Lucknow, April 6: The state government has booked nearly 2,000 farmers in drought-stricken Bundelkhand on a rare charge — that of stealing water.

The move has provoked an outcry from local farmers and politicians who argue that water should be available to all, free of charge — an issue being debated across the globe.

“If a single farmer is arrested, we’ll fill the jails with thousands of farmers,” threatened peasant leader Ramratan Gurudev from Mahoba, the district where 12 first information reports have been registered against 1,924 farmers at three police stations.

Legal experts said the farmers, if convicted, could be jailed for six months to five years. The longest jail term awarded so far for the nearest offence, power theft, has been two years.

The FIRs were drawn up after the state irrigation department complained of farmers pumping out water from six canals meant to serve only select areas, Mahoba police chief A.K. Mishra said.

The farmers say they had been “buying” the water from irrigation officials for Rs 500 since the six canals were put out of bounds for them three years ago. But, impoverished by years of continuous drought, they couldn’t afford to pay the officials the last time they drew the water.

“Now the officials are blaming the farmers,” said Gurudev, president of the Mahoba Farmers Association.

The drought has dried up most of the irrigation canals, from which the farmers used to draw water against a tax. Since the government is obliged under the law to irrigate farmland it donates to the landless, it reserved these six canals for only such fields three years ago.

The government ensured that these canals didn’t run dry but banned ordinary farmers from using the water.

The UN, which has declared a “Water for Life” decade from 2005 till 2015, says water should be a right for all.

But the impending global water crisis — a result of climate change, rising population and economic growth — that prompted the call has also kicked off the debate whether governments can afford a free supply.

Bottled water, civic taxing and restaurant bills have already ensured that water, once free like air, must often be paid for.

“The crisis in Bundelkhand has become so bad that water will soon have to be supplied from ration shops,” said Mukesh Upadhyay, a district leader of Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal, from Mahoba.

Experts say freshwater could become “the oil of the 21st century” — a “blue gold” exported in tankers across oceans, determining the course of geopolitics and even causing wars. In India, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have been fighting bitterly over the Cauvery’s waters for decades.

The water from Mahoba’s canals was allegedly stolen in December and February and the FIRs were drawn up on April 2.

The three FIRs lodged at Kotwali police station name 119 villagers including six women; the three at Charkhali accuse 300 farmers; and the six at Srinagar police carry 1,505 names. Local politicians have mounted pressure on the government to withdraw the cases.