20/02/2026
My Friend Somnath wrote this from Kiul River Upper catchment, where IRBMS members are working to revive it as a partner. The letter is so encouraging.
Dear All,
Here is a quickly written account ...unedited and raw ...
Upper
Kiul2025-2026.jpg
It has been 6 years since we started working in this area of Giridih district in Jharkhand as part of the Community Watershed Restoration with our grassroots partner Savera and technical partner IRBMS. It is a heavily ecologically degraded area which also means broken agriculture, massive out-migration and diseases - a very high prevalence of TB.
After a few years of working in a few micro-watersheds, the watershed team along with the partners decided to take on a goal we thought would be beyond reach, but something that would challenge and yet inspire. The goal was to expand 10 times out of the area under restoration and try and bring back a perennial flow to the Kiul river which drains a total catchment area of 220 square kilometers and flows for a length of 60 kilometers. Wow! Maybe we were kidding ourselves:)
Or maybe not! Continuous intense work alongside the people in the 75 villages of Kiul catchment, our ground partners, technical partners has made room for real hope! There is a steady flow in river Kiul today. Up until last year Kiul went dry by this time. You can see the two pictures side by side taken on Feb 14th, 2025 and Feb 15th, 2026. The flow today is continuous and appreciable.
Does it mean we have reached where we wanted to go? Probably not! Because a lot remains to be done. Reviving the perennial flow in Kiul is an outcome of the effort to revive hundreds of small streams that feed Kiul, building hundreds of small structures to slow down the run off and let it recharge the groundwater, planting thousands of trees and seeds in an effort to bring back the forest. Only as an outcome of all of this would Kiul flow. Nature wouldn't have it any other way, and we shouldn't either.
It wasn't just soil and water conservation structures that has helped build the flow, but hundreds of discussions in the villages, analysis, street theaters, Naresh bhai singing songs of hope, renewal and overcoming adversity, of building a new society free of oppression! It was hundreds of hours of volunteer efforts, understanding, explaining, writing, planning, raising funds ...and so much more. But above all, it was the hands and the will of the very same people who hold India on their shoulders, that built the structures, planted the trees and harvested the second crop.
A river isn't just water flowing over land - it is the thirst of the animals around it, the songs and festivals of the people, births and deaths, the sound of its gentle gurgle to the monsoon roars that makes life possible here and across the earth. It is the symphony of the swaying yellow mustard fields and the wheat stalks, that had all but vanished till now. Visible and invisible forms of life that dig micro tunnels in the soil, pollinate flowers, the orchestra of cowbells that fill the valley that stop suddenly as they pause to drink from the flowing streams.
This gives us all a lot of hope, strength and makes us humble. While a lot remains to be done, this also means that working intensely, flexibly yet persistently, not being afraid of failures, and by constantly keeping the people in the center, things can change for the better. Every step of the way, whether it is a success or a failure, has a lesson for the next. The people and their ecology tell us constantly whether we are walking a path of liberation or not.
Whether Kiul will one day flow like it did 30 years ago or not is hard to tell, and it matters less if we are on a liberatory path that re-establishes the connection between humans, their surrounding landscape, with non-humans and with themselves. Look forward to being on this journey together with you all and the people in the catchment of Kiul.
In solidarity
