Lava ka Baas: The blame game
WHEN one contests the dominant, it is of utmost importance that all actions and their outcome be above doubt. There isn't the faintest margin of error. There cannot be misfortune. The villages of Alwar district have known this for a long time. For about two decades now, they have got help from Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), a voluntary group. TBS learnt in its salad days in the villages that the region had a rich tradition of building earthen check-dams called johads to harvest rainwater. So TBS mobilised and supported village communities, identified skilled (but unrecognised) johad engineers and nurtured them. The result, as has now been widely studied and appreciated, was an economic miracle that transformed the region.
But from the very beginning, TBS associates encountered only hostility from government agencies. The Indian government likes only high-input solutions beyond villagers' means. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the case of the johad built at village Lava-ka-Baas in 2001.
The state irrigation department declared the structure unsafe and illegal, passing orders for its demolition. It took a team of eminent people and an engineering professor