Bihar Floods Expose the Politics of a By no means-Ending Disaster

People, deer, and wild goats—dazed and jittery—gathered collectively on the highlands within the neighborhood of the Valmiki Tiger Reserve when the huge surge of water broke the embankments at a number of factors alongside the Gandak and its tributaries in Bihar.

As regular on September 27, when the solar went down on the waters of the Gandak and nightfall enveloped the woods of the forest, and the paddy and sugarcane fields in what’s the expansive “rice bowl” of the bigger Champaran area of North Bihar, farmers, predators, and innocent creatures alike known as it a day and retired.

The sudden gush of water hitting their cots, houses, and shelters jerked them out of their sleep in the midst of the night time. “The electrical energy went off. Groping at midnight, I seemed for my cell phone. I fished it out from beneath my pillow cowl, nevertheless it didn’t work; it was moist, and so had been my fingers,” Rishi Kumar Mukhia (35), a resident of Kalighat—one of many worst-hit villages in Bagaha subdivision—advised Frontline.

Early on September 28, Mukhia, a marginalised-Bind caste youth and native volunteer, escorted his members of the family and villagers to the highlands alongside the railway tracks in Bagaha, the place he discovered 1000’s of males, ladies and youngsters—divided into varied teams alongside the railway observe from Ward 1 to Ward 5. That they had gathered, trying from a distance on the swirling waters flowing violently over their paddy fields, the place the crops had been practically ripe for harvesting inside weeks, and over the sugarcane fields. Nothing was seen besides the gray waters dancing in ecstasy.

“One of many shelters of people had just a few deer and wild goats known as ‘Ban Bakra’ by the locals, hurrying to the individuals from the thicket of the Valmiki forests, proper on the financial institution of the Gandak. The individuals let the wild denizens reside with them and shared chuda (overwhelmed rice), jaggery, guava, berries, cucumber, vines, leaves and spinach—or no matter that they had.”

Causes for the flood

Torrential rains within the wake of Cyclone Arnab lashed the mountains in Nepal, propelling waters in direction of the foothills, drowning houses, cattle and crops, and swelling the river Narayani, which is what the Gandak is known as in Nepal. The large influx pushed the discharge on the Valmikinagar barrage on the Gandak, between Bihar and Nepal, to five,43,500 cusecs at its peak on September 28.

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The large discharge breached or broken embankments stretching alongside the Gandak at a number of locations, together with Mangalpur, Nautan, Bagaha, and Bairia in West Champaran, whereas the flooding unfold into East Champaran and different downstream districts. The Gandak’s report discharge inundated massive areas of West Champaran, East Champaran, Gopalganj, Saran, Muzaffarpur, and Vaishali.

The turbulent waters, breaching embankments, breaking sandbags and carrying animal carcasses, logs, foliage and remnants of homes and huts, gushed with super drive into the Burhi Gandak, Bagmati, Kamala, Kosi, Lakhandei, and Adhwara teams of rivers, swelling their volumes far past their capability.

Within the course of, the menacing currents destroyed crops, homes, cattle, roads and bridges in Muzaffarpur, Samastipur, Gopalganj and Saran districts, and components of Darbhanga, Madhubani, Supaul, Saharsa and Madhepura as nicely, whereas floodwaters additionally affected components of jap Uttar Pradesh.

The Jan Suraaj Occasion founder, Prashant Kishore, put the variety of affected individuals at 5 million, towards official estimates starting from 1.68 million to 4.80 million.

Updating reporters on the flood state of affairs in Patna on October 1, Bihar Water Assets Minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary mentioned, “The sudden discharge of 5,43,500 cusecs of water from the Valmikinagar barrage was huge, however not unprecedented. However what’s unprecedented is the keep of waters within the rivers and within the fields for thus lengthy. The latest heavy rains in Uttarakhand have put huge stress on the Ganga, taking its degree past the purple marks at many locations in Bihar.”

“Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Kosi, Kamala and their tributaries,” defined Choudhary, “meet and enter into the Ganga at varied factors, which flows and merges at Sundarbans within the Bay of Bengal. Now, the extent of Ganga water has gone up, making a wall for different rivers to enter into it. This phenomenon, which seems to be unprecedented, has made the state of affairs graver.”

A Bihar authorities launch mentioned, “As many as 15 main aid camps have been arrange and 12,000 neighborhood kitchens are in operation within the flood-affected areas throughout the districts of West Champaran, East Champaran, Muzaffarpur and Gopalganj.” “Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary and I’ve undertaken aerial surveys within the marooned areas. Authorities officers have been patrolling around the clock alongside the embankments and within the aid camps, protecting an in depth watch on the state of affairs,” Choudhary mentioned.

However the affected individuals talked concerning the native good Samaritans within the hours of disaster. A girl Sub-Divisional Justice of the Peace, Chandani Kumari, and Block Income Officer Ravi Prakash Choudhary—each Bihar Administrative Service officers—of Bagaha subdivision have emerged as cynosures of all eyes. “Day in and day trip, Chandani ji and Ravi ji served us. They saved our well-being above their very own well being and security,” Shashi Tiwary, a neighborhood journalist at Madhuban, who has his household and villagers trapped within the flood-hit zone, mentioned. One other native journalist and entrepreneur, Prashun Pushkar, who was volunteering his providers to the marooned individuals in Bagaha, too praised the 2 officers, saying, “Among the many politicians, the MP from Purnea, Pappu Yadav, has completed a yeoman service. Pappu Yadav distributed lakhs of rupees from his personal pocket and foodgrains among the many affected individuals,” Prashun mentioned.

Historical past and politics

Whereas the Chief of the Opposition within the Bihar Meeting, Tejashwi Yadav, has demanded that the Centre declare the current floods within the State a “nationwide calamity” and launch a fund price not less than Rs.5,000 crore for the aid and rehabilitation of the marooned individuals, Prashant Kishore—who emerged as a outstanding opposition voice after profitable the Bankipur Meeting bypoll from the BJP in July—made a frontal assault on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “He (Modi) talks lots about his ‘double-engine’ authorities and makes a loud declare about serving to Bihar. However he does it merely to garner votes. He has not posted even a small message of comfort for the marooned individuals on his X deal with,” Kishore mentioned.

Nevertheless, Chief of Opposition within the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has posted on his X deal with in Hindi: “Floods have once more wreaked havoc in Bihar. Thousands and thousands of individuals have been affected and tons of of villagers and tons of of villages have remained submerged. Studies of deaths and folks lacking have additionally emerged. My deepest condolence to the households who’ve misplaced their family members. Essentially the most tragic a part of this disaster is that this disaster isn’t new in Bihar. Yearly, floods arrive, individuals die, households are devastated, and persons are compelled emigrate. The BJP’s double-engine authorities should reply what it has completed within the final 17 years to deal with this annual catastrophe….The individuals of Bihar want a everlasting answer—not aid and assurance yearly”.

Outdated-timers recall how the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh landed at Purnea in August 2008 throughout an analogous, although Kosi-related, flood catastrophe and instantly introduced Central help of Rs.1,000 crore for rescue and aid operations. He additionally introduced 1.25 lakh tonnes of foodgrains for the flood-hit State after conducting an aerial survey of the worst-affected districts. The Rs.1,000 crore help can be price significantly extra in at the moment’s cash, although its precise present-day equal depends upon the inflation measure used.

Immediately, the Prime Minister has the PM CARES Fund and the Prime Minister’s Nationwide Reduction Fund (PMNRF), however on the time of writing, the Centre had not introduced a comparable particular aid package deal for the marooned individuals within the current floods.

Torrential rains in Nepal, then too, had breached the embankment on the Kosi at Kusaha, inflicting havoc in Khagaria, Saharsa, and Madhepura districts within the Kosi area and Katihar, Purnea, Araria, and Kishanganj districts of Seemanchal—the border area—throughout the 2008 monsoon season.

Curiously, Bihar then had a Nationwide Democratic Alliance (NDA) authorities, with Nitish Kumar because the Chief Minister, who, after all, camped within the flood-affected areas for over every week, finishing up aid operations on a struggle footing. He received a quintal of foodgrain distributed to each affected household, incomes the sobriquet “Quintalia Baba”, whereas Manmohan Singh’s largesse made such an intensive aid operation doable. Nitish claimed the credit score for the aid effort, whereas the Centre’s contribution acquired comparatively little political acknowledgement in Bihar. The NDA subsequently carried out strongly within the Kosi-Seemanchal area within the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, a outcome that was extensively related to the goodwill Nitish had earned on the largesse of Manmohan Singh throughout the flood aid operations.

Economics and geography

The geography of the bigger Mithila, Champaran and Kosi-Seemanchal areas lies on the root of the floods brought on by a sequence of rivers—Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Kamla, Bagmati, Kosi and the Adhwara group of rivers—all originating in or fed by the Himalayas and flowing all the way down to the plains of Bihar. The rivers and floods are an inseparable a part of the area’s tradition and civilisation, producing enchanting tales and legends. If one travels to the world, one hears many tales, fables, songs, and tales in honour of the river goddesses.

Policymakers are presupposed to engineer the geography for the bigger good of the individuals. However the politicians-contractors-bureaucrats’ nexus through the years has led the fury of nature to serve vested pursuits, at the price of the existence and survival of the people who find themselves born and introduced up on this a part of the land. The Kosi-Seemanchal-Mithila area has served as residence to a few of the State’s wealthiest politicians, engineers and contractors, whereas additionally serving as a cradle of intense communist and Naxalite actions within the post-Independence historical past of Bihar.

The Water Assets Division, previously identified in lots of contexts because the Irrigation Division, has been one of the crucial sought-after portfolios amongst ruling legislators as a result of it oversees a big price range for flood aid and rehabilitation, restore of roads and bridges broken throughout each monsoon, strengthening of embankments and clearing silt from riverbeds.

In Patna’s corridors of energy, one hears of how rats and rodents ate electrical transformers, cables and poles within the flood zone and the way the mandarins of the State govt had been keen and delicate to rebuild the damaged infrastructure in areas below nature’s “wrath”.

If the fury of the rivers fattens the coffers of politicians, officers, and contractors and brings demise and destruction to cattle and crops, it additionally fires the artistic creativeness of communities in misery. Sitamarhi in Mithila is believed to be the house of Goddess Sita, daughter of the Vedic King Janaka and spouse of Lord Rama. One can hear myriad songs and tales of how Rama took his baraat to Janaka’s door to marry Sita and the way the individuals of Mithila deal with Rama as their damad (son-in-law) and Sita as their daughter. The development of a giant temple devoted to Sita and Rama in Sitamarhi is below means. However it is usually a actuality that Sitamarhi stays amongst Bihar’s poorer districts: in accordance with the NITI Aayog’s 2023 Multidimensional Poverty Index, 42.82 per cent of its inhabitants was multidimensionally poor in 2019–21.

The Champaran-Mithila-Kosi-Seemanchal area exports a lot of migrant employees to varied components of India. The migrants from this a part of Bihar may be simply noticed in India’s metropolises—Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Surat, and Ahmedabad—pulling carts, driving autos and rickshaws, mopping flooring and doing dangerous guide work at building websites of high-rise buildings, roads, and bridges. The area is bereft of satisfactory infrastructure for gainful employment and training.

A everlasting answer to the menace lies in sustained bilateral cooperation between India and Nepal over the administration of rivers, embankments and dams, requiring imaginative and prescient, assets and political will on either side. India and Nepal have already got a number of bilateral mechanisms for flood forecasting, river administration, and the Kosi and Gandak tasks, however the scale and complexity of the issue proceed to pose a problem.

“The flood will go finally, because it does yearly with the retreat of the monsoon. After the top of the floods, the individuals will struggle with the native representatives and officers for his or her share of chuda (overwhelmed rice) and foodgrains, whereas the bureaucrats, politicians, and contractors will calculate how a lot richer they’ve develop into with the blessings of the river goddesses,” Shashi Tiwary mentioned.

Distinction

If Sanjay Abhay lamented the destruction of his paddy crops by floods in his village in Gopalganj district, Dahari Ansari seemed on the sky and the brilliant solar beating down on his paddy crops, drying and dying for need of rain, in his village in neighbouring Siwan district, barely 35 kilometres away.

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In opposition to the floods taking part in havoc within the Champaran-Mithila area, Bihar had recorded a considerable rainfall deficit throughout a lot of the monsoon. As of early September, the State’s rainfall was about 27 per cent under regular, in accordance with meteorological knowledge. The placing distinction—floodwaters inundating some districts whereas insufficient rainfall threatened crops elsewhere—has as soon as once more uncovered the peculiar vulnerability of Bihar’s geography and agricultural economic system.

Bihar has been a traditional instance of the paradox of floods and droughts affecting it concurrently over the a long time. There may be, apparently, no seen and tangible effort on the a part of the political management and policymakers to carry the State, which stays amongst India’s poorer States on a number of improvement indicators, out of the morass within the close to future.

Nalin Verma is a journalist, creator, folklorist, and educator