Maharashtra: How fetching water is holding back India’s women

Millions of women in India engage in grueling routine rituals, including collecting drinking water.

They walk for miles every day, carrying pots in their arms and carrying foam or earthen pots on their faces, perhaps without enduring the blistering summer weeks or the icy seasons.

” It’s a daily battle. I get so tired that I collapse when I’m done”, says Sunita Bhurbade from Tringalwadi, a tribal village 180km ( 112 miles ) from India’s financial hub, Mumbai.

Every day, Ms Bhurbade travels four to five hours from her most nearby, trustworthy water source, a dried river, to complete her pots. She has to dig holes in the side to allow the water to enter effortlessly. The water is murky.

People have no choice but to travel long distances to get water for four to five months because near wells and water sources dried up, she says. Unfortunately, her town receives one of the heaviest downpours in the region.

Because of this normal grind, she frequently complains of back and neck problems, fatigue and weakness.

Additionally, she and other people from her community are prevented from seeking a paid employment by the daily grind.

” No- one will hire me even as a farm labourer because they wo n’t allow me to show up at work in the afternoon”, she says.

” If I go after ocean, I have to sacrifice my employment. If I try to earn a income, my home stays thirsty”.

According to a 2023 report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Unicef, 1.8 billion people worldwide collect drinking water from supplies located off premises, and in seven out of 10 households, women and girls are primarily responsible for water collection.

This is especially true in India, where researchers claim that women are being hampered by the need for safe drinking water.

” First, women ca n’t take up paid work because they have to do all the household chores and secondly, even if they wish to find some work after doing their daily chores, there are not enough paid jobs for women in rural India”, says Prof Ashwini Deshpande, who heads the economics department in Delhi’s Ashoka University.

The value of women’s unpaid labour in Indian economy is huge. India’s largest commercial bank State Bank of India (SBI)’s Ecowrap report indicates that the total contribution of unpaid women’s work to the economy is around 22.7bn rupees ($276.8m; £216.7m), almost 7.5% of India’s total GDP.

The NGO International Development Organisation estimates that Indian women spend 150 million work days every year fetching water.

According to experts, if girls may devote this amount of time to paid activities, they can become financially independent, which will also help the economy.

The Indian government says it is constantly working to improve water infrastructure countrywide. By January 2024, it said it had provided piped water to almost 74% of rural households.

The practice has been life-changing for those who used to get their houses ‘ pipes before having to fetch water from the outside.

” I open the tap, water comes rushing … it’s like a dream. I had been fetching ocean since I was five”, says Mangal Khadke, who’s married and in her 30s and lives about 30km from Ms Bhurbade.

However, there are still many million without access to clean water.

Around 700km apart from Tringalwadi, in the Aaki town of northern India’s Amaravati neighborhood, town mind Indrayani Javarkar spends most of her day finding and collecting waters.

Every day I wake up with the question,” Where can I find water today? Because it’s so dry here in the summer?” she says.

Indrayani has two jobs: first, locate and collect ocean for her household, and next, to organise water containers for her community.

” Both the things are getting harder every day”, she says.

Ms. Bhurbade claims that getting tap water for her is a distant vision.

” ]Women ] start when they are children themselves. Someone says,” French what you can have,” and somebody hands them a little bucket. And finally, it’s a fortnight’s obligation- until she dies, she is fetching waters”, she says.

Ms. Bhurbade ca n’t recall a single year when she was prevented from walking miles in a pottyhose.

If she did n’t need to go to the store for water and had some free time, we asked what she would do.

She says she enjoys singing and thinks painful. However, her music even touch on water.

” Radu nako singh si panyala jate”, she sings for us.

It means:” Do n’t cry my child, I am going to fetch water”.