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WATER POLITICS

Via Vardhman Envirotech, commentary on the colonial impact on India’s approach to water:

Within a year of its independence, India turned off a tap. The Indus water partition had left India in possession of the Ferozepur headwork’s that fed Pakistan’s fields. Friction over Kashmir and water intertwined and India cut off water supply for Lahore and 5.5 % of Pakistan to farmland in April 1948.this helped bring Pakistan to the table and a ceasefire soon followed. (Geo)politics is a core thread in India’s water tapestry, as are philosophy, technology and climate.

The geopolitics of the 1950s brought America to the subcontinent, and the US shaped India’s water in three ways. First, America’s Food for peace programed habituated Indian palates and purses to cheap wheat. second, the US helped India map and tap into its groundwater. Lastly, the world bank brokered the Indus water treaty (IWT), allowing Pakistan to bypass the proverbial tap. What made India agree? Its monsoon failure in 1957 caused a balance of payments crisis. India needed world bank assistance, which made it willing to compromise on the IWT, the second IndoPak war started shortly after the tap was by passed.

In the mid- 1960s, India’s volatile monsoon failed again.As famine loomed large,We paid a steep price for ‘cheap ‘ American  wheat by agreeing to US-dictated policy terms. Desperate to become  food independent, the country embarked upon its green revolution.Both the minimum support price and the Food Corporation of India were born in this brought ,and designed to make India’s farmers grow more food.But why encourage rice and wheat  when most Indians eat millets- a grain uniquely  suited to India’s volatile rains.  Maybe colonial heritage shaped grain –choice .After all, rice and wheat were more suited to global trade(and quick cash)rather than the humbler millet.Technology(borewells to tap into  groundwater)helped overcome the volatility of rains at least  for the bigger farmers.groundwater’s allure lay in its convenience – flip a switch ,and water appears.its danger lies in its invisibility- because we can’t measure subsurface water, we think it endless, until, of course, it disappears .in the 1970s, a flat tariff for borewell electricity was cheapened and then removed. Over time, farmers have made India  food secure ,but the country paid a price. Today, in a single year, enough groundwater flows away from India’s dry northwest to meet the drinking water needs of India’s largest cities for 13 years! When groundwater runs out, where will that leave food security?

Bore wells reshaped cities too, by bringing drinking water to flood plains and the periphery, the bore well overcame the lack of municipal capacity (and planning) within cities too, water changed. The British declared that tanks (or lakes) harbored infection and should be filled that they provided empty land in the heart of a city was purely a happy coincidence. colonially trained bureaucrats continued in that giant long tank in Chennai, where the madras boat club once held its winter regatta has morphed into one of India’s biggest commercial districts. Few missed the tanks, as groundwater was still available and floods were still uncommon. But the tank –disappearance bomb has been lit, and it has been ticking away since.

Another ticking bomb in India’s shifting water tapestry is deforestation. The British, who saw Indian forests as unsold timber and potential agricultural land, cleared them and encouraged farmers to grow cash crops. But science shows that forest is intrinsic to shaping India’s rain stabilizing land on steep slopes where it rains heavily, reducing monsoonal flooding while increasing summer flow in rivers. sadly, the British ethos still shapes how we value forests today. /over 60% of the value of forest area to be cleared rests in the timber value of trees, while the forest’s water services are essentially unpriced, making them appear cheaper to clear than they really are, a “water-is-free” ethos, plus the plentiful supply of groundwater, retarded water management across the country.

But then, in the late 1980s, a powerful new thread climate change- entered India’s water tapestry. with ocean hotter and skies warmer, the number of rain days fell, storms and rainfall intensified. Without tanks to absorb the deluge or forests to moderate the flow, floods and landslides became more potent and more common place. Dry regions began running out of water- like Alwar in the 1980s, or Chennai in the summer of 2019. To conserve groundwater, Punjab passed a law in 2009that delayed paddy planting. But that delay shrank the gap between paddy harvest and wheat sowing. The fastest way to clear the fields was to burn them, adding to northern India’s air pollution spike in winter.

In 75 years, India has become wealthier and food secure, but water insecure. the future is frightening with china, sea-level rise and pollution entering the picture, but are we scared enough to see the unique nature of our water and manage it as it desperately needs?