July 27, 1998

A social activist taps ancient wisdom to bring water to 550 parched villages.

By Rohit Parihar

The bearded man, clad in a kurta-pyjama and frayed juttis, seems ordinary enough. What is extraordinary is the way people cling to each word of his. But Rajinder Singh, 42, secretary of the Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), is not a mere local celebrity. Ask about him in Alwar's Hamirpur village and you will be told, "For us, he's like Ram."

Singh has brought water to 550 parched villages. By motivating villagers to collect rainwater, he has helped raise the water table in these areas from a depth of 200 ft to 20 ft. His awe-inspiring feat began on a simple note. He quit his job as a project officer in Jaipur in 1984 and joined the TBS which was working for the rehabilitation of tribals. A year later, while searching for a place backward enough to start his work, Singh and four colleagues stumbled upon Kishori-Bikhampura, a village in the foothills of the Aravali hills. Singh decided to camp there. Endless discussions with the villagers on how their lives could be improved failed to create any ripples. Says Singh: "My pride in having a postgraduate degree was demolished."

Singh soon became a fixture in the village. And then a simple conversation with a landlord, Mangu Patel, showed Singh the path he was to take. Patel said that though there had been no decrease in rainfall, the ground-water level had fallen. Aravali and Ruparrel, once swollen rivulets, now dried up soon after the monsoons. "Dig new ponds to store rainwater," Patel said. Old ponds were useless as they were choked with silt.

Singh was impressed by the simple logic. Offering grain in lieu of work, he persuaded villagers to help him dig two ponds and a dam. Then came the rains, filling the ponds and the wells to the brim. Word spread and soon other villagers began to flock to Singh for help. Financial help began trickling in from various organisations. Slowly more dams and ponds began to come up, raising the crop yield and the groundwater level. Change was in the air. Singh began telling villagers that the government was a mere custodian of the land. Such talk was regarded as incendiary. The Irrigation and Forest Department lodged cases against the villagers for encroaching on state land. Some people were arrested and a movement was born. In the late '80s, pressure from the people forced the government to withdraw the cases.

Today, Singh's work seems to have paid dividends. Sia Ram, sarpanch of Kishori village, says gleefully, "Dried wells now hold water round the year.'' Kanhya Lal, a farmer with eight bighas of land at Galda village, was forced by the lack of water to migrate to Bangalore. And just when his fields were becoming a distant memory, workers from TBS cleaned an old pond on the top of a hill. The water level in Lal's well also rose and he could return home to his fields.

However, fame has its drawbacks. As Singh receives a major part of his Rs 1crore-a-year grant from Sweden, Holland and Switzerland, he is accused of being a foreign agent. Singh, of course, shrugs off such accusations. Wealth is not in evidence at the austere office of the TBS at Bhikampura. How much does he actually spend? While people say it is 75 per cent of the project cost, Singh says his share of the costs actually comes to a half. The villagers contribute the other half -- a quarter in money and another quarter in free labour or by helping out in various ways.

Singh does not claim credit for the water revolution: "Rupparel would not have flown again had those uphill not stopped felling trees. And the bunds and ponds would not have lasted had people not cared for their maintenance.'' So what has been his role? "Motivate villagers to take the initiative." Not one to rest on his laurels, Singh is now concentrating on making tanks on the Sawai Madhopur hills. This, he feels, will enable tribals living there to store rainwater and use it throughout the year. People in deserts have been doing this for centuries. It took someone like Singh to realise that this can be done in the hills too.

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