Adrift the troubled waters: Murky deals, monstrous structures and a flood of emotions
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| The Koshi barrage (2015) is but just one template of unequal and not-so-friendly relations subsisting between Nepal and India for decades. Perhaps no other country has been sold down the river like Nepal, at the hands of her politicos, through unequal water treaties with its southern neighbour |
Every monsoon, flooding and landslides occur in Nepal without fail. And every year without fail, our government fails to put measures in place to reduce loss of life/property during these disasters.
This year too, the monsoon has created havoc in Nepal, leaving scores already dead and causing loss of farmland and infrastructure worth a fortune.
About these losses, our own politicos with sensitivities of the southern neighbour in mind even at the cost of the well-being of Nepal and the Nepalis, can endlessly argue that mindless development works, undertaken with utter disregard for Nepal's fragile landscape, are mainly to blame for the national tragedy that repeats year after year after year.
Scholars lacking emotional intelligence and feigning visual handicaps can choose not to take notice of monstrous water regulatory structures built across the no-man's land by trampling on international practices. Those intellectually bankrupt bunch may even argue that their bread and butter provider had built the structures with the good intention of turning this landlocked country into a waterlogged country so as to enable it to operate vessels of varying capacities for trade and transit.
They may even go to the extent of people opposing those structures as anti-national elements bent on spoiling historic, multi-faceted, friendly Roti-Beti relations existing for ages.
But these rogue arguments coming from rogue elements won't change the fact that our southern plains, our bread basket, have suffered huge losses because the southern neighbour has built water regulatory structures obstructing the natural course of rivers and streams mainly to a) prevent flooding and inundation of its territories by localising the problem of flooding and inundation in Nepali territories b) store floodwater during the rainy season in Nepali territories and use it during the lean season for farming, fisheries, etc c) somehow use the augmented water flow for interbasin transfer of water from its water-surplus territories to water-deficit areas
These elements of various hues and colours, raised in Nepal's bosom with the sole intent of promoting neighbourly interests at the cost of national interest, won't hesitate to partake on feasts that their bread and butter provider throws, even when Nepal and the Nepalis are reeling under devastating floods and landslides. For these elements, even the Koshi Treaty, the Gandak Treaty, the Mahakali Treaty, the Laxmanpur Barrage, Rasiawal-Khurdalotan, Girijapuri and Koilabas Dams may be shining examples of transnational cooperation on river sharing.
For them, politicos involved in the sellout of our lifelines are, most probably, more sacred than the Almighty itself.
In the eyes of these elements, construction of embankments can be a very effective means to mitigate the devastating impact of disasters resulting from obstruction of the natural course of rivers caused by regulatory structures built in blatant violation of international practices. It's useless to talk with them about the importance of floodwater in maintaining the fertility of the soil with deposition of fresh layers of topsoil every year.
Even as the spell of disasters, made more disastrous by the monstrous structures built to benefit the lower riparian country at the cost of the upper riparian one, continues with the government headed by a figure conniving in the sellout of the Mahakali river limiting itself mostly to the issuance of flood warnings and the main opposition lead figure involved in the same sellout shedding crocodile's tears, yours truly hopes all's not lost.
With the patriotic Nepalis becoming more and more aware of those monstrous water regulatory structures, murky deals and the shallowness of the much-touted Roti-Beti relations becoming increasing evident, one hopes we the Nepalis will be able to rise in unison and reclaim our lifelines against all odds. Only then can our journey for national progress and prosperity truly begin.
The sooner that happens, the better.
Text and picture: Devendra Gautam
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