An Enduring Solution to Water Shortage: Revisiting the legacy of revering JAL & its SHAKTI (Part 1)

Today India stares at an unprecedented water crisis, with global resonance on it impacting our economic growth but a situation that has been aggravated by rampant excavation of river beds, defilement of water bodies, exploitation of ground water and degrading water usage practices. We are taught about the divinity of our rivers, the sacredness of our ponds and the life-giving ability of water but we use it with profligacy & disdain and our selfishness across the years has resulted in droughts, scarcity and the growth of deserts and wastelands.

The emphasis our Vedic culture paid to “water and its sacredness” is unequivocally unparalleled unlike any other civilization and its deterioration across centuries of invasion, colonial occupation and post-independence industrialization & inefficient agricultural practises has not just resulted in its desecration but the very same life giving element has become toxic & unfit for nurturing life. 

The Indus Valley King Sindhudvipa pays ode to the power, divinity and relevance of it through the Sandhya Vadhana which translated states

“Waters! You are health giving, give us energy, so that, We may look on great delight. Give us a portion of the sap, the most Beneficent you have, Like mothers longing with love. So gladly do we go with you to the home for which you make us live. Waters! Give us progeny. Gracious be Divine waters for our protection, be there for our drink and stream on us bliss and happiness. Sovereigns over precious things, and rulers over men, Waters! We seek healing balm of you."

The oldest civilization in history emphasized not just the dharma to protect this resource but emphasized on its abilities of healing, cleansing and being the medium of life itself. Water has been the bane and boon of civilizations and as long as organisms have water content in their bodies the survival of various species including humanity depends on the purity, accessibility and availability of water. From our school days we are taught that Water is used for drinking, cooking, washing, cleaning, draining and in its various other forms as steam and ice for engineering uses as well but we are never taught to revere water for its being “indispensable” & “irreplaceable” in the most vital functions. The reverence of water has been a heritage left to us by our ancestors since the Indus Valley Civilization, and it resonated through our education and upbringing but today at a time when our population crosses 125 Crores with rapid urbanization and cities facing the brunt of unplanned industrialization & inefficient agricultural practices, disregarding rural development, as espoused by the late Bharat Ratna Shri Nanaji Deshmukh, we are at the cross roads about how any initiative in water conservation and management can work without venerating it. 

In our cities it is a common sight to see high rises where cars are being hose washed like their expansive gardens, water tanks overflowing and taps that are leaking coexisting with slums (a few meters away) where water is being rationed out of water tankers and people having baths after every few days. The residents of these high rises & well to do societies will justify the rampant misuse saying they pay their taxes and water bills and hence can use the water the way they want but the question is while one is willing to pay for the water usage, how does one pay for generating this indispensable natural resource? One often wonders what kind of a legacy is being left by these proponents for their next generation where they have to coexist with the majority which grew up in paucity. 

The legacy we leave the next few generations will determine the destiny of our culture, societies and nation. The late Shri Anil Madhav Dave ji who was the Environment Minister of our nation and who had dedicated his life to the conservation of rivers and forests especially around the river Narmada said as his dying wish “If anyone wants to do something in my memory, if they carry out the great work of planting trees and maintaining them, I will be pleased. In the same manner, maximize your efforts based on your individual potential, towards conservation of rivers and water reservoirs". This is the legacy he left behind as a responsible and sagacious citizen of this great nation, but the key word used is “individual potential” and the key weapon in our arsenal against the profligate waste of natural resources is “leveraging this very potential” which is currently being used to escalate this waste. In 60 years (from 1951 to 2011) India’s per capita availability of water has reduced by 70%. According to the IMD our average rainfall (50 years benchmark) has been 89cm from June to September but not all of it reaches the relevant catchment areas and most of it is lost by wastage and subsequently evaporated. Our annual requirement of water is 3000 Billion Cubic Metres while our average rainfall is over 4000 Billion Cubic Metres, but we have yet to even capture this because we have no integrated water management system where citizens are active participants. The practise of “rain water harvesting” was propagated over a decade back especially in residential areas and new developments but most of it has been nonexistent due to rampant corruption in local civic bodies and lack of a third-party audit mechanism to ensure its been actually installed and is functional.

How do we mobilize people towards “maximizing their potential in saving our natural resources especially water”? The answer is through reverence and the proof of the pudding is in our eating- from the most inconspicuous Temple in the nook of a village or a mountain top to the greatest Temples of our nation or be it the Gurudwaras, Churches or Masjids the concept of cleanliness next to Godliness is practiced with fervor by our citizens especially in the vicinity of the sacred sanctum – most of our places of worship have water bodies near it or the significance of water in their rituals is as unquestionable as the significance of the air we breathe even if we can’t see it- what happens to the same person who walks out of this place of worship? Can they suddenly have 2 different personalities or are they taught to revere selectively? Is our sphere of reverence reducing by the generation? We adorn our deities with flowers we consider sacred, we wash them or ourselves before we enter the sacred area but if water can purify so can it be desecrated and its time we revisited our ancient legacy of treating water, its sources and its channels with respect. There is an ancient Sanskrit Subhaashitaa or aphorism which states: 

?????????????????????????????????????… (On this earth there are ‘only 3 jewels’ : Water, Food and Adages! )

Our late Honorable Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji who mooted the idea of interlinking rivers to ensure that water supply across India is consistent, cogent and cohesive across channels & seasons always believed & propounded that the next conflicts will be about water, He believed that our network of rivers, water bodies, canals and lakes should have a physical link to ensure that between the abundant and drought seasons, water supply shouldn’t be disrupted for agriculture, industrial and domestic use. Our Honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi having launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in his first term ensured that Indian’s resonated the vocabulary of cleanliness and cultivated that which was taught to us by our ancient sages. Now in his second term he has mooted the need for a national “crowd sourced” effort to conserve, protect and augment India’s water resources through innovation and the change in our social behavior ensuring ‘Jan Shakti’ propels ‘Jal Shakti’. He has reaffirmed the role of water in our economic growth by establishing a separate Ministry with resources, effort and expertise allocated to ensuring India’s ‘Water Security’ under the leadership of Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

While the world awaits with abated breath to see how India will turn from a USD 2.8 Trillion economy to a USD 5 Trillion economy in the next 5 years the key lies in revisiting the legacy of our rich ancient culture which we inherited and somewhere down the line in our quest for westernization we disinherited. One of these is the “sacredness of water” and as the Shlok says

“ ???????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????“

Translated as:I invoke the presence of holy waters from the rivers Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Saraswati, Narmada, Sindhu and Kaveri. Let us enter into its (the water’s) presence to purify it.

…. Let us purify our habits to ensure their sanctity is preserved for us & the generations to come and use our Jan Shakti of 1.25 Billion to ensure our Jal Shakti or water security!

-       I. Joseph Sam ([email protected])  The author is on the board of various businesses, is a management & engineering professional whose interests include natural resources, agriculture and food processing. He is at the forefront of a few water conservation initiatives and loves mentoring startups. Having grown up overseas he took a conscious decision to come back and contribute towards Bharat’s resurgence and has cultivated excellent partnerships with companies in Europe, the Middle East (and Israel) and North Americas. (Profile: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/joesam/)