Those affected by annual Kosi floods lament unkept promises of Nitish govt for 20 years

Jin logon ne apni topi par haath rakh kar hamari pareshani hal karne ki kasam khaayi thi unki topi 60 saal pehle Kosiji mei beh gayi. Tab se aaj tak jo aaye hain, woh sirf humko topi pehna rahe hain...

(Those who had sworn to solve our problems died 60 years ago; those who came after have only conned us).

Anandi Sah, a resident of Mungrar village in Supaul district, doesn’t know the year of his birth. What he remembers vividly though are tales from his childhood.

Dr Rajendra Prasad’s promise

A few years before Anandi was born, Dr Rajendra Prasad, then the President of a newly-independent India, had visited Supaul’s Bairiya village, adjoining Mungrar, for the groundbreaking ceremony of the eastern embankment of River Kosi.

“From the stage erected in his honour, Rajendrababu promised that the governments in Delhi and Patna would do everything possible to ensure that the destruction caused by the flooding of the Kosi every year doesn’t wreak havoc in the lives of the residents of Supaul. My father used to tell us how relieved everyone was because Rajendrababu and Panditji (Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister) had taken note of the difficulties people living along the Kosi faced. After Rajendrababu left, the state government did a lot of surveys to find out how many people lived in the villages along Kosi, what help they needed, and so on. After Rajendrababu’s visit, the government was very vigilant. Stopping Kosi from flooding is impossible but short of that, the government provided whatever help it could in those days,” Anandi told The Federal.

The river that constantly changes its course

Last year, Kosi, the river often called Bihar’s Sorrow, swept away nearly 300 homes in Mungrar, including Anandi’s. Infamous for constantly changing its course, the Kosi, by some estimates, has moved over 130 kms westwards from its original trajectory over the past two centuries.

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More recent accounts state that the last three decades alone have seen the river ‘shift’ nearly 22 kms from the east to the west; each change in its trajectory bringing with it a wave of death, destruction, and displacement that doesn’t differentiate between religion or caste.

For Umesh Kumar, a Dalit safai karmchari (sweeper) residing in the Musahar Tola at the far end of Bairiya, as for Anandi, a backward caste bania, the stage erected in Rajendrababu’s honour back in 1954 is now a constant reminder of broken promises.

“Every election, leaders from different political parties address public meetings at Bairiya Manch (the site where the stage for Rajendra Prasad’s function was erected in 1954). Bijendra Yadav (incumbent JD-U MLA from Supaul since 1990 and Energy Minister in chief minister Nitish Kumar’s government) will be coming here in some days, two days back Ranjeet Ranjan (former Congress MP from Supaul) was here. All of them promise the same thing every year; that they will help victims of Kosi floods but nothing is ever done for us. In the last 10 years, I have rebuilt my hut 7 times,” says Umesh.

Vote for ‘badlav’ (change)

At a tea shop in the village market near Bairiya Manch, a motley group of men – a Muslim named Eid Mohammed, a Bhumihar named Bhograj Jha, two Yadavs named Sadan Prasad and Harinandan, a Kushwaha named Anil – tell this reporter in near unison that all of them would vote for “badlav” this time.

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Their reasons for doing so differ, ranging from Bhograj’s anger at being “turned away from Bijendra Yadav’s home” when he went seeking alms after last year’s floods to Sadan’s belief that the incumbent MLA of 35 years was now “ailing and should retire”, but their angst at the Nitish-led NDA government’s failure to do anything meaningful for the “Kosi visthapit” (displaced by the Kosi) in the last two decades is palpable.

‘Nitish govt corrupt and inhuman’

When Umesh complains that in addition to the penury brought upon him by the double whammy of being a Musahar living on the banks of the unpredictable Kosi, he has had to “live off borrowings” because he hasn’t been paid his monthly salary of Rs 2,500 “for the past 14 months”, everyone at the tea shop immediately joins him in slamming the Nitish government as “corrupt and inhuman”.

In Bihar, where caste identity defines almost everything from political affiliation and social status to exploitation and atrocities, that a group comprising a Bhumihar, a Muslim, a Kushwaha and Yadavs is not only united in its criticism of the government but also in its sympathy for a Mahadalit is as poignant a societal portrait as it is telling of the failure of Nitish’s so-called ‘sushasan’ (good administration).

‘Unkept promises for 20 years’

Harinandan, who works as an activist with the Kosi Navnirman Manch, tells The Federal, “for 20 years we have heard the Nitish government making promises of help to those affected by the Kosi floods but we are still waiting for that help to arrive. Every year, hundreds of houses are swept away by the Kosi and people are forced to live in relief camps but barring packets of chuda (puffed rice) and a sheet of plastic (to sleep on, use as raincoats, or as a protective cover for their few belongings), the people here get no support.”

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Driving down the East Kosi Tatbandh, the pothole-ridden, barely metalled single-lane road on the eastern embankment of the Kosi River that separates villages like Bairiya and Mungrar from the four-lane National Highway 27, the contrast between the glitz of NDA’s double-engine sarkar and ground realities of destitution and government apathy couldn’t be starker.

Sure, there are lush fields of paddy, patsan (jute), and maize as well as swamps filled with makhana (foxnut) plants on either side of the Tatbandh, but those relying for financial stability through this agricultural produce complain of lives constantly upended by Kosi’s rage, mounting debts, and administrative indifference and corruption.

‘Every family is under debt’

“Kosi floods every year and we never know if the crop we are planting will even be ready for harvest. Some years ago, people here started planting a paddy variety that can be harvested much before the monsoon arrives, but then the monsoon cycle has also become so unpredictable. If there is flooding, we have to leave the crop as it is and find higher ground. When we return, the fields are full of silt brought by the Kosi and the whole crop is lost. Then we have to borrow money to plant the next crop, and when that is destroyed, we borrow more. Every family in our village is under debt,” says Dukhni, a resident of Mungrar.

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For Dukhni, chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana, under which lakhs of beneficiaries have been given a pre-poll ‘advance’ of Rs 10,000 for a Rs 2 lakh micro-finance loan over the past month, is a “cruel joke”.

“No one in our village has received any money under the scheme, but even if we did, what would we do with it? How will we repay it when we don’t even know if the crop we grow will sell or the shop we open will remain here when Kosi floods next year,” she says.

‘Paying taxes on submerged land'

At Supaul’s Banjaran Tola, 70-year-old Ramashray Mukhiya tells The Federal that if the Nitish government really wanted to help victims of Kosi floods, it would “stop fleecing us of whatever money we are left with”.

“When Kosi changes its course, it doesn’t just destroy our homes and farms; it takes away all our land. In government records, I own 10 kattha land (kattha is a traditional unit of land measurement with no standard measurement; in Supaul, a kattha equals roughly 2,500 square feet while in Patna, the conversion is roughly 1,300 square feet), but all that land lies submerged under the Kosi. Yet, I have to pay all taxes and cesses on that land every year.”

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Harinandan of the Kosi Navnirman Manch says activists fighting for the rights of those displaced by the Kosi floods have “for years been demanding that the government must change the rules that apply for payment of land tax and cesses so that people in the Kosi region can be exempted because our problem is a unique one that those living along the Ganga, the Gandak, or other rivers of Bihar do not face. But then, no one in the government is ready to listen.”

He adds, “The babus (government officers responsible for land records and revenue) are all corrupt and openly demand bribes; you can either pay them or pay the tax - but either way, you still have to pay.”

Voting for a few privileges

In the Khokhnaha village of Supaul’s Marauna block, while locals seem to still favour JD-U’s Bijendra Yadav over Congress candidate Minnatullah Rahmani, they agree that the Nitish government has been a “colossal failure” in handling Kosi floods.

Their choice to vote for Bijendra, however, seems driven not by the performance of the eight-term JD-U MLA but by the fear that voting against one of Nitish’s oldest loyalists could deprive Supaul of the few privileges it receives over other constituencies.

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“Bijendraji has been our MLA for 35 years. People have always risen above caste and religious divides to vote for him because he was always very close to Nitish. In his earlier terms, he could fight for us and get things done. Supaul used to have long power cuts, but because of him we now have 24x7 electricity even though there are still frequent outages in adjoining districts like Araria or even assembly constituencies within Supaul. His people are now telling voters that if he loses, power cuts will be back in Supaul, which shows that this is a close election. He should not have contested this time, but JD-U knows that nobody else from the party can win this seat as everyone thinks that even Bijendraji’s time is over,” says Marauna resident Gulrez Ansari.

Sarcastic last words

Anandi shakes his head at the prospect of another Bijendra victory.

“In the last 35 years, he pushed the Kosi and brought it to our doorsteps so that we don’t have to go to the river to fetch water. If he gets another five years, he will make sure the river reaches the DM’s office (in Supaul town),” Anandi says with a sarcasm that gushes past with the rage of the Kosi.

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“Waise jeet hi jaana chahiye. Jab pura Supaul hi Kosiji ke andar sama jayega toh agle chunav mei akele hi candidate bachenge; jeet abhi se sunishchit ho jayegi (he must win; when entire Supaul will drown in Kosi, he will be the lone candidate in the next polls and his victory will be guaranteed),” Anandi says, before taking off on his bicycle.