Between the Life and Death of a River: Contested Knowledge in a Toxic Commons

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The Yamuna River is the second largest tributary of the Ganga in India and crosses several states before reaching Delhi. Although its 22 km stretch through the capital only makes up 2 percent of its catchment area, it generates more than 75 percent of total pollutants in the river. Largely, this owes to the dumping of industrial effluents as well as untreated sewage that enters the river via a network of drains. Owing to its depleted levels of dissolved oxygen, by the time the Yamuna leaves Delhi, it is considered an ecologically 'dead' river. On the one hand, this project examines the practices of calculation and planning through which knowledge about waste and pollution is produced by state and scientific authorities. What constitutes 'death' in the context of the river and what are the political stakes embedded in efforts for its revival? At the same time, it engages with the diversity of livelihood practices that populate the banks of the Yamuna, looking at how a dead river paradoxically also sustains 'life'. This involves tracing how local residents, who both depend on the river and most exposed to its harm, think about and respond to toxicity in their day to day lives. By studying how state and subaltern groups produce knowledge about waste and water and where these knowledge practices interact or come into conflict, this project investigates toxicity as an emerging ground of socio-political contention in Delhi. The overarching questions asked are: under what conditions do claims about pollution and ecology accrue political significance? How does this affect the everyday negotiations of care and harm that characterise life around the Yamuna? In its focus around a 'dead' river, the research will also draw broader conclusions for how we understand 'life' and 'death', particularly within zones of intense ecological degradation.