Three children drown every day in India’s wetlands. But mothers are fighting back

Mangala Pradhan will never forget the morning she lost her one-year-old son.

It was 16 years ago, in a vast, harsh delta of 100 islands – beautiful, in the Indian state of West Bengal. Her son Ajit, just starting to walk, was full of life: nervous, restless and curious about the world.

That morning, like so many others, the family was busy with their daily chores. Mangala had fed Ajit breakfast and taken him to the kitchen to start cooking. Her husband was buying vegetables, and her sick mother-in-law rested in the other room.

But little Ajit, always eager to explore, did not go unnoticed. Mangala shouted for her mother-in-law to see her, but there was no response. Minutes later, when she realized how quiet it had become, panic set in.

“Where’s my boy? Has anyone seen my boy?” he shouted. Neighbors ran to help.

Desperation quickly turned to heartbreak when his brother-in-law found Ajit’s tiny body floating in the pond. The courtyard outside his ramshackle house. The little boy had wandered outside and slipped into the water – a moment of innocence turned into unimaginable tragedy.

Today, Mangala is one of 16 mothers in the area who walk or bicycle to two makeshift crèches set up by a non-profit, where they care for, feed and educate some 40 children, Who are dropped off by their parents on the way to work. “These mothers are the saviors of children who are not their own,” says Sujoy Roy of Child in Need Institute (CINI), which set up the crèche.

The need for such care is urgent: countless children continue to drown in this riverine region, which is dotted with ponds and streams. Every house has a pond for bathing, washing and even drawing drinking water.

A 2020 survey by medical research organizations The George Institute and CINI found that nearly three children between the ages of one and nine drowned daily in the Sundarbans region. Sunset in July, when the monsoon rains begin, and between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon. Most children at that time were unsupervised because caregivers were occupied with work. About 65% drowned within 50 meters of home, and only 6% received care from licensed doctors. Healthcare was in shambles: hospitals were scarce and many public health clinics were defunct.

In response, the villagers clung to ancient superstitions to protect the rescued children. They cross the child’s body over the head of an adult, chanting champing. They beat the water with sticks to drive away the spirits.

“As a mother, I know the pain of losing a child,” Mangala told me. “I don’t want any other mother to endure what I did. I want to keep these kids from drowning. We live in so many dangers anyway.”

Life in the Sundarbans, home to four million people, is a daily struggle.

Tigers, known to attack humans, wander dangerously close and enter crowded villages where the poor survive. Survive, often squatting on the ground.

People fish, gather honey, and gather crabs under the constant threat of tigers and venomous snakes. From July to October, rivers and ponds swell due to heavy rains, cyclones lash the region, and flooding engulfs villages. Climate change is worsening this uncertainty. About 16% of the population here is aged one to nine.

“We have always co-existed with water, unaware of the dangers, until tragedy strikes,” says Sujata Das.

Sujatha’s life was turned upside down three months ago when her 18-month-old daughter Ambika drowned in the pond at their joint family home in Kultali.

Her sons were in their coaching classes, some family members had gone to the market, and an elderly aunt was busy working at home. Her husband, who usually works in the southern state of Kerala, was at home that day, repairing fishing nets on a nearby trawler. Sujatha had gone to a local hand pump to fetch water as a promised water connection at her residence had still not materialized.

“Then we found him floating in the pond. It had rained, the water had risen. We took him to a local quack, who declared him dead. This tragedy has awakened us to the need to prevent such tragedies in the future. What to do,” says Sujata.

Sujata, like others in the village, plans to fence her pond with bamboo and nets to prevent children from wandering into the water. She hopes that children who do not know how to swim are taught in village ponds. She wants to encourage neighbors to learn CPR to provide lifesaving assistance to drowning children.

“Children don’t vote, so there is often a lack of political will to address these issues,” says Mr Roy. “So we are focusing on building local resilience and spreading knowledge.”

In the last two years, around 2,000 villagers have received CPR training. Last July, a villager saved a drowning child by reviving him before sending him to the hospital. “The real challenge lies in setting up crèches and raising awareness among the community,” he says.

Implementing even simple solutions is challenging due to cost and local beliefs.

In the Sundarbans, superstitions about angering the water gods made it difficult for people to fence their ponds. In neighboring Bangladesh, where drowning is the leading cause of death for children aged one to four, wooden playpens were introduced into courtyards to keep children safe. However, compliance was low – children disliked them, and villagers often used them for goats and ducks. “This created a false sense of security, and the rate of drowning increased slightly over three years,” says Jagnoor Jagnoor, an injury epidemiologist at the George Institute.

Eventually non-profits set up 2,500 crèches in Bangladesh, reducing 88% of deaths due to drowning. In 2024, the government plans to expand it to 8,000 centres, benefiting 200,000 children annually. Water-rich Vietnam focused on children aged six–10, using decades of mortality to develop policies and teach survival skills. This reduced the rate of drowning, especially among schoolchildren traveling on waterways.

Drowning is a major global issue. In 2021, an estimated 300,000 people drowned – more than 30 lives lost every hour, according to WHO. Almost half were under 29, and a quarter were under five. India’s data is scary, officially recording nearly 38,000 drowning deaths in 2022, although the real number is likely much higher.

In the Sundarbans, harsh reality is ever present. Over the years, children have either been allowed to roam freely or have been tied with ropes and clothes to prevent them from wandering. Jingling anklets were used to alert parents to their children’s movements, but in this unforgiving, water-adjacent scenario, nothing really seems to be safe.

Kakoli Das’s six-year-old son walked into an overflowing pond last summer while giving a piece of paper to a neighbour. Unable to differentiate between road and water, Ishaan drowned. He suffered seizures as a child and could not learn to swim because of the risk of fever.

Kakoli says, “Please, I beg every mother: fence your ponds, learn to revive babies and teach them how to swim. This is about saving lives. We can’t wait.”

For now, crèches serve as a beacon of hope, providing a way to keep children safe from the dangers of water. On a recent afternoon, four-year-old Manik Pal sang a cheerful ditty to remind his friends: I won’t go to the pond alone / Unless my parents are with me / I’ll learn to swim and stay afloat / And I will live my life fear-free.