IMPERIA |
october-november-december 2019
28
Agroforestry Is Key to
Solving India’s
Water Scarcity
w e l l n e s s q u o t i e n t
Sadhguru, Isha Foundation
Sadhguru: All rivers in India, on an average in the last seventy years
since Independence, have depleted by nearly forty percent. Many
rivers like Krishna and Narmada have depleted over sixty percent.
For several months in a year, Cauvery dries up almost 170 km inland
in Tamil Nadu, and does not touch the ocean.
This water distress is not only today. In the old movies, you see the
womenfolk carrying a pot and walking and singing. We think this is
romantic. The actress is carrying an empty pot, but in the village, a
woman carries fifteen kilograms on her head and walks! No song
will come out of her - she cannot even open her mouth because she
is carrying such a huge weight. Every day she spends half her life
just carrying water.
Womenfolk have been fighting at the taps for a long time and it has
become a cultural thing. They are not fighting for fun. Every day
they have to stand in a long queue near the tap, but the tap is wet
only for one hour. If it gets over she has to fight and jump the queue
somehow. Abuses would flow endlessly. Now that men have entered
the scene, because the situation has become more dire, killings will
happen. The civil strife that is waiting on our hands is big.
Rivers Are Not The Source of Water
People think a river, a pond or a lake is a source of water. In a
tropical country, these are not sources but destinations of water.
There is only one source of water for us, which is the monsoon rain.
The monsoon pours down a huge volume of water between forty-
five to sixty days in a year. When this huge volume of water comes
down, our ability to hold it in the soil will determine how many days
in a year the rivers will flow. Our rivers are not like European or North
American rivers. They have glacial water coming from snow. The
snow sits on the land for two months, slowly melts and percolates
down. India’s water comes in a downpour. If we hold it, then the
