Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the historical and contemporary structural arrangements facilitating the politics behind spread of water- and vector-borne diseases in an Indian city. Drawing on urban metabolism, urban political ecology and anthropological studies the technopolitics of urban water is explained.

Paper long abstract:

Water supply and sanitation in urban India is highly politicized. The paper explores the structural arrangements facilitating these politics, which significantly breeds water- and vector-borne diseases in cities. It draws on urban metabolism, urban political ecology and anthropological studies to examine the how the urban water is managed to give differential access to water supply and sanitation, which leads to breeding of water- and vector-borne diseases in the two case study wards in Ahmedabad city in India. The paper takes case of two administrative ward (each governed by the ruling party and an opposition party) to examine the historical rootedness of the politics, and exploitation by the contemporary players who attempt to gain urban citizenship this rapidly urbanizing economy. Drawing on secondary information and primary information from structured and open-ended interviews, the paper spatially analysis the quality of the urban water infrastructure, its settlement pattern, and socio-economic factors driving the access to water supply and sanitation in the two wards. The paper analysis the techno-politics of water infrastructure by drawing on the analytical approach of urban metabolism, interweaving the social and biophysical process in shaping urban space by the urban political ecology, and micro-analytical approach of anthropology to analyze the flow of water in segregating the settlement pattern, in differential access to water supply and sanitation scenario, and in breeding health inequality in the wards.