TARUN BHARAT SANGH, ALWAR

Sometime in the early 80s, four angst ridden young men took a bus from Jaipur, in the direction of Alwar, deciding to get off at the place where the bus terminated. It happened to be Kishori-Bhikampura, off Thanagazi. Illiteracy, they thought, was at the root of poverty, and started teaching children, while at the same time building contacts with sceptical villagers. Then a wise old man told them that their problem, really, was water. The hills around them, clad once with forests and vegetation were bare, and rivers and streams ran dry, exacerbating droughts, compelling people to leave their villages in search for employment, plunging those who stayed back further into poverty.

The youth, with no technical training in ‘water’, were not sure how they could help, but the old man and his contemporaries said they knew how. ‘Johads’ were the answer. The problem was defined by the people, and they knew the solution, but they needed help in mobilising human and financial resources. Thus began the journey of Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS) in Alwar district, and the rise of their leader, Rajinder Singh, as ‘waterman’. Kanhaiyalal would have narrated this a thousand times, but every time he repeats it, he appears to draw energy from it.

Over the past two decades, TBS, as their reports state, has done near saturation work in the region – working with the object of reviving five rivers, including Arvari (the most famous of them all). Their work is among the few non-government actions which has received wide recognition, including the Magsasay Award for Rajinder Singh, and in an unprecedented event, the President of India flying by helicopter over the ‘revived’ Arvari river, and landing in Hamirpur to give the CSE instituted Joseph C John environment award to the villagers of Bhaonta and Kolyala for their initiatives in bringing the rivers to life. Prince Charles visited later. Having heard and read much (thanks to Down To Earth) about TBS, we decided to visit, to understand the work done.

We were met at TBS by a surprised, but welcoming Murari and Gopalji, who were unaware of our visit. We had spoken to Rajinder Singh the previous week, and he had assured us that if it was just the two of us, and if we were visiting for a couple of days, we could do so anytime. We were not the only visitors at the time, there were a group of students from IIRM, Jaipur. There is constant stream of visitors, shared Murari, borne out by the thick visitors register. We were directed to a room and given some hot food, while Gopalji organised for someone to take us out to the villages.

Starting at the beginning
Chotelal took us first to the twin villages of Bhaonta and Kolyala. Arriving in September, with the region having received some monsoon showers in July, and later while we were there, there was a palpable sense of water everywhere, johads and dams were full and there was a fair amount of greenery, contrasting with the dry desolate landscape which had confronted us on the journey from Jaipur. The IIRM students, led by Kanhaiyalal (a resident of Kolyala and now general secretary of TBS), had reached ahead of us. We climbed to see the series of check dams, right up to the source of the Arvari River – all designed and built by local people. No engineers were involved, they emphasise. The largest structure, near the top, was incrementally built over fifteen years, depending on the availability of resources, and needs identified by the community. There are several johads and wells in the village as well.

The most visible impact, as the villagers shared and as we saw, is the rise of water level in wells in the village. No longer do humans or livestock suffer for want of drinking water even in the driest of summers. The work brought people together as everybody contributed to the construction, and everybody benefited from the water - evidently, some, more than the rest. With rains unpredictable, erratic and inadequate in most years, crops survive where farmers have built wells and installed pumps to lift water. We were told that many of these wells are shared by groups of farmers. Each lifts as much as he needs - there are no set limits. Several farmers today cultivate a rabi crop as well – wheat and vegetables.

We later went to Hamirpur, which is at the lower end of Arvari (and where the President’s helicopter landed). A temple to Goddess Arvari has been built here. We learnt about the Arvari Sansad, a collective of 70 villages around Arvari, where work has been done by TBS to varying degrees. The Sansad was formed, when the reservoir at Hamirpur, built by villagers and TBS was leased out for fishing by the government to outsiders. The outraged villagers came together to obstruct this. Since they were responsible for building the reservoir, they would be the ones to decide its use. The contractors poisoned the fish before they left, but the villagers had won the battle. Fishing never happened there though since the reservoir silted up the following year as the dam above broke in the rains.

The Arvari Sansad has dealt with several other crises since. With 140 members, of which 20 are women, the Sansad meets twice every year to discuss issues related to the river and their lives around it. Judaram, the leader in Hamipur shared, that in the Sansad they discuss cropping practices, the use of chemical fertilisers, proposals for new structures, repairs, etc. He conceded that with pressures of the market, it was not always possible to convince all farmers on what and how they should grow.

TBS supports 66% of the costs for community structures and 33% for private structures. Decisions are made by representatives of the community, mostly men – ‘whoever has the capacity to take decisions on behalf of the family (joint family not each nuclear one)’ – Kanhaiyalal clarifies. ‘Everyone agrees to the decision, and there are no conflicts within the community, since water is a universal need’.

We asked a lot of questions, to a reluctant Chotelal, to a more articulate and suave Kanhaiyalal, and some villagers in Bhaonta-Kolyala and Hamirpur. When we persisted with our questions about conflict resolution, involvement of poorer people, women, etc, Kanhaiyalal said, politely, but with a tinge of fatigue, – “Hamare paas to har tarah ke sawaal aate hain. Ham wohi karte hain jo log chahte hain. Puri paardarshita rakhte hain.”

Another day, another river
The next day we went through some villages which find themselves in the buffer and core zones of the Sariska wildlife sanctuary. Phulchand, Sarpanch of Mandalwas proudly said that theirs was the second village in the region, after Gopalpura, to associate with TBS, and build johads and check dams. Three villages in the Panchayat he represents are in the core area of the Sariska sanctuary, while the other nine are in the buffer area. The families living in the core area cannot cultivate the land, cannot build pucca houses, cannot access electricity (a few homes had solar lighting), cannot build a school (permission for running a centre has recently been given, but a pucca school building cannot be built) – in effect nothing that will make them too comfortable, and will be a cause for larger compensation amounts to be paid, when they are removed from the sanctuary (‘when’ not if’ is a foregone conclusion of the Forest Department). They have all chosen to remain in the core area, “till suitable alternatives are presented”, and rear livestock in the interim. TBS along with the Forest Department has built johads and dams within the sanctuary for animals to drink water.

Later we went to villages along Sarsa river. In Nangaldasa village, at the border of Alwar and Dausa districts, the last dam across the river, and also the largest (110m across), is in the process of being built, under the supervision of Jagdish Sharma, fondly called ‘Panditji’. Living in a shack near the construction site, he recollected the sudden rains and surge in waters, one night in July, and how he escaped to safety. 12 of the 200 odd families in the village, who will benefit by being able to irrigate their lands with the water, participate in the construction, contributing one-third of the costs. Several of these families, are from the nomadic Lambada tribe.

At 5pm, we sat down in Panditji’s shack, to eat the packed rotis and chutney that we had carried for lunch with Panditji and Chotelal. The whole day we had been accosted by villagers who force-fed us in celebrations for Badri Baba. For three to four days of the celebrations, each year, villagers took upon themselves to feed all passers-by. We were apprehensive when we were stopped the first time by youth blocking the road, during which one person would deftly pull out the keys to the jeep, which would be returned only after we had eaten. They expected nothing from us, except to eat to our stomach’s content. Which we did in the first village we stopped at, but which turned into a symbolic action as we went along. This is a recent phenomenon, most villagers shared. It was either a new found appreciation for Badri Baba, or more evidence of RSS propaganda, which appears quite active in the region. During the festivities, devotees walk long distances to Badri Bab’s shrine and the journey is completed at a temple for a local sati. The visits to the sati mata temple continue despite the government ban.

Grooming ‘water warriors’
The latest intervention from TBS is the Tarun Jal Vidyapeeth (Water School) that currently offers a two-year course in watershed development. The first batch of 20 students started their course in July 2005. The purpose is to train a new generation of ‘water warriors’, with good technical grounding as well as sensitivity to work with rural communities. Gopalji, who leads the School, is very insistent that his students learn it the hard way. The course is very practical-oriented and we found students spending bulk of their time in the field. Starting early, delayed lunches etc. are methods used by Gopalji to drive home the message that it is not easy to work in the villages. The day we arrived at TBS he had specifically instructed the kitchen staff to prepare very spicy red chilli-garlic chutney since that would be what students would get to eat when they have to stay in the villages for long. A young woman from West Bengal unable to stand the heat of the sun and the spice of the chutney together had a fainting spell and was revived by a refreshing glass of rabri (curd and dalia paste mix that is standard early morning meal in those parts).

Reaching out
Working with about 25 full time staff and several volunteers and local organisations in the villages, TBS has supported construction of over 7,000 structures in over 1,000 villages. While bulk of the work is in Alwar district around the Thanagazi area, work has also spread to Jaipur, Jodhpur and several others districts of Rajasthan.

TBS’ work has been supported to a great extent by international donor agencies. Kanhaiyalal explained that it was difficult to work with the government on watershed projects, with corruption rife, and the absence of flexibility or long term commitments. Past experiences of working with the government had not been good, though some work was done, particularly the forest department in the Sariska area. TBS’ approach has been one of incremental development of structures along river basins, an approach not conducive to typical short term funding cycles.

Some thoughts
The dams, johads, wells that TBS has helped to develop are an apparent success. That these structures are built with local knowledge and wisdom supported by barefoot ‘engineers’ is significant in itself. Comparing investments to the scale of work, TBS can well claim to have some of the lowest overhead costs.

We were also told that a number of structures were damaged, particularly when rainfall was very heavy. In Hamirpur the reservoir of the large anicut was completely silted as a government built anicut upstream was breached in one heavy shower. Chotelal estimated that about 400 of the 7-8000 structures built by TBS would have had suffered damages at one time or the other. TBS has undertaken repair of damaged structures, we were told. Would TBS be responsible for repairs for all time to come?

Seemingly the greatest beneficiaries of augmentation of water sources are enterprising farmers, who have dug wells and installed pumps. How are different sections of the communities involved in the decision making process, and how are decisions taken on undertaking private or community works? Is the opinion of one person representing a joint family, usually a man, adequately representative of the community’s wisdom and needs?

There is little evidence of the interventions triggering larger process of social transformation, that TBS’ mission statement talks about. We repeatedly asked about the how the work on water in these villages considered or affected the dynamics of caste relations in the village. The standard response was “water is everyone’s need, so all social problems sort themselves out when work on water is to be done”. What seemed especially missing was the involvement of women in decision making spaces.

TBS claims that it has done saturation work in Alwar district, a claim borne out partially by all the water retention structures on the ground. We were, however, unable to get a sense of the realisation of what TBS sets out in its mission, vis-à-vis its claims of saturation. The mission statement, as painted on the wall outside its office in Bhikampura, covers more terrain than just water. Self-reliant village institutions acting as agents of social change, role of youth in social transformation and gender issues are captured in the mission statement. Despite our questions regarding this, TBS personnel whom we met had little to offer as responses. At the end of two days of visiting villages, the physical structures left a lasting impression, as Pragya a student of IIRM who had come with us said “abhi to mujhe sapne mein bhi anicut dikhenge”.

More Pragyas and students like her, development workers wanting to learn will continue to visit TBS in the days to come. TBS owes it to the society to help them understand the whole story; the success as well as failure; the conflicts that arose and how they were resolved; the challenges that persist, to make meaningful contributions in moulding ‘water warriors’.

What we also found remarkable was the strong feelings that TBS and Rajinder Singh seem to evoke, particularly among NGO leaders in Rajasthan. There were quite a few people who said, “Go and see for yourself what is going on”. When asked Gopalji about such strong reactions about TBS, he said he was not aware of it. “There are people who speak against us because we use foreign funds to do our work and many people think it is not good”.

What took the cake was what we heard in Udaipur, a week after our visit. “400 tankers of water were filled in some dams and johads to show how effectively they worked, before some high-profile visit.” We really do not know the truth. But from what we saw, wells have water in the month of September, all men and women we met in the villages said that these wells also had water in the month of April.

The kind of profile that TBS’ work has, it is bound to attract sceptical scrutiny, particularly when TBS itself has not refrained from making claims of instilling self governance and bringing about community empowerment in a short span of time through elementary interventions in water. What continues to feed the scepticism outside is TBS’ seeming reluctance or inability to articulate challenges in the mobilisation of communities and the limitations of their actions.

Experiences of people and organisations doing community mobilisation and motivation work show that there are a range of complexities, challenges and conflicts that arise in course of the work, especially in contested domains of water and land, resources which are scarce.