WATER - Culture, Politics and Management

Book review by - R. MARIA SALETH

Article courtesy: The Hindu

Water has a pervasive influence on the various facets of human life, including the supporting ecosystem. Apart from capping human needs in terms of its consumption, production, and cleaning roles, it has a place in a wide range of spheres from the cultural and the religious to the metaphysical. The literature dealing with the technical and mundane aspects of water, such as the hydrological, ecological, economic, and managerial, is vast, and growing fast.But the writings on the cultural, mythological, and literary aspects of water are not much, and their growth too is rather slow.

Mainstream issues

This book, which belongs to the latter category, has succeeded in linking some of the less studied aspects of water with some of the mainstream issues. In a sense, it is an unusual work that looks at water from a new and much larger perspective.

The book is a collection of papers presented at the ‘Festival of Water' held at the India International Centre in 2004. The introductory segment aside, it has separate parts dealing with the rivers, the sea, the management of water, and the culture of water.

The introduction has a highly inspiring discussion of water as it figures in the Vedas and Hindu mythology and an essentially photographic account of the river Kaveri's 785-kilometre long journey from its origin in Kodagu district of Karnataka to the point where it joins the Bay of Bengal, Poompuhar in Tamil Nadu.

The geo-political and political aspects of the Himalayan and Narmada rivers, as also the health and livelihood requirements of people living in the thousands of islets in the Brahmaputra come in for a detailed discussion in the next part. How Indian cinema has employed water and the rivers as a metaphor is also presented here, providing a lighter touch, as it were, to the whole debate.

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WATER - Culture, Politics and Management

India International Centre;

Pearson Education,

484 FIE, Patparganj, Delhi-110092.

Rs. 650