Like the vagaries of nature, rivers too cannot be understood in isolation.
The Kosi River breached its eastern embankment at Kusaha in eastern Nepal on 18 August 2008, flooding the immediate plains of Nepal and northern Bihar. Satellite imagery showed a wide swathe of inundation, as the turbid waters moved southwards to join the Ganga. Even as the Indian and Nepali governments and engineers worked to force the river back to the course it had abandoned, the Barh Mukti Abhiyan of Bihar and Himal Southasian organised a meeting in Patna on 17 December to discuss the many aspects of the Kosi challenge.
Water experts, engineers, activists, policymakers, researchers and journalists from various parts of India and Nepal participated at the Patna meeting. They focused on the impact of the breach as well as the viability of the given alternatives: keeping the Kosi confined within the existing embankments; building a high dam in Nepal, and other possible engineering solutions; and attempting to integrate the historical experience of living with the flood in the plains, and adjusting livelihoods and infrastructure to the annual inundation. Questions raised at the Patna meeting were threefold. First, is it politically feasible to try to convince the plains people to go back to living with the flood, and focusing on its advantages in terms of siltation and fertility? Second, are embankments truly a boon, as they are presented, or do they actually represent a quick fix that entraps society into a false sense of security, even as river beds rise? Third, is the proposed Kosi high dam in the Nepali interior, with its massive reservoir and attendant inundation of the valleys, the ideal solution that it is portrayed – and what would be the fallout of the siltation of the reservoir over the course of decades? Some of these ideas are expanded upon in the two articles included in this special report, written by roundtable participants Devashis Chatterjee and Kalyan Rudra.
When wrestling with such complex issues, much discussion will be required before we grasp for solutions. Keeping this in mind, the meeting was organised as a forum in which committed experts and activists could share their views, away from the glare of the media spotlight and far from the deterministic positions of the state establishments of both India and Nepal.