The decolonisation of water

Basic Water Science

by Ajaya Dixit

Water Conservation Foundation (NWCF),

Kathmandu, Nepal.

Price NR 600.00 (for hard cover), NR 450.00

(for soft cover) 2002, pp 420+11

Water has stimulated a great many feats of grandiose engineering. The exploits of antiquity in conveying water across long distances and using the force of gravity indicate that the harnessing of water is not an exclusively modern preoccupation. What distinguishes the imposing engineering feats of the past from those of the present is the scale on which science is now applied to water to tap its potential for commercial ends. This difference in scale was made possible by the advances in technology that accelerated after the European scientific revolution of the 17th and 18th centuries. And what amplified the commercial potential of water was that this new-found technological sophistication coincided and combined with the steady growth of markets and the new forms of organising production introduced by the capitalism as the first truly global system in history. Together, this advent of machines and the pursuit of the large-scale that it facilitated, produced a distinctively modern psyche supremely confident of its capacity to conquer, domesticate and orient nature to the convenience of man. Modern water science, unlike ancient large-scale water science that was geared to the limited needs of a numerically small elite, is a product of this industrial psyche.