By Dr Indira Khurana*
Excerpted from the book Climate Resilient Socioeconomic Growth through Water Conservation: Evidence, Implications. Livelihood, Green GDP, Circular Economy: Villages in the Chambal region, by Indira Khurana, PhD. This book brings a message of hope from the Chambal villages of Rajasthan to the world – A message of climate-resilient green growth that is decentralised, equitable, regenerative and sustainable.
The Chambal Badlands (ravines or behads) are one of the most extensive and striking badlands in the world, with dramatic natural rugged beauty and landscape. Here one can see nature’s creative ability at its peak, a landscape so spectacular, yet so difficult for humans to handle and survive with dignity. This special geographical and cultural region in north-central India, occupies an area of 4,989 sq km, lying along the Chambal and Yamuna river valleys, in south-eastern Rajasthan, southwestern Uttar Pradesh (UP) and northern Madhya Pradesh (MP), and covers the districts of Baran, Kot, Sawai Madhopur, Karauli and Dholpur in Rajasthan, parts of Agra, Firozabad, Etawah, Auriya and Jalaun districts in UP and Bhind, Morena and Sheopur districts in MP. This region got its name because of the poor soil and lack of vegetation and is well known for the ravines and dacoits that were active here.
Understanding origins of the ravines
In addition to the rivers such as the Ganga and Yamuna that are fed by glaciers and emerge from the mountains, the alluvial Himalayan foreland is also fed by rivers originating in the Indian craton (continental crust formed in early earth history) on the high northern flanks of the Narmada rift zone. The Chambal is the largest of these cratonic rivers flowing over the Deccan Basalts and Proterozoic Vindhyan strata, contributing significant amount of sediment to the foreland basin.
The Chambal river behads is a late Pleistocene-Holocene degradational landscape, recognised by the closely spaced dendritic network of gullies. Rivers and their associated floodplains go through aggradational and degradational phases. In an aggradational phase the river is carrying a large sediment load and flooding results in deposition of this sediment in the flood affected areas. This periodic deposition builds up or aggrades the floodplain. Conditions may change. For example, during longer wet periods and increased rain intensity river discharge increases. Sediment is not deposited locally but is carried out of the system to the sea. In these conditions rivers incise or cut into their own deposits. The river channel becomes situated in a deep valley detached from its floodplain. Starved of sediment, the floodplain degrades as erosion along the main channel and smaller streams cuts gully and ravines, forming badlands.
Also read: The Chambal Civilisation-1: The curse of Draupadi
Although the badlands of Central and Western India have largely developed in response to natural drivers, namely neotectonics and Holocene climate change, land cover changes have possibly had exacerbating effects, furthering land degradation.
The Central Indian badlands are the root cause of the poor socio-economic status of the region. From forcing abandonment of entire villages, hampering agricultural productivity, causing water scarcity to providing refuge to criminal gangs, they have affected the communities of the region in many ways. While reclamation of the badlands is one of the policy priorities of independent India, the need for geo-conservation of these lands as geoheritage/geodiversity sites and should thus be protected also holds relevance.
These badlands have detrimental effects on environment and society: The landscape is so intensively gullied and fragmented that the distribution of villages is governed by the spatial extent of the badlands. The growth of large cities such as Agra have been dictated by the badlands, and many roads in the region have been built to avoid the badlands belt. Their encroachment has forced abandonment and relocation of numerous villages in Central India, besides crippling agricultural productivity, causing water scarcity and droughts due to dwindling groundwater level and being the reason for the poor socio-economic status of the region. All these factors contributed to a total breakdown of law and order, with gangs gaining a strong foothold in the region in the 1970s. These vast badlands provided perfect hideouts for such outlaws and the fact that the region lies at the intersection of three states (namely, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) made it a safe haven for them. Although this threat has now been eliminated, the socio- economic problems related to the badlands persist to this day.
To continue…
*Indira Khurana, PhD is Chief Advisor of Tarun Bharat Sangh, an NGO working since 1975 towards climate change mitigation and adaptation by promoting water conservation, sustainable agriculture and rural development in the arid and semi-arid regions of India.
