Santosh’s life revolves around water. Her day begins at 4 am and she can never wind up before eight at night. All through the day she has a series of chores to take care of but, “all I have on my mind is how to collect water” she says.

Santosh, 23, doesn’t mince words while listing the water woes of her community or expressing what she feels about the discrimination that lower caste women like her are subjected to. She is even keen to look for a way out of their collective misery but adds calmly: “No one will ever let us women speak freely. It’s just not done here.” 

A challenge
We are in Bargawan, a village of around 300 families 50 per cent of them belong to Scheduled Caste (SC) communities. They subsist on farming and when the harvest is poor or the crop fails – as is often the case because Bargawan falls in a severely drought-hit region – the majority of families migrate to nearby towns in search of work.  

Among the many challenges these people battle on a daily basis, there is one to which most of their misfortunes are linked: the lack of water, a scarcity that manifests itself in a myriad ways – from ill health to failed crops. But ultimately it’s the women who bear the heaviest burden. It is they who source and fetch water from ever diminishing reserves; ensure that the livestock have water; provide for their families when the men migrate.

 Although this is the reality, nobody, not even the women themselves, realise the centrality of their role in managing water. 

Time for water
Like mothers everywhere, Santosh too begins by sending her children to school. But that’s where the similarity ends. Because then it is a rush to reach the handpump.

Santosh: “I am unable to reach before 8 am and by then there’s already a long queue. In our village lack of water is the biggest problem.” 

Bargawan has around 20 handpumps but only five or six actually work, she says. The four wells have dried up and while the relatively better-off residents have dug tubewells, the poor only have access to the lone government tubewell.

Scarcity apart, the quality of water, too, is questionable. Santosh reveals, “We use handpump water for drinking but it is not clean since water levels here are low and we don’t get clear water. This year, after nearly a decade, we have seen some rains, so we hope the ground water level will rise and we get better water.”

The nearest water source from Santosh’s home in the Dalit basti (the Scheduled Caste neighbourhood) is a handpump. It’s a 30-minute walk and she carries three pots with her. But three pots do not suffice to look after the drinking requirements of her household. She makes at least five trips in the day. “I spend a minimum of five to six hours collecting water. I have three small sons and even though I want to be with them, where is the time to think about anything else?” she says.

An old problem
Santosh’s mother-in-law Phula Devi, a 58-year-old grandmother of four, who has been a silent listener thus far, quips, “I do this every day. It’s a 15 minute walk to the handpump from my home and being old I can only hold two buckets at a time. I make eight trips in the day and at times have to take the help of youngsters like Santosh. I get really tired but there is no way out.”

Phula has a family of eight but every year for nearly six months she is solely responsible for her home and her school-going grandchildren as the able-bodied in the family migrate for work. They have eight bighas ( a little over two acres) of land but can’t live off it.

Bargawan’s water crisis has altered the lives of women here, and whether young or old, they cannot escape its tyranny. Unfortunately, although they shoulder the maximum burden, prevailing social customs do not allow women to express their angst or put their suggestions for change before the local political body – the gram panchayat.

Says Phula, “Here women are not allowed to speak up. But I tell the younger ones that we need to change. The water problem will not be solved until we speak up.”

Time to speak up

Vineeta, a  PSSS activist, is now planning to build awareness among the women of Bargawan on the issue. “It has been only a few months now, and we are getting to know each other. It’s going to be tough to break age-old traditions but at least the women are beginning to realise they need to do something.”

PSSS is a civil society organisation based in the neighbouring town of Orai. The PSSS, supported by the European Union, is currently working on a project that focuses on ensuring women’s first right to water in Bundelkhand. 

 Phula words seem to echo the thought that it’s time that women speak up. “For the last 25 years I have lived with water shortage. But my grandchildren should be spared this. And if I can do something about it, I will.”  She says.

By Aditi Bishnoi / Women's Feature Service