Beyond Water: Step Wells and Community Hydraulics in Modern India

Within the rubric of urban sustainability and the Anthropocene—the collection and distribution of water have been long viewed as among the prerogatives of the benevolent State. On this front, the histories of the Indian post-independent nation-state in the decades past 1947 remain replete with the narratives of gigantic dams as the purported ‘new temples of an independent India’. These structures generated hydroelectricity, stored and supplied water, besides bolstering claims of the transforming State. Now seven decades later, Indian city governments have continued to claim responsibility for supplying water to their bourgeoning populations, even though chronic deficiencies plague this cycle of distribution, both in water-scarce and monsoon-abundant zones and topographies. In examining this scenario of deficient supply and incessant demand, this chapter explores how Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) could be a timely and indigenous solution. As a living Indian tradition, this socially-encoded practice remains exemplified by a plethora of meticulously designed, small and large stepwells reservoirs and infrastructural networks across hot-arid Western India. Yet, these resilient exemplars remained disregarded up until 2010, except at the hands of two versatile exponents of Green Architecture—Anu and Shilpa Mridul. Their energetic architectural practice located in Jodhpur (Rajasthan) has strategically engaged with a range of projects, some passively cooled, courtyard-centric, earth-sheltered, others incorporating high-performance cavity-wall envelopes. Most spectacular is their Birkha Bawari (stepwell) Project completed in 2009 as part of a private housing development. Built entirely with site-quarried stone using local craftsmen, this structure harvests 17.5 million litres of rainwater annually. Each year, as the months progress and the Bawari’s cascading levels fill with water—dancers and community members occupy its spaces to celebrate their roles in a continuing knowledge system. One wonder’s if then the Bawari significance is ‘beyond water’—is it a perforated façade; a dynamic edge; or else a socio-spatial framework materialised by its trabeated structure and retaining walls?