Converting Scarcity into Abundance
Scarcity and abundance are not nature given—they are products of water cultures. Cultures that waste water or destroy the fragile web of the water cycle create scarcity even under conditions of abundance. Those that save every drop can create abundance out of scarcity. Indigenous cultures and local communities have excelled in water conservation technologies. Today, ancient water technologies are once again gaining popularity.
Making the Desert Bloom
Like other desert regions, Rajasthan, the desert state of western India bordering Pakistan, has extremely low rainfall and very high temperatures. Unlike other desert regions, Rajasthan is blessed with water abundance. Anupam Mishra, the visionary behind the rejuvenation of the region’s water system, observes:
[I]f we compare the desertic region of Rajasthan to the deserts of the world, we notice that not only is it more populated but the very scent of life pervades it: In fact this region is considered as the most alive desert of the world.
It is thanks to the local society that this is so. The people of Rajasthan did not mourn the lack of rain Nature bestowed upon them. Instead they took it up as a challenge and decided to face it in such a way that from top to toe the people internalised the nature of water in its simplicity and its fluidity.1
Since every drop of rain has to be conserved, the indigenous knowledge is based on sensitive observation of rainfall and its patterns. The first drop of rain is called hari. Rain is also called megaphusp (cloud flower), vristhi, or birkha; water drops are called bula and sikhar. The kuin, kuan, kundi, kund, tanka, and aagor are diverse systems of water harvesting and water conservation, which make Rajasthan the most vibrant desert of the world. In this region, scarcity has been transformed into abundance through human ingenuity and labor. As Anupam Mishra notes, “Rajasthan’s priceless drops of water are covered with sweat.”
The culture of Rajasthan is not a culture of water deprivation but a culture of conservation, and “[n]owhere in the ancient history of Rajasthan can one find a description of its desert or even its other regions as dry, desolate or cursed land.”2
Indigenous Water Management
There are more than 25 irrigation and drinking water systems built by the diverse communities of India. The eri, keri, kunta, kulani, ahars, bandh, bandha, khadins, bundhies, sailata, kuthi, bandharas, low khongs, thodu, dongs, tanka, johad, nade, peta, kasht, paithu, bil, jheel, and talaks are only a few of them. To this day, these ancient systems are the mainstay of survival in ecologically fragile zones.
The tank systems of southern India are some of the most enduring indigenous systems, lasting over centuries. They consist of several hundred linked reservoirs forming continuous chains that prevent water loss. These elaborate systems were impressive to the colonizers. Major Sankey, one of the first engineers of Mysore state, once remarked, “To such an extent has the principle of storage been followed that it would require some ingenuity to discover a site within this great area for a new tank.”3
These tanks continue to play a central role in irrigation. In the Rayalseema region in the southern part of the Krishna basin, tanks irrigate 620,000 acres while major and minor irrigation projects cover 427,000 acres. In Anantapur, river water is diverted with the help of sand dams. Channels are also used for irrigation around India. In other regions, masonry dams called panthams are used for water storage.
Ahars and pynes are widely used for paddy-field irrigation in south Bihar. Ahars are built on drainage rivulets to collect water, and pynes arc used for capturing water from rivers running from the northern to the southern tip of the country. The effectiveness of these systems is notable. During the two great droughts of the late 1800s, Gaya district managed to survive because of its extensive ahar and pyne systems. The rest of Bihar, where these systems were not in use, was afflicted with famine.
In pre-British India, irrigation systems were managed by various social organizations within villages. Usually the membership of these organizations included the beneficiaries. In regions such as Maharashtra, irrigation systems were managed by water committees that maintained dams and de-silted canals. In Andhra Pradesh, the management systems known as pinnapeddandarule or peddandarule were run largely by youth, who provided hard physical labor. In Krishna district, where less labor-intensive work was involved, the membership rules were flexible, and de-silting, canal digging, and maintenance were equally shared by all the beneficiaries in proportion to the land they held. The committee fined those who failed to perform their share of work.4
Similarly, in south Bihar, both the construction and maintenance of water systems, known as goam, were collectively managed. The villagers were responsible for water allocation in their community. A system known as parabandi regulated the distribution of water among the villages from a common source. In cases involving large works, the rights of each village were formally recorded. In others, the regulations were largely customary and conflicts were resolved according to local procedures.
The British, whose agricultural system did not depend on irrigation, had no knowledge of water management when they arrived in India. Arthur Cotton, the founder of modern irrigation programs, even wrote:
There are multitudes of old native works in various parts of India. These are noble works, and show both boldness and engineering layout. They have stood for hundreds of years. When I first arrived in India, the contempt with which the natives firstly spoke of us on account of this neglect of material improvements was very striking; they used to say we were a land of civilized savages, wonderfully expert about fighting, but so inferior to their great men, that we would not even keep in repair the works they have constructed, much less even imitate them in extending the system.5
Thomas Munro, who became governor of Madras in 1820, also acknowledged the extensive development of the indigenous water systems:
To attempt the construction of new tanks is perhaps a more hopeless experiment than the repair of those which have been filled up through siltation. For there is scarcely a place where a tank can be made to advantage that has not been applied to this purpose by the inhabitants.6
The British, however, proceeded to control river water in India. In Rajasthan, they controlled water to maximize their salt revenues, to protect their transportation network, and to increase their agricultural income. In order to control rivers, the colonizers exerted force and dominance on those who depended on the river.
Decentralized Water Democracies
In 1957, the German historian and Marxian Karl Wittfogel published his famous Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, in which he introduced the idea of a hydraulic society, a society where water management has historically been used to usurp power into a central entity.7 The implication of Wittfogefs theory was that control over water implies control over people. Like his predecessor Karl Marx, Karl Wittfogel assumed that decentralized irrigation systems were linked to centralized power and that individuals conquering rivers became power elites. What Marx and Wittfogel failed to grasp was the freedom of cooperative management systems from dominant bureaucracies. That Indian irrigation systems relied on decentralized maintenance and not on centralized control was lost on these Western scholars.
Wittfogef’s characterization of Asia’s water systems has not gone unchallenged. Economic historian Nirmal Sengupta has pointed out that vast networks of irrigation systems are not necessarily large projects.8 They can be a close-knit and locally managed network of microprojects. Sengupta has also shown that stagnation was not endemic to these traditional irrigation systems but that flexibility was central.9 Cropping patterns changed annually according to water availability. With water resources under local control, decisions on land use were easier to make. Modern irrigation, on the other hand, uses centralized water control and distribution. Agricultural systems using modern dams are also less able to alter their cropping and irrigation practices to suit the availability of water. In addition, these large systems erode human rights and cause serious ecological damage.
Indifference to and ignorance about local ecological conditions led to the failure of many engineering projects during British rule. The Bradfield Dam catastrophe in Sheffield, England, in 1864 was a result of British expertise:
A comparison naturally presents itself between the dam of the Bradfield reservoir, which failed, and the Indian model which has been so long and in so many instances successful, and, which if rightly constructed and faithfully attended to, may be regarded as ensuring the maximum of efficiency and safety.10
After 30 years of disastrous efforts to restore the Grand Anicut on the Kaveri River, Sir Arthur Cotton reverted to the more effective indigenous methods. Cotton wrote:
It was from [the Indians that] we learnt how to secure a foundation in loose sand of unmeasured depth. In fact, what we learnt from them made the difference between financial success and failure, for the Madras river irrigations executed by our engineers have been from the first the greatest financial successors of any engineering works in the world, solely because we learnt from them…. [W]ith this lesson about foundations, we build bridges, weirs, aqueducts and every kind of hydraulic work…. [W]e are thus deeply indebted to the native engineers.11
In traditional India, adequate and sustainable water supplies were created under conditions of low and seasonal rainfall using ancient ecological knowledge, technological expertise, and a culture of conservation. These sustainable water systems, however, can be destroyed rapidly. Water technologies and water paradigms that fail to understand natural patterns can violate water rhythms and degrade, deplete, and poison water resources.
People’s Alternatives for Sustainability
While water privatization is the preferred policy by governments and global financial institutions, masses of people across India and around the world are mobilizing to conserve water and regain community control over their resources. The Pani Panchayat movement, launched by the NGO Gram Gaurav Pratisthan (GGP), is an example of a people’s movement that aims to create an equitable and ecologically sustainable water system in a drought-prone area.
The movement began in 1972, when Maharashtra was hit by a severe drought. The lucrative and water-hungry cash crop sugarcane was diverting water away from people and nature. While the government focused on famine relief and continued to rapidly exploit water resources, GGP founder Vikas Salunke recognized the importance of strict water control and soil conservation as the most effective tools to survive the drought.
The Pani Panchayat believed in the rights of all residents to water. Water was considered a community resource, and the number of family members, not the size of one’s land, determined how much water residents could receive. A suitable patkari (water distributor) was appointed to ensure fair day-today allocation. And while members of the Panchayat were free to decide how to use their water, sugarcane cultivation was regarded as an irresponsible use of resources and banned. A similar movement took root in 1982, when a group of migrant textile workers in Bombay returned to their villages to be greeted by drought, crop failure, and water shortage. Meanwhile, the government had plans to irrigate sugar plantations in 30 villages.
In response, the workers launched a movement called the Mukti Sangarsh, and mobilized more than 500 peasants to grow fodder for four months of the year on 2,000 acres of land and provide it free to the entire taluk, an administrative subdivision, if the government supplied the water. The villagers argued against the cultivation of water-intensive cash crops like sugarcane and advocated instead for equitable water distribution toward foodcrop irrigation.
In 1985, 1,000 peasants participated in a march and pressed their demands. They also organized a conference on drought eradication that year. At the conference, the chairman of the Maharashtra State Drought Relief and Eradication Committee argued that if sugarcane cultivation were abandoned, 250,000 hectares of land could be irrigated, instead of the proposed 90,000 hectares. However, the sugar barons fiercely opposed the diversion of water away from cash-crop production. One politician’s words reflect the sentiment of the sugar barons: “We will not give one drop of water from sugarcane; instead a canal of blood will flow. Cane and sugar factories are the glory of Maharashtra.”12
After much resistance, the peasants gathered at Balawadi in 1989 to inaugurate the Baliraja Memorial Dam—a people’s dam built with people’s resources to meet people’s needs. Popular participation prevented corruption, waste, and delay. The next step was to ensure the equitable distribution of water through social and collective control. Toward that end, the peasants agreed to stop sugarcane cultivation and instead plant mixed tree species on 30 percent of the land. They also opted to harvest staple grains using protective irrigation.13
In 1984, I visited the drought-stricken Maharashtra region. As a result of meager rainfall and devastated agriculture, people had resorted to brewing and selling illegal liquor for income. I learned that although the government spent $731.1 million on watershed development in Maharashtra, 17,000 villages had no water. I also discovered that the people’s movement in Ralegaon Shindi had singlehandedly reversed desertification and economic collapse. Local residents had built water harvesting system made up of small dams, and they are now growing crops worth $146,000 to $188,000 a year. Illicit liquor sales have also tapered off.14
In the Alwar district of Rajasthan, water was being depleted at the rate of one meter a year, and the area was hit with a drought between 1985 and 1986. The youth organization Tarun Bharat Sangh mobilized people to rebuild johads, the traditional tank system for water harvesting. Local communities contributed $2.2 million and built 2,500 tanks in 500 villages. The water stored in a johad was to be shared by the entire village. The villages also decided how much land to irrigate and how much water to allocate to household use. The collective decisionmaking process over construction, maintenance, and use of water systems has helped prevent conflicts.15
Movements for water conservation are spreading all over India. In Gujarat, where nearly 13,000 villages have no dependable source of water and where groundwater is saline, women members of water councils are taking the lead in creating water harvesting systems. The people’s investment in water conservation has also helped recharge groundwater, fill rivers, and increase crop production. In 1994, the Arvari River came back to life as result of recharge by 500 johads. Similarly, Ruparel, once a dead river, has been flowing since 1994 and is now the leading source of water for 250 villages. It was replenished by 250 johads.16 In 2001, Tarun Bharat Sangh received the Magasasay Award for its work in water conservation.
The Swadhyaya movement of Gujarat, a movement aimed at self-development at all levels of organization, including individuals, communities, and countries, has led to the construction of 957 percolation tanks known as nirmal neers. As a result, close to 100,000 wells have been recharged. The Swadhyaya villagers endorse bhakti, the principle of volunteerism, and believe in 100 percent contribution. During the drought of 2000, Swadhyaya villages did not run out of water. Through their free labor and commitment to bhakti, the villagers have created an alternative to capital-intensive, nonlocal solutions to water scarcity.
Initiatives such as Swadhyaya, Tarun Bharat Sangh, Mukti Sangarsh, and Pani Panchayat indicate that water sustainability can emerge only from democratic control of water resources. Community control avoids ecological breakdown and prevents social conflict. Over the centuries, indigenous water management systems have relied on ancient knowledge and evolved into complex systems that ensure the equitable distribution of water.
Man-made water scarcity and ubiquitous water conflicts can be minimized with the recognition of water as a common resource. Water conservation movements are also showing that the real solution to the water crisis lies in people’s energy, labor, time, care, and solidarity. The most effective alternative to water monopolies is water democracy. The current water war unleashed by multinational corporations can be won only through massive movements for water democracy. The blueprints provided by people’s movements have shown the possibility of creating abundance out of scarcity.
1. Anupam Mishra, The Radiant: Raindrops of Rajasthan, translated by Maya Jani (New Delhi: Research Foundation for Science Ecology, 2001), p. 3.
2. Ibid.
3. S.T. Somasekhar Reddy, Indigenous Tank System (New Delhi: Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology, 1985).
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. K. A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism; A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957).
8. Nirmal Sengupta, Managing Common Property: Irrigation in India and The Philippines (New Delhi: Sage, 1991).
9. Ibid.
10. Quoted in Somasekhar Reddy, Indigenous Tank System.
11. Ibid.
12. Vandana Shiva, Ecology and the Politics of Survival. Conflicts Over Natural Resources in India (New Delhi: Sage, 1991).
13. Ibid.
14. Information is based on a personal conversation with Anna Hazare of Ralegaon Shindi, who had inspired a water revolution by mobilizing people.
15. Personal communication with Rajender Singh of Tarun Bharat Sangh, Alwar, May 2000.
16. Ibid.