Dear Readers,At least 10 people have died after drinking tap water in Indore, India’s cleanest city for eight consecutive years. Eight years of gleaming trophies, ministerial photo-ops, and Swachh Survekshan garlands. The residents of Bhagirathpura locality got something else from their taps: sewage.The name Bhagirathpura deserves a moment. In Hindu mythology, King Bhagirath brought the Ganges to earth by pleading with Shiva to catch her immense force in his matted hair and channel her gently downward. Shiva, seated in his abode Kailash, obliged. In Indore, the names Bhagirath and Kailash have resurfaced—though not quite in the manner the scriptures intended.As the incident sparked political fury, the controversy found its Kailash: Madhya Pradesh Urban Administration Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya, a senior BJP leader and the local MLA for Indore-1 constituency. When NDTV journalist Anurag Dwary asked why accountability was being discussed only for junior officials and why proper drinking water arrangements had not been made, the Minister offered a masterclass in public relations.He snapped, “Chhoro yaar, tum fokat prashna mat puchcho” (Leave it, don’t ask useless questions). When Dwary persisted, saying he had visited the spot, Vijayvargiya lost his composure: “Kya ghanta pata hai tumhe” (Polite translation: What rubbish do you know?) The reporter challenged the Minister’s use of the slang word ghanta, asking how a senior Minister could speak this way.The use of the slang word while speaking to a reporter did not befit either Vijayvargiya’s stature or the circumstances. I have interviewed him too, and I found him fond of using tatsam (Sanskrit words used unchanged in Hindi) rather than tadbhav (words that evolved while migrating from Sanskrit to Hindi). I rarely heard him use Hindustani, the pluricentric blend of Hindi and Urdu, in his speech.Both fokat and ghanta are words found frequently in Hindi songs. An album, “Free Fokat Mein”, was released in 2022. Chaya Chandrakar sang “Fokat Fokat” in 2021. Apple released a music album titled “Fokat” in 2024. There is little controversy over “fokat”, which mostly means “free”, and “idle” in the context of time.“Ghanta”, while fundamentally a Sanskrit word meaning bell or hour, has a ruder connotation. But it has found its way into Hindi film songs in its more carefree format.But coming back to Indore, this is a city that won a “Water Plus” certification in 2021 and was praised for its wastewater management. Today, the residents of Bhagirathpura can tell you a lot about the wastewater, about its management, not so much.Predictably, social media erupted, both for Indore’s fall and the Minister’s language. Rival parties campaigned against the “display of arrogance in the face of tragedy”. The Minister was forced to shift into damage control mode, citing sleepless nights spent working for the affected, affecting his speech. He claimed his words “came out wrong” due to his deep grief. The damage, however, was largely done.When Vijayvargiya finally visited Bhagirathpura on Thursday, he faced an angry crowd in what has been a secure urban bastion for the BJP for decades. Women blocked his path in the narrow bylanes, surrounding him with complaints they claimed had been ignored for months. “Kai dino se dooshit paani ki shikayat ki ja rahi hai lekin kisi ne sunvaai nahin ki” (We complained for days about the contaminated water, but nobody listened), said one resident. The resentment ran deep. When Vijayvargiya attempted to meet the family of one of the deceased, they refused. A relative, Roshini Yadav, aired her grievances publicly, describing the distress of a family that felt abandoned by the very State machinery meant to protect them.The tragedy punctures the BJP’s developmental narrative in Madhya Pradesh. The project to bring piped Narmada water to Indore is a pet initiative of the ruling BJP, featuring prominently in promotional materials. It proclaims clean water from the sacred Narmada—except when it mingles with sewage beneath a toilet attached to a post office. The tender for a new pipeline, worth Rs.2.5 crore, was approved four months ago. It sat unopened until people started dying.For those of us in the NCR region contemplating a move to smaller cities to escape the toxic air of Delhi, Noida, and Gurugram, Indore offers a cautionary tale. Escape the poisonous air; meet the poisonous water.Ismail Serageldin, then World Bank Vice-President, said in August 1995: “If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water—unless we change our approach to managing this precious and vital resource.” In India, the scarcity of clean, potable water is still acute in many remote areas, as the Indore tragedy makes plain. Perhaps there has been too much focus on politics and political parties rather than on local governance and matters that affect people’s daily lives.Amid the outrage in Indore and the political indifference, quiet flows the Narmada.Write about any water woes that you might be facing in your areas.Anand Mishra | Political Editor, FrontlineWe hope you have been enjoying our newsletters featuring a selection of articles that we believe will be of interest to a cross-section of our readers. Tell us if you like what you read. And also, what you don’t like! 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