Thirst is Marathwadas greatest crop this season. Forget sugarcane. Thirst, human and industrial, eclipses anything else.

Those harvesting it reap tens of millions of rupees each day across the region. The van loads of dried-out cane you see on the roads could end up at cattle camps as fodder. The countless tankers you see on the same roads are making it to the towns, villages and industries for profit. Water markets are the biggest things around. Tankers are their symbol. Thousands of them criss-cross Marathwada daily, collecting, transporting and selling water. Those contracted by the government are a minority and some of them exist only on paper. Its the privately-operated ones that are crucial to rapidly expanding water markets. MLAs and Corporators-turned-contractors and contractors-turned-Corporators and MLAs are vital to the tanker economy. Bureaucrats, too. Many own tankers directly or benami . Water commerce So what is a tanker? Really, just sheets of mild steel plate rolled into big drums. A 10,000-litre water tanker consists of three sheets of 5 ft x 18 ft, each weighing 198 kilograms. The rolled drums are welded together. These can be carried by trucks, lorries and other large vehicles, mounted on them in different ways. Smaller carriers transport cylinders of lower capacity. A 5,000 litre container can go onto the trailer of a big van. It comes all the way down to 1,000 and 500-litre drums that move on mini-tractors, opened-up auto rickshaws and bullock carts. As the water crisis deepens, hundreds of these are fabricated across the State each day. In Jalna town of Jalna district, there are about 1,200 tankers, trucks, tractors, auto rickshaws flitting about with containers of different sizes. They shuttle between their water sources and desperate sections of the public. The drivers bargain with clients on cell phones. However, the largest amount of water goes to industries that buy in bulk. The tanker owners transact between Rs.6 million to Rs.7.5 million in saleseach day , says Laxman Raut of the Marathi daily Loksatta . Thats what this single sector of the water market is worth in this

single town . Raut and his fellow reporters have tracked this regions commerce in water for years. Tanker technology Container sizes vary. But in this town their average capacity works out to around 5,000 litres. Each of these 1,200 does at least three trips a day. So they carry in all some 18 million litres of water in 24 hours. At the going rate of Rs.350 per thousand litres, that works out to over Rs.6 million a day. The costs can go up depending on whether the use is domestic, or for livestock, or industry. Scarcity drives the tanker economy. Tankers are being made, repaired, rented, sold and bought. One busy spot we hit en route to Jalna is Rahuri in neighbouring Ahmednagar district. It costs roughly Rs.30,000 to make a 10,000-litre tanker body here. It sells for twice that sum. In Rahuri Factory, a small industries area, we get a crash course in tanker tech. Each 5 ft x 18 ft sheet of MS Plate is 3.5 mm thick (called Gauge 10), explains Shrikant Melawane who owns a fabricating unit. He shows us the rolling machine on which each plate has to be manually rolled. The 10,000-litre one weighs close to 800 kg, he says. The three sheets of mild steel it requires cost roughly Rs.27,000 (at Rs.35 a kg). Labour charges, electricity and other expenses total a further Rs.3,000. It takes a whole day to make one 10,000-litre tanker, he says. This season has been busy. Weve made 150 (of differing sizes) in three months. There are four units like his within a radius of one kilometre, churning them out at the same pace. And 15 within a three-kilometre radius of Ahmednagar town, on the same job. The biggest ones 20,000-litre tankers, go to cattle camps and industrial units, says Melawane. The 10,000-litre ones go to the cities and big towns. The smallest ones Ive made carry just 1,000 litres. The little ones are bought by small horticulturists. Mostly tiny pomegranate growers who cannot afford drip irrigation. They take these drums on bullock carts and Ive seen them do the watering manually.

From wells, tanks, reservoirs So wheres the water coming from? From rampant groundwater exploitation. From private borewells some newly drilled just to exploit the scarcity. These could run out as the groundwater crisis worsens. Speculators have purchased existing dug wells that do have water in order to cash in. Some bottled water plants in Jalna town bring it all the way from Buldhana (in Vidarbha) itself a high water-stress district. So the scarcity should spread to other regions fairly soon. Some are looting water from public sources, tanks and reservoirs. The tanker owner buys 10,000 litres for between Rs.1,000 and Rs.1,500. He sells that quantity at Rs.3,500 pulling in up to Rs.2,500 on the deal. If he has a captive source like a working borewell or a dug well with water, then his costs are even less. And close to nil if he is looting public water sources. More than 50,000 (medium and big) tankers have been made across the State this year, says former Member of Parliament (and ex-MLA) Prasad Tanpure. And dont forget the existing thousands from previous years. So its anyones guess how many are in action now. Tanpure, a political veteran here, knows the water scene well. Other estimates place the new tanker numbers at one lakh. Even 50,000 new tankers would mean that fabricators in the State have done close to Rs.2 billion worth of business over the past few months. Of course, some have taken a hit on other fronts as construction work stands suspended. No grills, beams, nothing else, says Melawane. But there are also those jumping into this lucrative market. Back in Jalna, Suresh Pawar, a tanker-maker himself, says: There are over 100 fabricators around this town. That includes 90 who had never done this work before but are doing it now. In Shelgaon village of Jalna district, farmer (and local politician) Deepak Ambore is spending around Rs.2,000 a day. I get five tanker -loads of water daily to my 18 acres, including my fiveacre mosambiorchard. I have to borrow from a sahucar . Why spend so much when the crop seems doomed? Right now, just to keep my

orchard alive. Moneylending rates here can be 24 per cent a year or higher. Things are awful but not at their worst. Not yet. Many in Jalna have lived off tankers for years now. Only the dimensions of the crisis and the numbers of tankers have exploded. The worst is a long way off yet and it isnt just about rainfall. Except for some. As one political leader puts it cynically: If I owned ten tankers, Id have to pray for drought this year, too. The water markets of Marathwada are booming. In the town of Jalna alone, tanker owners transact between Rs.6 million and Rs.7.5 million in water sales each day

This is a case of justice being awarded after a decade. Last month, the Ramanathapuram Sessions Court sentenced eight policemen to rigorous imprisonment, for up to 10 years, for the 2002 custodial killing of Karuppi, a poor Dalit woman, at the Paramakudi police station in Tamil Nadu. It is a landmark judgment, and significant, as she was from the Arundhatiar caste, reckoned to be the lowest among Dalits. The victim, Karuppi, 48, a domestic servant, had been accused of the theft of a gold chain from the house of her employer. She was interrogated at the police station and tortured for six days. Her body was found hanging from a transmission tower behind the police station in the early hours of December 1, 2002. The police registered it as a case of suicide and disclaimed its occurrence in the police station. The Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women (TNSCW), of which I was the chairperson at the time, was petitioned by Peoples Watch, a human rights organisation, for intervention alleging custodial death and intimidation of witnesses. I spoke to the Collector of Ramanathapuram district to arrange to meet Karuppis family. I inspected the police station and was certain that Karuppi could not have slipped out of the station that night and hanged herself. Later, I met her family who were alleged to be facing intimidation. All of them narrated the same official story having been caught thieving, Karuppi had killed herself out of shame and guilt, the policemen had no hand in her death and so on. My solemn assurances that they could confide in me were to no avail. They must have sounded feeble, weighed against the proximate threat to life and limb they faced from their habitual tormentors. I lost all hope of finding the truth and was ready to leave. Then the turning point. The last member to depose was Christu Das, the husband of Karuppis sister-in-law. Another inquiry that should have ended in a few minutes in utter frustration suddenly went on for two hours. The veil of secrecy that had shrouded the doctored depositions so far suddenly lifted and the pieces of a sordid story fell into place.

Christu Das fell at my feet. I was stunned to hear him say: Amma, please save me and my children. We are in great danger. I have to tell you the truth, otherwise my heart will not burn on my funeral pyre. Once assured of my support, he felt comfortable enough to narrate the details. On the night of November 26, 2002, Christu Das, his wife, Arumugam, and daughter were taken to the Paramakudi police station without the police furnishing any reason. They saw Karuppi chained in a room and were told that she had been arrested for the theft of jewels. Christu Das was made to undress with only his underwear on, handcuffed and had his legs shackled to a table. From the next morning the police subjected him to constant physical assault and abuse. He learnt that he and his wife, and later the daughter and son-in-law of Karuppi were there to force Karuppi to confess. For three days he was witness to her brutal torture by four policemen. She was beaten with lathis and her knuckles pierced with sharp needles. Her pleas that she was innocent cut no ice. Whenever Christu Das interceded, he too was beaten. After three days, the Christu Das family was let off. On December 1, Christu Das and his wife learnt from a fish monger that the body of a woman had been found behind the police station and was in the hospital morgue. At the hospital, their fears came true. It was Karuppi. Christu Das added that up till the time of my inquiry, the family members were being threatened by the police not to spill the beans. Reports I returned to Chennai, determined to expose the horrific case of a custodial death. I got copies of the post-mortem report, First Information Report and inquest report from the Collector, Ramanathapuram. He said that five policemen, including an inspector had been suspended and an inquiry conducted by the subcollector.

I sent the first and third reports to the head of the forensic department of a government hospital in Chennai. His reply: Patient died of Asphyxia due to acute ante mortem (AM) hanging with multiple contusions.. the age of the contusion is 1 to 3 days. Probably the wounds were caused by persons standing on the left (mostly in the lower limb) and in the right (mostly in the upper limb). Opinion: The victim was subjected to blunt force for a period of 1 to 3 days before her death. The contusion on the right forehead is a last injury caused by blunt force prior to her hanging. Armed with this, I wrote to the Home Secretary, with a copy addressed to the Chief Secretary, seeking a fair inquiry by the Crime Branch Crime Investigation Department or the Central Bureau of Investigation This letter and its reminders were met by silence. In my time, the TNSCW was not a statutory body and did not have the powers to summon witnesses and get them to depose under oath. I contacted the Chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Poornima Advani and a joint public hearing was conducted by the National and Tamil Nadu State Commissions in Madurai on October 28, 2003. There were a number of witnesses, including the family members of Karuppi, the sub-collector, Paramakudi, and the policemen in charge during the occurrence. We found, inter alia , that: Karuppi had been detained and tortured for six days; the post-mortem report showed extensive ante-mortem injuries on her body, making the police version of suicide unbelievable. We recommended compensation of Rs.2 lakh to the family of Karuppi and Rs.1 lakh each to Arumugam and Christu Das for the torture they had been subjected to. Our report was sent to the Tamil Nadu government. There was no action till March 2005, when my term as chairperson of the Commission ended. In 2006, Sudha Ramalingam, advocate, Madras High Court, and legal counsel of the Commission in my time, filed a criminal original

petition in the Madras High Court, on behalf of Mr. Henri Tiphagne, Peoples Watch, to transfer investigation of the case from the file of the inspector, Paramakudi police station, to the CBI. Two years later, in September, Justice K.N. Basha ordered the CB-CID to investigate the case expeditiously. It is crystal clear that the victim was subjected to inhuman torture, humiliation and physical violence by the police officials. In view of such overwhelming materials available on record, this court is of the considered view that a thorough investigation by independent agency is very much essential, more particularly in view of the accused involved in this case are the police officials. Fundamental rights The trial of Karuppis case finally ended in the sessions court on February 14, 2013. Judge W. Sathasivam awarded 10 years rigorous imprisonment to five of the eight accused police men. Two other policemen were awarded seven and three years imprisonment respectively. A fine of Rs.1 lakh was imposed on Sahul Hamid, the then inspector. It was observed that The accused, in a bid to cover up the lock up death removed (Karuppis) body from the womens cell and hung it in a VHF tower behind the station to give an impression that she had committed suicide I end with a quote in the judgment of Honble Mr. Justice K.N. Basha citing the Supreme Court in D.K. Basu vs. State Of West Bengal : Custodial death is perhaps one of the worst crimes in a civilised society governed by the rules of lawIf the functionaries of the Government become law breakers, it is bound to breed contempt for [the] law and would encourage lawlessness, thereby leading to anarchism. Does a citizen lose his fundamental right to life, the moment a policeman arrests him? These questions touch the spinal cord of human rights jurisprudence. The circumstances surrounding the custodial death of a Dalit woman in Tamil Nadu in 2002 serve as a reminder of the difficulties in securing justice when the offenders are government functionaries

The adoption of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 2013 by the Indian Parliament is a moment to be neither celebrated nor mourned. It is a moment to pause and reflect over what exactly has been achieved ever since the Delhi gang rape and murder of the 23-year-old student, and what has been lost. The Act converges with the recent global spotlighting of violence against women, including the adoption of a declaration on the elimination and prevention of violence against women and girls at the recently concluded U.N. Commission on the Status of Women in New York. Both these interventions highlight how the safety and security of women and girls around the world remains an elusive goal. Two formulas The specific question that arises is just exactly how state and non-state actors achieve this goal. There are at least two dominant formulas that have emerged in this arena over the decades. The first is a rights agenda, where the rights of women and others oppressed by sexual violence are specifically recognised and then a legal and policy agenda for protecting these rights formulated. The rights to equality, bodily integrity and sexual autonomy, freedom of speech, including sexual speech, and safe mobility, would be amongst those rights to be foregrounded and secured. The Verma committee, mandated with the task of recommending legal reforms to ensure womens safety, in part adopted this approach. The right to consensual adult sexual relations was the key area to be protected from discrimination and infringement through the adoption of a broad array of legal, policy, and educational initiatives. The second approach is to foreground the states role in ensuring the safety of its citizens by strengthening its security apparatus, including border controls, intensifying the sexual surveillance of citizens, disciplining the sexual behaviour of individuals and regulating and monitoring sexual conduct through law enforcement agencies. While autocratic states already pursue this route, there is a worrying trend of liberal democracies also adopting such an approach, including India. The move towards equating justice with the imposition of the death penalty or stringent prison sentences constitutes the lynchpin of this approach.

At least two factors have facilitated this approach towards security. Ever since the global war on terror, states have been accorded a justification for curbing human rights in the interests of the security of the nation and its citizens. Rendition, incarceration without due process, have all been justified on this ground. A second factor is that non-governmental organisations, including those womens groups with a zealous focus on the issue of sexual violence against women, have not paid sufficient attention to the promotion of womens sexual rights, except for some forays into the area of reproductive rights. This focus on violence against women has been warmly welcomed by dominant players in the international legal arena. Global violence against women has been recognised as a human rights violation; rape has been incorporated as a war crime in the Rome Statute; and sexual violence in conflict and postconflict has been specifically addressed by Security Council resolutions. While the focus on violence is important, the mechanism through which it has been addressed has not necessarily been empowering for women. These interventions have not destabilised the dominant understanding of women as victims and female sexuality as passive; nor have they toppled the gender stereotypes that inform all of these initiatives. The constant justification for a focus on the criminal law to address violence against women has been that prevention will take time. However, criminal law initiatives that further entrench a sexually sanitised regime fail to distinguish between sexual speech and unwelcome remarks, and target all sexual behaviour that does not conform to a sexually conservative script as reprehensible, make the battle to centre rights all that much harder. The new law in India retains the language and provisions dealing with the outraging of the modesty and chastity of a woman and then simply expands the range of activities that threaten or blemish this antiquated understanding of female sexuality. This approach cannot be a recipe for empowerment nor foster progressive change in thinking on matters of sex and sexuality. Perhaps the most significant and pervasive issue left unaddressed by the new law is the everyday sexism that pervades the workplace, the public arena, the

media and the educational system. No amount of censorship of sexual images can address the problem of sexism, the performance of which was on full display in the Indian Parliament during the debates on the new law. While sexual harassment, including unwelcome sexually coloured remarks, is criminalised, a focus on deterrence does not eradicate sexism nor produce respect for women. It merely empowers the state and the criminal law. Unchallenged stereotypes Leaving sexism and gender stereotypes unchallenged is likely to have a boomerang effect. The new laws will be used to go after individuals and communities who transgress or challenge established norms, or are already sexually stigmatised, marginalised, and viewed with suspicion. Sex workers rights groups have criticised the new anti- trafficking provisions that treat every sex worker as trafficked. Merely extending the tentacles of the criminal law into their everyday lives without affording them rights with which to fight the violence and the exploitation they experience will force these women into more clandestine and exploitative situations and, ironically, increase their vulnerability to being trafficked. Similarly, gay men might be left with little protection from the sexual violence they experience as they have not been accorded the right to consensual sexual relationships. In fact, the new sexual regime will leave them more vulnerable to allegations of criminality, perversion and continued stigma. Muslim men might continue to be targeted as being more rapacious and lascivious especially in the States ruled by the Hindu Right. Female migrants will be targeted as trafficked victims and continue to be incarcerated in the name of protection; and young people will continue to have pre-marital sex, clandestinely, and often under unsafe conditions, now that the age of statutory rape has been retained at 18. The exclusion of marital rape from the purview of the new law reinforces the sexual prerogative of husbands, leaving some women wondering why they should get married if it means they would enjoy fewer rights. And the fundamental question remains whether this expanded legal edifice will be able to stop the kind of attack that occurred on the Delhi bus last December.

The reactions to the U.N. Declaration and debates on the new criminal law in India furnish telling insights on the extraordinary levels of resistance to the very idea of the right to sexual autonomy and gender justice on the part of dominant groups, and the subsequent scramble to reinforce the rights of an already overprotected male elite. In New York this was evident in the debate on the declaration. The Muslim Brotherhood claimed that the declaration would lead to a complete disintegration of society and decried the possibilities of allowing women to prosecute husbands for rape or sexual harassment. Others such as the Vatican were concerned over references to access to emergency abortion, and sexually transmitted diseases. In India, the new law represents a trend in South Asia to equate justice with the death penalty and stringent imprisonment terms. Yet empowerment for women cannot lie in merely attaching a death sentence on to the crime of rape, or increasing the mandatory minimum sentences for rape. How will these measures act as deterrents when indeed such changes will see the already low conviction rate for rape plummet even further? Empowerment rests in the ability of women, sexual minorities, and religious minorities to be able to walk on the streets free from the fear of sexual violence, sexual harassment and rape. The young women and men born in the crucible of globalisation and neo-liberal economic reforms are unlikely to be discouraged from demanding a gender-friendly and egalitarian workspace. And there is still a possibility that the new law in India will be challenged in the Supreme Court for violating womens right to equality as well as excluding sexual minorities from its protection. The protests after the Delhi rape were demanding justice in the form of more freedom not autocracy, respect not fear, and a more egalitarian society, not a reaffirmation of the established gender and sexual hierarchies of power. The old order has definitely been shaken, and its values based on exclusion and prejudice have undoubtedly passed their expiry date. Death or longer prison terms for rape under a new law will not empower women; what they need is the safety to walk on the streets free from the fear of sexual violence