Shivganga Movement in Jhabua: A Sustainable Narrative of Local Governance, Mythology, and Regeneration

Jhabua town is in the Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh in India inhabited by the Bhil/Bilala tribal community. Since the days of the British Raj and after independence, there has been a combined effort to culturally neglect and economically exploit the tribal population. Further, hilly terrain, and rocky soil made life impossible to sustain because of the nonavailability of water and deforestation. Lack of rainwater reduced cultivation to a single crop a year and forced the community to temporarily migrate to other cities for livelihood. The Shivganga movement in Jhabua was a homecoming for life to thrive amid the grave water problems, making life difficult for the local Bhil tribals. It was with the restoration of the annual event of Halma, where the Shivganga involved Gram (village) engineers and began a jalyatra (foot march for water) to increase awareness, water conservation, and harvesting. This yearly event has brought the village community together and harvested rainwater since 2010. The development model Jhabua adopted is panchkoshiye vikaas where the causes they stand for are: Jan (people), 348 vigyan (science). Deeply seeped into cultural self-respect and resources, the youths of Jhabua brought the combined factors of training camps and inspirations from Hindu mythology to conserve water. The Hindu mythical narrative of Lord Shiva blessing Bhagirath to bring the Ganges to the earth modeled the water structures in Jhabua. The paper highlights the community participation mechanism of the Bhil tribe of Jhabua district spearheaded by the Shivganga NGO catering to SDG15 and fulfilling the thematic sustainable pillars of people, planet, and profit. The concept anchors on the revival process of the community’s age-old tradition of Halma to create an impact and interventions through local governance.