Let us come forward to fulfill the dreams of Gandhiji

An article by 'Waterman of India' Rajendra Singh

Today if Gandhiji would have been alive then he would be the first person to stop the control on our natural resources from the hands of multinationals companies. Bapuji chose charkha; the symbol of self-reliance to fight against the East India Company. The large chunk of the hard efforts done by the Indian community was going to Manchester in form of foreign clothing. Hundred years back Gandhiji was born to protest and fight against the injustice.

In South Africa he first protested through satyagarh against the racism existing there from the Railway Station, where he was thrown out of the first class coach even though carrying the first class ticket with him just because he was a black and the first class coach was supposed to be only for white people to travel. He fought against the racism existing there for 20 years and came to India being a victory.

Back in India he started movement against the Neel ki Kheti through which the Indian farmers were being exploited. Even while fighting against these social injustices, he was always finding ways to have a change and to become free from the attitude of dependence. During the search to get freedom he found Charkha to be the simplest way to achieve this.

Bapu identified Charkha as the symbol of revolution just because it signifies against the mechanised and centralised profiteering based economy through decentralisation and self-reliant productive process. Charka was not only symbolising the ends but also the means in the status of economy at that time. That is why he took Charkha as a tool to fight against the system to create a change through revolution.

Charkha was the symbol for society building signifying hardworking, non-violence, and injustice free society. This was a strong tool to defy the domination of dependence from the British. Today natural resources such as water, forest and land which are the basis of life, everything is slipping from the hands of the society and the most loot is going through the commercialisation and marketeering of the water and in coming five years the ground is being prepared to send the large chunk of the earnings of India to the west.

Bapu would have reacted sharply, when he would have got the essence of this game plan. He would have immediately started the movement against it. To protest against the injustice he would have not only relied upon the speeches but could have thought of evolving something constructive like Charkha and constructive solution of this crisis have simple answers i.e. dig pond.

In construction of ponds there is no need to have money from any company, the society in itself with their local wisdom and knowledge and most important is with their voluntary contributions they could build ponds. The process of building a pond starts from uniting the community, making them come together in the same platform. Society by belongingness and togetherness among them only makes initiate building ponds. And the water, which is stored in the pond helps in checking soil-erosion thereby minimising the ill effects being done against the environment.

Ponds provide water not only to human beings i.e. poorest of the poor but also to the animals that to free of cost. lt also fulfills the emptied earth. Recharges the wells and this whole works makes the society water self-sufficient and a feeling of pride. The way Charkha makes society self-dependant through the hard work and brings prosperity. Ponds keep alive the poorest of the poor without having been paid a single pie. Through ponds only we can stop the marketing of bottled water, which is exploiting common man.

When we have a pond in the village filled with fresh water, then on roads automatically there would be water pots, as pond is the source for emergence of water pot. When we will have water pots at every place such as Bus stand and Railway stations, then nobody will buy water. Pond gives water to everybody. It gives life and move ahead without taking anything from anybody in return just because of the hard efforts and feelings of the society put behind it.

We can take inspirations for building ponds from Gandhiji's Charkha. It took so much time and efforts for Gandhi ji to discover Charkha because till then the foreign clothes engulfed Charkha. Now ponds are getting extinct but from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and from Guwahati to Gujarat still few ponds exist. In villages of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Rajasthan, and Gujarat the ponds significance is still prevalent. In villages there is no other life saving support except that of pond. Most of the villages are alive only due to the presence of pond.

The fate of these villages will remain alive just being near the pond even without money. When Gandhiji choose Charkha at that time, the significance of Charkha was same that of ponds today. But 100 years back there was no threat for water loot on the head of the society. Water was easily available everywhere. Even if you have to go far away to get water, you would get it free.

On April lst 2003, the day when New Water policy was declared for the country, if Bapu would have been alive then to protect the existence, purity and culture of pond he would have started a satyagrah. Because water is common natural resource the basis of life. How could any Government can ever think of giving the control of all these natural resources to a company or an individual? But Gandhi ji would have initiated a Satyagrah against this big fraud being committed in the country against our society since independence.

Water is not been created by any Government. This is the common natural resource of Society and Nature. It has to be saved through the joint efforts; he would have joined with the community to dig soil from the pond with spade. Pond signifies voluntary efforts, the way Charkha is. There is no difference in the nature of both Charkha and pond. Both inspire the society and maintain the dignity to go for real hard work and earn their breads with their own hands.

Charkha runs by the hard efforts. Pond also can be build by volunteer efforts. The thread prepared by Charkha interlinks several constituents of the society while in the process of making clothes from it. Same way the ponds also integrate the different sections of the society during the building process.

This is the common activity fulfilling the common needs of the society that to with so less expenditure. It gives message to the society towards self-reliance and to return back to the earth, through our hard efforts what we extract from it. A pond acts as a feeder towards the environment. There is a saying in Sanskrit:

Ponds have being the life and blood of our society and culture. Society also use to perform volunteer work on Amavashya (no moon day) and Poornima (full moon day) to build ponds. These two days were kept for doing common actives in a village for fulfillment of common needs of everybody.

Today this tradition is on the verge of extinction. Bapu would have mobilised the society to revive this tradition. He was a centu1y's man. For each work he would tell he is not doing anything new but he is just reviving the good traditions and good work present in the society, which we are leaving behind and society should stand up to do it. Bapu in his own time has prepared a brigade of volunteers to do some constructive work, they would have encouraged saving and conserving of water through building of ponds.

Today there is a big challenge among the workers of Gandhi ji to stop the privatisation and commercialisation of water, which is a life truth. By accepting this challenge where ever such work will start there the crisis of communalism and capitalism will stop automatically. Our country will generate feelings to stand upon own its own feet and become self—reliant. This will be the only way to give a true tribute to Gandhi ji and to rejuvenate the Charkha in the 2lst century.

The enthusiasm, which Charkha had during the independence movement, same zeal today ponds will produce right now. So, to have rights of environment and society over water, we should start building ponds. Ponds will fulfill the dreams of Gandhiji's Swaraj. lt will stop dependency on other factors for irrigation and bottled drinking water. Help in establishing the common rights of everybody. So, we all should come forward to fulfill the dream of Gandhiji's dream of Swaraj by building of ponds.

(The writer is a well-known water conservationist from Alwar district in Rajasthan. He won several awards like Stockholm Water Prize, which is known as "the Nobel Prize for Water," in 2015. Previously, he also won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2001 for his pioneering work in community-based efforts in water harvesting and water management. He runs an NGO called 'Tarun Bharat Sangh.')