North Bihar has a permanent visitor- The Flood
North Bihar and floods
Does anyone remember the intensity of flood that hit North Bihar in the year 2004? Most of us have forgotten it but let us not forget that North Bihar was not the final point of that flood but the flood that begins in Nepal further proceeds to West Bengal and Bangladesh before finally ending by meeting in Bay of Bengal. In 2004, the flood was highly damaging so it attracted our leaders attention making them too worried that forced them to surveys, by helicopters of course and then when the flood was past Bihar everything came back to normal forgetting it once again, to wait for the next annual episode, as usual.
The annual visitor
The flood that hits North Bihar is not an “Unexpected Guest” but a frequent visitor that comes almost every year and that too on almost fixed dates, give or take a couple of days. Despite the flood in the area being a regular feature, the state governments of the time behave as if it were something unexpected and they were caught off-guard. The officials concerned never do anything to combat with the situation before hand to face the situation and never do any homework that only makes the situation more grim, with added furry, every year. The situation becomes uglier because we have allocated funds to save the situation and people expect them to do something to save them from floods but they do nothing except blaming Nepal for this natural calamity, every year, leaving people of the area on the mercy of God.
They blame it on poverty
The most fertile area of Bihar has been left to face the grim situation without any concrete efforts on the part of government. Whenever a discussion started to tackle the problem the governmental machinery gave certain reasons for not being ale to control the situation and the reason number was invariably the poverty of the area contrary to the fact that this is perhaps the richest area of Bihar. The area has some of the most famous yields of rice, mango, banana, Lychee the only member of the genus Litchi of the soapberry family grown in Muzaffarpur district of the area, sugarcane etc. If we add Neel the fabric brightener and Jute in the list, you will find yourself standing at the longest railway station of India the Sonpur. We shall have to consider seriously about reasons behind this situation of the entire area especially keeping in mind the presence of a railway station as big as Sonpur that was built by British there. What was the need of such a vast railway station in that area? The answer is simple, the large amount of yield that was transported to other parts of the country and to ports for transportation of the crops to Britain. But today we have left the area to its fate to face the flood every year.
Why blame Nepal
Let us give it a serious thought, there is no use playing blame games with Nepal for the flood situation in North Bihar. Nepal is a small hilly country situated on Himalayas and the water released is the rainwater that flows towards North Bihar being natural outlet for the same and the most important point that Nepal has no means to stop it on its own. And if you think about it on a serious note, just why should they stop the water in their area? On the other hand, if they try to stop the water it will only harm their own interests. Let us be practical and stop blaming Nepal for the same. Nepal should not stop the water in their own area as it could cause serious problems.
We all know that Himalaya being the newest of mountain ranges is not strong enough to withstand that big pressure of water storage in the dams, however strong at high risk of damage due to seismic conditions. Construction of dams in Nepal would only higher the risks of floods in future. What we can do at most is that we could create a better rapport with Nepal and talk with them on higher level about flood management and the talks should be on friendly, equal and technical level to reduce the risk of floods in North Bihar that is a regular annual feature of the area. And while talking to Nepal, we should not forget that the floods destroying the North Bihar effect Nepal by killing hundreds of people every year before reaching to Bihar. We should have known that all the debris lying there in Nepal due to frequent earthquakes taking place that comes to Bihar with floodwater to make the situation worse as the debris fills the rivers and overflow them easily. Incidentally, we should have to understand the situation of North Bihar, situated right at the bottom of snow-clad Himalayan peaks bringing water and debris with great speed in to the numerous rivers.
Facts about Himalaya
People of the area understand the value of Geo-Morphology that is evident from the Varaha-Avatar temple that was constructed in 11th century, a rare temple because temples of Varaha are not generally available in other areas. Here I must clarify - Varaha, the Boar in Sanskrit language was the third of the 10 incarnations (avatars) of the Vishnu the Hindu God. It is said that when the demon Hiranyaksha dragged the earth to the bottom of the sea, Vishnu came to rescue by taking the form of a boar. As it is believed that they fought for about a thousand years. Then Vishnu in form of Varaha destroyed the demon and pulled the earth out of the water with his tusks. The myth also reflects an earlier creation legend of Brahma in form of Prajapati, who assumed the shape of a boar in order to lift the earth up out of the primeval waters.
The Himalaya came into existence couple of million years before due to certain geological changes and then a network of rivers spread in the area over the years. These rivers come down flowing fast from the heights of Himalayas. India has seven major mountain ranges and some of the ranges are among the highest in the world. The Great Himalayan mountain ranges are the famous and highest mountain hills of India. The Satpura Range that stretches through the states in the central part of India and is far stronger compared to Himalayas. It extends across Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh. The Aravali range that is among the oldest mountain ranges in India runs through Rajasthan to Haryana. The Vindhya Range is one of seven mountain ranges in India. The Vindhya Range is like the boundary-line that separates Northern India from the Southern India as it runs across almost the whole of central India. The Vindhya Range is the oldest mountain range that extends towards east-west direction starting from Varanasi towards Madhya Pradesh and to Gujarat further.
As per geological reports the Himalaya is the weakest of all other mountains especially if we compare it with Vindhy, Satpura and Aravali. Himalayas have three basic layers namely, Outer, Middle and Inner and the Shivalik range, the outer layer is considered the weakest of them all. For example compared to Satpura, Aravali or Vindhya, Himalaya is like a kid against able-bodied adults. Himalaya is like a youngster that still plays games having no seriousness of other stronger mountains and therefore has still many weaknesses that keep changing its nature. The rivers originating from Himalaya not only bring water but lots of rocks and debris to disturb the life of the areas from where these pass through. North Bihar is one of the hardest hit due to Himalayan weaknesses.
The changes in local community
However, the community of the area has learned to live with all the weaknesses that environment of the area has on offer for them including the Miocene is the first geological epoch of the Neo-gene period and extends from about 23 to 5 million years ago. The whole process is also known as when the earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene as it cooled into a series of ice ages that we know as fight between Vishnu the Varaha and Demon. By the way the earthquake in 1934, almost 80 years before that shook this part of the world is still very much talk of the area. A disaster is a natural or ‘fabricated’ hazard resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, property and civilization but the local community has learned to live with it. However, there have been uncommon changes in last hundred or so years that has changed the attitude of the locals from ‘tolerant to proudly’, at least that is how the planners or administrators of the area feel so, despite having done nothing substantial for this area.
Rivers in the area
The society in this area had adjusted with the rivers or rather they had learned how to take advantage of the flood but now that art of living with the flood is dying down. However, despite the innumerous rivers in North Bihar people there have no complaints against them but considered them as goddesses coming right from heaven. Most rivers have been named after jewelries and jewels because the locals found them associated with their daily lives. There are villages in the area where one cannot enter without having to cross a river or two.
The rivers in this area are famous for changing their course with the time. For instance Kosi River has changed more than 150 kilometers from its original course. The river has not left a single inch of two entire districts where it did not leave its signs. This makes the task of making dams or keeping them with in limit is even more difficult. The people of North Bihar have suffered a lot due these rivers but they have gained also as the mud brought by these rivers has converted infertile land into agricultural fields. The entire district of Darbhanga is considered an agriculturally rich area today due to mud brought by rivers from the hills with floodwater. People do not consider change of courses of rivers strange anymore but take these changes as play of the rivers. To cut a long story short, people of the area were never afraid of the floods in last decades but knew how to utilize the water during summers. They used to construct big tanks to collect water for emergency purpose despite having so many rivers knowing fully well that these rivers were only seasonal. These tanks served them in different ways, in rainy seasons tanks would store the water and when there was no water in the rivers during summers these would serve as reservoirs. Some of the tanks were spread over 2-3 miles, but these were later converted into agricultural lands or even residential areas.
We hear a lot about rainwater harvesting today but in North Bihar people had developed floodwater-harvesting system that was called ‘Nadiya Taal’ in local language, which means ‘River Tank’ filled with river water. We find water tanks in our country those generally filled with rainwater but North Bihar is the only area perhaps where the tanks are filled with floodwaters brought by innumerable rivers appearing with water during rainy season only. The newer generations of the area have almost forgotten to take the advantage of floodwater like their ancestors used to take. Most of the water that goes through to Bangladesh via West Bengal is almost 90% of their total water resources compared to only 10% what they get by way of rains. If you see three big rivers in Bangladesh, namely, Ganga, Meghna and Brhamaputra, you will know how the Bangladeshis have utilized the water resources available to them. The rivers in Bangladesh are not like our rivers where we can see the other side of the banks but they compete with oceans and it is almost impossible to see the other side of the bank of a river. But they have managed to live with water and still cultivated as per their own needs to justify the name ‘Sonar Bangla’ (Golden Bengal) given to them.
The failed schemes
North Bihar has forgotten the self-imposed discipline of not constructing houses or converting their big water collecting tanks into agricultural land and paying the penalty. There has been another change in last century is about making dams and embankments but what we did not consider was the way these rivers behave. It was not that easy to keep rivers of North Bihar in a fixed course by fixing them in embankments like those that we do in other parts of the country. Unfortunately these embankments have not helped the cause of keeping water in control but have only worsen the flood situation of the area. What people call these embankments jokingly are shelters during floods because people come to stay on them when other areas are submerged by flood waters, these embankments serve as good place to live for weeks for homeless.
The floods are permanent feature of this area and will be here this coming rainy season again. So, what we need is not air surveys or few helicopters costing billions but boats and boatmen ready to tackle the situation by rescuing villagers and their cattle. We need these boats permanently with proper storage facility for relief material and arrangement for housing the flood-affected people in temporary/permanent shelters with basic amenities. Food and drinking water along with medicines and other medical facilities should be available for everyone. Calling military in emergency is a good move but why can’t we have NGOs listed in advance who are ever ready to help the people in need. They should be allowed to work in particular pre-fixed areas to avoid last minute hoch-poch that is common every year. We need to getup and come forward to help every needy person beyond selfish party level politics. We should learn the old ways of people who knew how to utilize the water for its best use. We shall have to think in a constructive way for the people of North Bihar to take them out of this permanent annual problem. The way the governments working are only making the situation worse, the need is to do it with the help of locals and government of Nepal on collective basis.
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