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Newsletter and Technical Publications CHAPTER 2. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS 2.5. Examples of the History and Culture in Improving the Aquatic Environment 2.5.1. The Indian Scenario (suite) The Lake Fringes While developing new reservoirs, owners of the land becoming submerged require to be rehabilitated, according to the provisions of the relevant Indian re-settlement laws. Although the law provides for the allotment of land downstream of the reservoir for irrigation by water from the reservoir, persons displaced from the reservoir area tend to settle on the land along the reservoir fringe. This is due to the social affinity and their blood relationship with the neighbourhood communities. They also obtain a right for the use of reservoir water for irrigation around the reservoir fringe through lift schemes. This intensifies the population and agriculture around the reservoir fringe. In the long-term, management of the reservoirs and the success in controlling water quality, will greatly depend on how the resettled communities along the reservoir fringe respond to their new responsibilities for the environmental management around the reservoirs. The persons displaced from the reservoir area have also a legal right to re-use their submerged land for agricultural cultivation when the water subsides during the summer months. In the past, when such rights were conceded and given, agriculture was of a traditional type. There was not much use for chemical fertilizers. While the rights for cultivating the submerged land exposed during the low water conditions have continued, there has yet been no regulatory action to abandon the use of chemical fertilizers in the new agricultural activities undertaken on these lands. The result is that the cultivation of the exposed reservoir bed poses a direct threat to the quality of the reservoir water. The Cattle In many studies of the limnology of old and new water bodies in India, carried out in the past 30 years, it has been noticed that the cattle population in the watershed has substantially increased resulting in an increased pollutant load. Cattle fairs organized on the banks of the lakes, as a measure of the rural development campaign, also appear to contribute a sudden pollutant load to the lake. After the 1970s, there has been a spurt in the growth of the dairy industry in the country, with promotional support for rearing cows and buffaloes as supplementary activities of the farm. In addition to the provision for good drinking water for the cattle, facilities are required for the disposal of cattle waste and for preventing the cattle to accesses the water bodies used as a drinking water supply. Buffaloes particularly like to sit and cool themselves, in the summer months, in a pond of water. Formal separate arrangements for this purpose will be necessary if the quality of the lake water is to be properly protected. Employment versus Environmental Degradation One of the new sources of industrial effluents from the rural areas are the sugar mills that are becoming established in an increasing number in the States like Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The sugar mills discharge large quantities of effluents with a foul odour. It has been experienced that where these effluents reach the water bodies or the river, a few days after the beginning of the sugarcane-crushing season, fish kill occurs. The large-scale employment generated in the rural area during the crushing season has placed the sugar mills on a high pedestal of social prestige. The damage and annoyance caused by the effluents from the sugar mills thereby tends to be suppressed or overlooked in the general enthusiasm to support the growth of the mills. In a society where more employment opportunities are in demand and there are little other options for economic improvement, social pressure on the managers of the mills to fulfil their responsibilities towards a cleaner environment is considerably weak. The position is further compounded in the States like Maharashtra, where most of the sugar mills are owned by the farmers themselves through their co-operatives. Their earnings and profits tend to blind their consciousness for a cleaner environment. It has been noticed that the foul odour from the effluents of the sugar mills continues to be tolerated for years by the farmers. However, these farmers would otherwise be agitated and moved the government if the mills were privately owned or managed. Impact of Modernization The earlier traditional bathing ghats and paved access ramps provided along the lakes, continue to be used by the villages for their water needs in lakes, which were not restructured. The result is that the morning dips in water and washing of clothes and utensils in the lakes continues as before, not with the traditional earth or herbal materials for cleaning, but with the use of the newly marketed detergents, which have reached the villages. The old lakes, which did not have problems of eutrophication and bad odour, have now started showing signs of deterioration with the change in the consumption pattern. For example, the Shambhu Lake in the Satara district of Maharashtra State is about 1000 years old. It was built in the 10th Century. The water body was basically created for pilgrims and was established in the name of the God, the "Shambhu Mahadeo", who helped the pure and the clean River Ganges to descend from the Himalayas to the fertile plains of India. The water of the lake, which covers a small area of about 16 ha, was considered for a long time sacred by the residents of the area and by pilgrims. There are not yet industries in the village. Whatever waste is generated, is mostly in the form of domestic sewage from the village area around. The human activities are limited to occasional bathing, clothes washing, and religious offerings. But the use of detergents in the village has changed the nature of the impact of such activities on the quality of the lake water, which is now infested by many macrophytes, particularly during the summer season when the size of the lake shrinks. Legislation and the People There are about 30 major enactments in India, which are directly or indirectly related to pollution control. But some of the legislative provisions have not been in harmony with the people's state of preparedness and capability to respond and get involved. By and large the environmental legislature in India has advanced far too much ahead of the reorientation of the communities to the requirements of the new sanitary regime. While the legislative provision exists, together with the institutional arrangements for monitoring the pollution abatement measures, there is a relaxed approach to the issues associated with the management of water quality. Many times enthusiasm of the legislature and the sudden steps taken by the regulatory governmental mechanisms are misunderstood and the strict anti-pollution measures for the clean up activities are looked upon as "anti developmental" actions. In the newly modernizing societies, such as India, well-organized extensive campaigning, public education programmes, and remobilization of the communities according to the new types of arrangements, must precede the adoption of regulatory measures. This will ensure that the environmental vision of the law-makers is fully shared by the local village community or the town councils. Community Perceptions Unhealthy habits of the unorganized rural population, such as open defecation, still persist, and fecal contamination is a severe problem. Even the remote water bodies, around which some habitation exists, are at times found contaminated with fecal coliform. Therefore the villagers should know the technique of coliform determination in water and decide if the water is suitable for drinking. Recently, such simple test kits that can be easily handled by the villagers have been developed by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute of India and their adoption by the villagers is now being popularized by the voluntary agencies. The habit of using the test kits will continuously focus the attention of the villagers' to the village sanitation system. In addition, it will bring about a change in their attitude to the water they use. Amongst the people, the perceptions about the utility of the lake water are different according to the nature of their relationship with the water. While the lakeshore communities are directly and psychologically involved in the well-being of the water body, the watershed communities do not perceive the impact of their activities on the down stream water body with the same seriousness. At the Sukhana Reservoir, in Maharashtra State, people on the lakeshore have started suffering the painful impacts of unrestricted releases of municipal and industrial effluents into the Sukhana Reservoir. The release caused fish kills and pollution of the drinking water wells around the reservoir through the seeping of toxic water, accumulated along the reservoir's bed. Health care camps have been organized regularly by the medical volunteers in the vicinity to provide relief to the health-affected people. However, there is not an organized social platform for the ten villages, which depend on the quality of Sukhana Reservoir water. Such a social platform would allow them to voice their concerns and to interact collectively with the up stream industrialized city of Aurangabad for developing a better regulation for the watershed. Consequently, there has been no improvement in the situation. Perceptions of the managers of Aurangabad City differ from those of the villages down stream. For developing a shared perception, the related up stream and down stream communities need to be brought together on a common platform in search of a viable solution, as happened at Kasamagura Lake in Japan. Mere administrative or legal provisions alone cannot bring about a homogeneity of approach. The Religious Links Historically, many Indian lakes came to be constructed as a religious act in the worship of and for invoking the blessings of the God, namely "Shiva" (i.e., the pure and the pristine) or the Goddess Laxmi (i.e., the Goddess of wealth). A temple of Lord Shiva or the Goddess Laxmi stands erected on the banks of such a lake. That placed the waters of the lake on a high social and cultural pedestal. The objective of cleanliness was inherently built in to the management concept of the lake's waters, because the water was to be offered to the "God" or received and used as a blessing from the God. Such cultural links with the lakes were encouraged and strengthened in the past. Slowly, the entire materialistic and financial approach to the use of water from the reservoir for revenue earnings of a colonial regime undermined the social and cultural pedestal of the lakes. Even then, nearly 5,000 such small lakes associated with the temples still survive in the State of Tamilnadu. In the Indian religious system, a dip in the flowing river water had been hallowed as a virtuous religious act of worship of the almighty through the initiation of a purification process for both the body and the soul. The symbolic picture of a Rishi, or, a saint having his morning dip in the flowing water and making his pious offering of a handful of water to the Sun God immediately brings to an Indian mind a feeling of deep reverence. However, the rituals, which were probably initially encouraged for a bath in the flowing water, slowly got extended to the confined waters of small lakes. The self-purification capacities of a lake are relatively much poorer compared to those of the flowing water in a river. When a large number of pilgrims assemble and have a bath in the confined lake water, the self-purifying capacity of the lake gets very much over stretched and pollution accumulates. The practice of immersing the idols of the God, such as Ganapati or Durga, which are very popular deities, at the end of their ten-day annual festival in September and October, respectively, brings to the confined waters of the lake large quantities of flowers and food offerings. While such a ritual was occasionally acceptable without much of environmental harm along the coasts of a sea or along the banks of flowing rivers, its extension to the stagnant waters of the lakes or to wells compromises the quality of the water. Volunteers of social associations started to canvass about the detrimental effects of such practices, to persuade the people to confine the ritual of immersion to the idol of the God alone, and to refrain from placing other offerings in the water to avoid harming the water quality. Such campaigns are showing an encouraging response from the people. The change is slow, but positive. In India, lake-studies have a history of almost a century. But most of the studies carried out were with limnological emphasis, concentrating on the bio-limnological aspects and dealt with the interrelationship of the lake biota with the physicochemical characteristics. The sociological factors behind the changing characteristics of the lakes and their watersheds yet remain to be fully investigated. With the growing emphasis on conservation of lakes, the research on the relationship of the lake with the watershed characteristics, including its sociological status has been receiving increased attention. There is scope for much greater work on hydrological, social, economic, and cultural aspects and their integration with the limnological work.
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