







































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 5 (2): 67-102, July 2022 

RESEARCH PAPER 

The Political Ecology of Rural Community Ponds in 

Kerala, India: A Quantitative Study 

Vinay Sankar 

Abstract: Inequities in access to water across economic classes and social groups 
have been aggravated by the commodification of ecosystems. Institutional 
governance of small freshwater bodies, like ponds, is under tremendous stress and 
often cannot cope with increasing pressures from market forces and state 
interventions. Recently conceptualized as a “composite resource”, ponds are vital 
entities in the ecological, economic, and socio-political landscape. The central 
objective of this study is to understand the access and utilization patterns of rural 
community ponds in Kerala, India, by employing a survey method. I attempt to 
integrate the literature on commons and political ecology, review the institutional 
arrangements governing rural public ponds, assess their ecological health, and 
situate the empirical evidence in a theoretical framework of the commons. I find 
universal access to these water bodies, which cuts across social and economic 
groups, for domestic uses such as drinking, bathing, washing, and cleaning; this 
utilization has a class and gender dimension. A majority of the surveyed ponds 
showed signs of robust ecological health in terms of total dissolved solids and pH 
values, functional embankments, and the absence of any polluting economic 
activity in their vicinity. I also find that factors such as institutional arrangements, 
the ecological integrity of community ponds, and the extent of diversification of 
water sources determine how the pond is utilized for various domestic purposes. 

Keywords: Political ecology; commons; rural ponds; countermovement; 
panchayats; Kerala 

 
 Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology and Science 
(BITS), Pilani, Hyderabad Campus. Jawahar Nagar, Kapra Mandal, Medchal District - 

500078, Telangana, India. vinay.sankar@gmail.com  

Copyright © Sankar 2022. Released under Creative Commons Attribution © 

NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of  Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581–6152 (print); 2581–6101 (web).  

DOI: TBA 

mailto:vinay.sankar@gmail.com


 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [68] 

1. INTRODUCTION 

Small freshwater bodies like ponds play a vital role in water provisioning, 
especially for the poor (Cornea, Zimmer, and Véron 2016). In the urban 
context, ponds have been recently conceptualized as a “composite 
resource” made of water (for various domestic purposes like bathing, 
washing, and cleaning, as well as for livelihoods like fish rearing); land (for 
reclamation later); and common space (for recreation and social gathering) 
(Zimmer, Véron and Cornea 2020). At this scale, ponds follow the 
characteristics of commons with their associated properties of rivalry and 
excludability. 

Traditional commons, such as forests, water bodies, pasture lands, and 
fisheries, are critical resources or infrastructure sustaining millions of lives 
and livelihoods worldwide, especially for the income poor (Jodha 1986). 
Commons or common pool resources (CPRs) are defined as a “natural or 
man-made resource system that is sufficiently large to make it costly to 
exclude potential beneficiaries from obtaining benefits from its use” 
(Ostrom 1990, 30). CPRs are broadly considered resources accessible to the 
whole community over which no individual has exclusive property rights 
(Jodha 1986). Thus, small freshwater bodies, such as lakes and ponds, are 
vital entities in the ecological, economic, and sociopolitical landscape. 

Despite their vital importance, ponds and lakes continue to be vulnerable to 
destruction and degradation. Zimmer, Véron, and Cornea (2020) state that 
the destruction, degradation, and restoration of ponds are not merely 
biophysical processes but ones that signify sociopolitical and institutional 
changes. Institutions are conceived as the “rules of the game” (North 1990) 
or as “prescriptions for organising structured interactions” (Ostrom 2005) 
while being essentially “distributional mechanisms that are power-laden” 
(Mahoney and Thelen 2010). The problem is that the institutional 
governance of small freshwater bodies is under tremendous stress and often 
fails to cope with increasing pressures from market forces and state 
interventions (Nayak and Berkes 2011; Unnikrishnan, Manjunatha, and 
Nagendra 2016; Nayak, Oliveira, and Berkes 2014; Bharucha 2018). 

Studies on India’s lakes and ponds have so far been confined to either large 
cities like Bengaluru (Unnikrishnan, Manjunatha, and Nagendra 2016; 
D'Souza and Nagendra 2011), Hyderabad (Mariganti 2011), and Kolkata 
(Bose 2015), or to small towns like Bardhaman in West Bengal (Cornea, 
Zimmer, and Véron 2016) and Navsari in Gujarat (Zimmer, Véron, and 
Cornea 2020). The status of India’s village ponds is largely understudied.  

Therefore, in this study, I aim to identify the patterns of relationships 
between rural ponds held in common and proximate communities. I 



[69] Vinay Sankar 

attempt to understand how the politics of water in terms of access and 
utilization patterns impact social equity and ecological integrity. In this 
regard, I address the following questions: 

1. What is the relationship between rural community ponds and 
proximate communities—who has access and for what purposes? 

2. What is the ecological health status of rural ponds in the study 
area? 

3. What is the institutional arrangement governing them? 
4. How can we theoretically situate these small freshwater bodies 

from a commons perspective? 

We also seek to find the conditions under which various social groups and 
communities have the “ability” to access and utilize the rural pond waters. 
Access has been defined as the “ability to benefit” without solely focusing 
on property rights (Ribot and Peluso 2003). Schlager and Ostrom (1992) 
define access as the right to enter a specified physical property. Utilization 
or withdrawal is the right to obtain products such as water, fodder, and fish. 
They consider rights to be actions that are authorized and rules as 
prescriptions creating that authorization. 

Ostrom (2005) theorized that for collective action and community 
governance of natural resources, the collective benefits should be higher 
than the collective costs. However, as I argue in this study, the critical 
question is whose costs and benefits matter in the institutionalized 
collective action. Nonetheless, Ostrom’s empirical work disproved a 
widespread belief that commons invariably led to destruction. She 
demonstrates that common property management by the users themselves 
could lead to democratic and ecological governance beyond markets and 
states (Ostrom 2010). Nevertheless, the question here is: why go beyond 
the state? Why can the state not be a part of the commons arrangement? As 
Peter (2021) argues, access to vital goods and resources should be provided 
by the state, and that state should support commons and commoning. He 
maintains that while “commons is an alternative to democratic capitalism, 
this alternative does not exist beyond markets and states and instead lies in 
transforming these institutions through commons and commoning” (Peter 
2021, 30). In the case of rural ponds in the study site in Kerala, the state 
plays a pivotal role in the institutionalization of community resource 
governance. 

The literature is divided on the role of the state in the process of “socio-
physical constructions of hydraulic environments” (Swyngedouw 2009). 
Birkenholtz (2016) and Snorek, Moser, and Renaud (2017) argue that the 
state often abdicates its solemn responsibility to uphold traditional rights 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [70] 

and sometimes intervenes to the detriment of collective rights. However, 
Mansbridge (2014) and Ramachandraiah (2001) posit that the state has a 
role in governing the commons. Mansbridge (2014) argues that there is a 
vital need to build an institutional structure incorporating the role of the 
state along with grounded local knowledge. Ramachandraiah (2001) 
contends that judicial interventions at the highest level, which safeguard 
fundamental rights related to safe drinking water, would improve the 
general confidence in institutions.   

Though the institutional approach to analysing common property 
management is useful in tracing out the rules and norms involved, it has 
been critiqued for not considering aspects of power and political economy 
(Agrawal 2007). Vos et al. (2020) state that the Ostromian conceptual 
frameworks, like Institutional Analysis and Design and Social and 
Ecological Systems, fail to highlight the political dimensions of common 
pool resources and underlying social movements. However, political 
ecology perspectives provide a powerful lens to analyse the role of the state 
and markets in community natural resource governance (Osborne 2015). 
Following Agrawal (2007), I attempt to integrate the literature on commons 
and political ecology. 

Political ecology helps us to examine the relationship between economics, 
politics, and nature by critically situating issues in a historical and contextual 
setting (Robbins 2012). It interrogates how political, social, and economic 
factors impact nature or the environment at different scales—like local, 
regional, and global—by examining environmental problems, concepts, and 
actors (Bryant and Bailey 2005). For example, a political-ecological view of 
water considers a “close correlation” between hydrological cycle changes at 
the local, regional, and global scales and political, social, and economic 
power relations (Swyngedouw 2009). Swyngedouw asserts that “hydraulic 
environments are socio-physical constructions that are actively and 
historically produced” (Swyngedouw 2009, 56). A political ecology 
perspective of water uses the lens of power to analyse the intersection of 
water, infrastructure, and political rule to identify whose decision-making 
shapes water systems with due consideration to the history, culture, and 
socioeconomic practices of the context under study (Boelens 2014). It 
engages with the literature on the commodification and neoliberalization of 
nature by attending to the biophysical nature of resources and power 
relations (Osborne 2015).   

Polanyi (2001), elaborating on the commodification of nature, terms nature 
as a fictitious commodity to underscore the fact that nature is not a 
commodity produced for markets. To Polanyi, production is the 
“interaction of man and nature”, and binding them to the vagaries of supply 



[71] Vinay Sankar 

and demand is akin to commodification. “Countermovement” is essentially 
a movement towards decommodification (Kentikelenis 2017). The 
commodification of ecosystems such as forests and water, using various 
“valuation” techniques, has not led to better, more equitable governance 
systems (Heynen and Robbins 2005). 

Kentikelenis (2017) finds that countermovements are usually manifestations 
at the macro or national level to achieve the end goal of 
decommodification. However, he argues that local-level countermovements 
attempting to protect livelihoods from the assault of state and market 
forces demand attention. Micro foundations based on the community’s 
material, political, and sociocultural factors are significant in forming a 
countermovement (Kentikelenis 2017). Attempts to commodify nature 
would often create a countermovement to protect the commons from 
getting trapped in the logic of the market (Kallis, Gómez-Baggethun, and 
Zografos 2013). Especially in the case of elements, like water, with its 
nature of “fluidity, continuity and temporal variability”, commodification is 
harder (Bakker 2005). 

Nayak and Berkes (2011), Unnikrishnan, Manjunatha, and Nagendra (2016), 
Nayak, Oliveira, and Berkes (2014), Bharucha (2018), and others who 
studied commons such as lakes and small-scale fisheries have found the lack 
of recognition of traditional community rights to be a significant issue. It 
has led to exclusion, conflict, degradation, and even the disappearance of 
such systems, and marginalization and poverty among dependent 
communities. They are emphatic about situating a case in its historical 
context to understand the contemporary picture of the commons 
ecosystem. Agrawal (2014) also maintains that future research strands on 
the commons need a more historical, reflective, and critical look. This study 
is an attempt in this direction. 

Building on the theoretical framework of the commons (Ostrom 2009) and 
the conceptual framework of the countermovement (Polanyi 2001), I 
attempt to identify the patterns of relationship between small freshwater 
bodies, such as rural community ponds, and proximate communities. The 
study draws inspiration from a series of path-breaking and seminal works, 
from Jodha (1989)—who used marginal analysis (bi-variate tables and the 
linear regression technique) to verify the broad trends associated with the 
access and utilization patterns of CPRs in India—to Agarwal (2010), who 
analysed the political economy of women’s presence in community forestry 
using linear and logistic regression tools. Similarly, in this study, I employ 
quantitative analysis as a tool to identify the patterns of relationship 
between the pond commons and its users. 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [72] 

Moreover, I attempt to contribute to recent trends in the literature 
(Kashwan 2016; Bennett et al. 2018), which bring together two diverse 
conceptualizations of power and institutions to understand how they shape 
each other. I aim to build on the institutional analysis by Ostrom and others 
by contextualizing institutions in the micro-level power structures of caste, 
class, and gender. 
 

2. RESEARCH CONTEXT 

I conducted the research in Kerala, as it is well known for undertaking 
reforms in water, land, and local democracy. As Krishnan and George 
(2009) note in their study on irrigation tanks in Kerala’s Palakkad district, 
small freshwater bodies like ponds and larger structures like tanks were 
impacted by reforms in land and local self-governments (panchayats). The 
rural public ponds in Kerala are the creation of a set of reforms, starting 
from the land reforms of the 1950s and 1960s to the reforms in 
decentralized democracy, which began in the 1990s. Many private ponds 
became public ponds through the land reforms, as land ceiling restrictions 
forced the landed gentry to let go of these water bodies and place them 
under state control. Various water policies at the national and provincial 
levels have had implications for how communities treat water. The Kerala 
State Water Policy (2008) states, “water is not a commodity and it is part of 
an ecosystem for the benefit of all”. Similarly, the devolution of powers to 
the local self-government is understood to have a substantial impact on 
local water commons. The political and historical context of Kerala, which 
has shaped the governance of rural ponds, makes it a relevant and 
important field site.  

In the context of southern India, commons are known as poramboke—a 
term for lands reserved for public purposes or communal use in villages, as 
per Section 4, the Kerala Land Conservancy Act, 1957 (Department of 
Revenue 1957). In the official land revenue records, such common lands are 
classified as “wastelands” (Jodha 2000). An elementary examination of the 
revenue classification of “common land” in Kerala reveals that entities such 
as “thodu (irrigation channels), kulam (pond), river, bund, kayal (backwaters), 
sea, road, kavu (sacred grove), or accreted/unsurveyed land is considered 
porumboke” (Foundation for Ecological Security 2014, 16). In the case of 
Kerala, the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994, ensured that local self-
governments are vested with considerable powers concerning the 
governance of water resources. 

I conducted this study in the district of Palakkad in Central Kerala, as when 
it comes to the total number of public ponds or reservoirs, Palakkad has the 



[73] Vinay Sankar 

highest number—close to a one-third share in the state (Government of 
Kerala 2019). As per the Panchayat Level Statistics, prepared by the 
Department of Economics and Statistics, Government of Kerala, there are 
854 panchayat ponds and 88 gram panchayats (GPs) in Palakkad district 
(Government of Kerala 2019). I identified 30 panchayat ponds using a 
multi-stage sampling method (Figure 1) (Table 10). 

Figure 1: The Location of Surveyed Panchayat Ponds in Palakkad, Kerala, India  

 

Source: C S Saneesh, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ 

Apart from identifying the access and utilization patterns of rural ponds, I 
intend to identify the institutional arrangement over these ponds: the rules 
of use and the process of framing them, the social and economic 
background of the proximate households, and the ecological health 
indicators of the ponds.  
 

3. MATERIALS AND METHODS 

3.1 Data Collection 

I formulated a multi-stage sampling procedure to identify the final set of 
panchayat ponds to be surveyed. Out of the 14 districts in Kerala, I 
deliberately selected Palakkad district at first, as it has the highest number of 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [74] 

public ponds in Kerala (Government of Kerala 2019). Secondly, from each 
of the panchayat blocks (except Attappady, a high-altitude block having an 
insignificant number of panchayat ponds), I chose the panchayats with the 
highest number of ponds. A few panchayats I chose in the original sample 
had been transformed into municipal areas. In such cases, I selected the 
nearest gram panchayat to ensure sample spread. Finally, from each of 
those panchayats, I selected one survey pond randomly. I generated a list of 
common ponds in each of the chosen panchayats using a participatory 
appraisal method. The data available on community ponds at the district 
and panchayat levels had discrepancies in numbers, names, and location. 
Finding the exact location of the community pond was possible only 
through a participatory appraisal with the user community. Using a lottery 
method, I selected a pond randomly from the list generated after the 
participatory appraisal. I chose households for the survey randomly within 
the panchayat ward of the pond. From the pilot study, it was evident that a 
majority of the users of the pond lived in the same ward as the pond. 

The survey instruments used for this study are a household-level survey 
questionnaire and an observation schedule at the pondscape level. I 
administered a structured, coded questionnaire to a self-identified decision-
maker of the household. The questions were focused on the social and 
demographic characteristics of the decision-maker, the access and 
utilization patterns of panchayat ponds, and institutional governance over 
such common ponds. Before the actual survey, the questionnaire was 
translated into the local language of Malayalam. It was then tested for its 
relevance and clarity in the district of Thrissur, adjacent to the district of 
Palakkad. I surveyed 121 households living in the proximity of 30 panchayat 
ponds across the district of Palakkad.  

3.2 Demographic Characteristics 

Out of the 121 survey respondents, 63 were female, and 58 were male, a 
near equal distribution, which enabled a gendered analysis of access and 
utilization patterns (Table 11). The sample population I studied shows a 
distribution of 84%, 12%, and 4% for Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. 
According to the Directorate of Census Operations, Government of Kerala 
(2014), Hindus constitute 67% of the population in Palakkad district, 
followed by 29% Muslims and 4% Christians. According to the 2011 
Census of India, the state’s population comprises 54.73% Hindus, 26.56% 
Muslims, and 18.38% Christians. Since my fieldwork from December 2019 
to February 2020 coincided with a major resistance movement against a 
discriminatory citizenship law—the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019—
brought in by the Government of India, quite a few minority households 
were reluctant to participate in the survey.  



[75] Vinay Sankar 

Caste-wise, more than half of the respondents (53%) belonged to the Other 
Backward Classes (OBC) category. OBCs form the majority of India’s 
marginalized population. Close to 50% of the respondents had daily wages 
as their primary source of income. Approximately 60% of the respondents 
belonged to the priority and high-priority section in the Public Distribution 
System (PDS) of the Government of Kerala. The economic category that 
the respondent’s PDS card indicates is a robust representation of the 
economic class of the respondent households. I found that 78% of the 
priority PDS cardholders were landless, and as much as 69% of them were 
daily wage earners; 64% of the total number of households were landless as 
well. 

3.3 Indicators of Institutional and Ecosystem Health 

In their study to understand the link between collective action and forest 
management efforts, Chakrabarti et al. (2001) developed an index using a 
set of 18 forest management activities, such as planting, harvesting, and 
marketing. A group earns 0.5 points for the adoption of each management 
activity, and the actual implementation of collective rules earns one point 
per activity. On similar lines, I attempted to construct composite scores 
related to the ecological health of the pond and the collective action around 
it.  

Based on field observation, I factored seven social and ecological health 
indicators to create a composite ecological score (CES) for each of the 30 
surveyed ponds. They are the presence of aquatic weeds (mostly Salvinia 
molesta in the present case); evidence of minor erosion; recreational usage; 
evidence of open defecation; the presence of polluting economic activity 
near the surveyed pond; and the total dissolved solids (TDS) levels and pH 
levels of the pond waters (Kumar and Padhy 2015). I conducted a chemical 
analysis recording the pH and TDS levels of each of the community ponds 
using portable, digital pH and TDS meters in January and February 2020. 
The ponds were awarded one point each for the absence of aquatic weeds, 
absence of erosion (indicating a functional embankment protecting the 
pond), usage for recreational purposes, lack of signs of open defecation, 
and absence of polluting economic activity (such as brick kilns) in the pond 
vicinity. I assigned ponds zero points for the presence of contaminating 
agents and lack of recreational usage. Apart from these five indicators, I 
ranked the panchayat ponds based on the TDS and pH levels, which show 
the chemical composition of the pond waters. Clean, potable water would 
have a TDS value of less than 300 ppm (World Health Organization 2003, 
1) and a pH of 7. Having clean water improves the chances of the 
utilization of the pond for a variety of purposes. As the mean TDS level for 
the 30 ponds was 103 (Table 1), I gave all ponds that scored less than 103 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [76] 

one point, and the others scored zero. Similarly, ponds having pH levels 
ranging from 6.5 to 7.5 (7 being the ideal pH level and 0.5 the sample 
variance) were assigned one point and the others, zero. 

Table 1: Select Determinants of Ecological Health of the Ponds 

S.No Indicators of the ecological 
health of ponds 

Number 
of ponds 

Percentage of 
ponds 

1 Absence of erosion of the pond 
bank/presence of embankments 

20  67 

2 Absence of aquatic weeds in the 
pond 

11  37 

3 Absence of open defecation in the 
vicinity of the pond 

28  93 

4 Absence of polluting economic 
activity in the vicinity of the pond 

22  73 

5 Use for recreational purposes such 
as swimming  

23  77 

6 TDS levels less than 103 ppm 
(mean level among 30 ponds) 

22  73 

7 pH levels between 6.5 and 7.5 14  47 

Note: Percentages are based on the denominator of N = 30 
Source: Field observation by the author; TDS and pH levels measured using 
electronic meters. 

 
I gave panchayat ponds scoring a maximum of seven points a composite 
score of 100. Two surveyed ponds, one in Koppam and another in 
Karimpuzha, scored a cent percentile. Ponds scoring a six out of seven 
scored a total of 86. Seven ponds scored an 86. Six ponds held the third-
highest score, 71, for having scored five points out of a possible seven. The 
mean score of the 30 ponds was 65.19, and only three ponds scored less 
than 30. 

The next step was to compute a composite institutional score (CIS) to 
capture the importance of the organizational aspects of pond systems. The 
primary focus of this study was public ponds under the custodianship of 
local panchayats. Local panchayats in Kerala have a high level of 
discretionary power and accountability toward citizens (Venugopal and 
Yilmaz 2009). The panchayats in Kerala were entrusted with the power to 
manage water bodies within their jurisdiction under the Kerala Panchayati 
Raj Act, 1994. I tried to quantify the aspect of collective action in and 



[77] Vinay Sankar 

around the surveyed panchayat ponds. The institutional score was primarily 
based on Ostromian design principles (Ostrom 1990). I asked the 
respondents if there are specific rules for the access and extraction of water 
and what the role of the gram panchayat is in formulating access and 
utilization rules, monitoring, sanctioning and conflict resolution, and 
participation in deliberations on panchayat ponds. 

Table 2: Select Determinants of Collective Action 

S.No Factors of institutional strength Number of 
respondents that 
answered in the 

affirmative 

1 Existence of rules for extraction of pond waters  115 (95%) 

2 GP has a role in framing access rules 117 (97%) 

3 GP has a role in framing usage rules  116 (96%) 

4 GP ensures non-violation of the above rules  117 (97%) 

5 GP able to punish rule violation  121 (100%) 

6 GP has a role in conflict resolution  115 (95%) 

7 GP is the significant place of discussion on ponds  114 (94%) 

8 Respondent attends discussions on ponds in GP 100 (83%) 

9 Respondent speaks in such discussions in GP  90 (74%) 

10 User communities are the major beneficiaries of 
pond  

117 (97%) 

Note: Percentages in parenthesis have a common denominator of N = 121 
Source: Field survey by the author 

 
I assigned the 11 gram panchayats who scored a perfect 10 a composite 
score of 100. Thirteen panchayats scored 90 or above, and the mean score 
of all panchayats was close to 93. To capture elements of a potential 
countermovement (Polanyi 2001), I also asked specific questions related to 
resistance to unsustainable or unjust usage of the pond (such as 
commercial-scale fish rearing in public ponds, diversion of pond waters for 
major irrigation, and dumping of waste) through deliberations in the 
panchayat. While in 24 panchayats out of the 30 surveyed, respondents did 
not recall any incidents of resistance to an adverse rule change in the recent 
past, 14 respondents belonging to six panchayats mentioned how they had 
pushed back unsustainable or inequitable usage of ponds through formal 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [78] 

protests in the panchayat. Except for one, these 14 respondents were Dalit 
Bahujans from the SC or OBC categories.  

Finally, I calculated a diversification score called the Composite 
Diversification Score (CDS), which indicates the extent to which 
households were diversified with respect to access to various water sources 
for domestic purposes (Table 3). While developing an urban water security 
indicator, Jensen and Huijuan (2018) included a diversity indicator based on 
the contribution of alternative sources along with the major source of water 
supply. I developed the CDS along those lines. If a respondent has multiple 
sources for any usage or purpose, I assign them one point, and if they have 
only one, I give them zero. The aggregate diversification score is computed 
by adding the individual scores for drinking, cooking, bathing, washing, and 
cleaning. Therefore, if a respondent has diversified sources (two or more) 
for all the purposes, they score a cent percentile. Nine such respondents 
(7%) had total and complete diversification. Thirty respondents (25%) had 
zero diversification, as they only had a single source for each of the usages. 
They are mostly landless daily wage earners, owning just their homestead 
plots. A low overall CDS (the mean CDS is 37.52) shows the relative 
scarcity of water in the region (Table 3). CDS could also be considered an 
intervening variable between CIS and CES in the present context. 

Table 3: Number of Households having Diversified Water Sources for Various 
Usages 

Drinking 
diversificatio

n 

Cooking 
diversificatio

n 

Bathing 
diversificatio

n 

Washing 
diversificatio

n 

Cleaning 
diversificatio

n 

44 (36%) 37 (31%) 52 (43%) 47 (39%) 47 (39%) 

Notes: Percentages in parenthesis have a common denominator of N = 121 
Source: Field survey by the author 
 

I analyse the patterns of relationships among the demographic, institutional, 
and ecosystem variables in the following sections. 

3.4 Data Analysis 

Following Srinivasan and Nuthalapati (2019), I considered the determinants 
of water usage to be the social and economic features of the respondent 
households and other factors that may influence the access and utilization 
of panchayat ponds (Table 11). The number of household members, 



[79] Vinay Sankar 

including children, pond-dependent households, and the possession of 
livestock indicate the “load” factor on the pond in terms of the number of 
users. Various studies using the perspective of the commons highlight that 
community members without traditional user rights over the resources tend 
to be excluded from potential benefits. Therefore, the first principle in the 
Ostromian design framework is defining user and resource boundaries. I 
included factors such as house ownership and duration of residence in the 
current location to test the relationship. Access and utilization are 
influenced by the distance from the pond to the nearest motorable road. 
The surveyed ponds that existed in the middle of paddy fields, far away 
from the road, seemed to have non-optimal biophysical conditions and 
limited utilization.  

Logistic regression models were fitted to estimate the impact of ecosystem 
variables and indicators of institutional strength and relative scarcity on 
utilization patterns of panchayat ponds in Palakkad. The motivation of this 
study was to identify the statistical patterns of the relationship between the 
rural community ponds and their users in India. When it comes to vital 
ecological assets like rural ponds, questions like who has access and for 
what purpose are hardly discussed in academic literature. The regression 
analysis was necessary to verify and quantify the utilization patterns of these 
ponds. 

Understanding how access and utilization patterns differ along the axes of 
caste, class, and gender could be useful for scaling up resource governance 
models. The statistical significance of variables could have policy as well as 
future research relevance. In general, studies positioned in a political 
ecological framework have been criticized for offering critique than 
“generating or contributing to more concrete policy and governance 
solutions” (Bennett et al. 2018, 332). This study is an attempt to bring into 
conversation the theoretical strands of commons/CPR and political ecology 
to offer policy-relevant research.    

3.4.1 Model 

Following Gujarati and Porter (1999), I fitted binary logistic regression 
models to identify the predictors of utilization of panchayat ponds 
involving dummy dependent variables, with continuous categories. 
Specification of the bivariate logistic regression function for panchayat 
pond utilization is as follows: 

 
 The number of pond-dependent households is only an approximate figure based on 
household interviews.  



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [80] 

Logit(P) = log (P/1-P)                                                               (1) 
 
Let Pi = Pr (Y = 1/X = xi)                                                        (2) 
 
Pr (y = 1/x) = expx’b / 1 + ex’b = log (Pi/1-Pi) = Logit (Pi) = β0 + 
β1xi                                                                                            (3) 
 

where Pi is the probability of utilizing the pond (dependent variable), xis are 
independent or predictor variables, β0 is the intercept, and β1 is the 
regression coefficient. The predictors included indicators of ecosystem 
health, institutional strength, and level of diversification of water sources. 

In this model, the dependent-variable utilization of panchayat ponds is a 
binary categorical variable, and the independent/predictor variables include 
indicators of the ecological health of the ponds, institutional strength of the 
panchayats, and the extent of diversification of water sources. I ran separate 
regressions for each of the major usages of the panchayat pond. 

In the regression models, I employed three variables as independent 
variables following Stoltzfus (2011). A rule of 10 states, “for every 
independent variable, there should be no fewer than 10 outcomes for each 
binary category (e.g., alive/deceased), with the least common outcome 
determining the maximum number of independent variables” (Stoltzfus 
2011, 1101). Accordingly, for each binary category (in this case, usage/non-
usage for a particular category), the smallest outcome is 31. This figure is 
taken from the primary data that indicated that 90 members used the pond 
for cleaning and 31 did not. For each, bathing and washing, 89 respondents 
used the community pond. Therefore, the logistic regression model could 
reasonably have three independent variables for a sample size of 121.  

3.4.2 Hypotheses 

As far as the overall position of the existing literature reviewed in the 
introduction is concerned, we might expect that the access and utilization of 
common water sources are mediated by social and economic variables, such 
as the caste, class, religion, and gender of the dependent population. The 
utilization could also be influenced by the relative scarcity and the 
availability of alternative water sources for various usages. The higher the 
level of diversification of water sources, the lower the utilization of ponds 
for various purposes. We can expect the level of dependency—in terms of 
the number of users—to impact the utilization frequency and ecosystem 
sustainability, given that the pond ecosystems under review are small in size, 
ranging from a few cents to less than two acres. The larger the dependency, 
the lower the ecological health parameters of the pond. Regarding the 



[81] Vinay Sankar 

ecosystem health of the panchayat ponds, we can expect differences across 
the various locations of the district.   

I tested the hypothesized predictor variables for statistical issues like 
multicollinearity. However, none of the model equations showed 
multicollinearity among the predictor variables when tested using the 
Variance Inflation Factor (VIF). 
 

4. RESULTS 

4.1 Access and Utilization Patterns 

There was universal access to the panchayat pond in the surveyed 
panchayats, cutting across religion, caste, gender, and class, for the domestic 
purposes of drinking, cooking, bathing, washing, and cleaning.2 However, 
there was a universal ban on utilizing the pond for commercial purposes.  

The overall utilization patterns show that domestic purposes such as 
bathing, washing and cleaning are prioritized over irrigation and commercial 
purposes.3 Out of the 121 respondents, 89 (73.6%) used the community 
pond for bathing and washing, while 90 (74.4%) members used it for 
cleaning purposes. Except in a couple of extreme cases, the dependent 
households did not utilize the ponds for drinking and cooking. The average 
number of households dependent on a pond is close to 60. 

Studies such as Krishnan and George (2009) have found that non-
recognition of ecological connections between land and water and 
“enclosures” of water within private land parcels has contributed to water 
scarcity in Palakkad and elsewhere in Kerala. The primary survey data too 
shows that more than 22% of the respondents have an insufficient amount 
of drinking water. In addition, 22% of the respondents receive drinking 
water only seasonally.   

To overcome this scarcity caused by socioecological factors, the community 
depends on the panchayat ponds for their domestic needs. For drinking and 
cooking, own open well and panchayat pipe connections were the primary 
sources for respondent households. While 53% of households depended on 
their open wells, close to 45% relied on the panchayat pipe connection. 

 
2 Utilization is recorded if any of the household members use the pond for a specific 
purpose. “Washing” primarily indicates washing of clothes, while “cleaning” indicates using 
the pond water for washing dishes, cleaning automobiles, etc. 
3 Frequencies are based on the recall for the previous week. Afterwards, I extrapolate these 
to the number of times in a year, factoring in the number of months of non-usage and non-
availability of water in the pond, if applicable.  



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [82] 

Almost three-fourths of the respondents utilized the panchayat pond—
along with other sources such as wells and pipes—for bathing, washing, 
and cleaning. For irrigation, most of the cultivating households relied on 
canal irrigation. 

4.2 Association between Pond Utilization and Demography: 
Correlations and Cross-tabulations 

Significantly, ecological and institutional scores are positively and 
considerably correlated. In the case of the domestic purposes of bathing, 
washing, and cleaning, the composite ecological score is significantly and 
negatively correlated, though the coefficient is negligible (Table 4). This 
result could be interpreted thus: the higher the frequency of domestic usage, 
the lower the composite ecological score. On the other hand, the 
institutional score is directly and significantly associated with domestic 
usage frequencies but not with irrigation frequency. 

The domestic usage frequencies and institutional strength are positively and 
considerably associated. Nonetheless, no such association exists between 
domestic or irrigation frequencies and CDS. Domestic utilization is not 
related to the distance of the pond to the road, the educational attainment 
of the respondents, or their household size. Another interesting association 
is between the number of household members and the extent of 
diversification of water sources. It shows that the number of members in 
the household and CDS are positively correlated. The household size is not 
associated with the frequency of utilization, indicating that the number of 
householders does not matter when utilizing the pond. At the same time, 
the number of dependent households is positively and significantly 
correlated to washing frequencies.  

The findings do not provide evidence that religion and caste matter in 
bathing, washing, cleaning, and irrigation purposes (Table 5). Gender 
matters only in the case of usage for washing. Economic class, indicated by 
the main occupation, is pertinent in all domestic and irrigation purposes. 
Accordingly, the hypothesis that there is no relationship between class 
status and pond utilization stands rejected. Apart from class, respondent 
perceptions of the cleanliness of the panchayat ponds show a significant 
relationship with domestic purposes, while this is immaterial with respect to 
irrigation usage. Class alone matters in the case of pond utilization for 
irrigation.



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 5 (2): 67-102, July 2022 

Table 4: Correlation Matrix 

 

 

S
. 

N
o

V
a
ri

a
b

le
s

1
2

3
4

5
6

7
8

9
10

11
12

1
B

at
h

in
g

u
ti

li
ty

fr
eq

u
en

cy
—

.9
63

**
.9

46
**

0.
07

6
.2

17
*

0.
05

1
-0

.0
24

0.
12

2
-0

.1
71

.2
31

*
-.

27
9*

*
-0

.0
98

2

W
as

h
in

g 

u
ti

li
ty

 

fr
eq

u
en

cy

.9
63

**
—

.9
80

**
0.

05
1

.2
65

**
0.

00
7

-0
.0

42
0.

14
1

-.
20

6*
.2

09
*

-.
27

0*
*

-0
.1

25

3

C
le

an
in

g 

u
ti

li
ty

 

fr
eq

u
en

cy

.9
46

**
.9

80
**

—
0.

04
6

.2
23

*
0.

01
4

-0
.0

32
0.

11
9

-.
19

4*
.2

20
*

-.
29

3*
*

-0
.1

62

4

Ir
ri

ga
ti

o
n

 

u
ti

li
ty

 

fr
eq

u
en

cy

0.
07

6
0.

05
1

0.
04

6
—

-0
.1

71
.2

96
**

.2
36

**
0.

03
3

0.
04

9
0.

15
1

-0
.0

79
0.

00
3

5

P
o

n
d

-

d
ep

en
d

en
t 

h
o

u
se

h
o

ld
s

.2
17

*
.2

65
**

.2
23

*
-0

.1
71

—
-.

50
1*

*
-0

.0
62

N
A

N
A

0.
06

4
-0

.0
08

0.
07

2

6

D
is

ta
n

ce
fr

o
m

th
e

n
ea

re
st

m
o

to
ra

b
le

 

ro
ad

 i
n

 m
et

re
s

0.
05

1
0.

00
7

0.
01

4
.2

96
**

-.
50

1*
*

—
N

A
N

A
N

A
N

A
N

A
-0

.1
59

7
E

d
u
ca

ti
o

n
al

 

at
ta

in
m

en
t

-0
.0

24
-0

.0
42

-0
.0

32
.2

36
**

-0
.0

62
N

A
—

-0
.0

39
N

A
N

A
N

A
0.

08
4

8

T
o

ta
l

n
u
m

b
er

o
f

m
em

b
er

s
in

th
e 

h
o

u
se

h
o

ld

0.
12

2
0.

14
1

0.
11

9
0.

03
3

N
A

N
A

-0
.0

39
—

N
A

N
A

N
A

.2
57

**

9

N
u
m

b
er

o
f

ye
ar

s
sp

en
t

in

th
e

cu
rr

en
t

lo
ca

ti
o

n

-0
.1

71
-.

20
6*

-.
19

4*
0.

04
9

N
A

N
A

N
A

N
A

—
-0

.0
72

0.
14

3
-0

.1
24

10

C
o

m
p

o
si

te
 

In
st

it
u
ti

o
n

al
 

S
co

re
 (

C
IS

)

.2
13

*
.2

09
*

.2
20

*
0.

15
1

0.
06

4
N

A
N

A
N

A
-0

.0
72

—
.2

68
**

-0
.0

16

11

C
o

m
p

o
si

te
 

E
co

lo
gi

ca
l 

S
co

re
 (

C
E

S
)

-.
27

9*
*

-.
27

0*
*

-.
29

3*
*

-0
.0

79
-0

.0
08

N
A

N
A

N
A

0.
14

3
.2

68
**

—
0.

04
4

12

C
o

m
p

o
si

te
 

D
iv

er
si

fi
ca

ti
o

n
 S

co
re

 (
C

D
S
)

-0
.0

98
-0

.1
25

-0
.1

62
0.

00
3

0.
07

2
-0

.1
59

0.
08

4
.2

57
**

-0
.1

24
-0

.0
16

0.
04

4
—



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 5 (2): 67-102, July 2022 

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). 
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 
NA: Not Applicable 
Spearman’s rho used for correlation 
Source: Primary survey data analysis 

Table 5: Users of Panchayat Ponds and their Social and Economic Background: 
Chi-square Cross-tabulations 

Social and 
economic 

background of 
the respondent 

Utilizers of 
the pond 

Bathing  Washing  Cleaning  Irrigation  

Religion of the 
respondent 

Hindu 73 (82) 73 (82) 74 (82) 10 (100) 

Non-Hindu 16 (18) 16 (18) 16 (18) 0 

Caste of the 
respondent 

OBC 47 (53) 47 (53) 49 (54) 4 (40) 

Non-OBC 42 (47) 42 (47) 41 (46) 6 (60) 

Gender of the 
respondent 

Female 51 (57) 52 (58)* 51 (57) 4 (40) 

Male 38 (43) 37 (42)* 39 (43) 6 (60) 

Major source of 
income of the 
respondent 

Daily Wage 
Labour 

49 (55)* 50 (56)* 51 (57)** 0* 

Others 40 (45)* 39 (44)* 39 (43)** 10 (100)* 

Economic 
category of the 
respondent 

Priority 
57 

(64)** 
58 (65)** 59 (66)** 5 (50) 

Non-
Priority 

32 
(36)** 

31 (35)** 31 (34)** 5 (50) 

Perception of 
cleanliness of 
panchayat pond 

Clean 
79 

(89)** 
80 (90)** 79 (88)** 8 (80) 

Unclean 
10 

(11)** 
9 (10)** 11 (12)** 2 (20) 

Possessing 
farmland 

Yes 29 (33) 28 (31) 28 (31)* 10 (100)* 

No 60 (67) 61 (69) 62 (69)* 0 

Possessing 
livestock 

Yes 19 (21) 20 (22) 22 (24) 5 (50) 

No 70 (79) 69 (78) 68 (76) 5 (50) 

Notes: Percentage in parenthesis 
*indicates significance level at p < 0.05 
**indicates significance level at p < 0.01 



[85] Vinay Sankar 

Source: Primary survey data analysis 

 
Most importantly, respondents’ perception of the cleanliness of the 
panchayat pond is directly and moderately correlated with each of the 
domestic usage frequencies (Table 6). It is considerably and positively 
associated with the ecological health indicator, CES. Since the overall 
average score of institutional strength is high (the mean CIS is 92.73), the 
lack of association between the perception of cleanliness and institutional 
strength need not be a matter of concern, given that there is no expectation 
of a direct correlation. This is also true of the perception of cleanliness and 
the diversification score.  

Table 5: Correlation of Cleanliness Perception with Utilization Frequency and 
Composite Scores 

Spearman’s rho Perception of cleanliness of 
panchayat pond 

Frequency of Bathing  .454** 

Frequency of Washing  .481** 

Frequency of Cleaning  .435** 

Composite Institutional Score 0.139 

Composite Ecological Score .519** 

Composite Diversification Score 0.078 

 
Notes: ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) 
Source: Primary survey data analysis 

4.3 Regression Results 

4.3.1 Factors determining the utilization of the pond for bathing 

I present the logit estimations for composite scores on institutional 
strength, the ecological integrity of the pond, and the extent of 
diversification of water in Tables 7, 8 and 9. I describe the marginal effects 
of each estimation, standard errors, and p-values in the tables. 

Variables on the ecological score and diversification are statistically 
significant as factors influencing the usage of the ponds for bathing (Table 
7). The positive sign of the ecological score indicates that for every one unit 
increase in the ecological score, the probability of an improvement in 
bathing usage increases by 0.0088%. Interestingly, the model shows that 
even as the diversification of water sources improves, there is a slight 
increase in the likelihood of usage of ponds for bathing. This result further 
highlights the importance of ponds in the lives of rural households in the 
study area. 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [86] 

Table 6: Determinants of Pond Utilization for Bathing 

Independent variables dy/dx Std. Err P>|z| 

Composite institutional score 0.0028 0.0027 0.299 

Composite ecological score 0.00889*** 0.0024 0.000 

Composite diversification score 0.0024** 0.0011 0.035 

Notes: N = 121; LR chi2(3) = 25.38; Prob > chi2 = 0.0000; Pseudo R2 = 0.1815 
Log likelihood = -57.210004 
***, ** and * are significant at 1%, 5% and 10% respectively 
Source: Primary survey data analysis 

4.3.2 Factors determining the utilization of the pond for washing 

Once again, the ecological score turned positively significant with respect to 
the use of the pond for washing. As with the bathing usage, a unit increase 
in the ecological score leads to an increase in the probability of washing 
usage by 0.0091%. 

Table 7: Determinants of Pond Utilization for Washing 

Independent variables dy/dx Std. Err P>|z| 

Composite institutional score 0.0045448 0.0027819 0.102 

Composite ecological score 0.0091526*** 0.0023605 0.000 

Composite diversification score 0.0016185 0.0010906 0.138 

Notes: N = 121; LR chi2(3) = 26.26; Prob > chi2 = 0.0000; Pseudo R2 = 0.1878 
Log likelihood = -56.768265 
***, ** and * are significant at 1%, 5% and 10% respectively  
Source: Primary survey data analysis 
Table 8: Determinants of Pond Utilization for Cleaning 

Independent Variables dy/dx Std. Err P>|z| 

Composite Institutional Score 0.0049421* 0.0027351 0.071 

Composite Ecological Score 0.0083938*** 0.0022616 0.000 

Composite Diversification Score 0.0012287 0.0010629 0.247 

Notes: N = 121; LR chi2(3) = 23.78; Prob > chi2 = 0.0000; Pseudo R2 = 0.1727 
Log likelihood = -56.963276 
***, ** and * are significant at 1%, 5% and 10% respectively  
Source: Primary survey data analysis 

 



[87] Vinay Sankar 

4.3.3 Factors Determining the Utilization of the Pond for Cleaning 

When it came to the usage of the pond for cleaning, the institutional 
strength variable turned out to be positively significant, along with the 
ecological score (Table 9). A unit improvement in the institutional score 
leads to an increase in the probability of cleaning usage by 0.0049%. In this 
model too, the ecological score became a central determinant of pond 
usage.  

 

5. DISCUSSION 

The purpose of this research was to trace the access and utilization patterns 
of rural ponds in Kerala, identify the governance arrangement over these 
ponds, and assess their ecological health. Considering the above evidence, I 
attempt to situate these small freshwater bodies in a commons perspective. 

Providing an overview of water-related works, Swyngedouw (2009) 
concludes that water research either focused on the physical aspects or the 
managerial issues of the problem, rather than on the difficult question of 
the political-economic relations binding the physical and managerial factors 
in socially differentiated ways. I find that unequal access to or control over 
waters results from a combination of factors, such as the particular 
geographical situation, techno-managerial choices, political and legal 
arrangements over the resources, and water inequalities. 

There is universal access in the study scenario for the domestic usages of 
bathing, washing, and cleaning. Users have the right to access ponds for 
non-subtractable usages like bathing and washing, but—in most cases—not 
for rivalrous usages like irrigation. The local communities have prioritized 
domestic purposes over irrigation and commercial interests. Although there 
is some leeway for minor irrigation, no usage is permitted for commercial 
objectives. The result disproves the earlier hypothesis that access is 
mediated by caste, class, religion, and gender variables in the current 
context of Kerala. However, utilization patterns show class and gender 
differentiation, given that daily-wage earners and women, in general, tend to 
be more dependent on rural ponds (see Table 5). Also, in locations like 
Kizhakkencherry Panchayat, Dalit artisan communities living in poramboke 
(or revenue “wastelands”) soak their bamboo in the nearby public pond 
(called Cheerakuzhi kulam) before making various products. For the 
marginalized communities, the public ponds support livelihoods (a washer 
community called Vannan uses Perumkulam pond in Nallepully GP, for 
instance) and are often their sole source of fulfilling domestic needs such as 
washing and bathing. Ghate, Ghate, and Ostrom (2013), in their study of 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [88] 

harvesting patterns and the impact of communication in indigenous 
societies in Vidarbha, India, found that communities still tend to be non-
exploitative, non-commercial, and cooperative even under the onslaught of 
marketization. In this study, I confirm this finding in the context of rural 
ponds in Kerala and underline the importance of these small freshwater 
bodies to the marginalized and dispossessed sections of the population. 

The local panchayats are the custodians of the rural public ponds in Kerala. 
As these are vital ecosystems with contested uses and users, a clear and 
effective institutional arrangement is imperative to avoid the tragedy of 
open access. As the earlier discussion shows, the CIS—which signifies the 
aspect of collective action—is on the higher side with an overall mean score 
of 93 (see Table 2). At the panchayat, uses of pond waters are prioritized, 
rules are enforced, issues are deliberated, funds for maintenance are 
allocated, and actions are monitored, effectively creating a “new commons”. 
I use the term “new commons”, as most of these rural public ponds were 
privately held irrigation ponds before the land reforms in Kerala (field 
survey, 28 December 2019). It is similar to Bakker’s study of public water 
supply in England and Wales; she notes that social struggles in the form of 
a countermovement led to institutional changes and reregulation and 
created a “new commons” like municipal water cooperatives, replacing 
water privatization. 

Even as communities resist enclosures through collective action and 
“polycentric governance” (Ostrom 1990), the ecological health of the 
ecosystem under consideration does not necessarily improve (Nagendra and 
Ostrom 2014). However, in the present case, the parameters of local self-
governance of rural ponds moved in coordination with the ecological health 
indicators. The CIS and the CES showed a significant positive correlation 
(see Table 4). My field survey showed that the panchayats, leveraging the 
National Rural Employment Scheme (NREGS) funds and spending their 
own funds, ensure regular upkeep of these rural ponds. Respondents across 
locations mentioned the role of women employed under NREGS in 
removing sludge and weeds from the ponds and desilting them at regular 
intervals. 

In order to situate the rural ponds in a commons framework, let us review 
the role of contextual variables in the Ostromian framework and compare it 
with this study. Ostrom found that several contextual variables impact the 
level of cooperation, such as the size of the group involved, group 
heterogeneity, the relative scarcity of the good, marginal contribution to the 
collective good, the ability to make rules, the role of leadership and free-
riding chances (Ostrom 2000). Ostrom and Varughese found that 
heterogeneity was not a significant predictor of the degree of collective 



[89] Vinay Sankar 

action, as strong institutions could overcome that challenge (Varughese and 
Ostrom 2001). My study confirms the finding that heterogeneity is 
insignificant if institutions are in place to ensure equity in access. Various 
groups that are heterogeneous in terms of religion, caste, gender, 
occupation, education, wealth, household size, and duration of residence 
use the panchayat ponds in Palakkad. The number of dependent 
households was an insignificant predictor in the regression models, 
indicating that more than the size of the group, it is the nature of usage that 
matters. 

Modest levels of scarcity were a prerequisite for a community to self-
organize (Varughese and Ostrom 2001). The low overall CDS mean (38 out 
of 100) in the present case could indicate the relative scarcity of water for 
various usages. In their study to understand the predictors of groundwater 
access in the Godavari Basin in South India, Srinivasan and Nuthalapati 
(2019) also found that farmers started to economize water use when faced 
with actual scarcity. Relative scarcity and associated dependency over water 
commons seem to have some importance in my study, as the CDS turned 
significant in the logistic regression model predicting the usage for 
bathing—but not for washing and cleaning (Table 7). 

The marginal contribution to the collective good as a determinant of 
collective action requires some reconsideration in light of the evidence from 
my study. Ostrom’s design principles assemble “lessons learnt” from 
successful and not-so-successful self-governance systems (Ostrom 2010). 
While the design principles mention the social and economic ability of local 
communities to self-organize, we could add to them another layer 
considering the political ability of the same communities to pull resources 
from larger systems to support the local institutions. Ostrom (2005) 
mentions a “need to assess the costs of operating a system on users”. In the 
case of panchayat ponds in Kerala, while the benefits are appropriated by 
the local communities, the provisioning costs are provided by the 
panchayats, which re-routes funds from the state and central governments. 
The local communities do not pay to utilize the pond—at least not directly; 
indirectly, though, panchayats have local tax revenues. This arrangement 
might appear, prima facie, unfair or even unsustainable to the institutional 
theory based on the “congruence between costs and benefits” borne by 
local users, and yet, is valid and significant as an inequality-reduction 
exercise. As Swyngedouw (2009) argues, the provision of water to big cities 
implies mobilizing water over great distances from different regions. Even 
if hugely disproportionate, the external fund flow to the decentralized rural 
entities could be viewed as reparations for the virtual water flows to the 
cities. 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [90] 

While acknowledging that searching for panaceas in resource governance is 
problematic in itself, Ostrom (2007) outlines that “some form of 
government ownership, privatisation, decentralisation, land reform or 
community control of resources is an appropriate solution to a particular 
social-ecological problem”. Though useful in arraying the best practices of 
natural resource governance by local communities, Ostrom’s theoretical 
frameworks are generally ahistorical and apolitical and tend to assume that 
users would equitably and sustainably manage the very resources they 
intend to govern. Her ambitious attempts to categorize “configurations of 
causal conditions affecting incentives, behaviors, and outcomes” might not 
capture the role of land reforms, decentralization, and government 
ownership in setting up community-controlled institutions and maintaining 
ecosystems. In the case of panchayat ponds in Kerala, a combination of 
factors and institutions—like the land reforms of the 1960s and 70s, 
government ownership at the local panchayat level (through Kerala 
Panchayat Raj Act 1994), the decentralization of power after the campaign 
in late 1990s, the policy treating water as “commons” (through the Kerala 
State Water Policy 2008), and community control—all together brought 
equity and sustainability as outcomes.  

As regards community control, various pond-dependent groups—such as 
women and Dalits—actively resisted and, many times, even reversed 
unsustainable and unjust interventions, such as commercial fish-rearing, 
waste-dumping, and diverting pond waters for the irrigation of commercial 
and water-guzzling crops like banana (see section 3.3). Even when the 
fishing lease is operational, it is seldom on a commercial scale.  
Nonetheless, when the leasing of ponds for pisciculture clashed with the 
domestic uses of bathing and washing, the users mounted resistance in the 
panchayat meetings; this led to the cancellation of such leases in several 
instances—as in Puthukulam in Vadakkencherry GP. In this case, the lease 
was owned by the then panchayat president himself. Other respondents 
mentioned that whenever fishing leasers tried to reduce water levels during 
harvesting—as in Ullanoor Kulam in Nagalasseri GP—local users had 
successfully resisted such attempts.  

Similarly, there are directives in many GPs that prohibit the usage of the 
pond for irrigation, especially during lean seasons like summer—for 
example, in Perumkulam in Chalavara GP. In the case of Angadikulam in 
Ongallur GP, women users resisted attempts to extract water for road 
construction. Waste dumping in and around public ponds was countered in 
panchayats like Eruthempathy, Vadakkencherry, and Puthupariaram. In all 
these instances, the local panchayat meetings were used to register the 
protests and undertake negotiations. These were essentially a political 



[91] Vinay Sankar 

mobilization at the grassroots—an institutionalized “countermovement” 
that has led to sustainable and just outcomes. As Boelens (2014) mentions, 
“water is the source of collaboration and conflict, a basic means of 
mobilising people and a driving force behind local common property 
institutions”. 

The political mobilization driving these countermovements is essentially a 
movement towards decommodification (Kentikelenis 2017). Smessaert, 
Missemer, and Levrel (2020), in their synthesis of the present state of 
knowledge on the process of commodification, note that there is scope to 
understand “specific counter-forces” that result in the process of 
decommodification. Igoe and Brockington (2007) contend that 
neoliberalization involves reorganizing nature through forms of 
commodification. They note that the state stepping back through 
deregulation is a pervasive process of neoliberalization. We see 
reregulation—as opposed to deregulation—by the state in the case of rural 
ponds in Kerala. The land reforms undertaken by the state governments in 
the 1960s and 1970s have led to the commonization (Nayak and Berkes 
2011) of these surveyed ponds in several locations, such as Chittur, 
Pattambi, Kuzhalmannam, and Kollemkode, among others. They are called 
michabhumikulam—ponds that the state took over through land reforms. 
Before the reforms, they were privately held and mostly used for irrigation. 
Later on, the local governance systems of panchayats often prioritized 
domestic utilization over irrigation and commercial usages. Grafton (2000) 
argued in favour of the state involving itself in resource governance, 
backing those engaged in collective action (Ostrom 2009). This argument 
sums up the politics of rural ponds in Kerala. 

There remain several limitations to this study. Many puzzles are unsolved—
like why, in some cases, indicators of institutional strength did not translate 
to the ecological health of the ponds, or why households that have lived in 
a locality longer tend to use the ponds less frequently. Moreover, I sought 
to identify only the patterns of relationships between ponds and their 
proximate populations. Another qualitative study is needed to flesh out the 
nature of their dependency. A limitation of this study is that I only 
attempted to study the utilization patterns of the respondents living near 
the ponds, and not all possible dependents—some of whom might live far 
away from the pond. In the future, researchers could conduct studies in 
multiple districts using a comparative framework. 
 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [92] 

6. CONCLUSION 

The primary objective of my study is to understand how the politics of 
water access and utilization patterns impact the social justice and ecological 
integrity of rural ponds. Small freshwater bodies like ponds are vital 
ecosystems in the ecological, economic, and sociopolitical landscape. With 
its associated properties of excludability and subtractability, rural ponds can 
be classified as commons. 

Learning about various models of local-level, community-led water 
governance—like the case in Kerala—can help craft better institutions that 
can govern natural resources equitably and sustainably. When it comes to 
successful cases of community action at the local and regional level, the 
evidence marshalled tirelessly by Ostrom and others provides a counter for 
institutional sceptics bogged down by mounting evidence of the “tragedy of 
commons” all around the world. However, her attempts were aligned 
towards building a “universal model” by identifying a set of “contextual” 
variables favourable for collective action, not necessarily rooted in a 
historical and critical context. The institutional theory assumes that 
community control itself could translate into equity and sustainability 
outcomes. However, as this study of rural ponds in Kerala shows, the role 
of the state in negotiating outcomes that are just and sustainable is central, 
and institutionalizing the relationship between the state and communities is 
crucial to decommodify ecosystems. Through this paper, I argue that 
equitable and sustainable ecological governance entails broadening the 
institutional edifice built by Ostrom and others by incorporating the 
process of commodification and decommodification.  

The multiplicity of uses and users makes water bodies a contested space. In 
this study, I reiterate that integrating commons theory with a political 
ecology framework could highlight the political nature of resource 
governance. The local self-governments in Kerala have succeeded in 
ensuring universal access to rural ponds and often facilitate fair utilization, 
protecting the interests of the marginalized sections of the dependent 
population. Landless, marginalized communities, daily wage earners, and 
women are major users of these rural ponds, and they often resist and 
reverse unsustainable and unjust interventions in the pond. Further research 
is imperative to understand the underlying processes of these 
countermovements. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

I express my heartfelt gratitude to the participants of the primary survey for 
their time and consideration. Without their cooperation, the survey would 
not have been possible. To my doctoral advisor, Dr Lavanya Suresh, I 



[93] Vinay Sankar 

reserve my gratitude for her constant encouragement. I thank my doctoral 
advisory committee members, Dr Aswathy Raveendran and Dr Rishi 
Kumar, for their critical comments on an earlier draft. I am much obliged 
to Mr Saneesh C S for digitally mapping the survey locations and for his 
valuable suggestions on the ecological aspects of the study. I also thank the 
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Hyderabad 
Campus, for their support. Suggestions and comments from the three 
reviewers and the editors have immensely improved the quality of the 
manuscript, along with copyedits by Chitralekha Manohar. I gratefully 
acknowledge and thank them for their painstaking efforts. 

 

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[99] Vinay Sankar 

APPENDIX 

Table 9: List of Panchayat Ponds Surveyed in Palakkad, Kerala 

S. No.

Name of 

the gram 

panchayat

Name of the 

selected 

pond

S. No.

Name of the 

gram 

panchayat

Name of the 

selected pond

1 Chalavara Perumkulam 16 Puthunagaram
Padikkalpadom 

kulam

2
Thirumitta

kode
Panamkulam 17 Anangandi

Aathamkott 

kulam

3 Parathur Nellikulam 18 Kizhakanchery
Cheerakuzhi 

kulam

4 Nagalasseri Ullanoor 19
Alathur 

(Kavasseri)

Kavalappara 

kulam

5 Mathur
Chathan 

kulam
20

Pattambi 

(Ongallur)
Angadi kulam

6 Nallepully Perumkulam 21 Marutharod
Panchirikkad 

kulam

7
Eruthempa

thy

Thalippara 

kulam
22 Puthupariaram

Kulathinpalla 

kulam

8
Mannarkad 

(Karimba)

Panayampado

m kulam
23 Karimpuzha Kattapara kulam

9
Kanjirapuz

ha
Kallemkulam 24

Sreekrishnapur

am

Kunnamkot 

kulam

10 Pattithara
Venkara 

kulam
25 Mankara

Maramparambu 

kulam

11 Koppam
Veluthedath 

kulam
26 Vandazhy

Kunnamkotkula

m

12
Vadakkenc

hery
Puthukulam 27 Ayilur Thamarakulam

13 Kannadi
Chedayan 

kulam
28 Alanallur Pakkath kulam

14
Ambalapar

a

Mulayam 

kulam
29

Kumaramputh

ur
Kattukulam

15 Mundur Arakulam 30 Pattancherry Chathan kulam  
Source: Field survey 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [100] 

Table 10: Description of Variables Used in the Study 

S. 
No 

Variable 

Definition 
and 

Categorical 
Coding 

Mean 
Standard 
Deviation 

Minimum Maximum 

1 Religion 

Religion of the 
respondent; 1 
if Hindu, else 
0 

0.84 0.365 0 1 

2 Caste 

Caste of the 
respondent; 1 
if belonging to 
OBC, else 0 

0.53 0.501 0 1 

3 Gender 
Gender of the 
respondent; 0 
if male, else 1 

0.48 0.502 0 1 

4 Occupation 

Main 
occupation of 
the 
respondent; 1 
if daily wage 
earner, else 0 

0.48 0.502 0 1 

5 PDS 

Economic 
category of the 
respondent; 1 
if belonging to 
priority 
category, else 0 

0.55 0.499 0 1 

6 Home 

1 if the 
respondent has 
own home, 
else 0 

0.92 0.276 0 1 

7 
Agriculture 
land 

1 if the 
respondent is 
landless, else 0 

0.64 0.483 0 1 

8 
Livestock 
ownership 

1 if the 
respondent 
owns 
livestock, else 
0 

0.25 0.434 0 1 

9 Land size 

Size of the 
agricultural 
land owned by 
the respondent 
in cents 

51.79 178.929 0 1600 



[101] Vinay Sankar 

S. 
No 

Variable 

Definition 
and 

Categorical 
Coding 

Mean 
Standard 
Deviation 

Minimum Maximum 

10 
Crop 
number 

Number of 
crops 
cultivated by 
the respondent 
in a year 

0.51 0.787 0 4 

11 
Commercial 
crop 
number 

Number of 
commercial 
crops 
cultivated by 
the respondent 
in a year 

0.28 0.686 0 4 

12 Education 

Number of 
years of 
schooling of 
the respondent 

7.64 4.088 0 17 

13 
Household 
size 

Number of 
members in 
the respondent 
household 

4.63 1.831 1 13 

14 Children 

Number of 
children in the 
respondent 
household 

1.31 1.204 0 5 

15 

Number of 
Years of 
local 
residence 

Number of 
years the 
respondent has 
been living in 
the household 

36.73 22.251 0.5 86 

16 
Drinking 
water 
availability 

Amount of 
drinking water 
available in a 
year; 1 if 
sufficient, else 
0 

0.78 0.418 0 1 

17 

Period of 
availability 
of drinking 
water 

Period of 
drinking water 
available in a 
year; 1 if whole 
year, else 0 

0.79 0.412 0 1 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [102] 

S. 
No 

Variable 

Definition 
and 

Categorical 
Coding 

Mean 
Standard 
Deviation 

Minimum Maximum 

18 
Perception 
of 
cleanliness 

The 
respondent’s 
perception of 
cleanliness of 
panchayat 
pond; 1 if 
perceived 
clean, else 0 

0.74 0.438 0 1 

19 
Dependent 
households 

Pond-
dependent 
households 

59.14 37.928 0 100 

20 

Distance 
from 
nearest 
road 

Distance from 
the nearest 
motorable 
road to the 
pond (in 
metres) 

157.66 182.585 1 500 

21 CIS 
Composite 
Institutional 
Score 

92.73 13.102 30 100 

22 CES 
Composite 
Ecological 
Score 

65.19 18.777 29 100 

23 CDS 
Composite 
Diversification 
Score 

37.52 36.567 0 100 

Source: Field survey and author’s calculations 


