WATER: FROM BIRTHRIGHT TO COMMODITY IN INDIA
- Madhukar Dama
- 8 hours ago
- 8 min read
INTRODUCTION
Water is not a gift of governments, nor the property of corporations.
It is the fundamental, ancient right of all living beings —
a birthright older than law, economy, or civilization itself.
Yet, in modern India, water has slowly, silently, and savagely been stolen.
What was once free, abundant, and sacred is now controlled, priced, polluted, and denied.
The crime is not just environmental; it is spiritual, cultural, and deeply existential.
This is the story of how India — a land of rivers, monsoons, tanks, wells, and ponds — is losing its birthright to water.
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THE GREAT THEFT: HOW WATER WAS STOLEN FROM INDIANS
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1. Privatization of Water Utilities
From Delhi’s proposed water privatization to smaller municipal deals across India, the trend is simple:
Control the pipes, control the people.
Multinational corporations propose "efficiency."
Governments eager for World Bank loans agree.
Water meters are introduced.
Free access is reduced, minimum charges imposed.
The poor — who need it most — are cut off first when they cannot pay.
Water becomes a monthly bill, not a daily prayer.
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2. The Rise of the Tanker Mafia
Across urban and rural India, private tanker operators have hijacked water access.
In Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Pune —
borewells have been drilled mercilessly.
The rich societies buy water at ₹2,000–₹5,000 per month.
Slums and villages watch their groundwater disappear,
but they cannot afford even a bucketful without paying.
Water mafias often have political protection.
They thrive where governments have failed.
In India’s richest tech city, people stand in line for water like refugees.
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3. Corporate Raids on Groundwater
Companies like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé
drain millions of litres of water daily.
They pay tiny licensing fees (sometimes less than ₹500 per day).
They bottle the water, add branding, and sell it at ₹20–₹50 per litre.
Villages near their plants suffer drought, pollution, disease.
In Plachimada (Kerala), Mehdiganj (UP), and Jharkhand,
entire communities lost drinking water while factories made profits.
Your thirst became their revenue model.
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4. Stealing Rivers for Industry
Rivers like the Shivnath in Chhattisgarh, Narmada in MP, and Mahanadi in Odisha have seen stretches leased or dammed primarily for:
Mining companies
Power plants
Urban water supply to industrial zones
Farmers and tribal villages — who lived for centuries by the riverbanks —
are now trespassers on what was once sacred flow.
They must pay, migrate, or perish.
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5. Dam Politics and Water Inequality
India has built more than 5,700 large dams.
While they have powered industries and cities,
they have displaced millions of villagers without proper rehabilitation.
Downstream:
Rich farmers growing sugarcane, grapes, and flowers get first rights.
Poor farmers growing millets or needing drinking water are left dry.
Dams are called "temples of modern India",
but for millions, they are invisible graves.
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6. Making Rainwater a Regulated Resource
Harvesting rain — once an act of gratitude to nature —
is now entangled in rules, fees, permits, inspections.
In Chennai, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, rainwater harvesting must comply with bureaucratic regulations.
Unauthorized structures are demolished.
Traditional stepwells, tanks, and johads are forgotten.
Instead of encouraging free community water,
governments monetize even the rain.
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7. Pollution: Poisoning the Commons
Where water is not privatized, it is destroyed.
Ganga, once considered purifier of sins, is now a carrier of industrial toxins.
Yamuna is a slow-flowing sludge of sewage.
Rivers, lakes, and ponds across India have been converted into corporate sewers.
When the commons are poisoned,
the rich escape to bottled water,
the poor drink death.
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8. Cultural Betrayal: From Sacred to Saleable
In traditional India:
Water bodies were worshipped.
Wells were community property.
Rivers had rituals of gratitude and protection.
Today:
A river is just a "resource."
A borewell is personal property.
Water is measured in litres and rupees, not reverence.
The cultural severance from water is perhaps the greatest loss of all.
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THE CONSEQUENCES: A NEW CASTE SYSTEM BASED ON WATER
The rich bathe in mineral water,
while the poor queue up for plastic cans.
The urban elite water lawns,
while rural children die of dehydration.
Malls have dancing water fountains,
while villages wait for the tanker that may never come.
Access to water has become a caste system.
It is no longer based on birth, but on money.
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THE LARGER TRUTH: WATER AS CONTROL
Those who control water, control:
Food
Health
Movement
Labour
Rebellion
Water is not just about thirst.
It is about submission.
It is about who gets to live, and who gets to leave.
When free water is denied, entire populations are trapped in dependence —
on governments, corporations, and landlords.
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THE FINAL ABSURDITY: PAYING TO Die
In the end, after selling our rivers, drying our wells, bottling our rains, and poisoning our commons —
we are made to buy plastic-packaged water to survive.
We pay for something that once fell freely on our heads,
ran under our feet, and sang alongside our temples.
We now pay to live,
and pay even more to die.
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CONCLUSION: THE REVIVAL OF WATER RIGHTS
Water is not a luxury.
Water is not a commodity.
Water is not a government scheme.
Water is life itself.
Every Indian, rich or poor, farmer or techie, rural or urban, has the ancient, inalienable right to free, clean water — simply by virtue of being born on this earth.
The fight for water is not just about economics or ecology.
It is about dignity, freedom, and belonging.
If we do not reclaim our water,
we will soon be nothing more than paying prisoners
— thirsting slaves on a land that once sang monsoon songs.
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SUMMARY QUOTE
"In India today, what was once the sacred song of rivers has been silenced into the plastic drip of bottled debt — and unless we reclaim it, we will soon pay to thirst, to bathe, to farm, and to pray."
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HEALING DIALOGUE
(A rural family meets Madhukar the Hermit after their wells dry up, but malls nearby are spraying water fountains.)
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[Scene: An exhausted family walks through a dusty path to Madhukar’s mud hut. The sun is cruel, the ground cracked. The little girl carries a cracked pot. The father’s shirt is soaked with dried sweat. They sit down heavily under the neem tree where Madhukar waits, serene.]
Father (Hari):
Madhukar... why has our well dried?
Our pond cracked. Our buffalo died. We walk six kilometers for two buckets of water...
But the new shopping mall near the city? They spray fountains into the sky... for decoration!
Mother (Gauri):
We dug our well with bare hands. We built our pond with our village hands. Now, they say we must pay for tanker water.
We have no money, Madhukar. No strength left either.
Madhukar (smiling gently, sadly):
You are not weak, Hari. You are not poor, Gauri.
You have been robbed.
Father:
But why? Who gave them the right?
Madhukar:
They gave themselves the right.
Because you forgot yours.
Mother:
We forgot...?
Madhukar:
Yes. You forgot that water belongs to no man, no company, no government.
It falls from the sky without papers, flows across lands without passports.
But you began to believe in borders. In permissions. In ownership.
And those who built factories of greed needed only your belief to steal your rivers.
Child (little Meera):
But Madhukar uncle... will the rain come back?
Madhukar (smiling warmly):
Rain never leaves, Meera.
Only the hands that catch it vanish.
We must rebuild those hands. Reclaim the skies. Repair the ponds. Fight not with fists, but with love, stubbornness, and refusal to kneel.
Plant a tree. Dig a pit. Share your well. Pray to the sky. Teach your neighbors. Refuse the bottled lie.
Father (with tears):
But the law? The police? The permits?
Madhukar:
The rain was here before the police.
The river sang before any minister was born.
You do not need a permit to live, Hari.
You only need memory — and courage.
Mother (whispering, holding daughter tightly):
We will begin again, Madhukar. We will catch the sky in our own hands.
Madhukar (whispering back):
And when you do, remember: you are not alone. The earth remembers too.
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THE PRICE OF A DROPLET
they dried the rivers
and told us to buy bottles.
they cracked the wells
and sold us tanker dreams.
they pissed poison into sacred lakes
then printed "purity" on the plastic.
the rain tried to reach us
but the cities built walls.
the clouds screamed at our stupidity
but we could not hear,
our ears stuffed with money dreams.
the girl at the mall flicks a button,
and water sprays into the air like silver laughter.
the old farmer buries his dead son
because the well did not laugh,
the well only coughed dust.
the minister drinks imported water,
smiles into the camera,
talks about "development".
somewhere a child drinks sewage
and learns the taste of despair early.
this is your great civilization:
a tap that bleeds you dry.
a pipe that chains you to thirst.
a fountain of death spraying glitter into the sun.
one day,
the last bottle will sell for a kingdom.
one day,
the earth will remember you only as a bad dream.
one day,
the rivers will flow again —
but without you.
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HEALING MANUAL: HOW INDIAN FAMILIES CAN RECLAIM THEIR FREE WATER ACCESS
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INTRODUCTION
You are not asking for charity.
You are not stealing.
You are simply reclaiming what was always yours — the rain, the river, the wellspring of life.
Every family, no matter how small, can take steps today.
We do not need permission to live.
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STEP 1: REBUILD THE MEMORY
Tell your children that water is a natural right.
Share stories of how wells, ponds, tanks were built by communities — not corporations.
Make children touch rivers, lakes, rain — build a living emotional bond with nature again.
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STEP 2: CATCH THE SKY
Harvest rainwater in any way possible:
Rooftop collection into tanks.
Open courtyard soak pits.
Small trench bunds in gardens or fields.
Tip: Start small — even 100 litres of captured rain is a revolution.
You don't need formal permission to catch your own rain.
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STEP 3: REVIVE DEAD WELLS, PONDS, AND TANKS
Find an old unused well, pond, or village tank nearby.
Organize 3–4 families, or youth, and begin desilting manually.
Clean, deepen, and reconnect it to rainwater flow.
Even a neglected pond can be reborn with one season of love.
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STEP 4: GROW GREEN ARMS
Plant native trees wherever possible:
Along dried canals.
Beside fields.
Near homes.
Why?
Trees bring rain.
Roots recharge groundwater.
Shade reduces evaporation.
You are literally stitching the sky back to the earth.
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STEP 5: REFUSE THE BOTTLE
Stop buying bottled water unless absolutely necessary.
Support traditional water sources — stepwells, lakes, public taps.
Boycott brands that destroy local water (Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé).
The more you buy bottled water, the more you betray the rivers.
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STEP 6: SPREAD THE STUBBORNNESS
Form small water cooperatives.
Share information: how to recharge wells, how to harvest rain.
Fight legally if groundwater is stolen by industries.
Teach stubborn refusal to accept that water must be paid for.
A single family's stubbornness spreads like wildfire.
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STEP 7: LIVE IN GRATITUDE, NOT FEAR
Thank every drop you receive.
Bathe with care, farm with wisdom, drink with awareness.
Build rituals around water gratitude at home — not just consumption.
If you honor water, it honors you back.
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SUMMARY
You are not just saving water.
You are saving life itself —
for your children, their children, and the unborn rivers yet to flow.
You are standing up against the greatest theft of the century —
the privatization of breath itself.
Begin today.
Begin at home.
Begin with your two hands, your stubborn heart, and your sky.
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HEALING QUOTE:
"The rivers do not ask for bills; the rain does not send invoices; the wells do not demand bribes — only humans created thirst in a land where water once sang free — and only humans can sing it back into existence."
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