Water insecurity in Old Dhaka: A postcolonial perspective

Abstract

Dhaka possesses sufficient freshwater to meet the needs of its entire population, but most of it flows to those in high-income neighbourhoods. In contrast, low-income communities pay significantly more for water, both financially and in terms of time and effort. This inequality is rooted in an historical legacy from the colonial period, which ingrained a bifurcated understanding of water as a commodity rather than a right. In a bifurcated system, water does not flow to those who most need it, but to those who can pay the most for it, leaving those who most need it to find their own improvised ways of accessing it.

This bifurcation has resulted in two distinct water systems: the informal system, managed by poor and middle-income people through institutions like water vendors and local Mosques, and the formal system, managed through DWASA (Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority). In line with these arguments, the research is guided by the following central questions: How has the water supply system in Dhaka failed to ensure adequate access for low-income residents of Old Dhaka? How does the current governance structure affect the political and material capacities of the urban poor? And finally, how do low-income individuals claim their right to water within the existing system? Using postcolonial and political ecology perspectives and ethnographic research in Old Dhaka, the thesis explores how government institutions bear colonial legacies that limit people's right to water and how those people deal with these limitations by asserting their right to water through a vast informal sector. Through these insights, the thesis argues that without understanding the informal water system, it is impossible to understand how low-and middle-income people assert their right to water and how they obtain water in a postcolonial city that was never configured to provide it to them.