Floods then...
Lots of rice and fish, and malaria
controlOver many hundreds of years of living in such
naturally flood prone regions, the native people of the GBM basin have devised ingenuous
ways of adapting with this riverine ecology. William Wilcox, a British engineer in the
18th century observed and documented a very special kind of ‘flood irrigation’
system in Bengal. He noticed that there was an intricate system of ‘disused’
channels called Kaninadis or Blind Rivers. Whenever the rivers flooded, these
channels actually functioned as canals to divert excess flows. The villagers would build
low embankments to hold the flood waters, only to deliberately breach them as the level of
the rivers rose, so that the top layer of flood waters would spread as a shallow sheet all
over their paddy fields depositing fine silt and algae, increasing the fertility of the
soil and replenishing ground water. Not
 only did these ‘golden waters’ bring rich silt, it also contained
large quantities of fish eggs, which would settle in the biologically rich ponds, fields
and wetlands of the floodplains — the ‘fattening up’ grounds for freshwater
fish. And that’s not all, the growing carnivorous fish would snap up all the wriggly,
malaria causing mosquito larvae. Not just flood control, but lots of rice and fish –
and malaria control! Clever, isn’t it?
Though Wilcox was smart enough to acknowledge the native wisdom of the locals, his
fellow colonial engineer friends thought otherwise. Their foreign minds failed to
understand the ecology of the floodplains. In their desire to use their scientific
knowledge and engineering skills to tame and control the rivers of Bengal and Bihar they
furiously went about building embankments and canals. Even after independence Indian
engineers with their western education and training proposed and implemented such
grandiose engineering schemes of irrigation and flood control. This often has caused more
problems, than they solved.
...and now
Lots of misery, death and
destruction
The Himalayan river with the monsoon flow is a dangerous object to come in
the way of. Yet we often try to ‘jacket’ or restrain such rivers
to control
flooding. Interfering with these powerful silt-laden bodies of water
often boomerangs on us. The British tried to control Damodar, a non-Himalayan river, by
building embankments. Even this comparatively minor river however got transformed into
Bengal’s Sorrow, largely due to these embankments. In spite of the failure to reign
in Damodar, government flood control measures have mainly consisted of building dams and
embankments. Over 400 km of embankments have been built since 1954.
What happens when human
activities interfere -
Reduced Passage: The silt in the flood waters which would normally spill over a vast area to form
the flood plains, is confined to a much smaller area, raising the river bed. A time comes
when the level of the river bed becomes higher than the surrounding land. Hell breaks
loose when a river in spate breaches the embankments. Whole villages are washed away.
Loss of Fertile Silt: People living on the wide flood plains use the rich silt left by the floods to
grow crops. Embankments restrict this.
Build-up of Flood Waters:
During the monsoon season, embankments lead to dangerous
build up of water within the embanked river.  At the same time, people
start feeling safe and villages start coming up close to the embankment and even living
there.There have numerous occasions when the gushing waters of rivers in UP, Bihar and
Assam have burst through at weak points in the embankments, causing death and destruction
of life and property.
Waterlogging: Tributaries and natural run-off from the surrounding areas cannot drain into the
river, because of man-made barriers like roads,
embankments, railway tracks etc., and huge amounts of water collect here.
"If this is protection, then we don’t want such protection!"
Why people living along the
embankments of river Kosi in north Bihar consider it to be curse rather than a cure
In 1954 the government of Bihar decided to build embankments along the
Kosi as a flood control measure. At that time the engineers argued that it would protect
those living on its banks. People living within the embankments were supposed to be
resettled, but once the construction was over, everyone forgot about them. For some years
the embankments provided protection...till a particularly bad flood trapped those living
within and breaches washed away those on the outside.
FUNDUNG
 |
Manoj Choudhry was a young boy in 1968. His
village, Arrapatti, was within the embankments. He still clearly remembers that day,
"There had been unusually heavy rains during Durga Puja. The Kosi had been rising
menacingly...and suddenly flood waters gushed into our homes and everything was taken away
by the river before our eyes". Manoj was saved by climbing onto his fathers shoulders
and wading to safety onto higher ground. But many others of his village perished. In the
past forty years breaching has been frequent. In 1984 the eastern embankment gave way.
People had little time to react. In a matter of ten hours the surging waters washed away
everything — whole villages, people, huts, trees, crops, cattle and all.
Not only that, the embankments has affected the
natural drainage. Before the embankments were built, the flood waters would drain away
soon. But now, the embankments act as a dam preventing flood waters from draining. Today
there are vast stretches of lands along the embankments that are permanently waterlogged,
of no use to anyone. What was once excellent fertile land for agriculture are now stagnant
pools of water, an ideal breeding ground for disease causing mosquitoes. Malaria, Kala
Azar and filaria are common.
 |
Kosi: BIHAR'S
SORROW |
When tributaries of
the Ganga, like the Ghaghara, Gandak and Kosi, meet the main stream, great heaps of soil
are deposited as deltas at their confluence. This obstructs the natural flow of the rivers
and forces them to carve channels through the deposits forming braided streams.
The Kosi in North Bihar is known as
"Bihar’s Sorrow" because of the devastation it causes. Its steep slope and
excessive rainfall in its upper
reaches, heavy silt load and the numerous streams
that join it make it a perfect recipe for disaster. The Kosi has shifted 160 km westwards
in the last two hundred years. |
In the monsoons, ironically, the only dry place
for some villages, like Gonghepur in Saharsa district, at the southern tip of the West
Kosi embankment, is the embankment itself. Every household has a sort of makeshift
‘monsoon home’ on the embankment. Schools are deserted, because children cannot
reach them. If someone falls sick they have to be taken by boat on a long journey to the
nearest hospital. Throughout the year the village lands are waterlogged. It is no wonder
that most young people have migrated to to work in Punjab or in big cities like Delhi and
Calcutta. It is said that in the carpet factories of Mirzapur, notorious for use of child
labour, most children come from this region. Ecological refugees.
Obviously the people are very angry. They see the
embankments as the reason for their misery. Only officials and contractors have benefitted
from all the corruption in its construction. Villagers are demanding that the river be
liberated. They have even begun to break the embankments to save their lives, and the
government calls them ‘anti-social elements’! People of Gonghepur say, "Our
village is a village protected from floods, but if this is protection, then we don’t
want such protection!" |
A
Down To Earth Supplement
