We support the rights of the villagers of Lava-ka-Baas to their water resources, and ask that your government do the same for them, and for the thousands of villages in Rajasthan, which have decided to take steps to ensure their survival. We also request you to ensure that these rights will be protected by future governments.
Respected Sir,
It has come to our notice that your government plans to demolish a johad in the village of Lava-ka-Baas, in Alwar district. This traditional water harvesting structure has, for the first time in many years, provided the residents with water for cultivation in this drought-prone district, a feat that no government in recent years, including your own, has been able to accomplish.
The irrigation department of your government claims that the structure is unsafe. But not one of the 4,500 water harvesting structures built in 850 villages, by the Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), has broken in the last 15 years.
Shrimati Kamla Beniwal, Minister for Irrigation, has gone so far as to declare that every drop of rain belongs to the government, and that anybody who transgresses this right of the state will be severely dealt with. We find these statements objectionable, as also the irrigation department's assertion that the construction of water harvesting structures by the people is illegal.
Community-based water harvesting is a major solution to the problem of thirst, drought, poor productivity of rain-fed agriculture, and ultimately for India's rural poverty itself. Allowing the dam to be demolished would not only be a major setback for the efforts of the villagers, who have built it at a cost of Rupees 8 lakh, but a setback for democracy itself.
Water is everybody's right, as is the right of communities to harvest it locally and use it for their survival. No government can afford to assert its autocracy over every raindrop that falls within its geographical boundaries. To do so would be unlawful and anti-people. The government is meant to serve people, and to ensure, not usurp, their rights to natural resources.
We support the rights of the villagers of Lava-ka-Baas to their water resources, and ask that your government do the same for them, and for the thousands of villages in Rajasthan, which have decided to take steps to ensure their survival. We also request you to ensure that these rights will be protected by future governments.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
