Kosi, the cause of Bihar’s unending sorrow

Smita Mishra For those who have never experienced floods in their lives, it is simply a picture of a few turfs of land surrounded by water, people rowing boats in small by lanes or a few dead carcasses of cattle floating in water. But the horror of a flood cannot be captured in a few snapshots. WATCH: Bihar under water>> When a huge mass of water comes rolling down in the dead of night into a sleeping village and within minutes the breadths of clueless, unsuspecting people are choked with cold liquid, when thousands lose their homes, their crops, to rot in floodwaters and spend nights under a pouring merciless sky without food, shelter or solace, for once death through sudden approaching lava of some malignant volcano seems simple. Pompei had to suffer the wrath of Vesuvius once, but Bihar undergoes the terror witnessed by Pompei every year. The state, after its partition in 2000 was left without all but huge riverbanks, fertile lands and its share of perpetual wrath of massive rivers. Kosi, known to the world, as the sorrow of Bihar is a fast flowing antecedent river that collects water from mountains in Nepal and flows down into the plains, causing dangerous floods due to its perpetually shifting course. Due to its rapid flow it causes tremendous erosion and carries nearly 81 million tons of silt every year. This silt gets deposited around the river causing it to continuously shift its course. What went so wrong this time? Harappa was wiped out because Indus sulked away from the flourishing civilization and North Bihar, God forbid may be destroyed because the mighty, turbulent Kosi has decided to change its course. When Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed his fear that this time what the river has unleashed is more than fury – and is actually a catastrophe, with consequences which may fearfully be more grave and serious – he was actually telling a rude truth in calculated terms. Kosi the terror of North Bihar never ever lets people forget its presence and the people have learnt to live with its annual wrath. As soon as the floodwater recedes they forget their troubles and begin happily to sow on a land rich in organic minerals that yields bumper crops. But what happened this time that the whole of North Bihar is on the verge of being submerged? The trouble began after a massive breach took place in the Kosi embankment in Kushana in Nepal on August 18. This 400-meter breach soon widened to 2 km allowing an enormous 13 km current of swollen Kosi to flow downstream, affecting nearly ten lakh people in Supaul, Basantpur, Pratapganj, Chattarpur, Triveniganj and Raghopur blocks. Ironically all these cities were flood safe earlier. The Kosi has a history of westward shift – from Purnea to Supaul from the past 300 years but this time the breach in the eastern afflux bund has caused the Kosi to move eastward resulting in inundation of hitherto safe areas. Due to the heavy silt load, the river has been exerting pressure on its eastern side for the past 20 years. The bund-strengthening work has to be done every year to keep the river in check. But this year when the engineers began work, the Nepali locals drove them away within a week. When the situation became grave, the officials once again visited the danger zone, but had to come back amidst massive protests. The result was this terrible devastation, which has now affected nearly 45 lakh people. More than 25 lakh people have taken shelter on higher areas such as railway tracks, canals and rooftops struggling for survival in the absence of adequate food and other basic amenities. These people need to be educated and rapidly moved to safer places, as this time the surging water may not spare even the highest of the lands. The Bihar government has already said it fears such an outcome. Why can’t Kosi be tamed? Have any efforts been made so far to tame this mighty river, which has been the reason for devastation and catastrophe for centuries? No doubt several embankments have been built across it to check its unbridled surge but experts believe that even embankments allowed too much silt deposit along the shorter stretch of the river leading to more devastation. Ever since India gained independence, the Center and state governments have been talking of a permanent solution to this problem but besides lip service and a few halfhearted measures, the trouble has remained unresolved. The Bhimnagar barrage in Nepal, built in 1956 has long exceeded its expiry period of 30 years. In the 20 years following its expiry, the Kosi has innumerable times unleashed its ire, by damaging the weak areas of the crumbling structure. Will North Bihar become another Dwarka? Northern Bihar, the victim of Kosi’s wrath is one of the poorest and the most backward regions of India. It has mud filled gutters as roads, kerosene lamps to light morbid evenings, rampant poverty and absolute lawlessness. And then Kosi, and flood and now this grim disaster! Who will count the perished in this densely populated part of poor Bihar? The central and state governments, for the past 60 years have been giving false assurances to people without taking any concrete steps. We are planning a mission to moon, we have sent people to space, we invent, discover, we create and yet we cannot control a river’s flow? Building dams in Nepal would be the best solution to the Kosi trouble but initiative will have to be taken by India, as Nepal will not really be interested because its countryside is relatively safe. As an immediate step Bihar should make attempts to plug in the breach in the barriers by stuffing them up with necessary materials, which can easily be procured from several flood prone European countries. The governments should take steps to restore the existing embankments and build new ones where required. It’s true that even imagining that the entire North Bihar will be totally submerged in water and end up in history pages as a land lost to the ravages of nature is the height of pessimism in such modern times, but if the lazy, careless gov ernments have allowed a river to become a willful aggressor in half a century, the time may not be far when the entire North Bihar will end up in a watery grave, sealing its history, its culture and the fate of its teeming millions with nature’s indurate, barbaric thumb.