Lakshman Rekha

With climate change knocking at our doors, we seek people who can change the script.

A school dropout in Lapodia – a nondescript Rajasthan village – Laxman Singh seems an unlikely hero.

Inspired by Manoj Kumar in ‘Roti, Kapda aur Makaan‘, Laxman quit school- to study why farmers migrated as cheap labour – forsaking their parched fields. 

He saw what was always in plain sight: Water – or the lack of it.

With five villagers, he set out to repair the village pond. Word spread like the desert wind. Soon, hundreds of villagers joined hands.

Three new ponds in three years recharged the dry wells. Then they set their sight on digging a canal.

Laxman devised a way to slow the rainwater drain-off, digging a chequerboard of shallow ditches. In a few years, Lapodia wore many shades of green.

Laxman Singh’s unorthodox ideas created an oasis in the desert, and a voluntary force of villagers that changed the destiny of 58 neighbouring villages.

When he received awards and international recognition, the once-hostile government replicated the Lapodia model in 700 villages.

Anticlimax. 

Piped water reached Lapodia in 2015,  flushing ponds out of people’s consciousness. MNREGS dented the tradition of voluntary labour for collective good.

 In 2017, after 3 successive droughts, dry taps made people realise that survival depends on local water bodies – not on distant dams. 

The circle – and the irony – is complete.