About 22 kilometres from the Petlawad block headquarters in Jhabua district, the village of Kesarpura has a story to tell, one about the confidence of an entire community. A Halma was held here on 19 May 2026, and what followed convinced the village that the solution it had long sought from outside had been within it all along.
Halma is a word from the Bhili dialect meaning collective voluntary labour. When a family in the Bhil community is weighed down by a burden, whether raising a house, bringing in a harvest or facing a calamity, the entire village turns up uninvited and unpaid to stand by them. The message is simple: you are not alone. Kesarpura's only pond had been waiting for exactly this tradition. Years of neglect had left it so choked with silt and unwanted weeds that its depth was shrinking, and so was its capacity to hold water.
Seepage through one stretch of the embankment quietly drained away the rainwater it collected. In this tribal region of rocky, sloping land, where rain comes but does not stay, a failing pond meant a direct threat to a full year of farming and to the water that livestock depend on. As summer set in, the pond bed would fill with cracks, and the village's hopes would slip into those cracks along with the water.
The village knew the problem was big, but it also knew the solution lay in its own hands. With the support of the Gram Swaraj Samuh, a village self-governance group formed by VAAGDHARA, it was decided that a Halma would be held at the pond. On the morning of 19 May, Kesarpura showed its true strength. It began not with speeches or formal announcements but with the beat of the dhol, kundi and thali.
A rally wound through the village. Children ran ahead carrying a banner that read "Traditional Halma Method," with the slogan beneath it: "Save water regularly, and the future is secure." Behind them walked elders, youth and women, with someone from every household carrying a pickaxe, a spade or a metal pan.
Around 150 people gathered at the pond for the Halma. There is no attendance register and no list; people come of their own accord and leave having done more than they thought they could. Under the blazing sun, heads were covered with gamchas and dupattas, yet faces glowed instead of showing fatigue. The work divided itself.
Some waded into the pond to cut the weeds, others dug out silt with pickaxes and spades, and the silt was loaded into pans and basins and handed to a long line of women. The pans passed from hand to hand and head to head, and the silt made its way out of the pond.
The role of women was the most remarkable part of the scene. Amid their household responsibilities, they stayed at the pond all day. Recalling that day, Basanti Ninama says that when the dhol sounded she could not sit at home, and standing in line with a pan on her head, it felt like work in her own courtyard. "I was tired, but my heart felt light. I felt I was doing something for my village," she says.
Everyone also worked together to pile soil on the embankment where water had been seeping out, pressing it down and strengthening it. Those who know water conservation understand that the strength of the embankment and the depth of the pond decide how long a water body lasts.
When noon came, the tools were set down, but the bond of togetherness did not break. Lunch, too, was cooked by everyone together on the pond's bank. The women wove plates from tree leaves, and then everyone sat in a long row on colourful mats. An elderly woman and a small child ate the same meal on the same mat, and the true meaning of Halma came alive right there. Here, trust takes the place of accounts, and hard work and celebration blend into one another.
The simplicity of the leaf plate is a lesson in itself. A plate made from tree leaves leaves no plastic waste and needs no water for washing. At an event whose very purpose is to save water, this goes beyond symbolism and becomes practice. Traditions often carry such eco-friendly solutions quietly, without any announcement.
Those who restored the pond that day included Basanti Ninama, Ganga Ninama, Surta Ninama, Sundar Mavi, Anadu Maida, Devli Mori, Phula Katara, Seema Maida, Anita Katara, Kala Ninama, Sukhram Maida, Ukarlal Maida, Mansingh Ninama, Ukar Ninama, Laxman Ninama, Dilip Vasuniya, Gendu Mori, Khima Mori, Anil Maida and Sunil Katara. Though they differ in age and family, their experiences seem threaded on a single string.
For Ganga Ninama it was an emotional day: generations of her family have drunk this pond's water, and it pained her to see it buried under silt. "The day the pond was cleaned, I felt we had repaid our debt," she says. Devli Mori adds, "It was very hot, but nobody complained. We want our children to see how work for the village is done."
During the event, Paramesh Patidar, Implementation Leader at Vaagdhara, spoke with the villagers and explained that Halma is not merely voluntary labour but a tradition of standing by one another in joy and sorrow and sharing collective responsibility. Behind the scenes, Block Facilitator Mukesh Porwal and his team also played a vital role, working at every level from mobilising people to planning the work. The steady guidance of Team Leader Dharmendrasingh Chunawat gave direction to the entire effort.
After the Halma the village returned to its routine, but nobody expected the result to show so soon. The monsoon turned out weaker than hoped, and there was a fear that the pond would once again be left only partly filled. But about three months later, around August 2026, when villagers looked toward the pond, it was filled to the brim with water. The greatest joy was that the seepage through the embankment had also stopped. The water that came had stayed. For farmers like Sunil Katara and Mansingh Ninama, the meaning was direct: their fields will get irrigation and their cattle will have drinking water.
One may also ask why such ponds last. Experience shows that when a water structure is built from outside by a contractor, its upkeep often becomes nobody's responsibility; the embankment breaks, the silt returns, and within a year or two the pond is back to its old state. A structure built through voluntary labour creates an emotional bond. Someone who has put soil into it with their own hands cannot bear to see it deteriorate. This is Halma's greatest invisible achievement: along with the structure, it raises a whole generation of guardians.
The hopes ahead are considerable. In the rabi season, when fields need water the most, this stored water can become the farmers' mainstay. With water standing in the pond, groundwater levels in nearby wells and hand pumps may also improve. Greenery is returning to the embankment, and guarding it is now the village's shared responsibility. Remove the silt, bind the embankment, hold the rain, raise the groundwater, then irrigate the fields: this entire cycle of water conservation now appears to be complete in Kesarpura.
One sees the tradition of the elders and the labour of the young, the support of women and families, and above all a collective resolve to do something for one's own village. Kesarpura's story is a reminder that development does not always wait for help from outside. In a country grappling with water scarcity, where even large schemes sometimes remain stuck on paper, examples like this show that the key often lies in local knowledge and community ownership.
Three things together have given this pond a new lease of life: tradition meeting present-day need, institutions staying in the role of facilitators, and a village that regards its resource as its own. Halma did not remove only silt and weeds from Kesarpura's pond; it rekindled hope in people's hearts, and today that hope is as clear as the pond's water. When a village walks together, even drought is defeated.
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*Contact: Vikasmeshram04@gmail.com
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