Meghalaya, Not Himalaya

Every year during the mon-soon season, the Himalayan region appears in the headlines because of large scale flooding in the plains of the Ganga and Brahmaputra. In general, this is also the time to go through the annual ritual of accusing the peasants of Nepal and the nearby mountain regions for sending down the floods in ever-higher volumes. They are to blame, it is said, because it is the deforestation in the Himalaya which leads to devastating inundation, particularly in Bangladesh. The truth is, it has never been clear to what extent the floods are a natural phenomenon occurring through history, and to what extent human activities either forest-cutting upstream or building of embankments downstream have played a role in increasing the inundation in modern times. It is not even clear that the floods are increasing in frequency and intensity over the decades, as is claimed.

However, this lack of scientific confirmation has not deterred politicians, engineers and journalists from engaging in passionate condemnation of upstream inhabitants for the inundation, particularly in years when the floods are high. Blame for the Bangladesh floods became a geopolitically sensitive matter because the Ganga and Brahmaputra are both international rivers. Even more interesting was the fact that plans for flood management and even flood control, involving vast sums of foreign aid, were activated on the basis of incomplete knowledge.