbanisation, increasing concretisation within the settlement and the presence of polluting activities in the vicinity of the well –disrupted access to and quality of water. The discussions further foregrounded the realization that stop gap arrangements such as bore wells were failing, indicating depletion of deep aquifers. In contrast, that the open wells continued to have water, even though it was of depreciated quality, proved the reliability of these structures. That communities were aware of externalities such as the location of a polluting industry upstream and its impact on curtailing access to clean water from the river led to an acknowledgement that tackling the externalities, especially in the immediate time-frame, would be beyond their capacity. This culminated in the members agreeing on addressing the internal sources of pollution as a means to restore and revive the wells. These were identified as ‘quick-wins’ that the community was willing to engage on. Overall, this phase generated consensus within the communities on the need for reviving the traditional water sources such as wells and managing grey water to control pollution – albeit with passive technologies.

This context-setting exercise presented the possibility of overcoming the critique on insufficient consideration of power relations in collaborative planning models. The choice of strategic actors to anchor the process emerged critical. The Vikasini's and CAGs members directed and encouraged the community to participate in the conversations. MHTs’ model focusing on women leadership had already set in motion the destabilization of rigid power relations centered around patriarchal ideologies dictating domestic, economic and political spheres. The inclusion of a wider set of perspectives in community-familiar environments on one hand, foregrounded the importance of traditional practices of land occupation, their connection to water security in the settlement and an explicit consideration of the embodied experience of water insecurity. On the other, it helped alter the power relations between the planner and the community and by extension the ongoing practices of top-down planning where communities are passive recipients of services by the state. With the Vikasinis leading this process, the flow of knowledge was inverted with the NGO and the planner performing the critical role of steering the dialogues to keep it focused on the water challenge.

While collaborative planning critiques argue that the model engages insufficiently with ‘real’ social causes that trace back to wider institutional settings, the discussions generated during the context-setting exercise proved that this was not the case. Community awareness on both the externalities such as the presence of polluting industries upstream and well as the internal causes disrupting access to clean water led to the identification of ‘quick wins’. The translation of the identified quick wins into strategic actions improved the quality of water in the open wells, thus enabling an immediate and tangible improvement in their water security condition. In focusing on taking action within their immediate albeit constrained settings, the communities provided evidence on the viability of a decentralized model of water management that could act as a replicable pilot for the other water-stressed geographies in the city.

4.2. Preparation and Implementation Phase (Arena)

The second phase entailed the preparation for and implementation of the identified quick wins. This phase drew from the Arena phase that calls for development and implementation of policy with a focus on translating the feeling that something needs to be done into identifying moments of opportunity to act differently (Healey, 1997; Crosby and Bryson, 1992). This Phase in Ranchi was initiated with a collaborative evaluation of the possibilities (to enhance water security) vis-a-vis their effectiveness and legitimacy. The discussions premised on the dialogic process of the forum were geared towards developing formal strategies.

The initial exercise focused on selecting the intervention sites, the nature of interventions and determining the relevant stakeholders. In selecting sites and identifying intervention wells, the community, the NGO and the planner collaboratively arrived at criteria to determine which wells would be chosen. This included technical criteria such as vehicular access up to at least 30 feet, and proximal wells where possible. The objective of the latter was to ensure a faster repletion of the ground water table. Social criteria such as written assurance from the owner that the well, once repaired would continue to service the larger community was also prioritised. Even as the process of well identification was initiated, negotiations amongst communities led to a choice of a well where social criteria emerged critical. Amongst two wells located in close proximity, one had to be discarded as the well owner refused to commit to community usage of the well post the restoration. This conflict (largely from the technical perspective) led to a newer consensus on well selection, embedded within social criteria.

The next step was to secure partnerships across stakeholders and initiate a sense of ownership. Towards this end the idea of a non-financial Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) outlining the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders was floated, discussed and finalised. At this stage, the Councillor (local elected representative) was brought in as a critical stakeholder, who would serve as a link between the community and the formal planning and governance bodies of the city. A tri-partite agreement was articulated defining the roles and responsibilities of a) the NGO (and the planner) b) the CAG’s and the Vikasinis; and c) the Councillor.

There was an acknowledgement amongst the stakeholders that full benefits of the intervention could only be reaped if the wells were maintained post the intervention. Accordingly, the MoU was structured in two parts. The first Part laid out the roles and responsibilities of the three stakeholders in the preparation and construction phase that focused on the repair and recharge of the wells and installing a grey water management system as demonstration pilots. The Second Part discussed the operation and maintenance where the communities would take ownership and monitor the usage and maintenance. The need for financial commitments for post-intervention maintenance was also deliberated. The decision to open a bank account in the name of the Vikasini, with each household contributing a minimal fixed sum was agreed upon. These funds would be used for maintenance activities as decided by the community and advised by the planner and NGO.

In addition, several do’s and don’t’s around well usage were agreed upon (Figures 1 and 2). The former included, amongst others, using the well water primarily for potable purposes; washing clothes and vessels on the designed platform near the well, annual cleaning of the well and its vicinity. Similarly the don’ts included avoiding garbage disposal and defecation as well as expansion of the built fabric in the immediate vicinity of the well.

Figure 1.

Well awareness Poster prepared by Integrated Design.

Figure 2.

The awareness poster was pictorially represented near the wells identified for restoration (Source: Integrated Design Archive 2020).

It was only after these conversations that the processes towards implementation were initiated. The implementation phase witnessed a meeting of complementary capacities with the planner framing technical guidelines for proposed solutions, the NGO mobilising funds, labour and material; and the Councillor arbitrating negotiations with community members and identifying land for the grey water channel.

Figure 3.

Technical Drawings illustrating the design strategies for restoring and reviving the open wells and schematic sketch for decentralised grey water management system in the tribal settlement.

Figure 4.

Ongoing work (Source: Integrated Design Archive 2020) on the well restoration by the tribal communities.

This phase revealed pathways to overcoming the critique on collaborative planning models devolving into ‘talking shops’ without achieving substantive outcomes. It evidenced the importance of integrating flexible yet formalized agreements across the consensus building process. Non-financial MoUs (and financial where needed) emerged as an effective tool in this regard. It essentially ensured integration of the various modes of knowledge of diverse stakeholders. This complementary meeting of capacities was critical for achieving outcomes. For example, the planner’s knowledge of water management practices was integrated with the community’s embedded knowledge of ecological relationships while selecting the intervention wells. While translating the agreements emerging out of discursive modes into instrumental or formalized modes, it is important to maintain sufficient flexibility and autonomy. For example, while setting bank accounts for well maintenance, discretionary power on how to utilize the funds rested with the community, thereby firmly establishing the position of the rejuvenated wells as a shared community resource. This cemented community ownership of the intervention and provided a degree of longevity and stability to the agreements generated.

4.3. The Support Phase (Courts)

The final phase is the support phase that aligns with the Courts phase where the focus is on the residual work of arbitration. The consensus generated through the process is not intransigent and the courts phase focuses on dealing with the tensions that are bound to arise as circumstances change, new stakeholders arise and fractures appear among them. It encompasses the creation of formalised rules and resources for maintaining agreements as well as means for appealing and revising agreements. These are incepted early on in the process, ensuring a continuous review of the strategy’s effectiveness and relevance. Such reflexive critique will allow the strategy to be monitored and reinterpreted in accordance with contextual shifts and conditions (Healey, 1997; Crosby and Bryson, 1992).

In Ranchi, the support phase translated into ensuring that the verbal conflict resolution deliberated during the preparation and implementation phase was adhered to. The acknowledgement of undesirable behaviour around well usage on a public platform, generated an understated yet potent commitment and ownership of positionalities whereby it was agreed upon that the ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ surrounding well usage should move beyond technical guidelines to becoming social practices to be mutually reinforced by community members on each other. This enforcement required awareness campaigns at the community and the household scale. The CAG members ran a house-to-house campaign around this along with putting up posters around the wells.

In addition, the water quantity and quality was monitored on a bi-annual basis. The reports were interpreted by the planner and then communicated in a greater detail to the community. As the wells began to recharge with relatively clean water, the community took a decision to map the non-intervention wells within half a kilometre radius to understand the impact of ground water recharge on the non-intervention wells. This marked the scaling- up of the initiative horizontally and vertically. Horizontally, as the Vikasini began to share their expertise and experience with Vikasini’s and CAG’s from nearby settlements. Vertically, the Councillor carried knowledge and evidence of the intervention to the Municipal Council. In order to support these mutually reinforcing horizontal and vertical pathways of scaling-up, a handbook that put down the processes employed, the tools utilized, and the challenges encountered was developed by the planner.⁶ The handbook emerged as a pedagogical tool for scaling up the collaborative planning exercise with a potential to generate wider institutional change.

This phase provided further insights for ensuring that collaborative planning exercises translate into substantive outcomes. It evidenced the importance of focusing on institutionalizing consensus building processes instead of rigid outputs. The consensus generated could be sustained and conflicts that emerged could be tackled only because processes for knowledge exchange between the stakeholders were laid down through the non-financial MoUs. One such emergent conflict was with respect to the grey water management intervention. A newly established water filtration plant in close proximity to the grey water management channel led to excess water inflow which in turn led to an overflow of untreated grey water into downstream agricultural land. The owners of these agricultural fields began raising demands to shift the grey water channel. At the time of writing this paper, the Councillor, the agricultural field owner, the NGO and the owners of the water filtration plant are engaged in dialogue on how to resolve the issue. The owners of the water filtration plant have agreed to redirect the flow of the waste water generated from the plant. Financial resources for re-designing the grey water channel are currently being negotiated between the councillor and the agricultural field owners, with the NGO agreeing to pitch in 50% of the additional cost. This emergent conflict and its pivot towards consensus-building highlights the importance of focusing on scaling up dialogical processes over optimal outputs since the latter is bound to change depending on varying circumstances.

The Handbook is a concrete step towards scaling up dialogical processes. It represents a simultaneous acknowledgment of context-specificity of the intervention, as well as the need for generalizability of the consensus-generating processes that were created. The objective is for the NGO to deploy the pedagogy in other similar geographies thereby mobilizing evidence and advocacy for a decentralized water management approach. As a step in this direction, an action-research project investigating traditional ecological relationships in four other informal settlements of the city has been initiated by the NGO and the planner.

5. Conclusion

The case of contextual adaptation of the collaborative planning model described above reveals pathways for overcoming critiques to the collaborative planning model. Firstly, with respect to the critique on insufficient consideration of power, the case showed how choosing strategic actors at the bottom of context-specific socio-political hierarchies—the marginalised communities represented by women leaders — to lead the collaborative planning processes resulted in destabilizing entrenched hierarchies, both within communities and between communities and the state. In turn, this led to widening the spectrum of stakeholders. Further, focusing on quick wins over wider externalities emerged as a strength rather than a limitation since it brought about tangible quality of life improvements for the community in addition to establishing a replicable precedent. Secondly, with respect to the critique on idealistic conception of consensus building practices, the case revealed that within open discussion platforms values of openness, transparency, and empathy - embedded in a shared experience of poverty and vulnerability- emerge a critical glue to consensus building. Consensus has to be conceptualized as a continued and recursive process with conflicts being mobilized as pivots for newer consensus. Thirdly, with respect to the critique on insufficient focus on outcomes, the case revealed that focussing on institutionalizing consensus building processes over rigid outcomes has substantial benefits within dynamic and plural socio-spatial settings.

Overall, the paper aligns with the position of collaborative planning theorists and its pragmatic tradition, that by focusing on particularities of place and on the human capacity to invent, create, and transform (Healey, 2008), it is possible to resist the dominating confines of instrumental rationality in concrete and significant ways. It demonstrates how the mobilisation of its critiques can facilitate its viability when approached contextually. It can prove a viable alternative to, and supplement the rational planning practices provided that it is deployed with an explicit focus on empowering strategic actors, sustaining consensus-building practices and institutionalizing processual outcomes. The mobilisation of the communities, living the experience of water insecurity on a daily basis, evidences the chains of equivalence movements that planners can learn from and leverage in operationalising collaborative planning as a contextual exercise.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge a) The Gujarat Mahila Housing Trust for providing the opportunity to implement the wells and grey water management systems in Ranchi; b) Integrated Design for the on-site and off-site support.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Anjali Karol Mohan

Notes

Author biography

Anjali Karol Mohan a geographer planner with a PhD in urban e-governance. Her broad areas of practice and research include development, urbanization and urban management, and public policy. Her current research lies at the intersection of climate change and urbanisation-induced vulnerabilities in the the cities of the global South and its implications for planning for cities. She works on evolving bottom-up planning frameworks that foreground informality and attendant voices, lived experiences, and traditional knowledge towards resilient cities. She is a visiting faculty at several publicy schools where she teaches courses on cities, urbanisation and planning and, urban governance and management with a special focus on the Southern city.

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