India’s 2026 monsoon should not be judged simply by the national rainfall deficit. The more consequential fact is that the monsoon has once again demonstrated how misleading an all-India average can be. A country can record rainfall close to normal in one region while farmers elsewhere confront crop failure, depleted water resources and the prospect of migration. This year’s 13 per cent shortfall is therefore more than an uncomfortable statistic. It is a warning about the vulnerability of an economy still deeply dependent on the monsoon. Agriculture may no longer dominate national output as it once did, but the livelihoods of millions, rural consumption and food prices remain closely tied to the availability and distribution of water.

The geographical disparities are particularly revealing. Maharashtra, with an 18 per cent rainfall deficit, has identified 265 of its 358 talukas as drought-affected. In parts of Marathwada and northern Maharashtra, crop losses have already forced some families to leave their villages temporarily in search of employment. Such distress is not an abstract consequence of climate variability. It feeds directly into........

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