Women Empowerment for Sustainable Water System: A Legal Approach to Women's Participation in Sustainable Water Management (original) (raw)

We often perceive law as a pragmatic, centralized; state induced, legally binding, concrete set of rules and regulations. We may also give it an aura of sanctity which distinguishes it from the moral codes that are more subjective and variegated in their enforcement. But this very distinction and the binaries we create to define law in the sense of its constitutional meaning is problematic in nature. To consider law as monolithic is a reductionism on our part that doesn't take into consideration the different domains of legality. State as a single unit is in itself a generalized feature and further assumption the relation between the state and the law is always symbiotic. Not only we have to problematize the definition, nature and application of law but also the way law is perceived by the one who create them, one who perceive them and one who are subjected to it. In today’s time state regulations and policies are linked with the need to incorporate legal procedures with welfare policies with sustainable development and women empowerment. In this scenario, there is a need to revisit the laws around the question related to water conservation, and how it needs to be linked with the question of community interventions and the role of women in ensuring the effective implementation of these policies. In this essay, we will try to understand how the environmental laws in our country try to strike a balance between the institutional policy making and its implementation in the community level, particularly by women.