AWARDS

The water man of Rajasthan

SUNNY SEBASTIAN
in Jaipur

RAJENDRA SINGH, the man who 'divined' water in the arid regions of eastern
Rajasthan by building water-harvesting structures, is the winner of the 2001 Ramon
Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership. The non-governmental organisation
Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), which Rajendra Singh leads as its general secretary, has since
1985 built some 4,500 earthen check dams, or johads, to collect rainwater in some 850
villages in 11 districts in the State. The TBS has also and helped revive five rivers that
had gone dry. The award is not only a recognition of his conservation efforts but also an
acceptance of the traditional wisdom of the people of rural Rajasthan.
GOPAL SUNGER
Rajendra Singh, winner of the Magsaysay Award.

Incidentally, the honour has gone to an NGO working in rural Rajasthan for the second
year in a row. Aruna Roy, whose Rajsamand-based Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan
(MKSS) spearheaded the campaign for the right to information and transparency in
development works, was the recipient of the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award in the same
category.

In his reaction to the honour, Rajendra Singh said: "This is a recognition of the rural
communities. The village society taught me the value of water. Prior to 1984 I knew
nothing about water or its conservation methods."

Johadwala Baba (bearded man of check dams) to the villagers and Bhai Saheb (elder
brother) to his associates in the TBS, Rajendra Singh said: "This is the triumph of the
traditional wisdom of the people over classroom learning. It is time the governments
recognised their deep knowledge of the land and the environment and made use of it for
the uplift of the rural masses."

The draft of the citation for the Award, to be presented to Rajendra Singh in Manila on
August 31, reads: "In electing Rajendra Singh to receive the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay
Award for Community Leadership the Board of Trustees recognises his leading
Rajasthani villages in the steps of their ancestors to rehabilitate their degraded habitat and
bring its dormant rivers back to life."
Not long ago, when a group of five youth from Jaipur, which included Rajendra Singh,
landed in Alwar district's Thanagazi tehsil, the villagers viewed them with suspicion. The
backward Gujjars and the tribal Meenas branded them as child-lifters and terrorists. They
were not to blame, for the villages, nestled in eastern Aravallis, were going through
difficult times in the 1980s. Most parts of Alwar district had been declared a "dark zone",
which meant that there was very little ground water left. Rivers and ponds were drying up
and most of the menfolk had left for cities in search of work. Life in the villages had
come to a standstill with farming activities getting severely affected and the bovine
wealth, the backbone of the rural economy, shrinking in the absence of fodder and water.

Fifteen years and many johads later, water has restored life and self-respect in Alwar. Of
late, several villages in the neighbouring districts of Jaipur, Dausa, Sawai Madhopur,
Bharatpur and Karauli have been revived by the TBS. Neembi in Jamwa Ramgarh tehsil
of Jaipur district is one such village which caught the fancy of planners this summer as
the perennially drought-prone village had water at three feet from ground in the third
consecutive drought year. Neembi's residents, who spent Rs.50,000 in 1994 to construct
two earthen dams with the help of the TBS, now produce vegetables and milk worth Rs.3
crores annually.

Farming activities have resumed in hundreds of drought-prone villages with the rivers
Ruparel, Arvari, Sarsa, Bhagani and Jahajwali flowing again after remaining dry for
decades. The villages, which were deserted by its inhabitants, have been populated once
again. There is a sense of belonging among the people as the gram sabhas created by the
TBS to facilitate the management of the johads have a say in the general well-being of
the community as well.

The rebirth of the Arvari was something of a miracle. In 1986, the residents of Bhanota-
Kolyala village, with the help of the TBS, constructed a johad at its source. Soon villages
around the catchment area and along the dry river constructed tiny earthen dams. When
the number of dams reached 375, the river began to flow. "We were amazed," says
Rajendra Singh, recalling the revival of the Arvari, which earned him the titles of water
diviner and miracle man. "It was not our intention to re-create the river, for we never had
it in our wildest dreams," he remarked. The villagers who revived the Arvari were
felicitated by President K.R. Narayanan with the Down to Earth Joseph C. John Award in
March 2000.

The residents went on to constitute a parliament of their own. Arvari Sansad, inspired by
the Gandhian concept of gram swaraj, is a representative body of 72 villages in the areas
served by the river. The Arvari parliament has framed 11 major rules to fix the cropping
pattern and water use. The rules permit only landless farmers to draw water directly from
the river and bans the cultivation of sugarcane and the raising of buffaloes as these
activities would require relatively large amounts of water.

Rajendra Singh, who was associated with Jayaprakash Narayan's Sampurna Kranti (Total
Revolution) movement in his student days, has mobilised the people to stand up and
speak for themselves and use natural resources in a sustainable manner.
AN air of festivity filled Gopalpura on August 1 when Rajendra Singh reached the village
where he introduced his community-based water harvesting method in 1985 by building
the first structure. This was two days after the award was announced, but it was the first
thing he did after accepting felicitations and addressing a media conference in Jaipur. (In
fact, one full day had lapsed after the news was reported, but there was no clue of
Rajendra Singh. Journalists eager to get his reaction after a chase learnt that he was at
Shekhawati village looking for new locations to erect check dams. Rajendra Singh came
to know about his Award from the morning's newspapers.)

Gopalpura elder Mangu Ram Patel (Meena) was the happiest man, for it was a teaser
from him - thein to kuch karo Rajinder, kal favte gonti ler agyo (do something Rajinder,
bring spade and pick axe tomorrow and start work) - that spurred Rajendra Singh and the
bunch of youth who formed the Tarun Bharat Sangh, or Young India Association into
action. The following day the youth were digging and desilting the Gopalpura johad,
which had been neglected after long periods of disuse. A village resident recalls that the
local Station House Officer (SHO) who reached the village looking for the "outsiders"
and with an arrest warrant, found Rajendra Singh with a basket of mud on his head. He
made a silent retreat.

Activities of the TBS are spread over an area of 6,500 sq km, which includes also parts of
Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

RAJENDRA SINGH, 43, hails from Dola village of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. He says the
crusade he began, unwittingly, against marble miners in the Project Tiger Sanctuary of
Sariska in the early 1990s made conservationists take note of his efforts. "The TBS found
that even after constructing johads, the water level did not go up in the ponds and lakes
around Sariska. But we soon found what was wrong. We traced the missing water to the
pits left unfilled by the miners after their operations. Water collected in them, depriving
the wells and lakes of water."

Rajendra Singh and his companions at Tarun Ashram, the TBS headquarters in Kishori-
Bhikampura in Thanagazi tehsil bordering the sanctuary, took up the issue, which
eventually led to the closure of 470 mines operating within the buffer area and periphery
of the sanctuary. A public interest petition was filed in the Supreme Court. In 1991, the
court issued an order against continuing mining in the ecologically fragile Aravallis. This
was followed up by a notification by the Ministry of Environment and Forests in May
1992 banning mining in the Aravalli hill system.

TBS activists had to face the wrath of the mine owners. Rajendra Singh was threatened
and attacked. The miners carried on a vilification campaign against them.

Vishnu Dutt Sharma, who was the Chief Wildlife Warden of Rajasthan at that time,
recalls: "He was pulled out of the jeep inside Sariska by the agents of the mine owners. I
saw them beating him even as the District Collector looked on. Initially my impression
was that Rajendra Singh was a rascal who provoked the local people. After seeing him in
this situation, I felt he was doing what I should have done - protect the forest land from
mining activities."

Initially the forest authorities viewed TBS men with suspicion and banned their entry into
the sanctuary. However, things changed dramatically for both Rajendra Singh and the
park. The TBS constructed 115 earthen and concrete structures within the sanctuary and
600 other structures in the buffer and peripheral zones. These facilitated a rise in the
groundwater levels and helped turn the area into a "white zone". So much so that the
Forest Department invited the NGO to take an active part in the park's management.
Rajendra Singh helped reform many poachers. Some of the reformed poachers have been
recruited by the TBS as nahar sevaks (tiger protectors). Rajendra Singh also agreed to act
as an intermediary between the park authorities and the inhabitants of 17 villages inside
the park in the matter of their translocation.

Rajendra Singh has been instrumental in creating a people's sanctuary, Bhairondev Lok
Vanyajeev Abhyaranya, spread over 12 sq km in villages upstream of the Arvari. During
a visit to the wooded sanctuary last year this correspondent spotted the pugmark of a
tiger. "We believe that a tiger in the neighbourhood of the village is a matter of prestige,"
one of the villagers, Nana Ram, said proudly.

Rajendra Singh's activities are indeed multifarious. He has set up educational institutions,
mahila sangathans, forest protection committees and now a brotherhood for water
conservators - jal biradiri. The TBS conducts padayatras extensively in order to reach out
to the people. It has either initiated or participated in long marches. These include the
Aravalli Bachao Padayatra (1993), the Gangotri Yatra (July 1994) and the Jangal Jeevan
Bachao Yatra (February-March 1995). This summer's Akal Mukti (drought proofing)
yatra was led by Rajendra Singh, along with a few sadhus.

A graduate in Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery and a post-graduate in Hindi literature,

DURING the past 15 years, the TBS has often fought with governments in power in the
State over the people's right over the natural resources available in their neighbourhood.
Ever since 1987 when the Rajasthan Irrigation Department served a notice against the
first johad built in Gopalpura declaring it illegal, the NGO and the Department have been
at loggerheads.

The Magsaysay Award has come at a time when Rajendra Singh is battling the Alwar
district administration and the Irrigation Department to retain an earthen dam built at
Lava Ka Baas in Thanagazi on the tributary of the Ruparel. The johad, built at a cost of
Rs.9 lakhs three months ago, was the first of the water-harvesting structures the TBS had
planned to construct with the help of business houses.

"So that everyone gets a chance to contribute towards water conservation and rainwater
harvesting," Rajendra Singh would say in defence of soliciting the support of the rich.
Pani ka kaam punya ka kaam hai (working for water conservation is a pious act), he tells
the villagers.