The Forgotten Waters of Sanchi PDF

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The forgotten waters of Sanchi

Come monsoon, and archaeologists will be testing the revival of an Ancient water
harvesting system in this historic Buddhist town
(https://www.downtoearth.org
By Rita Anand (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/author/rita-anand-1208)
Last Updated: Sunday 07 June 2015
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The forgotten waters of Sanchi
LORD Varuna be pleased! May the
rains come... Officials of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) are

waiting with bated breath in the revered town of Sanchi in Madhya
Pradesh. For the 1st time in history they have attempted to restore an
ancient rainfed water harvesting system atop the Sanchi hill. A
bountiful monsoon may just spell the rebirth of a long forgotten
tradition.
But the spinoffs of this venture are just beginning to dawn on the
archaeologists. The effort has been totally technocratic and the local
people have been left out so far. This is likely to create ten - sion
between the Asi and villagers.
Sanchi lies 45 km northeast of Bhopal. Its 91 metre (m) hillock is

crowned with 50 monuments consisting of stupas, monasteries,
pillars and temples. The Maurya Emperor Asoka founded this
religious town in the 3rd century BC. The relics of Buddha and his
closest disciples, Sariputasa and Maha Mogalanasa are believed to lie

here. Inscriptions on a stone casket commemorate 10 Buddhist
teachers, and 4 richly carved gateways depict the Buddhist Jataka5,
  affording
 aglimpse
 of the Buddha's noble life. In 1992, Sanchi was
recognised as a World Heritage site by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),
because of its special significance to Buddhism.
Water cosmology But the Sanchi hill also has another significance.
"The entire hill is a celebration of water cosmology," says Kalyan
Chakravarty, historian and director of the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya
Manav Sangrahalaya, Bhopal. "Sanchi's environment is related to
water. The sculptures of the Jatakas reflect lush vegetation, flowers,
yak5his, tall plants and an inverted tree symbolic of the Buddha's
body: the cycle of rebirth and the rotary cycle of water are
interrelated."
There are 3 ancient tanks on Sanchi hill dating back to 3rd century NEXT COVERAGE ❯
BC. One tank is high on the hill and the other 2 are situated downhill,
half a kilometre away. The slopes of the hill once formed a natural
catchment area. Rain gullies and drains collected water, and from 1
tank it flowed into the next. The western side of the hill was dotted
with monasteries and the monks used this water for domestic
purposes. People lived down in the valley on the eastern side of the
hill.
The area was lush with vegetation. Two krn froffi the hill flowed the
Betwa river which,joined up with Bhopal's tanks. The river, the 3
tanks and the once thice forest formed part of an integrated water
regime. About 2 km downstream an ancient barrage of the same
period has been unearthed by archaeologists, who now wonder
whether restoring it would help increase the water table.
Today Sanchi hill, with its famed monuments has no forest cover. The
Betwa river has been reduced to a stream. In 1992 R C Agarwal,
superintending archaeologist of the ASI, Bhopal circle, realised that
conserving the monuments would be easier if the hill had some trees.
But the lack of water made it impossible. All the ASI possessed were 3
forgotten ancient tanks. "We decided to renovate the tanks and
restore the oldstyle water harvesting system. As archaeologists we

knew the techniques of ancient water harvesting systems," says
Agarwal.
     
The ASi approached UNESCO, then the Japanese government
earmarked Rs 1.5 crores in January 1994 to fund the project which
included tank restoration, documentation and conservation. Says
Agarwal, "We plan to recreate the environment of 2nd century BC.
Period trees such as girni, neem and peepal are going to be planted.
And the lotus flower will be given pride of place in the tank."
About Rs 5 lakh has been spent so far on tank restoration. The tanks
were formed-by scooping out rocks. Work began 6 months ago. The
geometrical details of the structures and terrestrial photography were
conducted by the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing in Dehradun.
The tanks were measured along with the silt. The 1st tank is 32 in in
length and 13 in in breadth. Siltage here was as high as 2.80 in. The NEXT COVERAGE ❯
2nd tank measures 27 by 24 in. Here, the siltage was about 3.15 in.
Archaeologists have identified cracks in the rocks and blocked these

to prevent seepage of rain water. The catchment area was rebuilt with
brick reinforced with mortar and limestone. A storm drain at the
surface of the catchment area will act as a filter, preventing silt and
refuse from getting into the tank. A spillover drain will drain off
excess water and help it seep into the forest. The silt has been
removed. Old rain gullies atop the hill have also been identified and
channelised into the tank.
The Ist tank now awaits the monsoon. Once the tanks are renovated,
Agarwal hopes they will provide about 2.27 million litres of water in
all. And this water will be used to green Sanchi's hill.
Crucial issues
But Agarwal's efforts, however laudable, have already run into a spot
of trouble. The 3rd tank downhill, called Kanak Sagar, lies close to a
village and women have been using it as a toilet. R Srivastava, a
cartographist, was shooed away by the women when he attempted to
survey the tank. Restoration of this tank has now been taken up by
the Environmental Protection and Coordination Organisation

(EPCO), a government organisation.
  Agarwal
 iskeenthata buffer
zone consisting of a forest area should
be maintained between the monuments and the village. But there are
whispers about tension prevailing over the imperilled grazing rights
on the remaining patches of green.
ASI's archaeologists are completely at sea. These are issues which

they have obviously not been prepared for and it is betrayed by their
confused logic. One is piously told about how entry fees will remain
at a measly 50 paise to invite local people in. And in the same breath
archaeologists speak of erecting a costly fence around the hill to keep
people out.
At the same tinw involvement of local people is sought to be achieved
by organising "cultural awareness programmes" on the World NEXT COVERAGE ❯
Heritage Day. This year schoolchildren were galvanised into action.

An es ,ay competition on how people can help conserve Indian
cultural heritage was organised. Interestingly, most participants
wrote that monuments should be a common property resource shared
by the government and the local community.
Agarwal agrees, "The government cannot do everything." But he is

dismissive of sharing resources. "The Sanchi Development Authority
charges entry fee from all tourists, but does not use it for any
developmental work," he claims. Avani Vaish, secretary, ministry of
environment and forests and director of EPCO says they hope to
develop a souvenir industry to rope in the local people, but obviously
this is just a sop. "Anyway, lets have a little action first," he sighs.
Admits an insider at EPCO, 11 Eventually, tank restoration'must

satisfy its users." But the users in his list of priorities are the trees,
the birds and, lastly, the local community which needs water for
domestic purposes. Says Chakravarty, "In the past there were certain
classes of people such as the agrahans (artisans and potters) who
maintained the tanks and monuments. That category of people no
longer exist. The government needs to recreate a class of people
rooted in the community who would fulfill this role. Fencing is

improper."
  But
 is it atall feasible
  for the ASI to restore an ancient water
harvesting system? ASI insiders expressed doubts over the success of
the project. "Certainly, restoring the kind of water harvesting systems
which were created in the past is going to tax modern engineering
skills," says Chakravarty. "Past engineers based their design skills on
an intricate survey of the environment. But the environment itself
has undergone a total transformation."
Bhopal's taals (tanks) were connected to the Betwa river and the town
had a courtyard culture, with each home having its own well. A
symbiosis existed between the wells and the tank. Today, Ve tanks in
the city are virtually dead. One has been reclaimed for erecting a
building. Bhopal city now gets water for only half an hour during the
peak 'summer. NEXT COVERAGE ❯
Sanchi is really part of a much larger historical landscape," says

Chakravarty. "These 27 hills form part of a continuous chain,
consisting of 700 painted rock shelters littered with historic sites and
excavations, a common biosphere, soils, plants and an interflow of
energy. What we need eventually is not Japanese money but the
indigenous knowledge of geology, so that water lines can be
recollected and old water bodies can be identified."
More benefits can be achieved by restoring a traditional water

harvesting system than by investment in big dams, points out
Chakravarty. ASI's archaeologists need to rope in local people and tap
indigenous knowledge. Its efforts might be showered with success if
it goes further and looks ambitiously at a larger historical canvas and
attempts to use past engineering skills to solve the state's present
water crisis.
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Greens scream blue murder

Environmentalists and Democrats in America gear up to tackle the Republican
"onslaught" on landmark protection laws
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

By Sumita Dasgupta (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/author/sumita-dasgupta-655)
Last Updated: Sunday 07 June 2015
    blue
Greens scream murder
AMERICAN greens are seeing red. April 22 this
year, the 25th anniversary of Earth Day, saw them bludgeoning the
Republicans with slogans and protests. America's environmentalists,
so far one of the most influential pressure groups in the country,
have never felt so betrayed before. Congress' attempts to "remodel"
NEXT COVERAGE ❯
the major environmental laws not only rattled their agenda, but
showed them that the mass base they had taken for granted could
vapourise - with a little help ftom Republican rabblerousing.
The proposal to "overhaul" the 1972 Clean Water Act has especially
agitated environmentalists. On April 7, the House Committee on
Transportation and Public Works put its stamp of approval on a bill
proposing sweeping revisions to this landmark law, which was
enacted to protect the "chemical, physical and biological integrity of
the nation's waters".
The bill, an adroit pro-corporate turnaround from its original

unbending environmental purpose, will bar federal regulators from
imposing new restrictions on waste discharges from industrial plants
into lakes or streams if the costs outweigh the benefits. What
environmentalists find most disturbing is the clause which seeks to
drastically narrow down the definition of which wetlands need
federal protection.
The new definition is expected to end federal jurisdiction over at

least half the regulated wetlands by "devolving" regulatory
responsibilities from the federal to the state and local governments.

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Washington will
not be able to dictate to the states and localities as they have been
  doing
 in the
 past,-
 exuded
 Bud Shuster, chairperson of the House
Committee.
Shuster is hankering for "commonsense" to be brought into the state's

approach to environmental protection. "Overzealous wetlands
regulations turn every mud puddle into a wetland. For example, the
Morris Town (New Jersey) airport was not allowed to cut down a tree
blocking the runway view of the control tower because the tree was
supposedly in a wetland," raged Shuster's spitfire open letter in the
New York Times.
The farm and land promoters lobbies applauded him. They have a
history of griping about the "complex technical" standards used to
determine. whether property may be developed, and about these NEXT COVERAGE ❯
standards being applied to wetlands that serve "little ecological

purpose".
The conservationists are screaming blue murder. They retort that the
House Committee's definition is a "political contrivance" that leaves
the lands vulnerable to attacks from Ivoracious land sharks. Shuster,
they have alleged, has "sold" inillions of acres of valuable wttlands to
real estate devel- opers atid oil companies. As evidence, they point to
the fact that to draft this crucial bill, he roped in industry's lawyers.
In a stinging retort to the Congfessman's open letter, David Ortman,

director of the frontrunning environmental NGo, Friends of the
Earth, said, "The Clean Water Act does not regulate the cutting of
trees, whether in a wetland or not ... and Mr Shuster's 'mud puddle' is
actually a significant wetland of 75 acres (about 30 hectares)."
Logic with potholes Shuster's action has also come as a bolt from the
blue for the scientist community. A panel of experts convened by the
National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the nation's pre-eminent
scientific advisory group, is almost ready to present the results of a 2-
year-long wetlands study requested by Congress. The purpose of this
exercise was to identify the percentage of the earmarked lands -

ranging from prairie potholes to huge tidal estuaries - that is trulv
worth oreservinp- Srientict, are appalled that the House could not
  stall
 the issue
 at least
 till the NAS's report was made public. Their
point was that there can be no doubt whatsoever on the importance
of protecting and preserving these waterbodies which provide habitat
for wildlife, filter polluted water and absorb floodwaters.
"Basically, the science is very complex and the legislation is very

simplistic," said Joy B Zedler, a wetlands biologist at San Diego State
University and a member on the NAS panel. The proposed law seeks
to classify the wetlands under different categories on the basis of
their water levels and the kinds of plant and animal species they
house, with the entire exercise aimed at pruning federal protection to
the maximum extent possible. Scientists contend that it is almost
impossible to rank wetlands in order of relative ecological value as
their conditions vary seasonally and regionally. NEXT COVERAGE ❯
The loudest protests have come from the EPA authorities, seething
with resentment at this brazen attempt to shove them into the
backseat. "It is a programme of counterfeit wetlands protection,"
raged Robert Perciasepe, top-rung water quality EPA official. "The bill
proposes scientifically unsound methods of identifying wetlands that
the Association of State Wetlands Managers estimates would
eliminate some 60 to 80 per cent of the nation's wetlands from
regulatory protection, including large parts of the Everglades and the
Great Dismal Swamp."
Faded olive
As if this were not enough, another Republican'Scud is heading dead-
on at the bastion of environmental ideology, the Endangered Species
Act. The act allows federal authorities to prevent loggers and private
property owners from foraying into forest areas that are known as
habitats for rare animal and bird species.
Further, any species to be declared endangered will have to run the

gauntlet of a new bill requiring a vote of the legislature, initiated by
Republican Senator Slade Gorton. The bill will also force the
government to compensate landowners whose property values

decline due the enforcement of the act. In other words, federal
officials will have to lobby and clear their way through bureaucratic
  brushwood
 to put
 a species
on the endangered list.
At least on this issue, the Republicans appear to be carrying the

public with them. The Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973
primarily to protect animals threatened with extinction. But over the
years, it has degenerated into a captive tool for the federal regulation
of private land use. It has been branded as the main catalyst of a
nationwide property rights movement, apparently fed by the peoples'
growing aversion to the "excesses of environmentalism't.
"To suggest that progress ought to be held up because of various

exotic creatures, violates common sense," says Lew Uhler,
chairperson of the kight-wing national coalition named - truculently
- Get Government Off Our Backs. "Intelligent people cannot believe NEXT COVERAGE ❯
that a salamander or a kangaroo rat is as important as their families
or their livelihoods," he says.
The Republicans have reason to chortle. Congress has cashed in on

the growing public disillusionment of all things environmental. This
is the flip side of what is seen as shrill, autocratic environmental
overkill, even by pro-environment politicians like Democrat
Congressman Tom Hayden. "it (the environmental movement) needs
immediate and dramatic renewal," he says.
Greenwatchers are convinced that it is time that the electorate is

introduced to effective and affordable conservation programmes,
which should not be allowed to be scuttled at the whims of politicians
driven by corporate interests. The frightening possibility is of the
antienvironmentalist lobby getting away with proposals to clobber
those environmental programmes that voters believe - often
mistakenly - do not work anyway.
Green activists have also got the message loud and clear. Mark
Murray, head of the pro-recycling group, California Against Waste, is
trying out a new strategy to hardsell the pro-green bills he is pushing

this year. Instead of emphasising litter reduction and the Bill other
ecological benefits of recycling, he is talking about creating jobs and
increasing efficiency. "For too long, it was easy to persuade our
  audience
 that
 environmental
  protection was simply the right thing to
do. We're paying for that now," he rues.
But now environmentalists seem to be all set to make up for lost

time. On Earth Day, various groups launched a "Save the Planet"
campaign by circulating a petition demanding that Congress
maintain the standards set by the landmark environmental
statutes."The environmental community is galvanised like never
before," enthused Fred Krupp, executive director of the NGO, the
Environmental Defense Fu@d. "We are prepared to go all out to
preserve the strong environmental legacy we've worked hard to
build."
I Behind such seemingly anachronistic, optimism is the fact that theNEXT COVERAGE ❯
Clinton Administration is unequivocally in their camp, even though
Congress is hellbent on sidelining them. For a while earlier,
environmental groups were left guessing about whether the
go0ernment - beleaguered by allegations of political wimpishness -
would take the easy way out and dump them. While vice-president Al
Gore had been spewing venom at the "marauding" Republicans right
from the outset, President Clinton himself had preferred to waffle.
Fortunately, Earth Day saw him barge out explicitly, threatening to

launch offensives against Congress if it carried on with its efforts to
"erase 2 decades of environmental gains". Clinton orated in the third
person, "The President will vote ... and the President will vote no.
Americans have stood as one to say no to toxic food, poisoned water
and dirty air ... It would be crazy to forget the lessons of the last 25
years." For the 300-odd crowd that gathered at a Chesapeake Bay
water- front park in Maryland, Washington, this was a declaration
ofwar, belated but welcome.
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The forgotten waters of Sanchi

LORD Varuna be pleased! May the

rains come... Ofﬁcials of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) are

Sanchi lies 45 km northeast of Bhopal. Its 91 metre (m) hillock is

Archaeologists have identiﬁed cracks in the rocks and blocked these

ASI's archaeologists are completely at sea. These are issues which

Heritage Day. This year schoolchildren were galvanised into action.

Agarwal agrees, "The government cannot do everything." But he is

Admits an insider at EPCO, 11 Eventually, tank restoration'must

Sanchi is really part of a much larger historical landscape," says

More beneﬁts can be achieved by restoring a traditional water

Madhya Pradesh (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/tag/madhya-pradesh)

Special Report (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/tag/special-report)

Special Report (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/tag/special-report)

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Greens scream blue murder

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AMERICAN greens are seeing red. April 22 this

The bill, an adroit pro-corporate turnaround from its original

The new deﬁnition is expected to end federal jurisdiction over at

Shuster is hankering for "commonsense" to be brought into the state's

standards being applied to wetlands that serve "little ecological

In a stinging retort to the Congfessman's open letter, David Ortman,

"Basically, the science is very complex and the legislation is very

Further, any species to be declared endangered will have to run the

At least on this issue, the Republicans appear to be carrying the

"To suggest that progress ought to be held up because of various

The Republicans have reason to chortle. Congress has cashed in on

Greenwatchers are convinced that it is time that the electorate is

But now environmentalists seem to be all set to make up for lost

Fortunately, Earth Day saw him barge out explicitly, threatening to

Special Report (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/tag/special-report)

Special Report (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/tag/special-report)

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