{"id":3168,"date":"2022-09-06T04:14:55","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T04:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/?p=3168"},"modified":"2022-09-06T04:26:07","modified_gmt":"2022-09-06T04:26:07","slug":"tracing-the-colonial-hand-in-evolving-water-tapestry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/tracing-the-colonial-hand-in-evolving-water-tapestry\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracing the colonial hand in evolving water tapestry!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Within a year of its independence, India turned off a tap. The Indus water partition had left India in possession of the Ferozepur headwork\u2019s that fed Pakistan\u2019s fields. Friction over Kashmir and water intertwined and India cut off water supply for Lahore and 5.5 % of Pakistan to farmland in April 1948.this helped bring Pakistan to the table and a ceasefire soon followed. (Geo)politics is a core thread in India\u2019s water tapestry, as are philosophy, technology and climate.<\/p>\n

The geopolitics of the 1950s brought America to the subcontinent, and the US shaped India\u2019s water in three ways. First, America\u2019s Food for peace programed habituated Indian palates and purses to cheap wheat. second, the US helped India map and tap into its groundwater. Lastly, the world bank brokered the Indus water treaty (IWT), allowing Pakistan to bypass the proverbial tap. What made India agree? Its monsoon failure in 1957 caused a balance of payments crisis. India needed world bank assistance, which made it willing to compromise on the IWT, the second indopak war started shortly after the tap was by passed.<\/p>\n

\"\"In the mid- 1960s,india\u2019s volatile monsoon failed again.As famine loomed large,We paid a steep price for \u2018cheap \u2018 american\u00a0 whaet by sgreeing to US-dictated policy terms. Desparet to become\u00a0 food independent,the country embarked upon its green revolution.Both the minimum support price and the food coroporation of india were born in this brought ,and designed to make india\u2019s farmers grow more food.But why encourage rice and wheat\u00a0 when most inian eats millets- a grain uniquely\u00a0 suited to india\u2019s volatile Rains?Maybe colonical heritage shaped grain \u2013choice .After all,rice and wheat were more suited to global trade(and quick cash)rather than the humbler millet.Technology(borewells to tap into\u00a0 groundwater)helped overcome the volatility of rains atleast\u00a0 for the bigger farmers.groundwater\u2019s allurelay in its convinience \u2013 flip a switch ,and water appears.its danger lies in its invisibility- beacause we can\u2019t measure subsurface water,we think it endless,until,of course,it disappears .in the 1970s,a flat tarrif for borewell electricity was cheapened and then removed.Overtime ,farmers have made India\u00a0 food secure ,but the country paid a price .Today, in a single year, enough groundwater flows away from India\u2019s dry northwest to meet the drinking water needs of India\u2019s largest cities for 13 years! When groundwater runs out, where will that leave food security?<\/p>\n

Bore wells reshaped cities too, by bringing drinking water to flood plains and the periphery, the bore well overcame the lack of municipal capacity (and planning) within cities too, water changed. The British declared that tanks (or lakes) harbored infection and should be filled that they provided empty land in the heart of a city was purely a happy coincidence. colonically trained bureaucrats continued in that giant long tank in Chennai, where the madras boat club once held its winter regatta has morphed into one of India\u2019s biggest commercial districts. Few missed the tanks, as groundwater was still available and floods were still uncommon. But the tank \u2013disappearance bomb has been lit, and it has been ticking away since.<\/p>\n

Another ticking bomb in India\u2019s shifting water tapestry is deforestation. The British, who saw Indian forests as unsold timber and potential agricultural land, cleared them and encouraged farmers to grow cash crops. But science shows that forest is intrinsic to shaping India\u2019s rainstabilising land on steep slopes where it rains heavily, reducing monsoonal flooding while increasing summer flow in rivers. sadly, the British ethos still shapes how we value forests today. \/over 60% of the value of forest area to be cleared rests in the timber value of trees, while the forest\u2019s water services are essentially unpriced, making them appear cheaper to clear than they really are, a \u201cwater-is-free\u201d ethos, plus the plentiful supply of groundwater, retarded water management across the country.<\/p>\n

But then, in the late 1980s, a powerful new thread climate change- entered India\u2019s water tapestry. with ocean hotter and skies warmer, the number of rain days fell, storms and rainfall intensified. Without tanks to absorb the deluge or forests to moderate the flow, floods and landslides became more potent and more common place. Dry regions began running out of water- like Alwar in the 1980s, or Chennai in the summer of 2019. To conserve groundwater, Punjab passed a law in 2009that delayed paddy planting. But that delay shrank the gap between paddy harvest and wheat sowing. The fastest way to clear the fields was to burn them, adding to northern India\u2019s air pollution spike in winter.<\/p>\n

In 75 years, India has become wealthier and food secure, but water insecure. the future is frightening with china, sea-level rise and pollution entering the picture, but are we scared enough to see the unique nature of our water and manage it as it desperately needs?<\/p>\n

This article is Published for the benefits of our clients and stakeholders.<\/p>\n

The credit of this article goes to the author and the publisher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Within a year of its independence, India turned off a tap. The Indus water partition had left India in possession of the Ferozepur headwork\u2019s that fed Pakistan\u2019s fields. Friction over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[35,25,16,7,27],"class_list":["post-3168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-borewells-to-tap-into-groundwater","tag-how-to-use-rainwater-in-india","tag-rain-water-harvesting-company","tag-rainwater-harvesting","tag-vardhman-harvesting-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3168"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3173,"href":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3168\/revisions\/3173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vardhmanenvirotech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}