Book review: Meghal Arya,Spatial Ecology of Water

The trajectory of urban development in India over the last several decades, by postulating a conflict between ‘development’ and ‘ecological’ concerns and in introducing a false and dangerous dichotomy between development and ecology has in fact disguised the real dichotomy between ecologically sound development and unsustainable and ecologically destructive economic growth. ‘Development’ too has been treated only as an economic goal and not as a multifaceted concept encompassing social and cultural aspects of life. As a result, what we see in India today is not only a growing conflict over use of natural resources, but a depletion of these resources. Water has become one of the most fragile resources today and the diminishing of the sources of potable water is one measure of the environmental damage that has occurred. A parallel narrative that has played out in post-independence urban India has been the neglect of the historic towns and cities. Contemporary urban planning, in its focus on new areas instead of the old, through sheer neglect, has reduced historic towns to slums defying the basic standards of hygiene and health. In completely bypassing the indigenous principles of planning reposited in these towns and cities, it has also undermined knowledge systems which had been nurtured through centuries and generations and had sustained a quality of life more invigorating than that provided by contemporary planning. Engagement with nature represented one such knowledge system. Traditional urbanism, in its seamless integration with natural heritage, embodied many of the qualities expressed in more contemporary terms such as ‘sustainable’, ‘ecofriendly’ and ‘green design’, all concepts that are re-entering the vocabulary of an alternative discourse in architecture and planning of new towns. The close and intimate weave between cultural and natural ecology meant that water as the elixir of life was centre stage where societies, historically and traditionally, created a sensitive, considered and weighted response to water. Utilitarian in its essence, water manifested in the recreational, religious, aesthetic, mythological, political, spiritual and ritualistic aspects of the society in which it was enshrined.

Spatial Ecology of Water by Meghal Arya melds all of the above concerns in a very eloquent and impressive publication. It is a scholarly work on a very topical subject, written in an easy style and profusely illustrated for wider dissemination to a larger audience. It is a valuable addition to the existing literature on the subject of water architecture as it adds a new dimension, in looking at water architecture as urban public space, with its understanding of behavioural patterns and experiential responses to the spatial expressions the water systems generate. It hinges on the idea of knowledge in traditional architecture and specifically engages with the water structures as an architectural type, in the hope of reinstating their position as crucial components of urban infrastructure that provided water, established a relationship with nature in an urban context and very importantly, enhanced the quality of urban public spaces. While drawing examples from world over, the narrative focusses on Jodhpur, to highlight how in their dialogue with water, the desert societies in being conscious of its vagaries, managed to transform a region from being water deficit, to a place that celebrated water. The author very evocatively argues how, in contrast to what existed in the past, today, ‘Piped and cloaked under layers of earth, the movement of water, its collection, storage and distribution has been erased from our urban sensibilities and memories’ (Arya, 2019, p. 10), and how while water structures are receiving attention as architectural monuments, they are not perceived as living, breathing places of human inhabitation. They exist as artefacts or embellishments in the urban fabric rather than as vital components of a system, which has the potential to provide a valuable life-giving element.

In seven chapters, the text weaves its way through compelling arguments to prove that the architecture for water as seen in traditional settlements in arid regions, is the point that connects both, the systemic aspects of water collection and distribution that relate to engineering and hydraulics, as well as social aspects that relate to communities and their habitat. The introduction sets the tone in highlighting the powerful life-giving attributes of water, where in the first principle of life and of fertility, it is closest to human existence. Physical purification that led to spiritual rejuvenation was also a recurrent water metaphor in all cultures, and human settlements traditionally always reached out to water in multiple ways to acknowledge its life-giving properties. The second section on ‘Domesticated Water’ focusses on how Jodhpur, as a desert settlement, engaged with water in various ways. In reading the morphology of the city through its water structures it traces the evolution of the city form through the lens of water technology and water systems. The water structures of Jodhpur are classified on the basis of their structure, source of water and function to build a range of typologies that also inform us on how social and environmental relationships were integrated through their architectural form. The next section ‘Traversing the Terrain’ explores both the opportunities created to inhabit the spaces between the land and water and how the craftspeople understood the land, and drew on their expertise to capitalize on the potential of the ground water, incorporating suitable technologies to construct one of the most resilient water networks in the region, one which continues to support the city to date. The following section, ‘Shaping the Container’ elaborates further on how these craftspeople over generations inscribed meanings, requirements, experiences and memories into the built expressions. The material knowledge extracted through a study of the architecture for water in Jodhpur best exemplifies the domain of indigenous knowledge and craftsmanship. The chapter explains how the water structures were crafted through knowledge of hydrology, hydrogeology, materials, structure and social practice in the process, ‘making poetry out of the simple need to access water under fluctuating conditions’ (Arya, 2019, p. 79), the resulting architectural form respecting the sense of frugality, at the same time conveying a sense of strength and permanence. The section titled ‘Managing the Flow’ does not simply dwell on the management practices, but discusses how an implicit political message was embedded in the water architecture by the authority responsible for managing the resource. In the case of Jodhpur, patronage was provided by the royalty and the rich mercantile community. It additionally sheds light on how Jodhpur indicated a shift towards a higher degree of decentralization, suggestive of a stable rule, where local communities also had a stake and role in water management. It builds an argument on how decentralized, localized systems of procuring water, with community ownership is a better way of self-sustenance in relation to water, because where state systems have failed to function, the local systems have endured. It also demonstrates how with women being the primary occupants of these spaces around water these spaces evolved to become the social infrastructure of the city and while the city expressed a traditional cultural construct of women, through water it was also a construct of spaces for women. The author also flags the issue that while water provided the opportunity for equitable spaces, in any water crisis it is the women who are the first to bear the brunt. Water structures are explained to reveal deep connections between various scales of built form and the ecology, from the region to the city to the neighbourhood scale in the section on ‘Networks and Systems of Water Movement’. Jodhpur, with more than 4000 water structures of different types, establishes how the craftsmen were knowledgeable of the various systems and possibilities to achieve statistical efficiency of collecting and distributing water, harvesting every drop that was received. The concluding chapter on ‘Changing Paradigms’ raises concerns on how India is emerging as one of the most water challenged countries in the world. It makes a case for many actions, paramount being the recognition of the knowledge systems embedded in our historic settlements pertaining to water and provoking all on how we should view and perceive our natural resources. It powerfully argues how the shift from resource to commodity has led to a reversal of associative memories and to the loss of water as the space of imagination and, in fact, reduced it to just infrastructure without a meaningful human dimension.

In conclusion, it would be worth reiterating that in the response to the current ecological crisis, pertaining to water and other natural resources, a realistic analysis perhaps also demands questioning the present system of economic development, of the forces inherent in it that are almost inexorably propelling it on to degrade and destroy the environment. As Marxist scholars have argued (Singh, 2009), such analysis could also return to a Marxian understanding of a pattern of unsustainable economic development, which till recently had a proper name, that is, ‘capitalism’, but which in this day and age seems to have become so pervasively powerful as to be invisible and absent from today’s economic and political discourse. In pre-capitalist society, while an explicit notion of environmental limits was generally lacking as those limits had not yet been reached, desert societies had an inherent sense of these limits where ecological ‘insights’ were at that time matters of common knowledge born of long experience and a bond with nature, a point well-articulated in this book. Today capitalism having become a truly dominant global system, its tendency to ecological degradation has assumed proportions so alarming that for the first time in human history we seem capable of ecocide, that is destroying the entire ecological community altogether.

The discourse in Spatial Ecology of Water convincingly narrates how traditional knowledge had indeed mastered some of these laws on water and its management. And contemporary planning paradigms, in not understanding and appreciating these laws, have created an existential crisis for humanity. The present water crisis in India and elsewhere provides us with ample evidence on this. There is indeed much that can be learnt from traditional knowledge systems vis-à-vis water, which did not just conserve it but also knew how to celebrate its frugality.