Dear Chandan Bhai,

An article of mine was published in EPW (July 2001?) titled ‘Living With Floods” and you can access that. I am told that in the Kaziranga National Park, the Army has built raised mounds for the occupation of the cattle during the flood times. I do not have any information about it at the moment but these were working well until three years ago. It sounds sensible. Following the floods of West Bengal, in 1978, the Government and the NGOs there had built a large number of primary schools with stilted structure, to be used as flood shelters during rainy season. Hand pumps were stretched up to the first floor in these buildings. I am told, these structures have served the intended purpose.

Traditionally, there used to be raised mounds close to every village in the flood prone areas where people and cattle could take shelter in emergencies. This was done by the people as their felt need, with their own efforts. The same structure was constructed by Bihar Government along the banks of the Kosi and other rivers that can be seen in Saharsa and other districts. These are platforms of say, 100 ft x 100 ft size, built of local sandy soil and crumble in the first rain. Since the responsibility of the engineers and the contractors is only ‘till the first rain or six months, whichever is earlier’ it suits the vested interests. These are caricatures of what the community had built in past. The problem with the Governments are that they behave like a joker in the circus who tries to imitate everything that the other artists perform. He then makes a fool of himself, people clap and laugh and then he turns to his next folly and await the response of the people.

I have seen, in Assam, floating toilets, made of braced banana stems fixed to the houses. Sound quite sensible except that it pollutes surface water. Here comes the role of the engineers. Does it need the people like us to point out to the institutions like NEERI to take notice of the situation? I once talked to CBRI scientists to advise me over the design of houses where villages are exposed to surges of water emanating from the breaches of the embankments. And you know what they asked me. They asked, ‘Are there such places in our country?’ Then they asked me to get some funds from somewhere so that they could research on the problem. I told them that if I could arrange the necessary funds, I would like to do it myself for I was, at least, aware of the problem, which they were not.

‘Boats and Bamboo’ which is what Kautilya wrote in his Arthshastra were the means to handle floods. Moving to safer place was the idea behind it. And once you now the safer place then it comes to equipping it with necessary amenities. This is important and, possibly, the only way to deal with the situation. Floods will come and they must come otherwise the life in the flood plains would be ruined. It depends on us whether we want them spread over a vast area with moderate depths or high depth floods on a smaller area. At the moment, all over efforts are directed toward the latter option.

Floods are said to have occurred if our daily chores are affected by outside water. Now if I can go to my office as usual, my children can go to their schools, my wife can access market/ medical facilities etc and the civic amenities like post offices, banks and block offices remain accessible to us then whether floods are there or not, it would never matter. Having known the problems, can we do something to minimize the inconveniences and the time delay that water would cause? Vidur, in Mahabharata, had cautioned Dhritrashtra that one should do all good things during the day to get a sound sleep in the night and one must do all the things in eight months of the year so that one could live in peace for the four months during the rainy season. This fact is not appreciated by our NGO friends also. Prompted by their donors, they are hell bent on calling floods a disaster. It is about the time that the difference between a disaster and way of life is understood very clearly. Imagine what will happen if the floods are not there in Bihar or Assam?

Our problem is that our experts refuse to learn from the people and do not want to change the products that they intend to sell. The people are forced to buy what is available in the market.

Dinesh Mishra
20th August 2004.