In a parched Indian village where there is no running water, men are marrying multiple women so they can fetch it for the family.For villagers in Denganmal in western India, the only drinking water comes from two wells at the foot of a nearby rocky hill – a spot so crowded that the sweltering

walk and wait can take hours.

For Sakharam Bhagat, and for many of his neighbours in the village 85 miles from Mumbai, the answer was a ‘water wife’.

Bhagat, 66, now has three wives, two of whom he married solely to ensure his household has enough water to drink and cook with.

‘I had to have someone to bring us water, and marrying again was the only option,’ said Bhagat, who works as a day labourer on a farm in a nearby village.

‘My first wife was busy with the kids. When my second wife fell sick and was unable to fetch water, I married a third.’

Bhagat and his family are suffering the consequences of a critical shortage of safe drinking water in India’s villages, as well as the fallout from the most severe drought that his state, Maharashtra, has faced in a decade.

The government estimated last year that more than 19,000 villages had no access to water in Maharashtra.

India is again facing the threat of a drought this year, with monsoon rains expected to be weaker than average.

In Denganmal, a cluster of about 100 thatched houses set on an expanse of barren land, most men work as farm labourers, barely earning the minimum wage.

Marrying for water has been the norm there for many years, villagers said.

Bhagat’s wives all live in the same house with him but have separate rooms and kitchens.

Two of them are entrusted with fetching water, while the third manages the cooking.

Polygamy is illegal in India, but in this village, water wives are common.

‘It is not easy to have a big family when there is no water,’ Namdeo, another villager who has two wives, said.

Bhagat says the women, some of them widows or abandoned, are also happy with the arrangement.

‘We are like sisters. We help each other. Sometimes we might have problems, but we solve them among ourselves,’ his first wife, Tuki said.

Sweltering: Sakhri, Sakharam Bhagat’s second wife, carries a metal pitcher filled with water from a well

Bhaagi (left) and Sakhri (second from left), wives of Sakharam Bhagat (right) walk to fetch water from a well

Helping hand: Women carrying metal pitchers filled with water from a well outside Denganmal village, India