Tag: Bihar

The International Day of Indigenous people

One of the most tragic instances in history would be that of the holocaust – a word that in itself is a definition of six years of European geopolitics. In Russia, Palestine and China, the expulsion of the White Army, the expulsion of the Arabs and the brutual suppression of cultures across China in the name of cultural revolution respectively bring to picture the way in which states and not just people can sometimes be the enemy of people. However, there have been several such instances in history, most of them hidden because they were carried out by the more ancestors of the ones who ended up being economically and intellectually influential communities.

Cultural Revolution - Wikipedia
A poster calling out for Chinese Cultural Revolution

Human history is a record of forced displacements both internal and external, ethnic cleaning and genocides and murders both to the dismay and sponsored by states. When Captain Cook discovered the down under, it led a massive import of British criminals on the continent. With them came officers, scientists and explorers. The businessmen and civilians searching for more opportunities came in later. The people of the continent – the Australian arboginals, the Maoris from Oceania and many more tribes were reduced to a mere holder of small patches of lands and often no land at all by the British who had a superior military.

When the first Irish and British settlers landed in the new World of America, the red Indians offered them food and shelter which soon became a situation where the Red Indians had to fight for the survival of their lives and their cultures which was systematically and quite institutionally taken away by the New World settlers. Similarly, when the Spanish invaded Latin America, it meant a complete and absolute dissolution of their traditions and a genocide that would annihilate their population to an extent where even after 400 years, they would not attain the same.

The Last Days Of The Incas - HistoryExtra
Machu Pichu stands as a testimony to the Grand Incan Empire in the Andes before the Spanish arrived.

To add to all these miseries are the tales of the Rohingya community from Myanmar, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Kashmiri Pandits in Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, the now diminishing sea faring communities in Philippines and Malaysia and many more. Japanese and Italian unifications were also carried out at the cost of the local traditions, cultures and ways that the communities living there had been practicing for a millennia. In India, the use of English and Hindi have slowly gobbled up on the rich culture of local languages that the communities had. In fact, many communities from the state of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have completely given up on their languages. Bihar – a state where only 6% people had Hindi as their mother tongue now has a minority of about 20%!!

World loses about 1 language every 15 days!!!

Wikipedia defines Indigenous people as – “Indigenous peoples, also referred to as first people, aboriginal people, native people, or autochthonous people, are culturally distinct ethnic groups who are native to a place which has been colonised and settled by another ethnic group. ” But, a broader definition is the fact that indigenous people are defined by their cultures which is at a steady loss across the globe. The most important thing is to treasure the fragments of their traditions that still remain. Because a rainbow is better a rainbow.

COVID-19 and Indigenous peoples | United Nations For Indigenous Peoples

Happy International Day for the Indigenous communites.

Bihar flood: An annual saga.

Bihar is the most flood-prone state of India. About 73-74% of the area of the state falls under the flood zone that makes up around 17.2% of the total flood-prone area of India. Several factors contribute together that makes Bihar and its native suffer every year. Key regulating factors are its flat topography as well as yearly rainfall of 1200 nm on average. Geographically, Bihar is surrounded by several rivers including Ganga, Sone, Punpun, Falgu, Karmanasa, Durgavati, Kosi, Gandak and the Ghaghara. The Kosi river causes major destruction each year which is why it is also known as “The sorrow of Bihar”.

In the year 2007, the Bihar flood alone affected over 10 million people and did heavy damage to the infrastructure worth crores. Likewise, in the year 2017, 15 million people were affected again because of the flood and havoc caused by it. Again, the flood of 2019, affected the lives of 8 million people spread across 13 districts. In the Year 2020, when the whole globe was suffering from the menace of Covid-19, Bihar was dealing with an additional flood problem that made the condition even more miserable in terms of medical facilities and lacking resources.

Bihar flood: Annual damage

Munger, Samstipur, Purnia, Muazzafapur, Saran etc. undergo damage and face flood threats each year due to surging water levels in rivers such as Gandak, Bagmati etc. Half of Patna that is the capital city of Bihar submerge in the water due to intense rainfall and improper drainage facility because of which the rainwater stays stagnant which hinder day to day activities immensely. Despite taking preventive measures Bihar government fail every year to manage the flood effectively.

In the year 1954, different structural and well as non-structural preventive measures such as flood forecasting, flood plain zoning were adopted as a method of protection against floods. Structural measures such as flood-embankments, drainage channels etc were made to check flood water. But recent cases of a breach in the embankment in which 66 villages of Gopalganj were flooded show that embankment alone isn’t enough to put a halt to the brimming water level of rivers that costs thousands of lives and livelihood annually.

The aforementioned preventive measures are not proved to be as beneficial as it was thought to be. So another structural measure such as a huge storage dams should be built up to hold up the flood peaks of major rivers and recede the water downstream that will control the gushing water up to some extent. Apart from storage dams, preparedness such as flood forecasting, warning, flood insurance and policies should be taken as a flood management strategy to alleviate the misery caused by the flood.