Water Systems, Public and Private Failures, and Urban Fragmentation

In her chapter four case study of Jakarta, Bakkar describes the elite of Jakarta fleeing to walled-off, modernized zones: gated communities connected by private toll roads to private malls and government complexes. Bakkar calls this a “variant of the colonial strategy of indirect rule,” quoting Chatterjee, as, because the elite have access to infrastructure, projects of modernization stagnate. She writes, “the project of modernization, which is, in part, a process of converting subaltern subjects into citizens (and mutually transforming these groups in the process), comes to a halt; or, more accurately, is transfigured as a dual process of inclusion and exclusion” (131).

The mention of colonial indirect rule turned my mind back to both Mrázek’s Engineers of Happy Land and Larkin’s Signal and Noise. Larkin describes indirect rule as a “double state” (22). In Larkin’s terms, this double state referred to dual layers of authority, the colonial system layered over emirate authority. Larkin connects infrastructure projects to legitimizing colonial rule, and quotes Mrázek , saying infrastructure projects create “sensing of colonial modernity.” Larkin calls this the “colonial sublime.” Describing two views of colonial indirect rule in Nigeria, Larkin writes, “Southern colonialists saw indirect rule as an abnegation of colonial responsibility, a means of propagating the backwardness of what amounted to a feudal elite. Northern colonialists raised it to an article of faith, seeing the Islamic subjects of the North as socially superior to the Southern Nigerians” (27), that indirect rule enabled Northern Nigerians to maintain a special identity.

In contrast, Bakkar’s indirect rule is rule of the elites over the disenfranchised, those who are not considered citizens by virtue of disconnection. As part of her argument that the public/private debate over water infrastructure is much more complicated and nuanced than ideologues allow, she describes how, in Indonesia, public and private efforts at building and maintaining water infrastructure had similarly negative results. In the case of Jakarta, Bakkar argues, states and market efforts both failed, resulting in what she calls urban fragmentation. Both governments and private companies in Jakarta seemed to deliberately work to exclude the poor, or they were incapable of following through. These failures inscribed themselves upon the city, distinguishing by access to water infrastructure who is considered a citizen in Indonesia.

Bakkar also pointed out that households in Jakarta work to find solutions to their lack of access, solutions that often cannot be described as either private or public. I was so interested b the examples Bakkar provided at the beginning of chapter one, presumably about Indonesians, that I searched for some information on more current local efforts to deal with water problems. Interestingly, I found this article from UNESCO, which reports on the annual Indonesia-Nederland Society Seminar’s panel on water, and this article from the World Bank. These articles indicate the continued presence of multinational private corporation interest in water infrastructure in Indonesia, as well as the involvement of governments, NGOs, and the continuing heritage of colonialism in Indonesian infrastructure, even to the extent that Dutch plans in Rotterdam were presented as viable options for Indonesian water systems.

https://www.unesco-ihe.org/news/indonesian-students-present-ideas-water-smart-cities

http://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2013/04/04/indonesia-expanding-access-to-clean-water-for-the-poor