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Jalyatra, A Journey Through India’s Water Wisdom Chapters Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... 2 Prologue ...................................................................................................................... 4 Desi dawaa for a Blue Catastrophe ............................................................................. 6 Forgotten history lessons, Delhi’s missed date with water ...... Error! Bookmark not defined. Tamil Nadu: Of eris and ooranis ............................................................................... 33 Chambal – Watering down dacoits ........................................................................... 54 Shillong: Betelnuts and bamboos.............................................................................. 78 Shekhawati: ‘Underground’ tanks of the seths ......................................................... 99 Goa: Sun, sand and sea-food are bad for ecology ................................................... 120 Uttranchal: Watery spirits ....................................................................................... 141 Bundelkhand: The hand that build Khajuraho temples ........................................... 161 Conclusion – little drops do indeed make a mighty ocean ..................................... 183 1 Jalyatra, A Journey Through India’s Water Wisdom Acknowledgements To travel and see what goes on with India’s traditional water harvesting across the length and breadth of the country would have been impossible without help and guidance from a large number of people. I am extremely thankful to all those who took out time and spared no effort or expense to show me around their villages and towns and explain in painstaking detail how traditions had evolved, and where they were going. The list is long, and I have given it in order I met my friends, philosophers and guides. It does not follow the order of the book Niranjan Singh and Parshuram, Jhunjhunu in Shekhawati, Rajasthan Karan Singh in Sawai Madhopur and Ram Bhajan Gujjar in Dausa, Rajasthan Chaman Singh in Dausa Brij Mohan Gujjar, Rajpur, Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan Sunetra Lala, Bhikampura, Rajasthan, and New Delhi; friend and guide who provided excellent inputs and encouragement right through the 3 year process Ramesh Pahadi, his wife and daughter Ranjana in Gopeshwar, Chamoli, Uttranchal Gurunathan, Dhan Foundation, Madurai, Tamil Nadu J Elamurugu, Dhan Foundation, Madurai, Tamil Nadu Suresh Kumar Raikwar, Tendura, Baandha, Uttar Pradesh Bhagwan Singh Parmar from Nowgong, Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh R K Rawat, Nowgong, Madhya Pradesh Bhartendu Prakash, Tindwari, Baandha, Uttar Pradesh A L Pathak, Dhubela, Chattarpur, Madhya Pradesh Kumar Kalanand Mani, Peaceful Society, Cundalim, Goa Sotter D’Souza, Panchayati Raj coordinator, Peaceful Society, Porvorim, Goa Antonio Francisco Fernandes, Cortalim, Goa Sushila Mendonca, Porvorim, Goa Tilak Rai, Shillong, Meghalaya June Lyngdoh, Jowai, Meghalaya K D Pwawa, Jowai, Meghalaya Suren Rai, Shillong, Meghalaya Suresh Sharma, Shillong, Meghalaya Samudragupta Kashyap, Guwahati, Assam Prashant Dhar, Guwahati, Assam Gyan Singh, Tughlakabad, New Delhi O P Jain, INTACH, New Delhi Rajendra Singh, Tarun Bharat Sangh, Rajasthan, who gave me the idea and without whom I would not have been able to take the first step, nor the last. My wife, Malvika, who stoically dealt with my long absences and visits to the back of beyond 2 Jalyatra, A Journey Through India’s Water Wisdom My son, Aryaman, who also accepted the fact that his dad was half-crazy to run off to strange places and talk only about water My close friends who kept reminding of the importance of the book to my life, and prodded me on. 3 Jalyatra, A Journey Through India’s Water Wisdom Prologue It’s late when my jeep pulls into Godia village, a dusty habitation about a 100 KM from the town of Jhunjhunu in Shekhawati. There is no electricity and the streetlights are dark – the only illumination is from cooking fires. The day’s drive through hot dusty roads has left me fazed, the driver frazzled and my companions extremely thirsty. I had a bottle of water, but they had none. We drive through the dark streets scattering dogs, chickens and pigs, and dodging cows. It seems we are hurtling through the village to some destination. A low wall appears out of the darkness in front and the driver veers left. A massive black buffalo looms out of the darkness there, and he stands on the brakes – we all grab whatever is in front to avoid going through the windscreen. The buffalo moves, staring at the headlights truculently while chewing cud. The road opens into a wide space beyond the animal and as if on cue, the power comes on. A string of bulbs on a single wire come on lighting up the site of nocturnal construction. Hard manual labour is done from the evening late into the night because it’s hot in the day and people tend to their lands in the daytime. Three metal poles sunk in the ground form a tripod over a deep pit that a group of people – men and women – are digging at a point in the village where rainwater accumulates. The streets channel rainwater to this place and it forms a puddle that takes days to disappear, breeding mosquitoes in the process. It’s a recharge well. It will eventually be 200 feet deep, unlined at the bottom but brick- lined along the sides to prevent collapse and covered with a concrete slab. Around the top, two concentric concrete walls with holes will break the flow of water rushing into the well and stop large debris from getting into the well, and keep animals and children out. It costs Rs 200,000 to make; the villagers are putting in 30 percent and a local NGO, the rest. This well is one manifestation of the profound link between man and water. Apart from the obvious – 80 percent of our bodies are made of water and without it we could not grow food or produce goods – water is the source of life. The quest for water is nothing short of a pilgrimage. Over the millennia Indians evolved seemingly disparate systems to manage water. These are as varied as the country’s climate and geography. They don’t seem to have anything in common, on the face of it at least. But scratch below the surface – like still waters, traditions run deep. Each variety of local technology has evolved organically, been fostered locally and perfected through trial and error. “Stupid ignorant peasants” we 4 Jalyatra, A Journey Through India’s Water Wisdom educated city slickers call them, but their wealth of knowledge holds the promise of India’s water security. 5 Jalyatra, A Journey Through India’s Water Wisdom Desi dawaa for a Blue Catastrophe Water scarcity, a third world war over water – these are doing the rounds to stress just how critical India’s water crisis is. For a country so well endowed with water, with the world’s richest tradition of local community-level water management systems, it’s strange to have come to this pass. India gets the most rainfall per square unit of land area of any country in the world. If we walled the country and didn’t let any rain escape into the sea, each year we would have water one metre deep on the ground. That’s a lot of water. It’s enough to comfortably meet every Indian’s need for water – drinking, washing, bathing, manufacturing, farming and wasting. But we do not have that imaginary wall, and are not about to stop rivers in their tracks. So we do not have much water to play with. It wasn’t always like this. India believed in self-help, which is why we are such entrepreneurs and trend-setters abroad. At home, lethargy strikes, bringing the ‘let the government do it’ attitude. Amnesia strikes. The same Indians that pine for ‘the good ole days’ when abroad find nothing to cheer about once in their country. They forget 5,000 years of traditional knowledge that stands behind them, which made India one of the richest countries in the world in not-to-distant past. OK, I am not about to bemoan our long lost past. But I am about to make a case for respecting, learning from and incorporating our traditional knowledge, especially about water, the basic resource. In these 6,000 KM of wandering, mostly by train, some by plane, and the rest by road, I’ve humbly learnt – that was what I set out to do without too much baggage – that our ancestors understood how to handle water, leaving the smallest ecological footprint. In simple words, they knew how to make the most of what nature provided. We used local material, the topography, labour and money from our rulers to build an amazing variety of systems. These range from water harvesting and storage to distribution mechanisms. Every one of them evolved in situ and underwent organic modifications and improvements – more like farmers using selective breeding to improve their crops. In this, they were supported by the wealthy as well – 10 percent of profits made by businessmen and traders went towards community water works, and privatization was not on the agenda then. Each region had a variety of mechanisms for different end-uses. It was never one- mechanism-suits-all-uses. So you had covered wells for drinking water in Rajasthan and open, deep talaabs for bathing, washing and watering animals, sheltered by trees from the sun to reduce evaporation. Agriculture was mostly rain-fed save for some places along rivers or where sub-soil water was easily available and could be lifted using Persian 6 Jalyatra, A Journey Through India’s Water Wisdom wheels or bullock-drawn systems. Social norms governed the use of water. These were not equitable, given our caste hierarchy, but still ensured that everybody had access to water. Groundwater was hard to get and scarcely exploited. The local people – villagers and townspeople – helped to build most of these structures. It was contributory – labour from the people and money from the rich or wealthy. Cash never covered the whole cost of the work, usually accounting for between half and three- fourths of the total. This gave the locals a sense of ownership over the structures. They protected and repaired them as needed to the extent that money was not involved.

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