India today faces a daunting water challenge: There’s no other way of saying this. Whether it’s about quantity or quality, equal access, livelihood, food security or business. The implications of this challenge manifest itself in distress migration, shutting down of industry, loss of livelihood, violence and abuse, water conflicts, and disease and death.
India is more dependent on groundwater than any other country in the world, accounting for around one-fourth of the global demand of groundwater. Roughly 80 percent of India’s 1.35 billion residents depend on groundwater for both drinking and irrigation. Even though groundwater is a resource ‘that lies beneath,’ there are so many ways in which it makes itself visible, and yet we sometimes choose to ‘unsee’ it, through the food we eat, the water we drink, the wells that dry up and the perennial rivers that turn seasonal and disappear altogether.
Around 75 per cent of India’s water – both ground and surface water are contaminated. These pollutants range from microbial contaminants to fluoride, arsenic, iron, salinity organic chemicals and carcinogenic heavy metals. Other contaminants include microplastics and even uranium. Under this scenario, is water really the elixir of life?
How did we get here? How did a country known for its traditional wisdom of eco-region-specific water conservation and judicious water use, and with a strong cultural and spiritual connection with water get to this position? This is what Mridula Ramesh’s book explains in a comprehensive manner.
The book traces the trajectory of India’s water history through 4,000 years to where the country stands in 2021. The chapters describe the various facets, fault lines and stressors that have impact on India’s water security and resilience. For instance, just how variable the monsoon is explained, highlighting why we need to appreciate water better. The chapter Chinks in India’s Water Armour explains how India’s storage capacity is low as compared to other countries and falling, how rivers are threatened, how forests are important for regulating and strengthening stream flow, improve water quality, influence rain and address seasonality. Other chapters cover the water crisis that faces India’s cities, how colonial rule affected India’s water regime, how increasing urbanization has usurped traditional tanks, ponds, lakes and catchments and the impact of attaining food security on water.
The book covers how political compulsions affect water management. The need for a rationalized pricing of water is explained in a sensitive manner. The use and abuse of groundwater and the role that free power (electricity) has played in depleting it is objectively explained. Just how politically sensitive this power pricing is, has also been documented. The book highlights the critical importance of data for efficient water management, including how measurement and data helped the author become ‘tanker independent’ domestically, and reduce water footprint in companies she is involved with. Personal efforts and the positive and satisfying results that ensue inspire.
The author makes a compelling case for reuse of sewage and recycling water, to meet our water demands. Not only will this help meet water demand, but it will also reduce pollution overload in water bodies. The challenges of industrial effluent treatment are laid out. Customers of various products are encouraged to source their products from companies that invest in sustainable business practices.
The book highlights the different successful examples of making India water secure from different geographies of the country and these examples offer hope that India can achieve water resilience and water security. Just how successful this will be depends on our individual and collective commitment and resolve.
While tracing the impact of climate change down the ages the author rightly cautions against ascribing water stress and insecurity to climate change but stresses the even greater need to manage water and build up water resilience, because of the unpredictability of climate change.
The narrative is simple and engaging, as the author describes her discussions with different groups and experts and exposes the various fault lines and complexities that affect water resilience.
The book thus takes on all the trajectories related to water – the interlinkages with water – seamlessly and seemingly effortlessly to make the reader understand how the various strands weave and come together shape India’s water destiny. It nudges us to learn from the past, and work towards becoming masters of our own water secure destiny.
The book is a veritable mine of information and so well referenced. If anyone is interested in further detailed information, the references can come to your rescue. At the end the author provides a checklist of actions we can do at home, as a citizen, as an organization, as a corporate and as a government. The book is a must read for creating awareness and suitable policy and action.
(Dr Indira Khurana is Chairperson, Indian Himalayan River Basins Council and Vice Chair, Tarun Bharat Sangh)
About the Book
Watershed: How We Destroyed India’s Water and How We Can Save It
Mridula Ramesh
Hachette India,
Rs 699, 541 pages