Festivals as informal governance institutions for sustaining community-led water governance

In arid and semi-arid regions, water scarcity is one of the challenges affecting livelihood not only requiring formal governance approach but also a community-based collective management of shared water resources. Formal water governance practices and collective action have been emphasised both in academic literature and practice globally. However, the role of cultural embedded practices like festivals for sustaining community-led governance and commons remains underexplored. With the case of Lapodiya (Rajasthan, India), festival as an informal governance institution and its support in community-led water management is examined in this study. By incorporating field-based immersion including observations, and interviews with diverse socio-economic, and religious groups, this study analysed the function of festival from the perspective of participatory and commons governance model. The findings show that the annual festival serves as a recurring platform for collective deliberation, public pledges, environmental awareness, intergenerational knowledge transfer, and community mobilisation, thereby reinforcing social capital, environmental stewardship, and responsible water use. By embedding conservation within local cultural practices, the festival complements formal governance arrangements and strengthens the resilience of community-led water management. The study contributes to the literature by conceptualising festivals as culturally embedded informal institutions that sustain commons-based water governance in water-scarce regions.