{{short description|Indian environmentalist (born 1959)}} {{about|the Magsaysay Award winner|other people}} {{Use Indian English|date=December 2015}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2015}} {{Infobox person | name = Rajendra Singh | other_names = "Waterman of India" | image = Rajendra_Singh_Large_Image.jpg | image_size = | caption = Rajendra Singh at [[Palakkad]] in April 2017 | birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=y|6 August 1959}} | birth_place = [[Bagpat district|Daula]], [[Uttar Pradesh]], India | death_date = | death_place = | organization = [[Tarun Bharat Sangh]] NGO | known_for = Water-based conservation | occupation = water conservationist | alma_mater = [[Allahabad University]] | footnotes = | website = [http://tarunbharatsangh.in/ tarunbharatsangh.in] }}
'''Rajendra Singh''' (born 6 August 1959) is an Indian [[water conservation]]ist and [[environmentalist]] from [[Alwar district]], [[Rajasthan]] in India. Also known as the "Waterman of India", he won the [[Magsaysay Award]] in 2001 and [[Stockholm Water Prize]] in 2015. He runs an [[NGO]] called '[[Tarun Bharat Sangh]]' (TBS), which was founded in 1975. The NGO based in village hori-Bhikampura in Thanagazi tehsil, near [[Sariska Tiger Reserve]], has been instrumental in fighting the slow bureaucracy, mining lobby and has helped villagers take charge of water management in their [[semi-arid]] area as it lies close to [[Thar Desert]], through the use of [[johad]], rainwater storage tanks, [[check dam]]s and other time-tested as well as path-breaking techniques.
Starting from a single village in 1985, over the years, TBS has helped build over 8,600 johads and other water conservation structures to collect rainwater for the dry seasons, has brought water back to over 1,000 villages, and revived five rivers in Rajasthan, [[Arvari River|Arvari]], Ruparel, Sarsa, Bhagani and [[Jahajwali River|Jahajwali]].<ref name=front/><ref name=tri/><ref name=guar/>
He is one of the members of the [[National Ganga River Basin Authority]] (NGRBA) which was set up in 2009, by the [[Government of India]] as an empowered planning, financing, monitoring and coordinating authority for the [[Ganges]] (Ganga), in exercise of the powers conferred under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.<ref>[https://archive.today/20120710071911/http://moef.nic.in/modules/recent-initiatives/NGRBA/PolicyMaking.html p.2. Composition of the Authority:] [[Ministry of Environment and Forests (India)|Ministry of Environment]].</ref>
==Early life== Rajendra Singh was born at village Daula in [[Bagpat district]] in [[Uttar Pradesh]] near [[Meerut]]. He was the eldest of seven siblings. His father was an agriculturist and looked over their 60 acres of land in the village and where Rajendra did his early schooling.<ref name=bio>{{cite web |title=Biography of Rajendra Singh |url=http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Biography/pdfbio/RajendraSingh.pdf |year=2001 |publisher=[[Magsaysay Award]] website }}</ref>
An important event in his life came in 1974, when he was still in high school, Ramesh Sharma, a member of [[Gandhi Peace Foundation]] visited their family home in Meerut, this opened up young Rajendra's mind, to issues of village improvement, as Sharma went about cleaning the village, opened a ''vachnalaya'' (library) and even got involved in settling local conflicts; soon he involved Rajendra in an alcoholism eradication program.<ref name=bio/> Another important influence was an English language teacher in school, Pratap Singh, who started discussing politics and social issues with his students after class. At this time [[The Emergency (India)|Emergency]] was imposed in 1975, making him aware about the issues of democracy and formulate independent views.<ref name=bio/>
==Career== After completing his studies, he joined government service in 1980, and started his career as a National Service Volunteer for education in [[Jaipur]], from where he was appointed to oversee [[adult education]] schools in [[Dausa district]] in Rajasthan.<ref name=bio/> Meanwhile, he joined ''[[Tarun Bharat Sangh]]a'' (Young India Association) or TBS, an organization formed by officer and students of [[Jaipur University]] to aid victims of a campus fire. Subsequently, after three years when he became General Secretary of the organisation, he questioned the organisation, which had been dabbling with various issues, for its inadequacy in having a substantial impact. Finally in 1984 the entire board resigned leaving the organization to him. One of the first tasks he took up was working with a group of nomad blacksmiths, who though traveled from village to village had little support from anyone. This exposure inspired him to work closely with people. However back at work, he was feeling increasingly frustrated by the apathy of his superiors towards developmental issues and his own inability to have a larger impact, he left his job in 1984. He sold all his household goods for Rs 23,000 and took a bus ticket for the last stop, on boarded bus going into interior of Rajasthan, along with him were four friends from Tarun Bharat Sangha. The last stop turned out to be Kishori village in Thanagazi tehsil in [[Alwar district]], and the day was 2 October 1985. After initial skepticism, the villagers of neighboring village Bhikampura accepted him, and here they found a place to stay. Soon, he started a small Ayurvedic medicine practice in nearby village Gopalpura, while his colleagues went out about promoting education in the villages.<ref name=bio/>
[[File:Rajendra Singh interacting with Teri University Students.JPG|thumb|Rajendra Singh educating the students of [[Teri University]], New Delhi about his projects at Alwar, Rajasthan.]]
Alwar district, which once had a [[grain trade|grain market]], was at the time largely dry and barren, as years of deforestation and mining had led to a dwindling water table, minimal{{Clarify|date=November 2011}} rainfall followed by floods. Another reason was the slow abandoning of traditional water conservation techniques, like building check dams, or [[johad]], instead villagers started relying on "modern" [[Water well#Drilled wells|bore wells]], which simply sucked the groundwater up. But consistent use meant that these bored wells had to be dug deeper and deeper within a few years, pushing underground water table further down each time, till they went dry in ecologically fragile Aravalis. At this point he met a village elder, Mangu Lal Meena, who argued "water was a bigger issue to address in rural Rajasthan than education".<ref name=guar/> He chided him to work with his hands rather than behaving like "educated" city folks who came, studied and then went back; later encouraged him to work on a ''[[johad]]'', earthen check dams, which have been traditionally used to store rainwater and recharge groundwater, a technique which had been abandoned in previous decades. As a result, the area had no ground water since previous five years and was officially declared a "dark zone". Though Rajendra wanted to learn the traditional techniques from local farmers about water conservation, his other city friends were reluctant to work manually and parted ways. Eventually with the help of a few local youths he started de[[silt]]ing the Gopalpura johad, lying neglected after years of disuse. When the [[monsoon]] arrived that year, the johad filled up and soon wells which had been dry for years had water. Villagers pitched in and in the next three years, it made it 15 feet deep.<ref name=bio/><ref name=front/>
Tarun Ashram in Kishori-Bhikampura in Thanagazi tehsil bordering the [[Sariska]] sanctuary, became the headquarters of Tarun Bharat Sangha. He started on his first ''[[padayatra]]'' (walkathon) through the villages of the area in 1986, educating to rebuild villages' old check dams. Yet their bigger success was yet to come, as inspired by the walkathon and success at Gopalpura, 20 km away, in 1986, people of Bhanota-Kolyala village with through ''shramdaan'' (voluntary labour) and with the help of TBS volunteers, constructed a johad at the source of a dried [[Arvari River]], following this villages that lay in its [[Drainage basin|catchment area]], and along it also built tiny earthen dams, with largest being a 244-meter-long and 7-meter-high concrete dam in the Aravalli hills; eventually when the number of dams reached 375, the river started to flow again in 1990, after remaining dry for over 60 years. Yet the battle was far from over, even after constructing johads, the water level in the ponds and lakes around Sariska didn't go up as expected, that it went they discovered that missing water got evaporated from mining pits left unfilled by the miners after their operations in the area. A legal battle ensued, they filed public interest petition in the Supreme Court, which in 1991 banned mining in the Aravallis. Then in May 1992, Ministry of Environment and Forests notification banned mining in the Aravalli hill system all together, and 470 mines operating within the Sariska sanctuary buffer area and periphery were closed. Gradually TBS built 115 earthen and concrete structures within the sanctuary and 600 other structures in the buffer and peripheral zones. The efforts soon paid off, by 1995 Aravri became a [[Perennial stream|perennial]] river.<ref name=front>{{cite web |title=The water man of Rajasthan |url=http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1817/18170810.htm |date=18–31 August 2001 |publisher=[[Frontline (magazine)|Frontline]], Volume 18 - Issue 17 }}</ref><ref name=hindcharles>{{cite news |title=Charles lauds the 'water warriors' |url=http://www.hindu.com/2003/11/03/stories/2003110304091200.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031117155820/http://www.hindu.com/2003/11/03/stories/2003110304091200.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=17 November 2003 |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=3 Nov 2003 }}</ref> The river was awarded the `International River Prize', and in March 2000, then President, K. R. Narayanan visited the area to present the "[[Down To Earth (magazine)|Down to Earth]] — Joseph. C. John Award" to the villagers.<ref name=hindcharles/> In the coming years, rivers like Ruparel, Sarsa, Bhagani and Jahajwali were revived after remaining dry for decades. Abandoned villages in the areas got populated and farming activities could be resumed once again, in hundreds of drought-prone villages in neighbouring districts of Jaipur, Dausa, Sawai Madhopur, Bharatpur and Karauli, where work of TBS gradually spread.<ref name=front/>
By 2001, TBS had spread over an area of 6,500 km<sup>2</sup>, also including parts of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. It had built 4,500 earthen check dams, or ''johads'', to collect rainwater in 850 villages in 11 districts of Rajasthan, and he was awarded the Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in the same year.<ref name=front/> Reforestation has been taken up by numerous village communities, and Gram sabha have been set up especially to look after community resources. A notable example is the ''Bhairondev Lok Vanyajeev Abhyaranya'' (people's sanctuary), spread over 12 km<sup>2</sup> near Bhanota-Kolyala village at the head of Arvari. He has also been organizing ''Pani Pachayat'' or Water Parliament in distant villages in Rajasthan to make people aware of the traditional water conservation wisdom,<ref>{{cite news |title=Unquiet flows the water in this village |url=http://www.hindu.com/2005/04/15/stories/2005041509000500.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050420020125/http://www.hindu.com/2005/04/15/stories/2005041509000500.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=20 April 2005 |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=15 April 2005 }}</ref> the urgency of [[groundwater recharge]] for maintaining underground [[aquifer]]s and advocating community control over natural resources.<ref name=tri>{{cite news |title=Need to raise water level, says Rajendra Singh |url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20061118/cth1.htm |work=[[The Tribune (Chandigarh)|The Tribune]] |date=18 November 2006 }}</ref> In 2005, he was awarded the [[Jamnalal Bajaj Award]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Jamnalal Bajaj Awards Archive |url=http://www.jamnalalbajajfoundation.org/awards/archives/2010 |publisher=[[Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation]]}}</ref>
He also played a pivotal role in stopping the controversial [[Loharinag Pala Hydro Power Project]] over river Bhagirathi, the headstream of the Ganges River in 2006, even as [[G. D. Agrawal]], environmentalist from [[IIT Kanpur]] went on a hunger strike.<ref>{{cite news |title='Waterman' becomes Ganga's saviour|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/Waterman-becomes-Gangas-saviour/articleshow/6493662.cms |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120701133600/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-09-05/lucknow/28251496_1_ganga-action-plan-gangasagar-hunger-strike |url-status=live |archive-date=1 July 2012 |work=[[The Times of India]] |date=5 September 2010 }}</ref>
In 2009, he led a ''pada [[yatra]]'' (walkathon), a march of a group of environmentalists and NGOs, through [[Mumbai]] city along the endangered [[Mithi River]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Waterman of India plans a river parliament to revive the Mithi |url=http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/waterman-of-india-plans-a-river-parliament-to-revive-the-mithi/409452/ |publisher=[[Indian Express]] |date=12 January 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120906172146/http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/waterman-of-india-plans-a-river-parliament-to-revive-the-mithi/409452/ |archive-date=6 September 2012 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> On Jan 2014, he did a parikrama along the banks of Godavari River, from Trimbakeshwar to Paithan to urge people to make the river pollution free. Recently he gave lecture on water and its conservation and values of water at Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Mumbai.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://epaper3.esakal.com/15Jan2014/Normal/Nashik/page4.htm|title=Godavari Parikrama|date=14 January 2014|archive-date=16 January 2014|access-date=16 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140116195545/http://epaper3.esakal.com/15Jan2014/Normal/Nashik/page4.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==Awards and honours== * In 2001, Ramon [[Magsaysay Award]] for community leadership in 2001 for his pioneering work in [[Community-based conservation|community-based]] efforts in [[water harvesting]] and [[water management]].<ref name=rma>{{cite web|title=Singh, Rajendra|url=https://rmaward.asia/rmawardees/singh-rajendra/|publisher=The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation|access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref> * In 2005, ''Jamnalal Bajaj Award'' for Application of Science and Technology for Rural Development.<ref>{{cite web|title=Shri Rajendra Singh|url=http://www.jamnalalbajajfoundation.org/awards/archives/2005/science-and-technology/rajendra-singh|publisher=Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation|access-date=26 February 2018}}</ref> * In 2008, ''[[The Guardian]]'' named him amongst its list of "50 people who could save the planet".<ref name=guar>{{cite news |title=50 people who could save the planet |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jan/05/activists.ethicalliving |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=5 January 2008 }}</ref> * In 2015, he won the [[Stockholm Water Prize]], an award known as "the Nobel Prize for water".<ref>{{cite web|title=Rajendra Singh - The water man of India wins 2015 Stockholm Water Prize.|url=http://www.siwi.org/prizes/stockholmwaterprize/laureates/2015-2/|website=SIWI|publisher=Stockholm International Water Institute|access-date=26 February 2018}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{commons category|Rajendra Singh}} * {{cite web |title=The Rediff Interview/ Magsaysay Award winner Rajendra Singh |url=http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/aug/15inter.htm |date=15 August 2001 |work= [[Rediff.com]]}} * [http://www.tarunbharatsangh.in/about/rs.htm Rajendra Singh, Profile]{{Dead link|date=July 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} at [[Tarun Bharat Sangh]] * [http://www.ecoindia.com/education/water-man-of-rajasathan.html Water man of Rajasthan] * [https://michkashala.blogspot.com/2020/01/rajendra-singh-waterman-of-india.html Rajendra-singh-waterman-of-india] ;Interviews * [http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/09/why-gandhi-of-water-rajendra-singh-is-walking-the-length-of-the-ganges-river.php Why "Gandhi of Water" Rajendra Singh Is Traveling the Length of the Ganges River] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111030220603/http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/09/why-gandhi-of-water-rajendra-singh-is-walking-the-length-of-the-ganges-river.php |date=30 October 2011 }} at [[TreeHugger]] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110716205134/http://www.sanctuaryasia.com/interviews/rajsingh.php An Interview with Rajendra Singh] * Hindi-language 15-minute video interview with Rajendra Singh on the [[Ganga Action Plan]]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS80mRwvxDQ part 1], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKbO1UMB6LE part 2]
{{RMA winners of India}} {{Ramon Magsaysay Award Winners}} {{Jamnalal Bajaj Award winners}} {{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Singh, Rajendra}} [[Category:Activists from Rajasthan]] [[Category:Rajasthani people]] [[Category:1959 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:People from Bagpat district]] [[Category:University of Allahabad alumni]] [[Category:Indian conservationists]] [[Category:Water conservation in India]] [[Category:Ramon Magsaysay Award winners]] [[Category:People from Alwar district]] [[Category:Educators from Rajasthan]] [[Category:20th-century Indian educational theorists]] [[Category:21st-century Indian educational theorists]]