APOCALYPSE Man-Made

Unfortunately, the Kosi disaster is only the beginning of the end

Gopal Siwakoti ‘Chintan' London

The tragedy of our common South Asian political, institutional and governmental systems is to take things seriously only after huge damages or disasters occur. This is what the August 2008 Kosi disaster is all about.

In this dubious politics of pretensions, not having ‘problems' mean not having to say or do anything for the people. The exchange of ‘blame game' after the disasters is also another factor that keeps politicians, particularly in Bihar and New Delhi, relevant for re-elections or basic survival in public life. Besides, everybody loves a good flood, isn't it, especially those who flourish on the political economies of droughts, farmer suicides, wars and floods?

However, it does not mean that the government of Nepal has no responsibility! It has, but relatively far less responsibility. This is because all the keys of the Kosi or Gandak barrages and their sole control and management are in the hands of Indian officials operating them, under orders from the political establishment in India. In the case of Kosi: Patna.

 This is what we have seen over the past five decades of the first post-colonial Nepal-India water cooperation that began with the Kosi Agreement (1954). But the sad part is that a project that was supposed to establish the beginning of a new era in Nepal-India foreign policy, is basically guided by an India-dominated water policy. Consequently, the Kosi Agreement was sharply criticised by
the people of Nepal, mainly the Left political parties, as ‘unequal' in terms of benefit-sharing, even while it was India's sole control over the project/barrage management.

No economic, social and environmental considerations were given at that time since large infrastructure projects such as this were largely defined as viable and profitable mainly by a technical group. For example, the ‘taming' of a large river by constructing 56 gates for the control and regulation of water was considered as the pride of modern development for which we are paying the price now, not only in Kosi but across the flood-prone zones in the Nepal-India border.

 The main factor that led to the failure of the Kosi barrage/embankment is the entrenched ideology of ‘control' in reducing floods or taming of the river to stop or regulate the water flow. What lacks in the science of this ‘control' is the denial of the law of the nature -- the river in this context.

In the contemporary era, several eminent water scientists and engineers from both Nepal and India have come to the conclusion that the big idea of controlling the Kosi river water through the barrage was basically faulty when it should have been just the opposite - the regulation, diversion and management of water resources and courses of their flow from the source to the bottom or from the mountains of Nepal to the plains of the terai land in both countries.

 The main question is to what extent the Kosi Commission has been performing its tasks of reviewing the Kosi barrage-related institutional,  operational and rehabilitation problems. This commission has never really acted as a functional body to address the problems and consequences that ‘bad management' would bring in the future like the one we are experiencing currently. We will now have to see how the Independent Commission of Inquiry set up by the Bihar government will address the issues -- of non-compliance with the various concerns and recommendations made officially and unofficially for decades -- and whether there has been any gross negligence on the part of the Indian project officials or not.