IT WAS IN the second week of October that we met Ratilal Patel, a 63-year-old farmer of Mandvi taluk in southern Kutch. He was waiting for us on a motorbike at Koday village. Motioning us to follow him, he took us to a spot in the village where people had danced in joy when Prime Minister Narendra Modi released Narmada water into the Kutch branch canal on August 28.
Patel did not dance. He did not even visit the site on inauguration day. He dismissed it as an election stunt, and regretted that he had showered colourful petals in the canal during a trial run in July.
The canal looked clean and fine, but there was no sign of water, except a few wet patches at the bottom.
Patel slid down the canal slopes and stood on the canal bed. “Water flowed here for television cameras for a day,” he said. “I haven’t seen the water after that.” Above the canal gate, a long hoarding with Modi’s image still looked fresh.
The Kutch branch canal stretches 357km from the main canal of the Sardar Sarovar Dam to Modh Kuba, which is 45km from Koday. It was built at a cost of around Rs6,500 crore over 15 years, raising huge expectations, and runs through the Rann of Kutch. While 200km of it was completed four years ago, the remaining part got over only recently.
Patel lives in Nagalpur village near Koday and has farmlands 3km from the canal. He hopes to get water when smaller canals are built and pipelines laid. He is a village elder and Mandvi taluk chief of the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, a farmers’ organisation affiliated to the RSS.
“I have voted for the BJP all my life. My father was a leader of the Jan Sangh," he said. "But I am disappointed with the government. It does not address farmers' issues anymore.”
Ten other farmers arrived on bikes. “We want a change now,” said one of them, Venkariya Narain. He, too, has been a BJP voter. The farmers said Aam Aadmi Party leaders were in touch with them.
The Sangh has been agitating against the government for ignoring farmers' demands. Wasn't the RSS intervening in the fight in the 'family'? Patel retorted: "Do you think the BJP listens to the RSS anymore?”
Kutch is larger than several Indian states, but has only two million people and six assembly seats. The BJP holds five of the seats, and Santokben Aarethiya of the Congress represents Rapar. She said farmers were angry because they did not get Narmada water for this crop season. "Laying pipelines is not enough," she said. "How will the water reach the fields? How can farmers bear the expenditure for that exercise?"
In July, breaches in the canal hindered the flow of water. S.B. Rao, chief engineer of Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd, said such breaches were normal and were repaired. He said water would flow soon for the upcoming crop season or as per the farmers’ wishes. There would be continuous flow later on.
The people of parched Kutch have always relied on check dams, aquifers, streams, lakes and community wells. The canal has now become their lifeline, providing water for irrigation to some extent and drinking. Drinking water pipelines have been laid even in far-flung villages. Availability of water, people say, is transforming life in Kutch.
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Not everyone thinks so. Kailash Gadhvi, AAP state treasurer and candidate from Mandvi constituency, said, “It is a poorly constructed canal. There was rampant corruption in its execution.” He also spoke of irregular supply of drinking water: “In many blocks in Mandvi some residents are getting water only once in four or five days.”
Virendrasinh Jadeja, the MLA from Mandvi, dismissed it as negative talk. “There was some repair work, and water supply will start soon,” he said. “There is no water problem here.”
Though Narmada water is changing Kutch, old-timers say Kutch has not got its rightful share. Maheshbhai Thakkar, 84, is a former Congress MLA and former mayor of Bhuj. He had written many articles for raising the height of the Narmada dam. “The height was raised only to bring water to Kutch,” he said. He made a strong case for it in the Gujarat assembly in the 1970s. “We demanded a fixed minimum quota for Kutch. Today Kutch is the biggest loser, as we are still to get our due.”
On October 19, more than 500 farmers staged a day-long protest in front of the deputy collector’s office in Bachhau, saying Narmada water was not reaching much of the Kutch region.