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Interviews | KJ Joy, Senior Fellow of Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), interviewed by Priya Desai (India Water Portal)
KJ Joy, Senior Fellow of Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), interviewed by Priya Desai (India Water Portal)

KJ Joy, Senior Fellow of Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), interviewed by Priya Desai (India Water Portal)

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published Published on Nov 1, 2019   modified Modified on Nov 1, 2019
-IndiaWaterPortal.org

In this interview, Joy talks about his work as an activist working in rural Maharashtra, and how he came to work on water conflicts in India.

To many in the water sector, K. J. Joy needs no introduction. An activist at heart, Joy is known for his untiring rights based work in mobilising communities in rural Maharashtra, and for his research work on water and water related conflicts including inter-state riparian water conflicts.

In a conversation at the Water Future Conference in Bangalore last month, he talked about his journey - from where it all began, to where we stand today, three decades later.

As the water crisis in India and across the world continues to grow, and as equity in access to safe water becomes more and more critical, it is important to keep in mind some basic values that underpin the work that needs to be done. Joy personifies these values, and it is people like him that inspire others to work on these complex issues. We must constantly strive to emulate these values, if we are to ever achieve water security for all in India.

It is also important to remember that working together with local communities, empowering and enabling them to demand for what is rightfully theirs, to take ownership of their water resources so they become self reliant, is still, even today, a powerful tool and process to achieve sustainable social change at the grassroot level. While this work takes time and patience and perseverance, it is critical that we remember the roots of social change in this country - where and how it all started - and always endeavour to stay true to these roots.

* How did you start working on water issues?

I got into water issues mainly because after my Master's from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, I was at a crossroads with what to do with my life. That was the time that me and my friend, who became my wife later - we decided to go and work in rural Maharashtra. So we ended up in Sangli district, which is a very highly drought prone region. While working there, we also realised that more than land (because most people there did own some land), the main constraint was access to water. It was also an area where lots of migration was taking place, to cities, especially to Mumbai, and this also coincided with a very prolonged textile worker's strike in the early 80s. All these workers had come back to their villages, and so we started mobilising the workers. All of them began working under the employment guarantee scheme, which was a legal act in Maharashtra (even at that time) to provide employment to people during periods of drought.

We soon realised that an employment guarantee scheme could not be a permanent solution to drought or drought proofing. We did try to change the character of the employment guarantee scheme, saying that for instance, all works taken up under EGS should be agriculturally productive or water-related works like water conservation and the like. We involved the people from the villages in finding the sites where the work could be done. We worked with the people to come up with a people's agenda. We mobilised people to get these things implemented, as a strategy to mitigate drought in the region.

That led us to the whole question of water. We realised that people should at least get some minimum access to water, without which it was [evidently] very difficult to eke out a living. So we tried to look at 3 small rivers there where heavy sand mining was taking place, which spurred a people's movement against the sand mining in these rivers.
 

India Water Portal, 21 October, 2019, please click here to read the entire interview.
 
Image Courtesy: India Water Portal

India Water Portal, 21 October, 2019, https://www.indiawaterportal.org/articles/conversation-k-j-joy-soppecom?fbclid=IwAR1OcHKDl8TjnKMSpT-oWk-Kwfkc86lfhWsDIe6hRg6xU5XL2V9enaX8PXc


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