Relearning to live with rivers

When the floods come this time
Bodies will remain, souls will be washed away
Next time when floods come
Floods will remain, bodies will be washed way.
– Kuber Datta in Barish

The 'Great Flood' is a symbol of devastation common to the myths of many cultures. From the biblical Noah's Ark to the matsya avatar of Hindu mythology, floods wash away the sinners of the world – but not before the escape of holy spirits has been divinely ensured. Of the five elements of creation in the Hindu scriptures (earth, water, air, fire and sky), the force representing the great oceans of the planet is said to be the most volatile. Each element of creation is capable of massive destruction, but the dominant belief is that nothing short of divine intervention can save humanity from the rages of tranquil liquid abruptly released. Perhaps it is for this reason that the unpredictability of the weather has been one of the most enduring concerns of the human race.

Predictability, however, is the defining feature of monsoons, the weather system that sustains life in Southasia. Monsoon winds blow northeasterly for half of the year, and from the southwest for the other half, thereby ensuring that the entire Subcontinent is able to produce enough food for one of the most densely populated regions on the globe.

'Monsoon' comes from the Arabic term for season, mausim, and it is the quality of the mausim that it changes. The deluge that has wreaked havoc this monsoon season, affecting the lives of over 30 million Southasians, will soon dissipate. Once the fury of flooding subsides, the flurry of excitement over damages will also disappear. But the predicament over how to manage the seasonal overflow of rivers in Southasia will persist until the following summer begins to scorch the plains of the Subcontinent. Then the wait for the imminent monsoon will begin – starting the cycle of anticipation, delight, shock and dismay all over again.

Predictably, responses to the ravages wrought by incessant rains are as expected as the passage of monsoon. At local levels, the promise of embankments to tame wayward rivers is a perennial favourite of petty politicians. Intermediate functionaries in provincial capitals prefer the idea of building barrages to link drainages of the various catchments under their domain. But the dreams of national leaders are more grandiose: most of them are besotted with the ideology of high dams, especially the ones that drown distant valleys in the upper reaches of the river for the benefit of densely populated plains downstream.

Perils of propinquity
The legend of Bhagirath bringing Ganga down from the heavens through relentless penance is a powerful symbol of the triumph of human will over the forces of nature. But there must be deeper reasons behind Southasia's fixation with envisioning monumental waterworks. Ever since the elaborate water-carriage systems of Harappa and Mohenjodaro were built millennia ago, the wonders of hydraulic engineering have never ceased to fascinate the inheritors of the Indus Valley civilisation. However, it was the crisis caused either by submergence and salinity or desertification that brought about the demise of one of the world's most ancient urban civilisations. Engineering solutions have their inevitable limits. Beyond this, what really makes all the difference is the ability of human beings to live with nature.

Widespread experience has shown the futility of embankments. Before the rainy season, an area bounded by bunds is a barren tract of sand and gravel. During the rains, embankments constrict the river's progress, increasing the waterway's velocity. Ferocious flows then breach their banks at the first opportunity. The subsequent flash flood inundates an incrementally larger area than would have been possible had the waterway been left uninterrupted. After the rains, it also takes longer for the surrounding land to drain out, as the natural outlet has been artificially blocked. In the 'influence area' of embanked rivers, the paradox of parched pastures and waterlogged rice fields coexist. Heavy embankments on the Kosi River were built to alleviate the misery of people living in flood-prone areas, but all it has accomplished has been an increase of their risks and uncertainties. Similar interventions elsewhere in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have caused ponding upstream in the plains of Nepal, and sudden inundations downstream in the Bangladesh delta.

The damage done by strings of barrages is not yet fully understood, but there are a few things that do not need elaborate studies to prove their veracity. Barrages create ponds and impound micro-nutrients from flowing downstream. Besides this, the storage of water for prolonged periods creates sharper difference in the elevation between riverbed and surrounding fields, which wreaks havoc during not-so-infrequent cloudbursts in the river's upper reaches – it is sand rather than silt that rushes out of the breaches during floods. The transfer of excess from one 'command area' to another is too complex to be calibrated, but limitations related to geology, gravity, demography and economics would suggest that the risks of artificially altering natural flows outweigh all attendant advantages.

The allure of high dams – almost every politician in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh insists that transforming the fertile valleys of Nepal's Mahabharata ranges into primeval lakes is the only way of reducing the intensity of floods in their constituencies – has more proximate causes. It is a politically correct view to hold; after all, did not Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru declare big dams as the new "temples of modern India"? What is often forgotten, however, is that it was also Nehru who had previously bemoaned the "disease of gigantism" spreading in his country. Then there is the glamour of scientific solutions in developing societies: all of them want to be another China, if not another Japan. Technology is perceived to be the fail-proof panacea of all ills. If only it were that simple. China has the ability to build many more Three Gorges dams, yet its huge technological capacity is powerless in the face of the fury of floods. The more and the higher they build in the floodplains, the greater the risks of human and material losses.

The nexus between politicians, administrators, financiers, engineers, builders and propagandists is another factor behind the popularity of the deeply flawed hydraulic structures that are promoted as saviours of the masses. Bund building at the local level keeps small-time contractors and local politicians gainfully employed. Large-scale barrages and canal contracts benefit brick-kilns, cement manufacturers, fixers, middlemen and sundry other operators in more ways than are known to regulatory bodies of the state. Mega-projects involve huge sums, which fund the intricate web of manufacturers of specialised machinery, multinational construction companies, global financial institutions and myriad others.

A crucial point missing from the modern-day ideology of building more dams, bunds and barrages is that it is not control over but coexistence with nature that has saved Southasian civilisations from extinction. The Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej of the Indus River system still sustain a vibrant civilisation in Kashmir, Punjab and Sindh. The mighty tributaries of the Ganga flowing down from the Himalaya in Nepal keep regenerating life till their waters meet the Bay of Bengal. The Tsangpo-Brahmaputra travels majestically from its beginnings in Tibet to meet the sea in Southasia. The Narmada and Tapi of the Vindhyas; the Krishna, Kaveri and Godavari in Deccan; the Mahavali Ganga in Kandy – all make up the wellsprings that make up Southasia.

In Tarana-e-Hind (which, incidentally, needs to be renamed the Southasian gana), Iqbal sings of the tenacity of the Southasian spirit. In Khuswant Singh's translation: While glories of Greece, Egypt and Rome have faded into the background
Our name and deeds in the world's corridors still resound
There is something that has given us immortality
For centuries we have survived the world's hostility

Perhaps it was freedom from the "disease of gigantism" that saved Southasia from going the way of other great civilisations of the past. The Subcontinent has survived cataclysmic climatic changes; massive famines, plagues and epidemics; and attacks by never-ending hordes – all by evolving and absorbing rather than resisting forces beyond its control.

Now, we must relearn to live with our rivers. What that entails sounds terribly passé – allowing streams to flow free of obstructions and unconstricted by embankments, creating forested catchments, and constructing flood shelters on elevated grounds. Faced with the combined challenge posed by receding snowlines, disappearing glaciers and rising seabeds, after all, we can do without angry rivers running amuck all over the region.