This article is written by Saurav Vaishnav & Vandita Sariya, based on their experiences from walking along River Luni as part of our Moving Upstream: Luni Fellowship programme. Please note that this is a long read ~ 15 minutes.
Cover photo: Vandita walks along the River Luni. Photo by Saurav Vaishnav
The first sight of the ‘river’ was quite startling. The Luni was dry apart from putrid sewage that flowed from Samdhari town where we started our Moving Upstream: Luni fellowship walk. Heaps of garbage lined the river banks.
Over the course of 12 days, we walked about 150 km: starting from Samdhari and concluding in Pichiyak at the Jaswant Sagar Dam.
The Luni not only guided the direction of our walk, but was central to our conversation with river-side communities. Often, the river’s importance, utility or value was dismissed. As we walked, we’d often hear a long list of negatives associated with the river:
“पानी तो गड़बड़ है ”
There’s something wrong with the water.
“पानी तो ज़हर है ”
Water here is poison
“पी एच डी ख़राब है इसका ”
Luni’s undrinkable Ph levels had come to be known as PhD for reasons unknown
“कॉस्टिक वालो पानी है”
Its chemical-laden water
“मोटो घणो पानी ”
The water is very hard
“ये नदी नहीं ये नाला है ”
This is not a river. It’s a sewage drain
But the Luni wasn’t static nor conventional. At moments, it did feel like a drain. Or, a vast tract of barren land that melded into the arid, desert-like landscape. However, the Luni could surprise one: the footprint of a wild animal or the sight of an animal scurrying away to the ingenious ways in which the sandy, salty river provided sustenance and livelihood.
The Luni is a dry, sandy, non-perennial river. To appreciate its beauty, significance and influence, one has to be truly observant. Walking provides this opportunity. Even now, it seems like if we were to do the same walk again, in the same stretch, we’d find wholly new things.
A village that becomes an island
It didn’t take long to find the first surprise along the Luni. A few hours into our walk, we came across a village that, during the monsoons, becomes an island: completely cut-off from the world due to flooding waters that surround it. An island in the middle of arid Rajasthan!
Kotadi lies at the confluence of the Luni and Sugadi river (see map below). During monsoons, when both rivers carry water, the roads leading out of the village get submerged. The village becomes like an island and gets cut off from both the sides.
In June 2023, the Tropical Cyclone, Biparjoy – the strongest such Cyclone over the Arabian Sea – directly passed over these regions of Rajasthan. The Luni suddenly swelled. Roads were eroded. The damage was still visible when we walked this stretch in February 2024.
A villager told us that the area was cut-off for nearly 5 months. They had no access to hospitals, and even recalled tense moments when someone in his family went into labour.
When pollution burns jeera
As the Luni flows through Central Rajasthan, it collects untreated sewage from towns and villages as well as effluents from industries. The severity of this pollution is perhaps best seen in the cultivation of desi jeera or Cuminum cyminum. Jeera is not grown in regions where the river water or the underground aquifer (which is largely fed by the Luni) contains hard (high dissolved sediments) or polluted water.
In these regions, crops like Bajra or Moong (which are hardy crops, but have lower profits than Jeera) are grown. As the Luni has become more polluted, the cultivation of Jeera has reduced drastically.
In many fields, we could see jeera plants wilt and turn yellow, as if it’s been through a fire. Farmers know this as ‘burnt jeera’, which many believe to be the result of chemical discharge in the river.
At one point, Jeera was an important part of the landscape of Dhundhara village. “The water quality is so bad that we’ve not just stopped Jeera cultivation, but also stopped farming,” says Somaram. The land where he’d grow Jeera is now a hardware store.
In Banawas village, Pukhraj Prajapat, who was previously a commercial farmer, said that where the output of desi jeera used to be about 100 boris (jute bags), now it has come down to just one bag.
The cost of polluting the river is not just borne by Jeera farmers. Diwandi village is close to the confluence of the Luni and its tributary, Bandi. Bandi flows through Pali city – some 60km away – which is replete with textile and other polluting industries. At Diwandi, the pools of water in the Luni are brackish and emanate a stench.
What this means is that the river and its underground aquifer are no longer clean, reliable water sources for residents of the village. Water tankers scurrying around in these villages is quite the dystopian sight.
Raju Patel, 38, a cattle herder in the village, says the waters in the Luni are so polluted that it isn’t fit to be consumed by livestock. Instead, Raju has to order tankers for them as well: which, in summers can cost up to Rs. 2,500 per 4,000-liter tanker. While this is expensive, the cost of letting livestock drink Luni waters can be immense.
“When we leave cattles to graze during the day, in summers they often end up drinking from these polluted water sources as they get thirsty,” says Raju. “One of my buffaloes and a cow died only because it drank this water. They must have drunk Luni waters just 3-4 times before it poisoned them,” he says. “It is a loss of around 65,000 for me,” says Raju.
Joy and the tragedy of Luni learnt from a storyteller
“वहाँ से पानी आता है तो पब्लिक खुश होती है की नदी आयी , नदी आयी , पर नदी का पानी तो वह केमिकल वाला निकलता है । खारा पानी आया है बस। बारिश का पानी आता नहीं है ”
People rejoice at the sight of the flowing river during the monsoon, but then they realise it is water polluted with chemicals.
Prajapati’s stories are a joy to listen to, but when it comes to the Luni, it’s often sombre. We met him on the third day of the walk, when there was an intermittent drizzle. He offered us shelter at his home. What was supposed to be a chat turned into a long conversation and even into a night halt.
His house was in a compound with other smaller houses – all members of his large, extended family. The centre of the household was Prajapati, an entertaining story-teller who wouldn’t tire even after talking for hours.
Prajapati had left farming in the village and worked as a halwai in Jodhpur for several years before becoming a shop owner in Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh). In Vijayawada, he runs a “fancy store”(a shop selling imitation jewelry and dresses), and even uses Google Translate to interact with his Telugu customers.
But his heart is still connected to the Luni and has highlighted the continued pollution of the river. “During summer, these factories in Pali dump effluents in pits by the river. In the monsoons, the rains wash the effluents into the tributary and into the Luni. We had protested against this. But there was no effect,” he says.
For his water woes, he places hope on promises to link Luni to perennial rivers. Prajapati says, “When (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi campaigned 10 years ago in Rajasthan, he promised that Luni would be linked and the river will flow with fresh water. I’m a fan of Modi, but I wonder what is stopping this work from happening. If we get fresh water here (to support agriculture) then no one will have to (migrate for work).”
It’s difficult to find the speech he is referring to, but a government document did mention a canal between Luni and Mahi rivers and found it to be unfeasible.1
While these promises remain in the air, the reality of the Luni is that it is polluted and plundered. Sand mining is rampant and protests by Prajapati have been ignored. “The mafia digs up river bed sand through the night. We’ve raised our voice against this, but no one is ready to listen. Everyone has been bribed,” he says.
The conversation meandered towards rampant corruption affecting welfare schemes. Through it all, his family kept goading us to go to sleep because Prajapati had the ability to talk through the night.
Hope along the Luni
The Luni can be an important source of water, if only traditional ways of accessing water from the sandy river bed is harnessed. We witnessed this in the last stretch of the walk. Residents of Lamba have dug pits in the river beds which, through summers and winters, are recharged by the sandy river.
“If you draw water in the morning, the pits starts recharging by afternoon and by evening it becomes full again. It’s fresh, sweet water here. You don’t even have to boil it,” said Dinesh Dairywala, a friendly man in his early 30s. However, these are privately-dug holes; and the water is often sold to villagers.
“Why are you hanging out with them”
“लेकिन क्यों करना है ?”
But why do it at all?
“घणो भारी काम है ”
Such a tedious job you’ve got
“पेट रे वास्ते करणो पड़े ”
Yeah, one has to do all kinds of jobs to earn
Through the walk, we had to repeatedly field these questions. The reactions varied from surprise to fascination to shock, from concern to suspicion. Often, it took mere seconds for the reactions to shift: there was sympathy that we had to walk the entire journey; quickly followed by disappointment that we had made the choice to do so.
The introductions would then give way to an inevitable question: “आपकी जात क्या है” (which caste do you belong to?).
Even young children would ask us this question. It took us time to navigate these questions; for our upbringing in cities had shown caste in covert forms, rather than in such overt inquiries. Here, asking one’s caste seemed to be a wholly normal line of questioning.
The answer we gave also revealed our own privileges which allowed us to navigate the village’s caste landscape without problems. Caste was ingrained in their judgments: for they believed that higher castes were “good people” or “trust-worthy” people.
“आगे SC/ST वाले रहते हैं इसलिए आपको इधर रोक लिया ”
Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe people live ahead, that’s why we stopped you here.
This was said by a higher caste household when they insisted we stay at their place. When seeking shelter, and when we’d answer their caste questions, we’d often hear:
“चलो बढ़िया है , वरना SC/ST वालों को तो हम पानी भी नहीं देते ”
It’s good (our caste). Otherwise we don’t even give water to SC/ST people
One evening when we were staying with a family from the Banjara community (who are one of the Scheduled Tribes in Rajasthan), Saurav took the children of the family to eat pani puri in the village. He could feel the village’s glare as they walked. A lady came up to ask about Saurav, and eventually remarked: ‘इनके साथ क्यों घूम रहे हो ?’ (“Why are you hanging out with people like them?”)
Finding shelter and finding miracles
When we had applied for the fellowship, we knew it demanded some physical and mental rigour. However, the most intimidating was perhaps showing up in a village, near dusk, and asking for shelter at houses of strangers.
Many evenings were spent in nervous uncertainty. On one such evening, in an area where there were apparently many robberies, we were repeatedly shunned. Villagers found it difficult to trust two strangers. Eventually, a kind, old man agreed to give us shelter for the night. When we went to his house, his wife boiled with rage and kicked us out.
The whole village flocked around and bombarded us with questions, looking at us with suspicion, wondering what we were carrying in our bags. In the cacophony, we’d hear:
“लड़की भगा के ले आते हैं लड़के “
(Men elope with their girls and come here)“पाकिस्तान से लड़की आ गई थी एक ज़िले में “
A girl from Pakistan came across the border to a nearby district“आप दोनों में संबंध क्या है ?”
What is the relationship between you two?
Amid this commotion Manoj Singh, a young man, approached us and offered to host us at his warehouse for the night. He explained how villagers are afraid of outsiders because they haven’t been exposed to any life outside the village. “हम नहीं डरते इसलिए आपको इधर ले आये ” (I’m not afraid, that’s why I brought you here).
However intimidating the situation might be, we’d always encounter unexpected kindness and warmth of strangers. One can never tell when, where and how this offer to help comes from.
One particular instance comes to mind. It was in the latter half of the walk, and the day was particularly tiring. We were subject to incessant questioning and coldness from passers-by. Our morale hit an abyss and we sat by the main road in dejection.
A car then stopped beside us. After the usual enquiries of who we were and what we were doing, the man suggested we stay with his friends Gaurav and Varsha Gurjar for the night.
We immediately took the offer. Little did we know that the stay would turn out to be a beautiful homestay a couple of kilometres away. Gaurav and Varsha run Maruvan Foundation which explores indigenous methods of forestry in desert landscapes. The luxurious room, built for tourists, was a source of additional income for the non-profit.
We could not have planned this – but the serendipitous encounter with fellow environmentalists who work in water and forests, was nothing short of a miracle!
Tracks of violence
All along the banks, we’d see water tankers furiously plying around. We’d also see many trucks carrying sand that’s been illegally taken from the river, going in and out of the river bed. Earth movers scraped sand from the river bed, and we’d hear the commotion of trucks passing on roads through the night.
In an arid landscape where agriculture is losing its economic viability and jobs are few, illegal sand mining has become an important source of employment and money.
Ironically, this was most apparent near ‘363 Shaheed Sthal’, a monument built to commemorate the Bishnoi movement. In 1730, 363 members of the Bishnoi community were massacred by the then Raja of Alwar when they protested the cutting down of Kejri trees in the region. This sacrifice has inspired numerous modern environmental movements in the country.
Now, close to Shaheed Sthal, we met a group of young men. They all made a living driving trucks that ferry illegally mined sand. They didn’t shy away from talking about it. When asked how they evaded the cops in the night, they said: “We get drunk and go into the mining sites. We don’t get scared.”
Another man came in mid-way through the conversation and seeing us, probably attempted to threaten us by saying, “We have even murdered people. We murder people to get things done our way”.
The tension eased only when his friends told him that we weren’t connected to sand mining authorities.
We heard so much about violence due to sand mining. Gaurav Gujar from Maruvan foundation, who had earlier hosted us for a night, said that he had once witnessed a fight between two brothers who were in the illegal sand mining business. The brothers were fighting using their JCBs – with each machine trying to push the other off a bridge.
In numerous places, the river has little or no more sand left to mine. Unemployment and migration are now rampant.
Unemployment and Migration
Migration to Southern India from this region is particularly high: where many open retail, grocery or wholesale stores or sweetmeat shops. It is mostly upper classes and upper castes that have the networks and initial wealth to migrate and set-up shop elsewhere.
As they find relative success elsewhere, they send larger and larger amounts of money to relatives back home.
This has changed the social dynamics in the region, says Ajay Singh, who runs the Kot Dunara homestay in Dhundhara village. The homestay is a 16th-century fort built by Ajay’s ancestors. This has been renovated by him and now hosts tourists from across the country.
“The first migrations were among richer communities, mostly upper caste people. They would take Devasis (who come under Other Backward Classes) and the Patel community – many of whom were landless – to work for them in the cities. Eventually, these communities learnt how to start their own businesses and have now prospered,” he says.
Patel houses became bigger and their ashrams reflected this prosperity. While Bishnois, who are Scheduled Tribes here, were left behind. This caste perception was obvious: with Patels repeatedly warning us of “crimes” perpetrated by Bishnois; while Bishnois lamented the unequal growth with them having to bear the brunt of unemployment.
There is a strong aspiration among young people to migrate, particularly out of India where they imagine earnings are higher. A young man, perhaps in his early 20s, had even spent a significant amount of money on middlemen and agencies to facilitate finding a job overseas. An agency offered him a job abroad for him and 16 others from neighbouring villages. However, when they arrived at the airport in Delhi to board the flight, they found out that their tickets were fake. The agency had conned them!
He was subject to mockery from his peers in the village, falling into sadness and depression. He’s tried to pick up skills in the hospitality sector, hoping that a foreign job is on the horizon. He says:
“हम तो छोटे से छोटा काम करने को भी तैयार हैं – सफ़ाई का हो , वॉचमैन का हो , किचन में हो , पर काम तो बाहर ही करना है क्योंकि पैसे अच्छे मिलेंगे ”
I’m ready to do any work, whether it is cleaning, being a watchman, cooking, but I want to do it abroad only because I’ll be paid well there.
Numerous locals also claimed that unemployment was fuelling rampant drug use. Some used syringes were seen along the riverbed, as well as advertisements for drug rehabilitation centres.
When women ask “किसको दिक़्क़त है?” (Who has an issue?)
In the first few hours of our walk, we encountered a couple on a bike and we asked them for directions. The wife – in Ghungat and sitting in the pillion – had said the village was still 3km away. Her husband, who dominated the conversations, quickly dismissed her opinion and insisted the village was just 1km away. “ये उनपढ़ है , इसको क्या मालूम (she is illiterate, what does she know),” he said with the undue confidence of a man who clearly demands to be in charge. A few minutes later, we came across a milestone that said that Kotdi was 3km away. His ‘illiterate’ wife was correct after all.
This sort of overt patriarchy, where women are always on the backseat and expected to remain quiet, was a recurring theme. At best, the women could ask us a few questions. But, a majority of the conversations and all of the decisions were taken by their husbands, brothers or sons.
In such a constricting societal atmosphere, meeting Guddi di (her real name is Kiran; ‘di’ is short for ‘didi’, which in Hindi means elder sister) in Diwandi was inspiring. She works as an ASHA worker (the government-appointed woman worker in charge of delivering grassroot health services). From an early age, she stood up against patriarchy and educated herself after she was married. She says:
“घर पे बहुत तमाशा होता था मेरी पढ़ाई को ले कर , सास से झगड़े होते थे . अगर मैं दिन में काम ख़त्म कर के रात को 10 से 1 पढ़ रही हूँ तो किसको दिक़्क़त है?”
There used to be frequent arguments with my mother-in-law, if I finish my chores during the day and study between 10pm to 1am at night, why is it an issue?
There was a playful self-confidence about her that we noticed immediately. Most women on this walk wouldn’t interact with Saurav (in fact, most women would wear the Ghunghat on seeing him). But Guddi di would freely converse with Saurav.
She’s been enterprising, attempting to get financial freedom any way possible. At some point of time, she tried network marketing for a personal care company. The infectious ambition and strength has been inspiring others. A few of her friends have also studied after marriage.
But, Guddi di still harbours a desire to study more – one that is difficult to accomplish now. “I do wish I could have studied further. But, at least my daughters’ can fulfill my dream,” she says.
One can only hope that Guddi’s story continues to inspire those in the region, particularly among girls.
Through the walk, we had noticed that boys and girls kept a distance from each other and didn’t interact at all. Gender inequity had been instilled in them at a young age. So much so, that a child asked if Vandita was Saurav’s assistant. There was a look of shock on the boy’s face when he was told that we were walking as equals.
But we also saw how games can break through this social barrier. Saurav’s job involves designing games on social themes. He encouraged the children to play “Zip-Zap-Zoom”, “traffic lights’ and “Ice and Water”. As the games progressed, boys and girls started to play as a group – perhaps, for the first time.
“The greatest stream to be walked”
An under-appreciated aspect of this walk is to share personal and emotional space so closely with someone you’ve known. Paul Salopek, the journalist who is walking across the world and a partner for the Moving Upstream: Luni fellowship, said of our journey: “Any two river walkers coming to grips with each other is in fact the greatest stream to be walked.”
And we did come to rely on each other, particularly in moments of tension: when one is being suspect of being a thief or fielding questions about being an eloped couple; getting lost in a thicket of babool trees or hearing the rustle of a nilgai or wild boar lurking around. These moments were navigated with ease because we had each other’s back.
Walking gave us time to introspect and understand the river; to discern the background from the foreground is often very difficult, because we’re all usually tangled up in both. But the act of slowing down allowed us to make this distinction; to see how the river shapes the lives of the people, and also how it looms in the background, as a backdrop against which the stories of these lives unfold.
- Editor’s note: As you will read in subsequent stories from the Moving Upstream Luni Fellowship, inter basin linkages and water transfers to the Luni are already a reality. The exact outcomes of these linkages however has not been assessed in a comprehensive manner and it continues to be a controversial topic. ↩︎
Saurav Vaishnav & Vandita Sariya are Moving Upstream fellows who spent time walking along River Luni, as part of Veditum’s Moving Upstream Fellowship program along River Luni, that we co-hosted with the School of Public Policy, IIT Delhi, and was supported by Out of Eden Walk & A4Store. To read more about our Moving Upstream project, click here.
If you’d like to commission stories from this walk, please write to the authors (saurav.vaishnav@gmail.com; vandita.sariya97@gmail.com) or email us at asid@veditum.org
Mohit Rao & Siddharth Agarwal mentored and guided the fellows, and have also edited and produced this piece. The Luni Fellowship has been held together in collaboration with Prof. Pooja Prasad.
This piece can be re-published (CC BY-NC-SA) with a line mentioning ‘This was originally published on Veditum’ and a link back to this page. In case of re-publishing, please alert asid@veditum.org
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