Supratim Bhattacharjee, Indien

India: The fate of the little water carriers

Some of them are only three or four years old. Some have to walk four kilometers to the next water source, some seven, some ten. They dig holes in dried-up riverbeds until they come across a little groundwater. They march through barren wastelands. They climb down deep wells. They carry heavy water canisters across the parched landscape when they should be at school or playing.

In his pictures, Indian photographer Supratim Bhattacharjee draws attention to a drama that affects millions of boys and girls in India: the severe water shortage in large parts of the subcontinent. There is not only a general lack of water, but above all a lack of clean drinking water, whether in the states of Rajasthan or Gujarat, in the Thar Desert or in the Himalayan region. With all the consequences for the hygiene and health of those affected. As a result, children in particular suffer from diarrhea en masse. This is an absolute emergency situation that cannot be adequately combated with the state-organized tanker network alone. Especially as climate change is exacerbating the situation. Many rivers have reached a ten-year low, and important natural water reservoirs are only filled to a fifth of their original capacity.

Photographer: Supratim Bhattacharjee, India (Agency De Beeldunie)

Supratim Bhattacharjee, born in 1983, has gained international recognition mainly with photo series about the environment and the consequences of climate change for the people in his home country. One of his pictures of the gradual destruction of the Sundarbans in the Ganges Delta caused by rising sea levels won the award for UNICEF Photo of the Year in 2021. He had already received an honorable mention the year before for his photo series on children in Indian coal mines. Bhattacharjee’s work has been exhibited at major environmental conferences and he has also won an award from the British Royal Photographic Society.