Editorial
In its unrestrained form, nature has coexisted with human societies for millennia, providing vital resources and shaping cultures. As some of the most significant natural entities, rivers have played a crucial role in human civilisation, particularly in India, where cities like Benares, Patna, Ahmedabad, and Delhi have emerged along their banks. Historically, these urban centres developed in harmony with their rivers, fostering communities that relied on and contributed to the health of these waterways. However, India’s contemporary urban development landscape has witnessed a stark shift towards state-centric control, leading to the appropriation and regulation of river spaces, often at the expense of local communities and traditional livelihoods.
In stark contrast, the present-day urban development approach in Indian cities, particularly in the case of Delhi, is characterised by an assertive statist framework. Master plans and zoning regulations, such as those imposed under Delhi’s Zone O regulations, illustrate this transition. These regulations seek to impose strict controls on human activities in river floodplains, ostensibly for environmental protection and urban planning. However, this often translates to the exclusion of long-standing communities, such as farmers and fishing communities, who have historically depended on the river for their livelihoods.
For example, the Bela Estate farmers have faced significant challenges as urban development encroaches on traditional lands. Once thriving along the banks of the Yamuna, these farmers are now viewed as intruders in a landscape increasingly regulated by state authorities.
The Bela Estate is a slum cluster located on the western bank of the Yamuna. Every day, Rekha, a farmer of the Bela estate who owns farmlands were demolished and her house evicted in 2018 in the wake of the Yamuna Riverfront Development Project, huddles her compatriots for a sit-in which has been going on for the last two years at Rajghat. She is among hundreds of farmers who were evicted from the Yamuna floodplains.
Bela estate forms the Yamuna Riverfront Development Project’s initial stretch to build a biodiversity park and lake over 189 acres (Land Conflict Watch 2023).
According to local accounts, in the 1980s, some residents started farming on the floodplain and built settlements in nearby areas, including China Colony, Bela Gaon, Moolchand Basti, Malla Gaon, and Kanchanpuri.
Another farmer on the sit-in highlighted that since 1984, a village had been created here by farmers. The laws state that there are resettlement provisions when you evict and demolish, but this has not happened since then. Some farmers were promised 12 to 18 gazs of land in Bawana”. While some have left Bela estate for Bawana, they continue to struggle for their rights. “We have cleaned this land from being a jungle and now they’re asking us to move?” says another farmer.
Locally known as Chinni Bhai is the head of gotakhors (divers) near the ITO stretch of Yamuna, and has been practising gotakhori (diving) since his childhood. Gotakhors possess indispensable skills which come in handy during floods. The ITO stretch at Yamuna also has a chhath ghat constructed as part of the Yamuna beautification project. Chinni Bhai’s livelihood has come under great stress with the construction of Chhath Ghat as his movement and access to Yamuna have been restricted.
These communities have been in the lurch since the ongoing development of the riverfront on Yamuna and the beautification projects connected with the project. The communities of farmers and gotakhors have relied on the urban’s common of rivers since time immemorial.
Rivers have also come under great duress. Cities produce waste and garbage, which are disposed of untreated into the river. The increasing reliance of cities on the use of river water, disposal of cities’ waste and the unencumbered expansion of cities has created massive pressure on the flow and health of rivers. As a result, rivers are plagued with pollution, exposing around 80% of the world’s population to high risk caused by anthropogenic stressors, while 65% of the world’s river habitat is now endangered. Two of the world’s top 10 rivers India, including Ganga and Indus, are at risk due to engineering interventions, anthropogenic pressures or climate change.
In particular, riverfronts are an urban phenomenon aimed towards beautifying cities and channelling rivers for the voyeuristic pleasure of the middle class. In the scholarly literature, riverfronts are considered a political project that entails a “reproduction of space out of the natural elements which essentially occurs by the addition of ‘value’ into the landscape, through an orchestrated socio-natural milieu of land, labour, capital and State’s developmental visions”. Broady, referred to as Urban Political Ecology, this framework contextualises urban development against a place’s socio-political contingencies, considering its local power politics and structural inequalities that define the future trajectories of who gets a stake in the city and its river and to what extent. In this context, Bela Estate farmers’ and gotakhors’ livelihoods and access are compromised for the sake of the dominant middle-class urban population.
Most importantly, cities in the Global South have had riverine spaces that have historically been intimate and relational to the communities and are embedded into the everyday associations forged between the people and the river. Riverfronts seek to break this very association which has defined the culture and religiosity of the rivers and riverine spaces.
The articles in this edition broadly address this destruction of the relational space and erasure of people’s association with rivers through riverfronts. The article by Neha Sarwate highlights the erasure of flora and fauna associated with the Vishwamitri River. Sarwate argues that “the river is perceived as a channel of water to ‘gush’ the water out of the city, a provider of public places for the urban privileged and neglects to recognise the ecological and scientific principles”. Similarly, Mihir Kulkarni pointed out that much of the concrete being laid for riverfront development alters the floodplain and the shoreline. These are important buffers for groundwater recharge, and maintenance of insects, plants, and other fauna and riverfronts are impending destruction of this bio-diversity.
Using countermapping as a research tool, Sarita Bhagat shows us how the shared space around the Vishwamitri River offered people swimming, devotees worshipping, and fishing areas for fisherfolk. With the riverfront, these shared experiences are under duress.
Narimha Reddy’s piece brings up an investigation of the riverfront projects in Hyderabad and highlights the huge financial irregularities and neglect of environmental concerns. The last piece by Aali discusses the intermeshing of urban commons and Yamuna. Urban commons is a useful and actionable concept addressing how Yamuna and its floodplain are restricted. The photo essay by Sidhant Kumar gives us a sneak view of riverfront developments across Indian cities.
In lieu of the conclusion, we strive to foster a debate on the riverfront and bring to light the huge appropriation of resources, mainly the rivers in India.
Rajendra Ravi
Sidhant Kumar
