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Digging one's grave
PUSHPA SURENDRA
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There is a need for sustained media effort to create awareness among rural people about the importance of water and soil conservation.
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In summer, water is a scarce commodity in villages.
ICOULD tell of Shivanna's arrival from a distance, from the smell of beedis and cow dung. On Sundays he bathed but the smell returned to him by Monday.
Many traditional houses in the villages are designed to accommodate cattle. The women workers on our farm had about them the musty smell of their ill-ventilated huts. They smelled of wood smoke, sweat and of the castor oil they applied to their hair. The milk boy I knew from the same village made no excuse for his lack of cleanliness. He did not see much point in bathing because anyway he got dirty when milking the cows and cleaning the shed. According to him the fetish about regular baths made sense to people who could afford to employ labour to do "dirty" jobs for them.
The residents of Nayakanahalli seemed to have their own reasons for their lack of personal hygiene. The villagers had access to clean water only once in two or three days. Women took turns at filling their pots from the water tap provided by the Panchayat. Those who could pay an additional sum to the panchayat had separate water taps installed in their houses. In such households water consumption was higher because they felt entitled to more water than the rest simply because they "paid" the panchayat for this privilege.
As the summer's heat intensifies, water for cooking and drinking becomes scarce in many villages. Farmers with pump-sets continue to waste water mindless of the scarcity. Two farmer brothers compete with each other in flooding their fields in an effort to impress each other with the superior capacities of their newly dug tube-wells. I was able to put an end to the showmanship only with threats of complaint to the non-existent authorities and laws. No amount of advice worked on them but the threat to have their new electric connection cancelled.
The government of Karnataka has chosen the summer season to implement the policy called "akrama-sakrama" which literally means "illegal-legal". The illegal power thefts by farmers have now been made legal by paying a fee to the power corporation. The power corporation has in addition been sanctioning new electric connections with great efficiency in an effort to boost the corporation's revenue. The only requirement for sanctioning new connections is an attestation by any geologist that the well has sufficient yield.
No effort has been made to study whether the new wells affect the already existing ones meant for drinking water or whether the wells are located at a distance of 500 meters from public bore wells as stipulated.
The legalisation of illegal connections is being implemented at the height of power and water shortage. Most elected representatives will not actually concern themselves with the wastage and over-use of water by farmers because they fear being branded anti-farmer by farmers lobbies. Politicians, most of whom are completely beholden to industrialists, know in the face of their complicity to be branded anti-farmer is to commit political hara-kiri.
The farmers' organisations have been demanding uninterrupted power supply to farmers for at least eight hours a day. These organisations are dominated by rich land holders on the banks of irrigational channels that are paid for by the State from the taxes collected from ordinary citizens. They are least concerned about the over-use of water by farmers with tube-wells.
The over-exploitation of groundwater that is made possible by uninterrupted power supply is an issue that they are not interested in debating or educating farmers about. By their lack of interest in such issues the farmers' organisations are actually working against the long-term interests of farmers that they claim to represent.
While it is true that agriculture is a neglected sector in the context of preferred treatment to industry over agriculture, the redressal of issues concerning the agricultural sector needs to be addressed in a constructive manner. It does no good to either sector if farmers' organisations continue to have a mindset that reminds us of the proverb: "It is alright if I lose both my eyes but my neighbour must at least lose one."
Even villages that do not have access to clean water have televisions and cable TV connections! Though the DD channels are not as popular as private channels, much could be done towards educating the rural people about their immediate environment.
Most of the advertisements with regard to environment protection are aimed at urban viewers and do not make sense to the rural people. There are no attempts to use the visual media creatively in promoting awareness among rural people about the looming water shortage. Messages such as the careless use of LPG cylinders or smoking in public places have made an impact on the people over the years.
Government channels cannot abdicate responsibility in educating the public. There is a need for sustained media efforts to create awareness among rural people about the importance of water and soil conservation.
To think that treating water as a "commodity" by dealing with its extracted form and its distribution problems, not as an exhaustible resource, is an invitation to collective suicide in dry regions.
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