Borewell costs, increasing demand keep the faith in unproven ‘water diviners’

Shanmugan lifts his veshti and gingerly places his foot on the ground, only to withdraw it and step in a different direction. “It’s stronger over here,” he says more confidently, guided by a chain with a bunch of keys which he grips in his hands. Shanmugan, 47, is on a quest to find groundwater, and according to him, his ability to find it is something of a gift.

Shanmugan is a “water diviner” – someone who searches for groundwater without the aid of scientific instruments or techniques. In the drought-prone district of Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu, his services are immensely popular. “No one will dare dig a borewell without a diviner,” says Ponni, Shanmugan’s neighbour and client from Dhathanaickenpatti village in Dharmapuri.

Water divining, or “dowsing”, is a traditional practice largely regarded as pseudoscience by geologists and hydrologists. Its effectiveness remains controversial, as there is no scientific evidence proving it to be any better than chance.

However, for many living in areas with hard rock, water divining is believed to be the only reliable method to locate groundwater. Given the high cost of drilling a borewell and the scarcity of water supplies, digging a borewell without consulting a diviner is an expensive risk few want to take.

Sticks and coconuts

Water divining involves using rudimentary metal instruments, such as a chain with keys, or natural materials like forked twigs and coconuts, and holding them above the ground. The diviner acts as the conductor between the ground and the instrument.

When approaching an underground water source, these materials start to quiver on their own, says Shanmugan. “It’s like a magnetic current passing through your body when you find a source of water. Some materials have a better relationship with the water than others,” he explains. Each material serves a specific purpose: the coconut helps him detect water flow, the neem stick gauges depth, and the bundle of keys indicates the size of the aquifer.

When Pavithra from Dhathanaickenpatti village witnessed Shanmugan in action for the first time, she was fascinated. “I had never seen a water diviner at work. It felt like I was discovering something new,” she says. Pavithra and her husband hired Shanmugan to locate a bore point (groundwater point) after enduring an unreliable water supply from the local panchayat board for over a year. She is now a happy client, enjoying an abundant water supply that can be controlled at the flip of a switch – a luxury she invested Rs 3 lakh in towards the drilling costs.

A water diviner’s knowledge of groundwater geography is not based on technical expertise. But the outcomes of borewell drilling and feedback from clients are often taken as confirmation of the skill. Shanmugan has only studied up to class 5. Guided by his intuition, he believes that the ideal bore point is where the underground rocks are most fragmented – what he describes as a gap – providing a clear channel to an aquifer.

An obscure history

The history and origins of water divining in India remain largely obscure. Science historian Kapil Subramanian found through archival research that water divining had been in practice in the country since at least the mid-20th century.

In pre-independent India, the British brought European diviners to assist in groundwater surveys. Believing it to be an “unscientific and superstitious” practice, some members of the Indian political elite such as Congressman . Rajagopalachari and Swaraj Party leader Mulund Rao Jayakar refused to endorse it.

“After gaining independence, India embarked on development in many spheres, including tapping groundwater resources, but the state was faced with a paucity of knowledge. Water diviners were able to fill that gap at the ground level, where the question of where to site a well was most urgent. It also became more acceptable, drawing less vocal opposition after independence,” Subramanian explains.

In 1949, when the newly independent India established its first dedicated groundwater institution, the Rajasthan Underground Water Board, it had only one member with experience in groundwater issues – a water diviner named Paniwala Maharaj. The rest of the board members were bureaucrats from various government departments and ministries.

Popular practice

Even though India’s ability to generate scientific information on groundwater has expanded significantly since independence, several factors such as accessibility and cost continue to sustain belief in water divining. Many groundwater authorities do not offer well-siting services, leaving individuals to identify suitable locations themselves. Water diviners like Shanmugan charge an affordable rate between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000 to locate a bore point.

“Employing the right experts to do a scientific survey is time consuming and expensive. It can cost lakhs to do geotechnical investigations, and it’s not financially feasible for most who want to dig wells for household use or to irrigate small farmlands,” says Sekhar Muddu, a hydrogeologist and professor with the department of civil engineering at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru.

Emerging alongside traditional diviners are the so-called “scientific diviners,” who attempt to modernise the practice by incorporating technology, for which they charge a few thousand rupees more. A simple Google search reveals numerous diviners who claim to use advanced divining techniques, such as electrical resistivity metres.

However, Muddu says these tools are inadequate for detecting rock formations deeper than 10 metres to 20 metres. Electrical resistivity metres work by sending electrical signals into the ground to assess subsurface layer thickness, but the results can be easily misinterpreted. “A result indicating low resistance might be assumed to signify water, but it could also be a low-resistance rock formation,” Muddu explains.

Apart from being economical, trust is another key factor in the practice’s popularity, according to Andres Verzjil, senior lecturer in water governance at IHE Delft, a Netherlands-based water research institute. “For a farmer who doesn’t understand the science of hydrogeology, a more worthwhile question is, where do I place my trust to dig a borewell? A water diviner, for whatever reason, is inspiring that trust in these places,” he told Mongabay India.

In a 2023 paper titled From Divine to Design: Unearthing Groundwater Practices in Tamil Nadu, India, Verzjil and his team documented both dowsing and modelling as groundwater practices in Tamil Nadu. They found that groundwater modellers “indubitably make use of the wisdom of dowsers,” as they rely on known well locations and depths to make their predictions more accurate and sensitive. The paper argues that water diviners are a “crucial but absent” stakeholder in groundwater management decisions.

Rock and deep water sources

Ponni, 53, who believes that the diviners possess special powers to accurately locate ground water, recalls a time in her childhood when open wells were common in her village. She says that for generations, water diviners have been used to identify locations for open wells. Over the years, these wells gradually dried up and were replaced by borewells.

Dharmapuri’s geography is characterised by hard crystalline rocks of Archaean age, which formed between four and two-and-a-half billion years ago. These hard rock aquifers have limited groundwater resources and are not easily replenished by rainfall.

According to a report by the National Water Mission, recent monsoon failures in the region have exacerbated the reduction in groundwater resources. Intense, short-duration rain events have resulted in decreased recharge and increased runoff, further diminishing water availability in this already arid area.

Vivek M, a consultant with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, ATREE, who contributed to the 2023 study involving Verzijl, says drilling borewells was not a popular choice in the past given the hard rock terrain. The dependence on water divining is driven, in part, by a lack of other options in the face of water scarcity. “People have always relied on traditional methods and beliefs to locate water here. It was once believed that there would be water where a mound of termites collected or where cattle chose to sit in an open field,” he says.

Indiscriminate borewell sinking has contributed to the rapid depletion of Dharmapuri’s water table. The Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board reports that out of the 23 firkas, or sub-divisional administrative units in the district, 14 are overexploited.

Risk of over extraction

The appeal of water divining isn’t limited to rural areas. S Samson, a 52-year-old diviner based in Bengaluru, serves a diverse clientele, including real estate developers and farmers. Despite having a YouTube channel with over 2,000 subscribers, Samson says that most of his clients find him through word-of-mouth.

When Mongabay India met him, Samson was surveying a plot of land in the city designated for an apartment complex. He was the fifth diviner called to locate a bore point after four previous diviners had failed to find a viable water source. Despite multiple failures, the site manager’s faith in the practice remained resolute. “I cannot blame the diviner if he couldn’t find the correct bore point. He’s providing a service and charging me for it, and I am aware of the risks. If we get the water, then it’s all well and good,” says the site manager, who chose to remain anonymous.

Much like Shanmugan, Samson spends hours examining the land using six different types of copper instruments that are believed to twist or twirl when hovered over groundwater. A Christian by faith and a carpenter by trade, Samson begins his work with a prayer and a blessing for the instruments. He believes that his ability to locate groundwater is a divine gift that rarely fails. He attributes the occasional failures in predictions to challenging terrains: “Hard and hilly terrains can complicate the process.”

Increasing demand

With over 11,000 registered borewells, groundwater extraction is rampant in Bengaluru. During the summer months this year, when temperatures soared over 40 degrees celsius in some parts of the city, Samson got more calls for help than usual. “Normally, I get eight to nine calls a month, but this summer it went up to 20 to 30 because people needed water,” he says. By March, nearly 50% of the city’s borewells were either dry or yielding minimal water.

Borewells are dug at an average depth of 800 to 900 feet in the city, says Sanath Kumar V, an assistant engineer at the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board. “Even then, you may not get water since the water table has fallen so much,” he tells Mongabay India. The water board is working on installing recharge pits in existing borewells to help improve groundwater recharge in the city, but the pace of extraction and the drilling of illegal wells is a challenge for state and municipal authorities.

According to scientists, the more worrying risk is associated with extracting groundwater from non-rechargeable depths. Drilling hundreds of metres below the surface can lead to the depletion of fossil water, a non-renewable resource. “It’s become common practice to drill to great depths for groundwater,” Muddu says, “but with rudimentary tools and improper application, drilling might hit a fracture that doesn’t recharge, leading to supply dying out in a few years.” He adds: “Ideally, drilling should be conducted at a depth that allows for natural recharge, typically not exceeding 100 metres.”

Shanmugan says that the goodwill from his clients ensures his services are regularly in demand. Right before leaving, he receives a frantic call from a client who found only muck after digging 500 feet at a point Shanmugan indicated. “Don’t worry,” Shanmugan assures the client, “The water will come. Just dig a little deeper and you will see.”

This article was first published on Mongabay.