In Rajasthan’s Chambal, wives of ex-dacoits lead revival of water sources and hope

UNTIL about 15 years ago, Sampatti Devi and many women like her in Rajasthan's Karauli district lived in constant fear, dreading the day their husbands might not return home.

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Repeated droughts, driven in part by declining rainfall linked to climate change, had turned their lands barren. Water sources dried up, crippling agriculture and animal husbandry, the lifeblood of their livelihood.

With no other way to survive, many men were forced into dacoity, hiding in jungles and risking their lives every day to evade police. Karauli's average annual rainfall dropped from 722.1 mm (1951-2000) to 563.94 mm (2001-2011), according to government data.

But in the 2010s, something remarkable happened. The women, weary of fear and despair, resolved to reclaim their lives. They convinced their husbands to come out of the jungles and give up arms.

Together, they began reviving old, dried-up ponds and constructing new pokhars (water bodies) with the help of Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an Alwar-based NGO dedicated to water conservation since 1975.

"I would have been dead by now. She convinced me to come back and start farming again," recalled Jagdish, Sampatti Devi's husband, now 58, who surrendered his weapons and chose peace.

Pooling every penny earned over the years by selling milk, they built a pokhar at the base of a hill near their village, Alampur, in 2015-16.

When the rains came, the 'pokhar' was filled and for the first time in years, their family had water, enough to sustain them for a longer period.