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Digging up wells from our past They provide water for households, for irrigation, and quench the thirst of tourists like me. India has a fascinating tradition of wells. Want to dig deeper? Then join me in this ride! Pandit ji has just gotten off the bus, a little ahead of his actual destination, Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala. He is walking through Palayam, a village which lies in the outskirts of the city, on a tiny hillock. Pandit ji is lost in the midst of stretches of lush green rubber trees. Ah, he can spot a teak as well! But the uphill journey on foot has now made him thirsty… (no, he isn’t carrying a mineral water bottle). Hmm… there it is. A tubewell, tucked away in that corner. The parched Pandit ji rushes to draw water from it. But, hey, the handle is broken… and falls out as he tries to move it. As he looks closer, he realises that the tubewell is rusty, covered with layers of dirt. “Doesn’t anyone use this?”, he mumbles as he moves ahead, “Looks like it hasn’t been touched for months”. He comes across a row of huts, each surrounded by a patch of green. Pandit ji is now desperate for a drink of water and stands in front of the first cottage, hoping that someone will notice him. Then a woman comes out of the hut. Pandit ji gestures with his hands and looks pleadingly at her. She nods her head, asking him to enter. And then leads him to the backyard… and, hey, here is a dugwell… with a rope and a bucket, hanging at the side. And this time there is water. Plenty of it! As the woman draws water and Pandit ji drinks thirstily, he watches the surrounding cottages. Each one of them has a dugwell, mostly at the back, but some in the front yard as well. “So wells are where they get their daily supply from,” says Pandit ji to himself, “For drinking, cooking and for latrines”.
Yes, Pandit ji, and for much, much more. A ‘well’bred nation In India people have been using wells for household needs, for irrigating their crop lands, and even to feed industries. The Indian well culture dates back thousands of years. These man-made structures used for extracting water from underground aquifers were probably a Harappan invention. An archeological survey of the Indus Valley Civilisation reveals that every third house had a well. There is more evidence from pre-historic times. The Purana, Mahabharata, Ramayana, and various Vedic, Buddhist, and Jain texts contains references to wells, along with several other highly sophisticated water harvesting structures. More recently, the official documents of the colonial rulers describe how digging wells was common practice in Bihar and Bengal. Well water was used for drinking and irrigating small plots of land adjoining the village homesteads, where vegetables, poppy and sugarcane were grown round the year. ‘Well’ nourished Interestingly, wells played a key role in village economy. Since they could be built cheaply, as compared to other water structures like tanks and ponds, they were traditionally dug by village families – without the aid of a king or a zamindar. But lifting water from wells is labour intensive, so they were not used to water foodgrains but valuable market crops. For instance, the Shanars of Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, were well known as commercial cultivators, growing palmyra palm and tobacco. They were also the famous ‘well-diggers’ of this region. So, historically, well irrigation is linked to growth of commercial cultivation. No wonder, therefore, that the people took care of their wells. Digging, cleaning, and de-silting wells were celebrated as social events, and local communities took part in them with gusto. And most significantly, the users had managed to grasp the importance of maintaining a balance between extracting groundwater, and replenishing it through a myriad homegrown water harvesting techniques. Well-thy India So well-culture and well-economy flourished in India for many centuries. The techniques of building them were different everywhere, and they were used for a variety of purposes. The remnants of this immensely water literate lifestyle can still be found in almost all the states of the country. Lets take a look… |
