The Political Ecology of Adi Ganga: Environmental Governance of an Urban River in Kolkata, India

Abstract

This article engages with the policies of reviving the Adi Ganga, an urban river in Kolkata and the politics of historical non-implementation of the same at the levels of government and local bodies. In the context of the global neoliberal economic growth of nations, this article highlights that the policies of water governance require a more multispecies-inclusive and local mode of implementation.

The once primary route for urban transportation in Kolkata, the Adi Ganga or the Canal of the Ganges basin, which was the main channel for the Ganges to flow through a long route in the midst of Kolkata and the Sundarbans to fall into the Bay of Bengal, has been in a dilapidated condition over the decades following the development projects and urban expansion in Kolkata. The river has now converted into a sewer and a site for dumping wastes, especially for emptying untreated wastewaters from drains—leading to a highly polluted site responsible for endangering the overall urban ecology of Kolkata.

With references to the policies passed to protect the ecosystem of the Adi Ganga since the colonial times, this article examines the politics of water governance that ignored those implementations—to explore the challenges and gaps between policymaking and policy implementation.