India, Where Drinking Water is Only for the Rich

As far as I know, water was declared a Basic Human Right by the UN, and so it should be, because no living thing can survive without water, but in India, which is run according to caste, and where if you are of a lower caste you are considered as being unworthy, a woman was recently banned from collecting water from the village well.

Sangita Tajne, from Kolambeshwar, India, was told by the village well-owner that she could not collect water from the well because she is poor and at the bottom of the caste system as Dalits. For any sane human being, this is an atrocity, insulting and cruel, but this type of thing unfortunately happens more often than one would think.

How can anyone refuse somebody water “because they are poor” is beyond me – where is the humanity? How can we continue living in our lovely first-world countries where we can get as much water as we want whenever we want when there are women being treated this way and children and old people dying because they do not have access to the most basic of human rights?

Bapurao Tajne, Sangita’s husband, felt the same way. Mr Tajne said that he felt that the well owner had insulted them because they are poor and Dalits. This did not sit well with him, and he said that when he found out how his wife had been insulted he almost cried. He resolved there and there to never have to beg anyone for water again.

This labourer, who had never in his life before dug a well, decided to do just that for his wife so that she would never be insulted in that way again.

Mr Tajne went to the closest town, Malegaon within the hour and purchased all the tools that he thought he would need to dig a well. He picked the site at random and says, “I prayed fervently to God before starting the job. I am thankful that my effort has been rewarded.”