Of India’s many contemporary crises, water is the most discussed—and the least understood. Droughts, floods, falling groundwater levels, and polluted rivers are usually treated as separate problems, when in reality they are chapters of the same story. This is not a story of natural calamity, but of human forgetfulness. We reduced water to a mere resource and abandoned the memory, culture, and empathy once associated with it.

One of the greatest fallacies of modern development is the idea that storing water above ground through large dams is the ultimate solution. This approach goes against the very nature of water. Water does not exist to stagnate; it exists to flow, to seep into the womb of the earth, and from there sustain life. Traditional systems—ponds, tanks, wells, and stepwells—understood this truth. They did not imprison water; they conserved it. That is why they endured for centuries and quietly supported civilization.
Today, dams are celebrated as symbols of progress, while ponds are dismissed as relics of backwardness. This is a loss of vision. Punjab once recorded more than 17,000 ponds, each serving as a source of water and a centre of community life, linking fields, animals, birds, and people. Now, even proper records of common lands are missing. When memory is erased, crisis becomes inevitable.
Our ancestors did not see floods as destruction but as renewal. Floodwaters were allowed to spread into ponds and plains, enriching the soil. Communities took collective responsibility for desilting ponds, treating it as a social duty. These systems relied on understanding, not technology.
The irony is painful. The same hands that filled ponds with garbage and blocked wells now look helplessly to the sky for water. Instead of self-reflection, we blame nature, climate change, or the past. The courage to accept responsibility is disappearing.
This crisis is also a crisis of education. True education is not just degrees and data; it is the ability to live in harmony with the ecosystem. When humans see themselves as separate from nature, knowledge turns into cleverness, and cleverness eventually becomes destructive.
Water governance reflects this failure. Even today, there is no comprehensive and reliable assessment of India’s actual water reserves. Policies are framed, budgets approved, and announcements made without a solid foundation. Development based on guesswork is bound to collapse.
Groundwater exploitation presents an even darker picture. Millions of submersible pumps in states like Punjab and Haryana are extracting water relentlessly, piercing the earth day after day. This silent tragedy is draining the future in exchange for short-term comfort.
Development that destroys nature is like cutting the branch one is sitting on. Shiny roads, tall buildings, and grand projects create the illusion of progress, while the ground beneath dries up. Cities flood during monsoons and thirst during summers—clear evidence of a failure of vision, not resources.
Rivers tell the most tragic story. Once the cradle of civilizations, they are now among the most polluted entities in the country. We call them mothers, yet treat them as if their tolerance is infinite. This hypocrisy has reached its limit.
Not long ago, India’s landscapes—villages, cities, fields, forests, ponds, and rivers—were alive with balance. Resources were fewer, but understanding was deeper. Community participation and harmony with nature were central. Modern planning expanded, but society’s connection with nature shrank.
Water management cannot be left to engineers alone. It is an ethical and cultural question. Reviving ponds, restoring traditional water bodies, harvesting rain, and protecting community lands are not futuristic ideas—they are acts of remembrance.
Water is not a commodity; it is a relationship between humans and nature. When this relationship breaks, disasters follow. There is still time. But if we fail to restore this bond, history will remember us as the generation that let its world die of thirst.

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