Bundelkhand region in central India is spread over 14 districts of two states– Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. It has frequently been in the news due to water scarcity but now the Jal Jeevan Mission is hard at work to provide a tap connection in every village home. While people are happy about this, there is also concern regarding the adequacy of water sources. With water table already declining in a large part of the region several people are apprehensive that with bore-wells extracting more water to feed into pipelines, water sources would soon be depleted badly unless water conservation can be stepped up in very significant ways.
With increasing importance of water conservation, the inspiring work done by Jal Sahelis (women water friends or water protectors) has attracted a lot of attention in recent times. These are women volunteers encouraged and trained to work on water conservation, sanitation and related issues by a voluntary organization Parmarth, Recognized widely in these villages by their sky blue sarees, without any salary or honorariums they have contributed much to water conservation as well as improving water supply and sanitation.
Recently this writer visited several of these jal sahelis at their homes, farms or training places. Profiles of four of these jal sahelis are presented below.
1 Sirkunwar
Extreme personal distress and adversities can sometimes push people into despair and loneliness, but some also respond with a strong determination to overcome extremely difficult situations. Sirkunwar is one of those persons who never give up. Her struggle is all the more inspiring because this led her not only towards providing better security for her family but she could go much beyond this to help hundreds of people in her village and some neighboring ones as well.
Sirkunwar is a middle-aged woman of Udguwan village in Taalbehat block (Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh). As their farming based livelihood faced several problems, her husband had to frequently go to Indore city for work. Here he had a serious accident due to which he has been disabled. Even after several years he cannot walk properly and cannot do any work requiring much physical activity. Now she had a lot of hopes from her son for helping the family to get some security. But one day he suddenly died at a very young in what appeared to be an accident but have been an assault. Now Sirkunwar was suddenly denied her son’s help and instead had the additional responsibility of helping her daughter-in-law and her two children.
What has been Sirkunwar’s response to these adversities? She has gone right ahead to take up several social responsibilities relating to the welfare of her village and neighbouring areas. She in fact had the honor of becoming the first JalSaheli under this program which has been widely appreciated.
Sirkunwar played an important mobilization role in the considerable stepping up of water related programs in her village, resulting the construction of three check dams and providing more hand pumps, hence meeting needs of conserving water as well as providing water supply nearer home. A lot of water conservation work is being done these under NREGA program of rural employment, and Sirkunwar also helped to improve it, first independently and then also by becoming a mate under this program. Her involvement has been helpful in improved functioning,including more timely payment of wages, of NREGA.
As several households had been left put in the first phase of toilet construction, she took up a campaign to get these toilets constructed, resulting in the construction of about 120 more toilets. She has also campaigned for improving drainage system and has extracted an assurance from the pradhan or village headperson that this work will be taken up soon.
Sirkunwar makes periodic rounds of anganwadis and mid-day meal cooking centers to see if the nutrition and maternity care programs in her village are functioning properly or not. Sirkunwar has extended her social mobilization role beyond her village and contributes with her experience and enthusiasm in neighboring areas too. Her presence in various development initiatives and meetings of the area is considered a must. Not just villagers but even village and block-level officials have taken to addressing her as ‘NetaJi’.
When I went to meet her in the small shelter she has created to be close to her farm, she was full of enthusiasm both regarding the work she has been doing and what she plans to take up in future, presenting a truly inspiration story of arising from the setbacks of personal distress to help not just her family but hundreds of other people as well.
2. Sona Saharia
Sona was sitting with some of her family members near her farm. The lush greenery of crops, fruit trees and vegetable plants served as a symbol of the improving prospects of this Saharia tribal family based in Bamhori village of Talbehat block, Lalitpur district (Uttar Pradesh).
However her face grew grim as she recalled the condition till just a decade back—For the most part we were not able to cultivate our fields, or else the yields of on farmland was so low as to make the entire effort non-viable. Hence the family had become dependent on migrant labor work for sheer survival. My husband went to Indore or other places, generally to work in brick kilns. Sometimes I too went. We had to work and live there in very difficult conditions.
Her husband added—there were certain phases when we got caught in very exploitative conditions and despite toiling very hard we could hardly send anything back home.
Sona continued—A lot of the problems arose due to lack of water. So when we learnt that efforts were being made to conserve water we decided to come back and see if something can still be done in our village. After all we have land here, and the desire to go back toour farm-based livelihood was always there.
When they came back to their village, they found some young men and women from an organization called Parmarth visiting their village repeatedly, holding meetings to discuss the possibilities of improving water conservation.
“This is exactly what I had yearned for, so I quickly became involved with their efforts”, Sona recalls.
The Parmarth visitors too were on the lookout for village based volunteers who can help with community mobilization. The most promising women volunteers were being selected as jalsahelis (water friends) and taken for training workshops and exposure visits to see good examples of water conservation work. Sona liked it all, all the more so when she was selected as a jalsaheli. In addition a wider community-based organization on water-related issues called paani panchayat was also formed.
Now Sona started mobilizing women for water conservation work, whether taken up under NREGA (rural employment program) or in other ways. As most such work involves work under NREGA, these women were involved in trying to improve the functioning of NREGA work too. Things began to look up once people were involved in the functioning of the program and in issues like site selection. The most promising water conservation work here was taken up on Naraini nullah where a check dam was constructed using NREGA budget. As a result neglected, deserted fields started blooming with green crops. While about 50 acre of land benefited directly from this irrigation, water level in wells rose over a much wider area, helping other farmers too.
With more water available now, Sona and her family also returned to farming with more hopes and enthusiasm, determined to be successful in earning a satisfactory livelihood within their village. Following their inter-actions with Parmarth, they decided to opt for low-cost natural farming. They started preparing organic manure on their farm. With Parmarth helping with seeds, they also opted for a diversity of crops, combining cereals, millets, a diversity of vegetables with some fruit trees like guava and lemon.
3. Sharda Vanshkaar
Sharda may appear to be a very simple, also very gentle woman from a remote village of Bundelkhand, but in reality she has some very extraordinary achievements to her credit for which she recently received the prestigious ‘Catch the Rain’ Award from the President of India, DraupadiMurmu, at a big presentation ceremony in New Delhi.
This has obviously attracted a lot of attention in these remote areas but when I went to meet her at her village home in early December, Sharda Vanshkaar was very modest in describing her own work and achievements, at the same time asserting however that she will continue to work with the same commitment and dedication as there is so much more to be done.
Sharda belongs to a small farmer family in Vijaypura village of Taalbehat block (located in Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh). She has been observing closely that due to water scarcity many farmers are not able to cultivate their fields properly and hence have to accept work in exploitative conditions as migrant workers far away from home. So when some activists from a voluntary organization Parmarth came to her village to organize meetings on water conservation, Sharda responded enthusiastically and mobilized about 30 other women to work for water conservation in cooperation with Parmarth.
Most villagers appeared to agree that some work was urgently needed to tap the water of Barua river flowing nearby so that the thirsty fields could get water. Unfortunately an old check dam on the river had fallen into disrepair and there were no signs that the funds or approval for a new structure could materialize any time soon.
At the same time ruthless sand mining was making situation even more difficult and endangering the river flow.
So it was a difficult situation but Sharda and her friends were also determined to do something about it. So what if we do not have the funds for a concrete structure, they discussed, we can at least have a temporary bund made of sand bags. This would ensure that farmers will get irrigation at least for the current crop.
How will the village women get the large number of sacks needed for this effort? Parmarth stepped in by agreeing to provide about 5,000 sacks. These were filled by sand and sewn up. Then began the more difficult task of placing them properly in the river. Men also came forward to help. Ultimately the sand sack bund could be created and helped in making available much needed irrigation to a significant number of farmers.
However the river was still being harmed by mostly illegal sand mining, and this had to be checked. The women got together to find the courage to make complaints to the administration regarding this. An inquiry was made and action was taken to check this. However this needs constant vigilance so that restrictions against sand- mining remain in place. What is more, in the course of time as several sand bags get washed away, the need for a pucca structure still remains and Sharda says that she and her friends will continue to work for this.
In addition Sharda has been involved in several other constructive activities including checking open defecation and promotion of kitchen gardens. During COVID when villagers badly needed livelihood support, she helped Parmarth organization to take up tank improvement work to improve water retention and also to generate livelihood support. In addition she also helps to ensure proper functioning of NREGA work. The village Pradhan listens to us when we draw attention to various problems, she says.
As I noticed while visiting her home recently, she has struck a fine balance that combines acceptance of some of the less restricting village social norms while keeping herself free in other ways for a broader social role. This balanced approach enables her to get greater community acceptance and support which is very helpful and in a way essential for her wider mobilization role. By combining caution with courage, Sharda and her friends have evolved a path which has brought big achievements in a short time, with promises of more to come.
4. Pushpa
Pushpa lives in a very remote village Khakraun of Mohangarh block (located in Tikamgath district of Madhya Pradesh). As she says—This is a remote village of a remote development block.
However the graduate young lady was not overwhelmed by the remoteness of her new surroundings. She decided to study further in a Master of Social Work course. What is more, she was always looking out for opportunities to use her education in ways that would contribute to the welfare of her village. She got together a number of children who had lagged behind in school education and started teaching them.
Her efforts soon attracted the attention of a voluntary organization Parmarth which was trying to mobilize and train several women for water conservation and other related constructive works. Pushpa appeared to be ideally suited for this role and she was soon selected as a jal saheli. She started attending training workshops and went for exposure visit to villages of Sagar district where exemplary water conservation work had been carried out earlier. This widened her horizons and she started thinking of similar possibilities of improving water conservation in and around her village where water scarcity was frequently an important constraint for people trying to improve or enhance their rural livelihoods.
She now had a better appreciation of the need for mobilizing more people and by talking over with her friends in her village, she soon managed to create a group of about 25 to 30 women who were willing to come together for work of community’s welfare. “We could not hold formal group meetings due to several constraints, but we could reach an understanding that we will mobilize and work together when need arises”, she says.
When Parmarth started working on a watershed project in this region in seven villages including her own village, Pushpa saw this as an opportunity to take forward her own vision of conserving water as a means of promoting livelihoods of people which had been constrained to a large extent by water scarcity. Hence she started taking a keen interest in this watershed project supported by NABARD, extending help herself and motivating several of her friends to do so. In particular their contribution has been significant in the efforts to revive Bargi river. Repair of a check dam and a sack dam (temporary dam created with sacks filled with sand) has contributed to this and to increased availability of irrigation water for farmers. In addition other efforts in which Pushpa and her friends helped related to creation of farm ponds and afforestation.
These are only a few examples of the inspiring work done by Jal Sahelis. In Angrautha village of Chattarpur district a student Babita Rajput inspired several women to take up the digging of a 107 metre canal across a hill to bring water to the parched tank in this village while in another village of the same district Ganga led women to rehabilitate a tank which had been left in a neglected and dry state because prevailing superstitions had linked up this tank with a curse. As such inspiring stories associated with jal sahelis increase, more women are coming forward to join the group. Already there are about 1600 jal sahelis and Parmarth plans to increase the number at a fast pace by calling upon existing jal sahelis to motivate several others. In addition efforts are also being made to extend the concept and idea of jal sahelis also to some other parts of the country.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Man over Machine, A Day in 2071 and Navjeevan.
