Where water is the issue . . .
Yusuf Azad appreciates a study of shrinking rivers
The work is a real tour de force authored by a non-specialist but rarely attempted at in this genre before. The author's tenor rings a shocking loss and a profound concern for the vanishing flow of what were once brimming and thriving rivers traversing and criss-crossing the vast plain of northern Bangladesh. The life of the people of this riverine region and their culture were inseparably intertwined with the bounty of the waves since time immemorial. Rivers occupied a special place in their heart, their environment and ecology, culture and tradition, literature and folklore. The economy, communication and the whole ambience of life were also defined by the same rivers and reflected in our rich boatman and cartman songs. The loss of flow of these rivers and their dying out in numerous cases raises the specter of desertification, dehydration and doom. The people of this region are seen steadily heading toward embracing the fate of the people of sub-Saharan Africa in the not so distant future unless the course of decline is reversed. An immediate contingency plan is needed to be activated on an emergent basis to save those rivers which are in their last throes. The author is not a hydrologist or a fluvial morphologist to be technically suave. He lays no claim to specialist knowledge in this field. His methods are simple and to some extent primitive, but his message is frighteningly clear. And despite his many shortcomings and emotional outpourings he stayed the course, never losing sight of accuracy of facts and figures relating to his subject matter. One must be astonished what a task he had undertaken in so extensively and laboriously trailing the courses of dying and dead rivers, tributaries, creeks and distributaries. Most of them are now lost memories, the rest like the most endangered species are now gasping, as if for blood donation. This sorry state of affairs emerged as a logical consequence of the crippling condition of the main feeder canal, the Padma. The Padma, after being sucked of its normal flow, is no longer capable of transfusing life to her tributaries. The author's journey to retrace the rivers started from the origin to the estuary in the deep hinterland areas and adjacent floodplains, which are now known as beels or wet land, some parts of which are inaccessible and so cut off from regular means of communications. In many cases those traces have been replaced by private houses and markets and too disfigured to be identified now. Everywhere they bear signs of the ravages of greedy land grabbers. Initially, he covered the Padma-based nine tributaries: the Narad, the Barahi, the Swarmongala and its tributaries the Daaya, the Musha Khan, the Hoja and the Mirja Mahmood, the Nandakuja; the Sandhya and the Helencha. The author identifies the Farakka dam as the root cause behind the whole disaster. India withdrew a large quantity of water upstream through the dam without considering the legitimate right to a fair share of water of a co-riparian country. It is a stark violation of all international norms, laws and practices and obviously amounts to water terrorism by a very friendly neighboring country. The Padma is now a wide expanse of sand dunes blowing dust round the year. The rivers that depended upon a supply of water from the Padma naturally suffered the worst fate. The book is a treasure trove of information that we can hardly afford to miss in the quest for our own history and destiny. It has been further enriched by a number of graphic maps and video clippings showing the original courses of these rivers as against their current predicament. The book has been dedicated to the populist leader Maulana Bhashani in recognition of the part he played in galvanising world opinion against the unilateral withdrawal of water through the Farakka dam. We need similar such work highlighting the crisis in other parts of the country. The importance of this publication cannot be over-emphasised as India is poised to activate her inter-river linking project which stipulates a diversion of all water from common rivers like the Brahmaputra, the Teesta, the Jamuna, the Mahananda, et cetera, before their flows can reach Bangladesh. India needs water to artificially irrigate her arid south, but Bangladesh cannot afford to lose a single drop of water to stay alive. It is a life and death question for one hundred and fifty million people. If the environment of Bangladesh is ruined by any man-made mechanism, the integrated global environment cannot escape the catastrophic chain effects that will be triggered by such action.
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