Apart from being an NRI who has grown up in the DC suburbs, and an Indicorps fellow who has been riding the highs, lows, successes and frustrations of a year of service in rural India, amongst other things I would have to identify myself as a hip-hop head of sorts (I even was an emcee in a couple bands in high school, surely that’s got to count for something?). Now obviously what immediately comes to mind in this rumination on water is track nine from 1999’s Black on Both Sides by Mos Def (an incredible album, first track to last), New World Water. Putting aside the politics of hip-hop, the song is on-point as Mos narrates, well, new world water (I know right, I was thinking the same, how fitting for this piece). Now to some it may seem like a little bit of a stretch to relate the experiences and realities of working for change in rural India with Brooklyn-born-and-bred lyrics, but I feel the connection is quite simple, and if you bear with me, in a way sort of insightful. The origins of hip-hop music come from a place of providing a voice to those who are not always heard, a place that challenges and critiques the social problems of our society, and a venue to mix poetry and politics. A place to provoke thought and discussion; a space to engage in and initiate social change. And you know what, fine, if it doesn’t work for you then merely accept this as an extension of my own multi-hyphenated identity. But really, aside from blazing break-beats and raw, speak-truth-to-power-in-yo-face lyrics it’s this unabashed, unapologetic rejection of accepting the status quo that I fell in love with as a kid. And the kids these days you know, this hip-hop stuff, they really love it.
“Man, you gotta cook with it, bathe and clean with it/When it's hot, summertime you fiend for it” While living with a family in the village of Simayal, most mornings I would descend down from the house I was staying in to fill a carton of water from a water tank in the village. This was the easy part. The steep trek back up with gallons of water situated on my shoulders would unfailingly leave me sweating, despite it being the middle of December. I figured it was the least I could do to help out as I too used the water to wash my clothes, to bathe with, and in the food that was prepared. While I made that trip usually once a morning, it was repeated seven or eight times everyday. Just knowing that made me conscious of the water I used whether it was to brush my teeth or wash my dishes (which I mean, honestly isn’t the case now with the tap I use in my current living arrangement). I began to depart on these morning pilgrimages for water once the rainwater tank had run out. Outside the house there was an underground tank that held water collected during the monsoons. This rainwater harvesting allows for a large amount of water to be stored, and conserved. Yeah, it’s pretty cool stuff. By the end of my stay with the family I had gotten use to my daily routine, but in the last days the outdoor water faucet by the house started to provide a couple hours of water every morning. Now I would reckon that most of the people who end up reading this may struggle to fully imagine and recognize the fact that in many places in India water is only available for a couple hours a day. To use water often involves first carrying it from a long distance, and especially in a hilly region, to collect water requires a physically strenuous task, a task that often is assigned to women.
“You can laugh and take it as a joke if you wanna/But it don't rain for four weeks some summers” In rural Kumaon, and most agricultural communities, water from the sky above is an integral part for sustenance. In particular, precipitation is counted on for the livelihoods of the majority of the population – farmers. Both too little rain, and too much rain can negatively impact crop yield, and many, many lives in turn. But merely precipitation alone is not required. The reality here in this part of Kumaon, like many places in the world, is that there is a significant shortage of water. This can be attributed to several main reasons, one being deforestation. While the state of Uttarakhand boasts one of the best forest covers in all of India, forests have steadily been declining, which has led to a drop in the water table. It’s sort of like this you see, due to deforestation there is less infiltration in the ground that leads to soil erosion, which means less soil depth. This leads to lower recharge of water in the ground, which means lower discharge (my shit isn’t that hot, I had to have this explained to me more than once). Climate change also plays a part in less precipitation. For example, this winter I mean it was cold, but given the Himalayan setting it was quite mild. It rained maybe once or twice, and only snowed once, an actuality that was constantly deplored by the local population. And this is not the first year such a phenomenon has occurred in an area that is use to receiving much more severe winters. Lastly, this being such a stunning area an influx of hotels and hi-fi summer homes has cropped up throughout the region. The luxuries such places have include the ability to switch on and off water from a tap or shower at will. The increased level of consumption that these hotels and homes bring has placed strain on springs that are the source for water in the area.
Now don’t get me wrong. It wouldn’t be fair depict those coming from abroad or urban India as totally insensitive to water, and try and give off the idea of everyone here as water-conscious sadhus. There are many a day when I see water faucets in villages that are left running or that simply cannot be shut off. But real quick, back to this idea of consumption, now that’s a familiar one. What you got for me Mos? “Americans be wastin’ it on some leisure shit, while other nations be desperately seekin’ it.” The population of the United States accounts for less than 5% of the world’s population yet consumes approximately 25% of the world’s fossil fuels. In regards to water, inefficiency and a lack of infrastructure in developing nations can lead to high per-capita withdrawals, just as high or higher than in developed countries. Still, according to the UN Development Report (2006) the average North American uses 400 liters a day, the average European 200 liters. This is in comparison to the “average person in the developing world uses 10 liters of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking” (Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council). The reality remains that around one billion people today lack access to decent access to safe drinking water. I can remember the days of twenty-minute hot showers, sprinklers running non-stop in every other suburban yard, and the tap running as I shaved or brushed my teeth. The question is, should be doing more to consume less?
And when was the last time that we had serious reason to worry about getting sick from the water we consume everyday? Through my efforts here it has become quite clear that waterborne illnesses are a very real problem that affect every single village I have organized alongside. Related to water, these efforts have included conducting water tests, trying to secure supplies of chlorine tablets and bleaching powder from local government health facilities, and organizing health committees to clean village water tanks and provide de-worming tablets. Specifically, the instances of water-borne illnesses increase dramatically during the summer and monsoons, and as the season is approaching I am currently in the process of trying to launch an awareness campaign about purifying water through chlorination and boiling. According to UNICEF, “a lack of safe water and sanitation is the world’s single largest cause of illness.” The same report goes on to state that everyday approximately “4,500 children die from unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation facilities.” And that’s not to discount the lead in DC pipes, but even then boiling water does not include burning the precious wood and other forms of fuel that has been back-breakingly collected.
One of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals includes “halving, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.” In recent years there have been a number of campaigns pushing to have clean water explicitly recognized as a fundamental human right and ensure that people everywhere can cheaply access it. And if this wasn’t enough to try and process at once, there are other looming questions to be addressed regarding water as a fundamental right, and the effects of its privatization. “Used to be free now it cost you a fee/Cause it's all about gettin’ that cash money” In many places in the world, India included, privatization of water has been met with fierce opposition by civil society groups, NGOs, and activists. Critics cite that privatization may lead to profits being placed over people’s needs, gives too much control and preference to multinational corporations over an essential human need, and further disadvantages poor and marginalized populations (those that don’t have a hook-up with municipal water facilities). Another criticism that is levied against the privatization of water is that privatization is often imposed by international economic institutions (like the World Bank and IMF) through neo-liberal policies, at the expense of the developing world.
There is a fear that if water is commodified then only those who can afford it will have proper access to it. And maybe that is already beginning to happen. Like access to decent education and health, water is a basic necessity for a thriving human existence, one that every human being would like to have, and one that rights-based conventions and declarations seek to ensure. A report by The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concludes by stating, “It is now time to consider access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right, defined as the right to equal and non-discriminatory access to a sufficient amount of safe drinking water for personal and domestic uses - drinking, personal sanitation, washing of clothes, food preparation and personal and household hygiene - to sustain life and health.” Proper access to clean drinking and sanitation is required for a healthy life, a life with dignity. It seems maybe a bit odd then to profit off of water when there is such a dire need for it in many places of the world. Especially, when we do not respect the limited resource water is, as we pollute and waste, not heeding calls to conserve. But at the same time there are those individuals and entities that profit off of this type of commodification. “The type of cats who pollute the whole shore line/Have it purified, sell it for a dollar twenty-five” But maybe I digress.
And so after all of this hullabaloo I’d say the magnitude of water should not be downplayed, whether we recognize it from the subcontinent or clever rap lyrics. Obviously there are many more questions than what I have simplistically tried to put out there in this brief discourse. And while there may not be easy answers to all of the questions regarding the larger issues of water consumption, there are easy steps we can take to consume less, possibly the first being, simply being aware of how important water is the world over. So I humbly request that you accept these written bars as some food for thought. But to tell it best I defer to Mighty Mos, “Tell your crew to use the H2 in wise amounts/Since it’s the new world water, and every drop counts”
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