The politics of flooded Kashmir

In his book The Valley of Kashmir, British officer Sir Walter Lawrence  mentions that the floods ravaging Srinagar in 1893 caught the state administration -- then under Maharaja Pratap Singh -- unawares. But no lessons have since been learned. Exactly 121-years later, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has not only been caught off guard, but will also go down in history as a classic example of an insensitive and inefficient administration. 

Ironically, only two days before the rains, Omar's government was preparing a note for the Cabinet declaring large parts of Kashmir, drought affected. A fortnight later, Omar's ministers met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to petition for a national response fund to combat the floods. Unlike Uttarakhand, J & K didn't witness flash floods or cloudbursts. Beginning from September 1, the rains started submerging South Kashmir. The waters reached Srinagar on September 7. There was still enough time for evacuations or breaching embankments at safer places. In the midst of the emergency, the state officials instead of salvaging the ground situation, attended to the Prime Minister, who had air-dashed to the state. 

Even at this critical hour, attempts were being made -- in the name of exclusivist nationalism -- to dehumanise Kashmiris. Sadistic pleasure drawn from the colossal damage to human life and property. The defence forces, no doubt, did a commendable job in reaching the people. But that was projected as a favour. I got a call from a news channel wanting me to arrange visuals of the JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik rescued by the Army. And a retired director of J&K Information sent messages that another separatist Syed Ali Geelani was saved by the army. It was of course another matter that Malik was sitting at his Maisuma home, and the tourists and labourers  stranded in Lal Chowk, were telling journalists that Malik was the only person who for seven days reached them with water and biscuits. There was  no water at Geelani’s House, ruling out any question of rescuing him. But had Malik and Geelani had been rescued by the army -- doesn't the Geneva Convention mandate the forces to save even its enemies during crisis? 

On the day Srinagar was flooding, Prime Minister Modi wrote to his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif offering assistance in relief efforts in PoK and Pakistani Punjab. Pointing out that “the damage to life and property was equally severe across the Line of Control (LoC),” Modi wrote, “My heart goes out to the affected people and my deepest sympathies are with them and their families. In this hour of need, I offer any assistance that you may need in the relief efforts that will be undertaken by the government of Pakistan. "Within hours, the Pakistan government said Islamabad, too, was ready to help India in rescue and relief operations. 

Right now, the focus should remain on rescue operations. But its equally imperative for both India and Pakistan to evolve a cooperative mechanism to sort out some environmental and water-related concerns. The Central Water Commission (CWC) has flood-monitoring systems on all rivers in the country with the exception of Jammu and Kashmir. J&K is not on the CWC's  map, as the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) has handed over all of Kashmir's rivers to Pakistan -- but given them no concomitant management rights. Besides, there is no room for storage on Jhelum and limited storage on Chenab, and the waters are harvested by the farmers in the Pakistani heartland. This situation does not incentivise the stakeholders to invest in either flood-monitoring mechanism or any other issues related to the development of rivers. Consider that the state government's request for a Rs2,200 crore flood protection plan in 2010 was met by the central bureaucracy asking the government to prove that 1.6 lakh cusecs of water can flood Srinagar. The present devastation by nature has answered that question. 

It's a fact that almost all the Indus glaciers, sources of water to Kashmir rivers, are melting and receding at an alarming rate -- more rapidly than other Himalayan glaciers. Walter Lawrence writes that rains alone don’t cause floods in Kashmir, unless assisted by melting snow. In 1893, he records how at the end of 52 hours of rain when the clouds cleared, the mountains were found to be denuded of snow. 

Blinded by narrow politics and the motive to whip up communal passions, successive central governments have been ignoring Dr Nitish Sengupta’s 1996 report. In this report, Dr Sengupta had sought regulations to bring down the footfall of pilgrims in order to preserve the region's fragile ecology and environment. It is interesting to note that the BJP government in the Uttrakhand applied Dr Sengupta's report in Gangotri, where in May 2008 they issued a notification restricting the number of pilgrims and tourists to 150 a day at Gomukh, the origin of the Ganges. Many countries have regulated tourist inflows into their mountainous regions. India's national environment policy also calls for measures "to regulate tourist inflows into mountain regions to ensure that these remain within the carrying capacity of the mountain ecology."

Barring certain water bodies that are spring-fed, most of the streams of Indus water system are glacier-fed. Since early melting triggers massive discharge in rivers, the water bodies lack the adequate quantity once agricultural activity begins. Barely 20 years ago, the snow line to the Kashmir valley's east was just above areas like Pahalgam and Sonmarg (3,200 meters). Currently the line has receded to Shiashnag area which is at an altitude of 5,000 meters. Same is true of the Pir Panjal mountain range in the west where the snow line was above Kongwatan and Zaznar (3,000-3,500 meters). Most of the glaciers from Harmuk to Drungdrung, have significantly receded.  Fifty years ago, the Chenab basin used to have about 8,000 sq km under glaciers, permanent and ephemeral snow cover, as compared to the present 4,100 sq km.The Pir Panjal range hardly has any glaciers at present. 

Terrorism may be the biggest threat to innocent lives in the region. But the recent floods prove that environmental catastrophes leave an enduring impact as well as a higher death toll. Its therefore surprising that these concerns have eluded the diplomatic circles of India and Pakistan. It is now urgent for the neighbouring countries to evolve a sustainable cooperative mechanism beyond the Indus Water Treaty, to govern and protect resources, across the Line of Control.

The author is chief of bureau, dna