Exploring

India’s

Traditional

Water

Management

Systems

jalyatra

Nitya Jacob

PENGUIN BOOKS JALYATRA Nitya is a communications professional with experience in print, television and web-based media. He began his career as a journalist and later changed over to the development sector. He has written extensively on issues related to water, health and business.

Jalyatra Exploring India’s Traditional Water Management Systems N I T YA J AC O B

PENGUIN BOOKS USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia New Zealand | India | South Africa | China Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com Published by Penguin Random House India Pvt. Ltd No: 04-010 to 04-012, 4th Floor, Capital Tower -1, M G Road, Gurugram -122002, Haryana, India

First published by Penguin Books India 2008 Copyright © Nitya Jacob 2008 All rights reserved 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 ISBN 9780143104131 The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by him which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same. Typeset in Perpetua by SÜRYA, New Delhi

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For future generations of people committed to protecting our water resources and wisdom

Contents

Acknowledgements ix Introduction: Desi Dawaa for a Blue Catastrophe 1 One:

Forgotten History Lessons: Delhi’s Missed Date with Water 11

Two:

Tamil Nadu: Of Eris and Ooranis 41

Three: Chambal: Watering Down Dacoits 71 Four:

Shillong: Betel Nuts and Bamboos 107

Five:

Shekhawati: The Underground Tanks of the Seths 133

Six:

Goa: Sun, Sand and Sea-food Are Bad for Ecology 162

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Seven: Uttarakhand: Watery Spirits 193 Eight: Bundelkhand: The Hands That Built the Khajuraho Temples 223 Conclusion: Little Drops Do Indeed Make a Mighty Ocean 256

Acknowledgements

Examining India’s traditional water harvesting systems would have been impossible without help and guidance from a large number of people. I am extremely thankful to all those who took the time and showed me around their villages and towns and explained in painstaking detail how traditions have evolved and where they are going. The list is long, and I have given it in the order that I met my friends. It does not follow the order of the book. Niranjan Singh and Parshuram, Jhunjhunu in Shekhawati, Rajasthan. Karan Singh in Sawai Madhopur; Ram Bhajan Gujjar and Chaman Singh in Dausa, Rajasthan. Brij Mohan Gujjar, Rajpur, Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan. Sunetra Lala, Bhikampura, Rajasthan. Ramesh Pahadi, his wife and daughter Ranjana in Gopeshwar, Chamoli, Uttarakhand. Gurunathan and J. Elamurugu, DHAN Foundation, Madurai, Tamil Nadu. Suresh Kumar Raikwar, Tendura, Baandha, Uttar Pradesh. Bhagwan Singh Parmar and R.K. Rawat from Nowgong, Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh.

x

acknowledgements

Bhartendu Prakash, Tindwari, Baandha, Uttar Pradesh. A.L. Pathak, Dhubela, Chattarpur, Madhya Pradesh. Kumar Kalanand Mani, Peaceful Society, Cundaim, 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 and K.D. Pwawa, Jowai, Meghalaya. Suren Rai and Suresh Sharma, Shillong, Meghalaya. Samudragupta Kashyap and 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, or the last. My wife, Malvika, who stoically dealt with my long absences and visits to the back of the beyond. My son, Aryaman, who also accepted the fact that his dad was halfcrazy to run off to strange places and talk only about water. My close friends who kept reminding me of the importance of this book to my life and prodded me on.

Introduction: Desi Dawaa for a Blue Catastrophe

Of all the countries in the world, India gets the most rainfall per square unit of land area. If we walled the country and didn’t let any rain escape into the sea, we would have water one metre deep on the ground each year. That is a lot of water—enough to comfortably meet every Indian’s need. In spite of surplus water, and one of the world’s richest traditions of managing it, India’s water crisis has reached critical levels. The 5,000 years’ worth of traditional knowledge which made India one of the richest countries in the not-too-distant past has been forgotten and is one of the main reasons behind this crisis. Investigating traditional methods of water harvesting in India has involved roughly 6,000 km of wandering: mostly by train, some by air and the rest by road. Over the course of my travels, I’ve been humbled by the knowledge that our ancestors had of handling water and of how to make the most of what nature has provided. We have used local material, the topography and labour and money from our rulers to build an amazing variety of systems. These systems range from water harvesting and storage to distribution mechanisms. Every one of them has evolved in situ and has undergone organic modifications and improvements. These innovations were supported

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by the wealthy as well; 10 per cent of the profits made by businessmen and traders went towards community water-works; privatization was not on the agenda then. Each region had a variety of mechanisms for different end-uses. For example, in Rajasthan, there were covered wells for drinking water and open, deep talaabs for bathing, washing and watering animals, sheltered by trees to reduce evaporation. Agriculture was mostly rain-fed save for some places along rivers or in places where sub-soil water was easily available and could be lifted using Persian wheels or bullock-drawn systems. Though caste hierarchy governed the use of water, social norms still ensured that everybody had access. Groundwater was hard to get and was, therefore, scarcely exploited. The local people—villagers and townspeople—helped build most of these structures. Common people provided the labour while money came from the wealthy or the ruler. Cash never covered the total cost of the work and usually accounted for between half and three-fourths of the total. This division gave everyone a sense of ownership over the structures. The upkeep and protection of structures was left to the locals. The rulers laid down the rules which governed the upkeep of the tank and the sharing of water but never took on the maintenance of the tanks and ponds, knowing it would be impossible to keep track of every structure they had built. Along with the charge, the ruler gave a gift of land to the community, the revenue from which paid for the maintenance. The land and the water paid for themselves. This was a self-contained maintenance unit that ran fairly well, save where vested interests decided to appropriate land for themselves. This has happened in some cases in Bundelkhand, for example. This system worked well for many centuries. Once the structure was built, its maintenance was assured. If a structure was large, several communities shared the responsibility for its upkeep. Most

introduction

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structures carried edicts from the builders detailing the sharing of water and their preservation. People respected these and there were penalties for violators. The village was the revenue unit. Its headman collected levies and gave them to the ruler. This collectiveness extended to land and natural resource ownership. While it wasn’t perfect, it kept the bonds between people and their resources alive. Things changed when the British came. They gradually changed the ownership pattern of land by the simple expedient of taxing farmers directly in villages and individuals in cities. The Crown also appropriated any resources that were not privately owned. These included water, land and forests. This policy was aimed at maximizing revenue from India which would eventually deprive it of its natural resources. Wood was needed to feed Britain’s industrial revolution, build its navy and the railway network in India—to fuel further exploitation. Water too became a source of revenue as the government controlled tanks and ponds and levied charges on farmers for using the water. The British initially understood that they had to look after the water resources so they created an irrigation department. However, they had not bargained for the immensity of the task. A centralized, government-driven system could not satisfactorily maintain all the varied water structures in India: tanks, tankas, kunds, baolis, wells, canals as well as large dams. It needed people with various skills and in villages all over India. The department also had fixed procedures to maintain these structures that were not always in tune with how they had been built and cared for by villagers. The irrigation department engineers were corrupt and the work done by the department was almost always sub-standard; it never held up for more than a year or so. The department took forever to respond to complaints with the result that structures started falling apart. People in villages and towns also gradually abdicated their

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responsibility; they felt that if the government owned these structures, it had to look after them. Engineers and contractors of the irrigation department took the place of local labour. People became increasingly dependent on the government. Water resources management was a victim of ineptitude and popular apathy. It took many decades for the rot to become noticeable and by the time it did, it had become irreversible in many places. Yet, rather than look at the root of the problem, the government chose mega-projects as solutions. After Independence, our government has continued with the policies of the British concerning natural resources management. The forest department has to generate revenue and does it in the only way it knows how—by auctioning trees. The irrigation department pretends to control water resources and to know how to look after them. Between them, they have created total chaos while their engineers and pet contractors have prospered. All this has come at the expense of natural resource security in India. Further, the government has alienated villagers from the forests and water that had kept them going since civilization began. Using forests for firewood means courting arrest. If they do not get water from the irrigation department’s ambitious projects and agitate against the government, they get shot. Instead of understanding where the causes for the water crisis lie, the government has chosen to build the ‘temples of modern India’ as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru chose to call dams. Dams, they said, would control floods and droughts and irrigate ‘additional’ areas. J.P. Industries, the builder of Tehri Dam, proudly claims to have built hydroelectric power projects with a total generation capacity of some 2000 MW. While I do not dispute the importance of power generation—we need power to move ahead—I do dispute the government’s approach. The dams have not helped control floods. The Tehri dam is built on a seismic fault. The hundreds of

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thousands of people displaced by this and other mega-projects have not been resettled. As an alternative, several studies suggested runof-the-river schemes, essentially a series of smaller dams that would generate as much power and irrigation capacity without the displacement and environmental problems. Tanks and wells have always been the main source of irrigation in India. Along with the monsoons, they allowed the country to grow enough food to feed itself. They maintained groundwater levels and were also the main source of water for other human needs. It is only recently that the government has started paying attention to them, though in a cursory manner. There is enough evidence from around India that people—both in villages and cities—had evolved systems to comfortably meet their requirements. The received wisdom was to build more tanks, ponds or wells than needed so that there was surplus water. These structures acted as flood- and drought-control mechanisms; when the rains were plentiful, they caught water that would otherwise flood villages or cause rivers to overflow. Water percolated into the soil and replenished the groundwater tables, nature’s great reservoir which sustained us in drought years. The government wanted more arable land. However, there was little additional area to irrigate because tanks and wells covered a large part of the country. Where there were no tanks or wells, people used other systems such as channelizing streams from hills for irrigation. In fact, a major reason for the revival of existing tanks in recent years has been the lack of space to build new ones. As a result of the push towards food security, the Green Revolution happened. A potent mix of hybrid seeds which were supposed to be higher yielding than traditional varieties, chemical fertilizers and pesticides brought temporary prosperity and higher crop yields to parts of rural India. This drove a huge increase in the need for irrigation that was not met from the ‘temples of modern

‘In spite of surplus water, and one of the world’s richest traditions of managing it, India’s water crisis has reached critical levels.’ Water shortage and the poor quality of water available for human consumption and agricultural purposes are problems that plague urban as well as rural India. This, according to Nitya Jacob, is because inherited knowledge regarding traditional methods of managing and maintaining water resources has been consistently ignored. Travelling the length and breadth of the country to examine traditional structures and systems of water use, the author looks at water harvesting structures of southern India—the eris and ooranis—and the gharaats, the river-run flour mills of Uttaranchal. In Chambal, he meets Brij Mohan Gujjar, dacoit turned water conservationist, who is doing valuable work on the check dams designed to control the flow of water in the ravines; and in Shillong, Lan Pohtam shows him the uses of the easily available bamboo to construct the shyngiar which irrigates his areca nut plantation. Each system, Jacob finds, takes into account the lay of the land, available raw material, as well as the social structure and make-up of the area it serves. Thus the springs of Uttaranchal, important for water supply and social interaction, are also accurate indexes of the caste lines along which the society using them is divided. The upper castes use the water nearest the source. The author also notes that in most places, modernization of water supply and management systems, which may range from plastic pipes that have replaced the more malleable bamboo for the shyngiar to inefficient dams, have not succeeded. Insightful, extensively researched and well argued, Jalyatra: Exploring India’s Traditional Water Management Systems is important for a more comprehensive understanding of traditional practices in the management of our resources. It also makes the important point that new, improved ways of doing things may not always be the best.

Non-fiction

Cover photograph by Akif Ahmad

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