Environment

India Prays for Rain as Water Wars Break Out

by Barbara McPherson | July 13, 2009 at 09:33 am

153 views | 92 Recommendations | 6 comments

The monsoon in India is late and all that people can do is pray for rain as water wars break out.

It was a little after 8pm when the water started flowing through the pipe running beneath the dirt streets of Bhopal's Sanjay Nagar slum. After days without a drop of water, the Malviya family were the first to reach the hole they had drilled in the pipe, filling what containers they had as quickly as they could. Within minutes, three of them were dead, hacked to death by angry neighbours who accused them of stealing water.

India is suffering through a drought which has hit the north the hardest, but all areas are feeling it. The populous country grows much of its own food and also manages to export some, but the fields are drying up. Food may be in short supply when the harvest is counted.

The UN has warned for many years that water shortages will become one of the most pressing problems on the planet over the coming decades, with one report estimating that four billion people will be affected by 2050. What is happening in India, which has too many people in places where there is not enough water, is a foretaste of what is to come.

Water shortages are becoming an all too common story. Australia is reporting excessively dry weather and too many users, enough to dry up the Murray River at its mouth. In the United States and Mexico, the mighty Colorado River has so many users that it no longer reaches the Pacific Ocean. The west coast of BC, often jokingly referred to as the 'Wet Coast' has had an unusually dry June.
While the vacationers may love the consistently dry, sunny weather food growers are increasingly worried about the supply of water to the crops. If the trend continues and this becomes a new pattern due to climate change, we might see the return of famine something that the "Green Revolution" promised to banish forever.

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cyn.khoo

at 15:54 on July 13th, 2009

Wow, this is a really sad story, and even more that it's happening in this day/age.

alia_d

at 15:58 on July 13th, 2009

Roy C

at 16:17 on July 13th, 2009

Drought is a tragedy, but the Colorado River doesn't make it to Mexico anymore because California and other states take too much of the water.

Morally, it is just theft.

Rory Cripps

at 17:49 on July 13th, 2009

Thank you Barbara McPherson for this story! When we experience "water shortages", we begin to realize what's real and what's not real. And when we get to the point of being thirsty, and not having any water to quench our thirst, we know, for sure, what's real. An endless supply of water is something that we, in the west, have taken for granted. Most Westerners can't even conceive of their tap running dry. For what it's worth, my family's prayers go out to the people of India.