A Perpetual Shame

Year after year with sickening regularity and devastation the Brahmaputra valley is subjected to flooding in the monsoons. This is one area in which the "Power of We" or the organised strength of the masses, simply has not been able to bring about any improvement despite the obvious losses and inconvenience that people suffer. It is not as if there are no solutions to this recurring problem. The problem occurs because the heavy rainfall that takes place in short bursts runs off into the streams which then fill the rivers beyond their capacities leading to breaching of embankments and flooding of farms and even roads. The solution, therefore, is to prevent run off from the upper reaches of the catchment when the rain falls. This can be done in two ways. The first is by constructing a large number of water retaining structures big and small beginning with gully plugs and trenches and ending up with ponds and check dams on the small streams. The second is by recharging the water into deep underground aquifers at places where there are fractures in the underlying rock structure. If enough investments are made in these two activities then not only will the problem of floods be substantially mitigated but also the problem of maintaining the lean season flow of the major rivers will be adequately addressed.
Yet these measures are not adopted. Again there are two reasons for this. The first is that the big dam lobby and the politicians and bureaucrats who stand to gain from this are pushing for centralised investment in the construction of big dams on the various rivers instead of decentralised investment in water retention through local surface treatment and structures and recharge into underground aquifers. Secondly decentralised water management requires a high level of community cooperation and this is anathema to the mainstream political parties which are only interested in dividing the community and siphoning off the development funds through their local functionaries.
The net result is that the shameful tragedy of floods not only repeats itself but is getting more and more   devastating every year. Shown below is a photo of the terrible effect that the most recent floods have had in Assam.

A family has somehow created a temporary shelter above the flood waters in their village and one little girl is feeding her even smaller brother. One does not know where the family has got the food and how it has been cooked. It is a very heart rending picture. When the human race has progressed so much and has the wherewithal to prevent such a picture then why are the requisite measures not being taken?
It is pictures like these that make one sceptical about such facile slogans as "The Power of We". A serious grassroots movement against such injustices requires extensive mass work among the people and strong advocacy at the policy level. However, as the long drawn struggle for a saner water resource management policy has shown, the powers that be are in no mood to relent from pursuing their unjust and environmentally unsustainable water management policies.