People-led integrated watershed development program in Maharashtra

Fr. Hermann Bacher SJ, born in 1924 in the beautiful Swiss alpine village of Muenster, spent 60 years working tirelessly to uplift marginalized rural communities in the Ahmednagar district.

The recurrent droughts that led to poverty, hunger, scarcity, unemployment and distress migration, made a deep impact on him. Struck by the dire poverty he saw, he dedicated his life improving the lot of the poor, the landless and rural women. He helped thousands of small farmers and landless laborers secure title deeds to land under the Land Reforms Act 1957 and stood guarantor to hundreds of poor tribals who were not considered credit worthy by the banks.

In the initial years, he organised hundreds of thousands of farmers to develop their farms and increase their agricultural productivity by helping them gain access to irrigation, improved and hybrid seeds, modern agricultural practices and appropriate technologies. He helped them cut terraces, level and bund their fields, dig wells, install pumps, build lift irrigation schemes, irrigation canals, check dams, etc. on streams and rivers.

From his long experience, he came to the conviction that only a sustainable, inclusive development strategy could bring positive transformation in the fragmented rural communities and believed that ‘पाणलोटािशवाय दुकाळाला पयाय नाही’ i.e. the only solution to recurrent drought was the ‘ridge-to-valley, integrated watershed development program’.

The Social Center, which he founded in 1967, implemented this pioneering sustainable, replicable model, which was later developed into the community-led Indo-German Watershed Development Program (IGWDP). The ‘Father of people-led watershed
development program in Maharashtra’, for the villagers, Fr. Bacher was ‘Bacher Baba’ a true ‘man of God’ for whom selfless service of the poor was worship most sublime.

The watershed development program brought about a behavioral shift from a mindset of resource exploitation to sustainable resource mobilization and utilization. This people-led innovative program provides ample opportunities for sustainable livelihood options. Bacher Baba inspires all those whose lives he touched to become, in turn, bhakar (bread) for those who are left behind.

The Social Centre has been involved in the implementation of development/watershed projects in over 270 villages of Ahmednagar district, with the people’s participation. In humble tribute to Fr. Bacher and to carry forward his enduring legacy, the Social Centre has launched the Fr. Bacher Legacy Action Research Series (BLRS) to promote applied research to benefit primarily the village communities that we serve in the Ahmednagar District.

As we celebrate the Birth Centenary of Fr. Hermann Bacher, as part of the BLRS, we are happy to share with you the case studies and report, which document the outcomes of the field studies of the Rural Immersion of MA/MSc Analytics batch 2022-24 of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, in some of the Social Centre project villages.

We sincerely hope that our readers, especially practitioners, scholars, academicians and all who love our Mother Earth will critically engage with the issues, ideas and perspectives that the research study presents, leading to policy-level interventions which bring a better quality of life to those at the margins. There could be no better way of paying tribute to Fr. Bacher, our great visionary leader, who dedicated his entire life to make our common home a better place for everyone to live in.

Fr. Siju Varghese SJ
Director – Social Centre