New Delhi, Sept. 23 -- India is asking one depleting resource to feed its people, fuel its cars and power its technological future: groundwater.

In Bhattu Kalan, a block of Haryana's Fatehabad district, a distillery cleared to draw water for a quarter of a million litres of grain ethanol a day is coming up despite the government itself calling it over-exploited. Fatehabad pumps groundwater at 117% of the rate it replenishes, and yet the plant has received environmental clearance anyway.

This case study is symptomatic of a larger tendency of the Indian State asking a depleting source to feed its people, fuel its cars and power its digital future, all at once and with exceptional resolve.

This collision would be alarming in a water-abund...