Bundelkhand, a region divided between the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, is intermittently considered to be one of the worst places to be a farmer in India. It is coincidentally, one of the driest regions in the subcontinent. Dozens of villages across Jhansi are all too familiar with empty ponds and unreliable hand-pumps during every summer season. It is here that women like Kiran Aherwal and her team of 600 “Jal Sahelis” try to fix the region’s perennial water woes. It is up to these women to galvanize their communities and harvest rainwater, dig wells, build dams and de-silt ponds; in the hopes that it will lead to better irrigation and livelihood.
In rural India, collecting water is principally a woman’s job. It is not uncommon for them to walk miles to fetch water several times a day. Women and children are more likely to face the brunt of water shortages in India — from domestic violence in drought-stricken households, to missed school days, child marriage and dowry — daily life is a struggle without the most basic resource. 60% of India’s rural districts face a problem of over-exploited groundwater or contaminated water. On the other hand the 2011 Census revealed that 65% of female workers in India are part of the agricultural workforce. High levels of male outmigration have left women to take on the job of cultivators while owning only 12.9% of the farmland.
In India, women spend approximately 150 million work days annually fetching and delivering water, amounting to a national loss of ₹ 1000 crore. As a consequence we suffer from large gender gaps in schooling and higher education, as well disproportionate enrolment rates, high drop-out rates and lower existence of female labour-force participation. In urban areas, long queues of women with colourful plastic water pots are eye-catching. Data from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) shows that in urban India, the proportion of households travelling 0.2km to 0.5km daily to access drinking water has increased from 2008 to 2012. With a national 23% drop-out rate for girls on reaching puberty, due to lack of water and sanitation facilities; the crisis runs deep.
Women engage with the issue of water in different manners — as farm labourers, panchayat members, MGNREGS workers and as extension workers. At the rural and suburban level, it is women who are leading the fight against the water crisis and thereby the ones who are most impacted by it. This makes them uniquely suited to lead water management and environmental programmes through positions of decision-making. In a project in West Bengal, women influenced the government to provide funds to construct water supply structures that created an additional water potential of 7.4 billion litres and benefitted 35,000 women. On the other hand, in Jharkhand’s Lava panchayat, women formed a diverse group from to maintain 450 pumps, spare stores and met the domestic water needs of 130 villages. It is only through methods of constructive involvement of such stakeholders can the problem be genuinely addressed before we find ourselves in the midst of an irreparable crisis.
