Defying contractors and bureaucrats, a village collective in Rajasthan around the Arvari river basin has built a parallel government to preserve its water, trees and land. Nitya Jacob reports

We, The People Of India: An Arvari Sansad meeting in progress Photo by Nitya Jacob

Once an arid region, the Arvari watershed now supports upto three crops a year with plenty of fodder and water for livestock

In a corner of a desert in Rajasthan lies an example of what is possible if people retake charge of their lives and natural resources. From an arid ‘black zone’, the Arvari river basin, a tributary of the Chambal river, has become a happy, verdant land in the span of a single generation.

In the past, the ancestors of those who live here had elaborate systems to manage water, safeguard forests and wildlife. This relationship sustained the human and natural resources of the region for decades. Then, sadly, over a century ago, the links began to break.

The forests were cut down for firewood and people were denied their traditional right to fuelwood and fodder. “When the people saw these last vestiges of forest that they had protected being hacked, they too joined in the plunder of the greens,” says Rajender Singh, head of Tarun Bharat Sangh in Alwar, that catalysed the process of reinjecting life into dead rivers.

Things started changing in the late-1980s when Bhaonta’s village elder Sunder heard of Rajender and went to meet him. “I asked him to come and build an anicut in the hills above the village to recharge our village wells.” Since then, many anicuts and johads (mud dams built to harvest rainwater) have come up in the Arvari watershed in a complex system of water conservation and harvesting. People now grow upto three crops a year and there is always plenty of fodder and water for livestock.

“Once work at the village level was complete, it was important to safeguard and sustain it. Villagers cannot handle intimidation by high-level government officials, and that happens regularly now that they are better off,” says Rajender.

That is where the Arvari Sansad came in. The sansad is a collective of people from about 72 villages around the Arvari river basin; each gram sabha sends two people, one farmer and one water conservationist, to biannual meetings. The collective also serves its other aim: of empowering the gram sabhas this way.

At its meetings, the sansad takes major policy decisions that govern the lives of the villagers. These include fines for letting animals graze in the forests, cutting green firewood for fodder, or growing proscribed crops that need lots of water. The sansad works with the district administration to maintain law and order and reports criminals to the police.

The sansad has given people the courage to take on the officialdom. Two years ago, the irrigation department tried to give out contracts for fishing in some of the ponds created by the villagers. The people physically prevented the contractors from getting near the ponds and subsequently, the contracts were cancelled.

These collective struggles have strengthened the people’s resolve to protect what is theirs. “This is our water. Why should we let the irrigation department give fishing contracts? We don’t want our fish to be killed,” says Sunder. “It is important for people to feel they have a collective voice and are not alone in the work to protect forests and water,” explains Rajender. “It overcomes the problem of uneven distribution of water due to varying commitment levels of people in different villages.”

The villagers have built a parallel system of governance which responds to their needs. They are responsible for fund-raising and all its activities. Arvari Sansad is the crowning glory which has revived the ancient water sources of their land.