“Assam Floods: 85 dead, over 70 lakh people displaced”, “Nine rhinos among over 100 animals deaths in Assam’s Kaziranga during floods.”
Such news headlines have become the usual occurrence every year. The Brahmaputra and its tributaries have been flowing above the danger mark for a couple of weeks now.
The recurring floods in Assam have become a routine fragment of the Indian consciousness. Since India’s achievements, we, Indians, can boast about our many accomplishments, but only if we could say the same about solving the persistent annual season of floods in Assam.
More than 2 million hectares of land in Assam is affected every year due to the floods in addition to the loss in excess of Rs 200 crores annually. Apart from this, more than 85% of the Kaziranga National Park remains under water during these floods, which leads to the deaths of hundreds of animals including the famed and soon to be extinct one-horned rhino. Since independence, the state has lost 8% of its land mass to soil erosion, which has caused irreversible social and ecological losses to its people.
Despite the fact that 26 out of 33 districts are submerged, there has been negligible reporting by the news channels and newspapers on the tragedy. The local media have been reporting on the difficulties faced by the people in the flood-affected areas, but the national media has been mostly indifferent. The ‘significant’ news headline about the Bachchans’ health report was making the headlines at the peak of the disaster in Assam, which further cemented the apathy of the national media houses in Mumbai and Delhi. While the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) channel was reporting on the plight of the people of Assam, the Indian news channels were still content in running a cursory headline on the calamity.
In my opinion, both the central as well as state governments, ever since our independence, have not conducted any proper research on the issue of floods in the state, which devastates the livelihoods of the populace. The state drowns every year, around the same time, and yet after more than 70 years since independence, we are satisfied with make-shift and band-aid policies.
It has been rightly highlighted in the “Mission Flood Control Guwahati”- a programme of the Assam Government that “the unplanned expansion of the city… has led to severe encroachments in the wetlands, low lying areas, hills and shrinkage of forest cover. The denuded hills and loss of wetlands lead to artificial floods”. Despite recognising one of the issues at hand, there has not been any profound discussion among the relevant parties. The go-to measure for the governments to control and prevent the floods has been constructing embankments on the river - which according to numerous water management specialists are just temporary measures for short term mitigation of the problem. The government has also considered digging up the river bed to make the river deeper, which however has been firmly rejected by the relevant experts as they believe, “more silt will take its place the following year” making the expenses incurred in the project pointless.
Personally, I believe it is necessary to bring in India’s neighbours in the East to the table to discuss the issue of the floods in the state of Assam. Focusing on the floods only when it hits the state will not lead us to any long-term solutions to the problem. We can consider the model of “Flood-Plain Zones” employed in the United States, which divides the vulnerable areas into various zones based on which certain activities are restricted in those zones such as construction, farming, felling, etc.
Nevertheless, until some concrete steps are taken at administrative ranks, the people in the state of Assam are helplessly reliant on its local people and NGOs. Public figures like Adil Hussain and Abhineet Mishra, through their dedication and commitment to the people of Assam, have inspired the youth of the state to come out and lend a hand to the affected population. A special appreciation to the BTS Army, 2013 Batch of Don Bosco School (Guwahati) and Dimpu Baruah for their diligent and energetic efforts in such times of misfortunes.
(The author is pursuing his Masters of Law from Queen Mary University of London. The views expressed in the article are his own.)
