top of page

By:

Rajendra Pandharpure

15 April 2025 at 7:55:54 pm

The Drought That Could Send Maharashtra to Pune

A rural water crisis could become an urban challenge as migration, pressure on housing and demand for water converge on an already crowded Pune. Pune: As more than half the state faces drought conditions, Pune is turning into a principal destination for people leaving villages across Maharashtra search of work and a more secure livelihood. While the city has absorbed such waves before, the difference this time is that Pune is already struggling under the weight of its own success. Dramatic...

The Drought That Could Send Maharashtra to Pune

A rural water crisis could become an urban challenge as migration, pressure on housing and demand for water converge on an already crowded Pune. Pune: As more than half the state faces drought conditions, Pune is turning into a principal destination for people leaving villages across Maharashtra search of work and a more secure livelihood. While the city has absorbed such waves before, the difference this time is that Pune is already struggling under the weight of its own success. Dramatic Expansion The Pune of today bears little resemblance to the city that existed four decades ago. The metropolitan region has expanded so dramatically that the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority was created to manage the twin cities of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad along with their rapidly urbanising hinterland. Growth began gathering pace around 1985 and became exponential after 2000. Education, employment and the city’s reputation as a centre for competitive-examination preparation have turned Pune into a magnet for young people from across Maharashtra. But the city’s attraction becomes particularly powerful during a drought. The precedent is the drought of 1972, when large numbers of people from rural Maharashtra arrived in Pune. They settled in places such as Dandekar Bridge, Parvati and Yerwada, often in informal settlements that eventually became established parts of the city. Some of those migrants subsequently entered municipal and state politics, becoming corporators and even MLAs. Their journey illustrates an enduring feature of migration: what begins as an emergency response to rural distress can permanently alter the social and political geography of a city. Pune offered water, open spaces and the prospect of earning a living. Between 1972 and 1974, the municipal corporation and other government agencies were forced to create infrastructure and services to accommodate the influx, at considerable cost. Second Migration The coming migration may be different in composition but no less consequential. An estimated 200,000 to 250,000 students from rural Maharashtra are already living in Pune to prepare for competitive examinations or pursue careers. A large proportion come from farming and agriculture-dependent families. Their rents, food and other expenses are often financed by money sent from their villages. If drought cuts farm incomes, the consequences will travel with the students to Pune. Their ability to pay rent and sustain themselves will weaken precisely when opportunities for low-skilled employment in the city remain limited and wages are often modest. That could create a new kind of urban distress in form of a financially vulnerable population already embedded in the city. Pune also has less room to absorb another large migration than it did in 1972. Its central areas and suburbs are heavily congested, while housing costs have risen sharply. New arrivals are therefore likely to push further beyond the existing urban fringe. That would turn migration into an infrastructure problem: water supply, sanitation, transport, housing and other basic services would have to follow people into areas that are still being urbanised. Water may prove the most immediate pressure point. The state has experienced below-normal rainfall, with the deficit reportedly exceeding 17 percent of the norm in some assessments. Western Maharashtra received substantial rain in July, allowing Pune’s principal reservoirs - Bhama-Askhed, Khadakwasla, Panshet, Varasgaon and Temghar - to reach full capacity. But weaker rainfall around Pune in September has renewed concern among water-resource officials and meteorological experts. Rising temperatures could increase evaporation and household consumption, narrowing the margin available to the city. Pune’s water managers may therefore have to think beyond reservoir levels and prepare for demand created by migration. A rural water crisis, if poorly managed, can become an urban governance crisis.

Selective Outrage

Correspondent
May 9, 2025
2 min read

India’s left-liberal media has long prided itself on being the torchbearer of secularism, dissent and moral rectitude. In the aftermath of ‘Operation Sindoor,’ the precision military strike launched by the Modi government against Pakistan-based terror camps, it has revealed its not a principled commitment to peace or truth, but a disturbing penchant for ideological prejudice, performative sanctimony and selective outrage.


The operation itself was a textbook display of calibrated force and geopolitical prudence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, often caricatured as ‘authoritarian’ by the ‘liberal’ English-language commentariat, chose patience over provocation. He consulted opposition leaders, held detailed discussions with defence chiefs and took key international stakeholders, notably the United States and Russia, into confidence before authorising limited military action. The symbolism of ‘Operation Sindoor’ was also carefully crafted: a pointed reminder that the attack’s real victims were Hindu women widowed by Pakistan-sponsored militants in Kashmir. The government’s briefings were also strategic and symbolic as two ranking female officers, one of them Muslim, were made the public face of the mission, underlining a new Indian confidence that blends military muscle with democratic pluralism.


But this was unacceptable for India’s entrenched ‘left-liberal’ press, steeped in academic jargon, Western validation and a knee-jerk hostility to anything remotely ‘Hindutva.’ That a Muslim officer briefed the nation on ‘Operation Sindoor’ was branded ‘tokenism’ by such commentators. Others crudely alleged that the April 22 Pahalgam massacre was the logical culmination of reported atrocities against Muslims since Modi came to power in 2014.


The semantic nitpicking over ‘Operation Sindoor’ was maddening. An editor of a prominent magazine dubbed the operation’s name as ‘patriarchal’ and coded in Hindutva tropes. In a bizarre case of moral inversion, sindoor was likened to symbols of ‘honour killings’ and gender oppression, ignoring both its cultural resonance and the cruel reality that these women had lost their husbands in cold blood. For years, India’s ‘secular’ commentariat nurtured a preordained binary: the Congress may be flawed but was at least ‘secular’ while the BJP was an inveterate ‘fascist.’ Thus, the 2002 Gujarat riots are always focused upon but the Congress-backed pogrom of the Sikhs in 1984 is either downplayed or rationalised. Terrorism in Kashmir is tragic, but state retaliation is ‘jingoism.’ A strong Muslim voice in government is ‘tokenism’ but its absence is ‘exclusion.’ Even journalistic rigour is selectively applied. When Pakistan claimed to have downed Indian jets, some Indian outlets rushed to amplify the story before verification, inadvertently echoing enemy propaganda.


Dissent is vital in any democracy. But when its becomes indistinguishable from disdain, when editorial choices are dictated by ideological conformity, then the press becomes a caricature of itself. Ironically, many of these journalists enjoy robust free speech and loudly lament India’s supposed slide into ‘fascism’ from the safety of their X handles. Yet they turn a blind eye to Putin’s repression, Erdogan’s purges or Xi Jinping’s camps. In their eyes, Modi remains the greatest threat to democracy even as they broadcast their outrage freely, without fear of censorship or reprisal. ‘Operation Sindoor’ was a statement of cultural self-confidence. That confidence has rattled those who have spent their careers gatekeeping Indian discourse. Today, their monopoly is over. The people are watching and they no longer believe that the emperor has clothes.

Comments

bottom of page