“When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money.”
– Alanis Obomsawin
Popular culture and social media try to weasel new trends and lifestyles into consumers’ lives. The latest trends nowadays are about drinking around three liters of water each day to lose weight. In a world where people are struggling for three glasses per day, people have developed lifestyles that hog this resource excessively with each activity without any thought. Long hot showers, flushing generously, washing clothes incessantly and leaving the tap on are daily habits for people with access to water. How many times have you left the water running while you are brushing your teeth? How many times have you come back home and thrown away a day’s water from the bottle into the sink? How many times have you seen a river with white globules of foam floating on top of it and passed it off as just a normal thing?
Water scarcity has exponentially impacted each continent, and an increasing number of regions are approaching the limit at which they can provide water services sustainably, especially in dry regions. With almost two-thirds of the world’s population predicted to experience water shortages by 2025, water scarcity is a growing risk around the globe.
One of the earliest things taught to children in elementary school classrooms is that water is a basic need. Perhaps, the most fundamental need of all. Water helps in the functioning of the human body- it nourishes the body’s cells and enables a smooth working system. Water is basic for the survival of all species. In 2010, the United Nations declared Resolution 64/292 which “recognizes the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights.” However, this right is experiencing a hindrance nowadays.
WHAT IS COMMODIFICATION OF WATER ?
Water is an entity that is needed by everyone around the globe. Because it is needed by everyone, people want to own it for themselves. It is no coincidence that most of the world’s water consumption is in developed countries. Underdeveloped nations use less because they have less access to water and lower range of economic practices. Only three percent of the water in the world is fresh, most of which is polluted and unfit for use, the rest is in oceans and glaciers.
In the meantime, humans extract fifteen times more water than what is absorbed by the planet. The ever growing demand of consumption against the presence of water is reinforced by the idea that the everyday human’s daily activities — long hot showers, watering the lawn, washing the car — is to blame for these issues. Guilt is endowed on the consumer, suggesting the resolution is for them to change their behaviour.
This intensive need is identified and used as an economic good for profit. This is commodification of water. The very idea that something that is abundant in nature, free-for-all can be owned by people through packaging it.
HOW IS WATER BEING COMMODIFIED ? IS IT THE SAME AS PRIVATISATION OF WATER ?
In 2018, the World Water Forum (WWF) held in Brazil by the World Water Council was dominated by multinational companies such as Ambev, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Danone, Monsanto, and was encouraged and backed by the World Trade Organization. In practice, this meeting served as a huge business meeting to support the privatization of water.
Currently, water futures are a regional market in California, but it’s a scalable model that can initiate the political-corporate nexus to put money tags on some more of the natural resources of India. This will unleash a version of capitalism in India which will throw millions of financially dependent people into an unpredictable water crisis while permitting the richest one percent to profit off of their sufferings.
Water privatization is when private corporations buy or operate public water utilities. Commodification is the attempt to turn water into a product from which owners can reap maximum profits at public expense. Water privatization and commodification represent the antithesis to this basic human right, that is – water.
CAN WATER BE COMMODIFIED IN INDIA ?
Though our country has faced a myriad of severe drought-like situations involving food. From the 1990s onward water became the hot topic. The Indian economy changed and that led to a change in people’s consumption habits. The decades following the 1990s focussed on cash crops like sugarcane, wheat, etc rather than traditional crops used in the rural economy.
The Supreme Court of India, on various occasions, has stated that state governments must clarify how the general public will benefit from private involvement in the water sector. This has precluded state and central governments from privatizing water resources completely until and unless they can provide a definitive answer that such privatization is for public interest. Other than that contracts that sustain themselves through betting such as water futures are prohibited in India.
However, the chances of a future existence of developing water futures in India cannot be understated ever, especially considering India’s current move towards unregulated and market-driven allocation of its natural resources. Such unpredictable commodification of natural resources is specifically dangerous in India because it solidifies wealth in the hands of a few. The wealth of India’s richest one percent is more than four times the total of its seventy percent poorest. Strategically, water as a tradable commodity will fall under the banner of the solidified wealth of the richest one percent of this country, pushing another million poorer Indians into extreme water scarcity.
HOW DO WE RESIST COMMODIFICATION OF WATER ?
Socially responsible alternate solutions can be discovered by investing in community-based participatory activities for water management that enables equitable and sustainable use of this essential natural resource. All around the globe, alternate models such as rainwater harvesting, check dam and bund building, holistic watershed management, integrated river basin management, and irrigation efficiency improvement have all been portrayed as low-cost doable alternatives to privatization. Responsible water consumption can be achieved by empowering local communities and creating local accountability. Humans must go against privatization and commodification at all costs.
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Written by, Aamna Siddiqui
